Striking balance between work and life no easy task.(QUILL TOOLBOX: FREELANCE)

The life of a freelance writer means constantly redrawing that proverbial line in the sand separating work from play.

Nowhere was this issue more visible than during a panel discussion--on the business of freelance writing--that I had the pleasure of speaking at during SPJ's 2005 National Convention in October.

I won't soon forget what a fellow panelist had to say on the matter. Jill Miller Zimon, a Cleveland-based freelance writer whose Web site features a tongue-in-cheek reference to her figure having "expanded and contracted with three children," told attendees that she made a pact with her family--capping weekly hours to avoid becoming a delinquent wife …