4 posts tagged “freelancing”

So I passed a turning point this week. 

Tuesday night.  I was weeping after taking Eldest Son to his orthodontist appointment (which is a whole 'nother story).  Had nothing to do with E.S., for a change; had to do with *the other thing*.  (Where the orthodontist is located, I had to make a certain drive, which I hadn't done since *That Bad Day,* and it brought out all kinds of self-flagellating thoughts.)

Gosh I'm constantly bursting into tears these last few months; and I'm so darned sick of myself!

Piece of advice that I can't remember where I read (just letting you know I didn't make it up):  "Don't waste tears on something that's not going to cry over you."

Do I honestly believe that *those people* are even still thinking about me?  Why should I give them that power over my life, that months after the fact they can still make me cry?

No, by God, it's time to reclaim my life!  It's time to reclaim my town!  My school!

MINE.

It was MY school, MY town, MY life, long before *they* came into it, and I'll be damned if I let them ruin it for me!

Nope.  Not gonna let it happen.  At least, not any more. 

They say living well is the best revenge.  And baby, I'm gonna. 

My life, my way, on my terms, for my family.  MY definition of "living well."  Gonna live well MY way and I won't have any regrets.

So, HAH.

Dear Husband caught me at it, after I got home with the kids, and thus spake he:  "It wasn't meant to be.  It wasn't in God's plan.  Frankly, I don't know how we'd have survived the past few months, all these meetings at school, Dr. K, and so on, if you had still been working there.  Anyway, this work-at-home thing could take off and be way more lucrative in the long run.  And until then, it's definitely more flexible."

Ah, my voice of reason!  Frankly, *I* don't know how *I* would have survived these past few months, without him around to keep me sane. 

But, for some reason, this time when he said it -- I believed it. 

(*cue up "Eye of the Tiger*)

PS, I AM going to take up Tae Kwon Do along with the kids!  At least, I'm gonna take 3 free lessons, like they did.

If my life were a movie, this is the point in the script where the protag gets the Symbolic Cutting of the Hair, plus montage of other Life-Makeover scenelets, set to music. 

It's true I do need to get my hair cut, & colored, but what I did today was, bought blue nail polish at Meijer's and painted all my fingers & toes.

Heh.

A writer can do that.

My midnight-blue fingertips can scamper over the keyboard, while my midnight-blue toes snuggle up inside my fuzzy slippers, and life is good.

On the internet no one knows what color your fingernails are.    

Note to world:  I'm BA-A-ACK!

:-)

As in, thought I'd died and gone to.

So the kids have all decided to do Tae Kwon Do, and the local place has all their little classmates so we went there too and they offered us 3 free trial lessons.  They've all had their first free lesson this week.

Eldest Son is in a program for kids 8 & up (Karate for Kids), while Precious Princess and Littlest Brother are in Tiny Tigers (for ages 4 - 6). 

You see these little guys in there, holding up their little fists and piping out "ai-YAH!", fierce little scowls on their adorable muppet faces, and it's just about the cutest thing you ever saw! 

And they're all hooked. And I think it's gonna be a good thing.  (I was a little worried about it, for various reasons, but, I think it's gonna be a good thing.)

Actually, it looks like so much fun, I want to sign up myself!

#

So, I'm gradually getting clients.  I'm on my sixth one now, and one client gave me repeat business already.  Good feedback on the jobs board.  Still, it's not reliable enough to be able to hire a regular nanny, even part time.  (Because, dear Punkinshell, I only get to hire the babysitter when the hourly rate I'm getting can justify it!)

Most of what I'm writing for pay has to do with business, marketing in particular.  And, in doing the research for these pieces, I'm actually getting a lot of ideas for what I need to do to get my own little business off the ground. 

#

I'm also still working on my fiction.  Keep The Dream Alive!!!

I've got to get back to my novel outline.  Outlining Is Your Friend.  At least, it's mine.  Once I've got a good outline, things practically write themselves.  It's the getting to a good outline that's the challenge.     :-)

...are the last to be shod.

Which explains why I have been neglecting my own poor blog. 

I've actually been paid to write!   

Not my first love, speculative fiction (sorry D.H.), but still.

As a matter of fact, I've actually been paid to write blog posts. 

I'm a professional blogger.

What a weird world.

It's been fun, but after I've pounded out 22 articles on Lean Six Sigma in 5 days, well, just got no juice left for my own blog.  (Hi, M.S.!  It was fun, and I'll get right on those edits...)

So far I've managed to get really great clients.  This week I worked on a fun little script for a series of training videos.  (Gosh, I love the Internet!  The Internet is a writer's BFF.)  And my hourly rate on that job was actually enough to pay the baby-sitter!  Woot.  I'm really hoping and hoping that this client picks me up again, because I had a blast & it's just about the amount of work I want to do these days. 

Honestly, I really think this work suits me.  I like working at home (no commute), the researching and writing is fun, and when I can actually get a decent hourly rate it makes me feel like I'm on Cloud Nine.  (What does that mean, anyway???  On Cloud Nine???  Maybe I'll Google it.)

So, those of you who know (or are) my family will have realized this a while back, but...

I'm turning into my dad. 

That's not a bad thing, just not what I expected out of life.  (When I was a kid -- by which I mean, up to and beyond college, in fact into the early days of my marriage and grad school --  I always assumed I would turn into my mom.  Over the past few years I've made my peace with the fact that I didn't, haven't, and won't... but it's still a surprise when I realize that I'm turning into my dad instead.)

My dad is a self-employed free-lance writer who sits in his home office typing all day, and nowadays almost never even meets with clients in person.  (The Internet, y'know.)  I'm so totally turning into him it's not even funny. 

But honestly, it does suit.  And in a couple of years, when Littlest Brother is in school, I won't even need to pay the baby-sitter, much. 

So.  Gotta go.  Have to write 2 articles for my music blog client, and revise 2 articles for my Lean Six Sigma client. 

Toodle-oo.  

(In case you don't know what gnif-gnaws are -- I can't recall now if that's a bit of family dialect or I first heard it at work, my old work back at Auto Company B, or C -- they are little miscellaneous grimbly bits of this 'n' that. 

Pronunciation:  the g is silent.  I suppose you could just as easily spell it with a silent k, but I prefer the g, b/c it's like, "gnats" and "gnomes" and like that.  Little things like that.)

Today's Gnif-Gnaws Are:

- Precious Princess and Littlest Brother now DO have secondary infections.  Ah well.  I don't think I do, yet.  This virus is hanging on forever, though.  I actually think it might be the flu; we all aren't lying flat on our backs in bed, groaning, only b/c we had the flu shots back in the fall.  I've heard that sometimes with the flu shot, you still can get the flu, but a milder case.  Anyway, it's taking forever to get over, so it seems worse than a regular cold.

- The counters are still a mess, but, I actually think I may hit them today.  After the dishes and the laundry.  Later this week, I've got to tackle the computer room table.  Grandma gave the kids her old computer, and we need a place to set it up.

- PS, I hate feeling pitiful!  Gah, I hate coming to the blog and whining!  (That's part of why I haven't been blogging much, lately...) 

The last few months, I've just gotten so tired of putting up a brave front; I do that everywhere I go in person these days.  Because, honestly, most people really do not want you to burst into tears and crumple up in a heap on the floor when they ask you how you're doing. 

Speaking of emotional energy, it takes a lot of that to put up a brave front everywhere you go.  And if you think that everywhere you go you might make contacts who could put in a good word for you if they hear of a job opening, or might hire you for freelance work (which is true), you can't go around looking defeated.  If YOU don't have confidence in you and your abilities, then why should they?

I HATE failure.  HATE, HATE, HATE it!!  I hate LOSING.  I don't always have to WIN (there are lots of activities in which nobody wins unless everybody does), but I hate to LOSE. 

The only way to be SURE of not losing, to be SURE of not failing, is never to try.  You won't WIN, either, you won't SUCCEED, but at least you won't fail.

That's very tempting, actually, very tempting.  I have never been tempted by that course of action (or rather, inaction) before, but I am now.  In the aftermath of the events of January, I felt -- I still feel -- trampled.  Eviscerated.  Smashed flat.  In that state, it's very hard to face the possibility of new failures.  

You know, some of those Mechanical Turk activities are so easy a trained wombat could do them; very difficult to fail at those.  So it's easier to plug away at those for an hour or so than to fill out yet another job application that you know in your heart is going to hit the circular file. 

So.

What I HAVE done, what I've FORCED myself to do, bracing myself to bear up against the (at this point, seemingly inevitable) failures to follow:

- Over the past month, I have submitted 6 different short stories to various publications.  About half of them have been rejected already, and I've turned around and submitted them elsewhere.

- I've set myself a goal of applying to a minimum of 2 jobs per week until I get one.  I did apply for 2 jobs yesterday, so check that off for this week.

- I've set myself a goal of getting up and running at several reputable on-line freelancing boards.  I identified several that have good ratings at the Better Business Bureau (and a few that don't, which I will be avoiding).  So, check off that accomplishment.

- I completed my profile yesterday on one of them, so check that off for this week.  

- I'm ready to start submitting bids on that freelance board.  I can submit 10 bids this month (that's the level of my subscription there) and I fully intend to use up ALL of them.  That means I need to prepare 5 proposals this week and 5 next. 

- I've also set myself a goal of contacting at least 2 former professional colleagues per week, to let them know I'm looking for work and ask if their employers have any openings.  Haven't done that yet this week.

So.

Failure is only temporary.

Now for those counters.