After a couple of exhilarating, yet exhausting months of building a freelance business, I escaped the steamy Austin temperatures and visited Washington state–hence the hiatus in blog postings.
I’m back now, and this week I’m reflecting on this busy summer. The past few months I have marveled at the fact that people are hiring me, people are reading my blogs and that this whole freelance dream is actually working out. Many times I have thought of that old Sally Field Oscar acceptance speech, “You like me, you really like me!”
People are hiring me, people are reading my work and I’m not starving. Though it is surprising on most days, I have to remember that for years I have known this could happen. It makes sense: if you are a good writer and a responsible, detail-oriented professional, of course the work will come.
But, I tried this before about four years ago. At that time, I attempted to make a freelance living solely on newspaper stories, which, while they are rewarding, don’t pay that well. So, I went on to full-time teaching, then to editing and eventually to tech training and tech writing.
A former supervisor of mine, who is a writer herself, said that just about everyone is a closet writer. When you start talking to people about your writing, they open up about their own aspirations. Unfortunately, few people nurture this talent.
In the midst of all those other jobs, I continued to dream about a home-based writing business. And, I started compiling photos and quotes that reminded me of where I wanted to be and posting them on a cork board. This is what Oprah and the author of the wildly popular book, “The Secret,” refer to as a vision board. Whatever you want to call it, it kept me focused on what I wanted to do.
While I won’t tell you everything I clipped for that board, I do have one quote to share. Recently, I have spoken with a few writers who themselves would like to become full-time freelancers. If that is you, this quote may remind you to attend to the business of writing, whatever form that writing may take, as it did for me:
“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you have to think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgement of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself. And I think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. It is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.” — “The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden” by Stanley Kunitz
Kunitz was one of the great poets of our time and he lived for slightly more than a century. I have always appreciated the experience and advice of people who have been around long enough to know what’s what. And, I still read this quote frequently.
Whether your art is writing (and that doesn’t have to mean the great American novel), or it is cooking a beautiful meal, that is what you should spend more time doing. Like Kunitz says, we don’t just do these things for recognition, but as a gesture of gratitude for being given these gifts and a life in the first place.
Back to the story of my freelance career: So, while things didn’t work out with the newspaper stories in 2004, last spring I started to think differently about my writing and what it could do for people. In the past, I wanted to only write arts and culture features for newspapers and magazines, or short stories or poems. I think I was sort of a literary snob who thought anything else was unworthy of my efforts.
All it took to change that mindset was spending time doing work I didn’t want to be doing and work that wasn’t engaging me as a writer. In addition, wherever I went, people asked me to write and/or edit things for them–ad copy, job announcements and resumes. When I finished these things, the people who had sent them my way were always thankful and relieved. That is when I realized my writing proficiency, being my only talent really, helped people and that I was wasting time by not using it more. The snobbery fell away, and I began writing and editing anything I felt could use my contribution.
Now, my days are filled with writing assignments of every flavor—web copy for a real estate website, search engine optimization articles on a variety of topics, and yes, tech writing. Though I haven’t written any poems or short stories lately, I am much happier now that I am engaging in the writing process each day.
Image courtesy of stock.xchng
I have moved and reorganized a bit. Rather than maintaining three blogs on freelance writing, yoga and food, I’ve combined these into one blog: the Jen Hamilton Blog.
