Jul
3
How I Scored Two New Freelance Blogging Jobs While Waiting For a Train
Filed Under freelance blogging career | 19 Comments
I took the train downtown yesterday afternoon to have coffee with one of the guys I met in the SEO class I took in February. I arrived at the station early and pulled out my iphone. Two others pulled out their blackberries. This is the mating call of the Corporate Jungle.
“What do you do?” Armani Man asked Prada Woman. She is a Mary Kay consultant. He is a real estate agent.
Half-eavesdropping, I laughed — not at them, but at Janice’s Fats Waller quote. The iphone is like crack. It’s also like having a puppy; everyone wants to be your friend as soon as they see you have one.
“Is that one of the new iphones?” the real estate agent wanted to know. I explained to him that it’s one of the old ones and that, as an email addict who hangs out with a lot of other email addicts, I was peer-pressured into getting one almost immediately. I told him how much I love it — that I even blog from it.
“Really?” he asked, squinting over my shoulder through the sun’s glare at the tiny type. “You blog?”
And so it began, the conversation that gets me more accidental gigs than I know what to do with — only this time, I had an audience of half a dozen bored nosy people gathered around me like I was one of those clever commercials on the Super Bowl.
The real estate agent told me he just recently had a blog designed but hasn’t launched it yet. He said his closet passion for photography was what made him want to start a blog — he takes tons of photos of every property — but that writing isn’t his strong suit. I told him I’d love to see his photographs sometime. I also told him my business partner has a background in real estate law and was at one time a real estate agent in the city. I gave him my card and asked for his.
The Mary Kay consultant asked what her blog looked like on an iphone. I pulled up her blog and showed her. She made a comment about wishing she had more time to write her blog but confessed she wasn’t sure what to write about. I gave her my card and told her I had some ideas. I also told her that my sister was a Mary Kay consultant for years but quit once she had her baby. I asked her for a catalogue. This made her inclined to want to sit with me on the train.
As I thumbed through the Mary Kay catalogue, I commented on all the new products and how she could easily incorporate product information and reviews into blog posts. I asked her why she was headed downtown, and she told me she hosts group makeover sessions every Wednesday night in the city. I suggested she snap some photos and interview some of the ladies — easy blog post, or maybe several posts! She liked the idea so much that she asked me to come cover next week’s makeover session for her blog. She also gave me a bag with a ton of free samples as a thank you for sharing my insights.
I got home last night to an inbox full of photos from the real estate agent. This morning I emailed him a proposal my partner and I drew up, and he hired us to write his blog. I also just shot off an email to the Mary Kay consultant with some other suggestions I thought of for blog posts, which I told her I’d be happy to help her with between now and next Wednesday.
My point in telling you all this? To illustrate that the best way to find work as a freelancer is often simply to talk to the people around us, wherever we happen to be. I talk about what I do all the time, wherever I go, whenever I get the opportunity to bring it up. Last weekend I got a client by asking the owner of the new café down the street if she had a website yet. I got a job writing a press release last week from the guy who owns the cell phone shop where I bought a spare charger when one of my pet rabbits chewed through my cord. Opportunities are everywhere, if we simply open up our minds – and our mouths – and let them find us.
Jul
1
Aim for the Middle: a Lesson in Professional Life and Potty Training
Filed Under writing from home | 76 Comments
Have you ever been a full grown woman trying to teach a two-year-old boy to pee standing up? I’ve survived the potty training of several nephews and a few friends’ children, and it always seems to go the same way.
“But why?” the short dude asks after I’ve told him to aim for the middle. He giggles. He waives his equipment around, testing his ready-aim-fire skills and hitting the wall more often than the potty. “This is funner!” he’ll eventually announce, grinning proudly as he figures out he can hit the mirror if he stands on the toothbrushing stool.
Upon having this conversation with one such little guy this evening, I’ve decided I don’t have a good enough answer. Telling a toddler to aim for the bowl so there won’t be such a big mess to clean up later is silly. After all, he’s too short to hold a mop; I’m the one stuck cleaning up the mess. And really, I don’t mind, because tomorrow I’ll send him home to his mother.
I am not good at aiming for the middle. I don’t have boy parts, but I’ve never been the kind of girl to let that particular lack stop me from trying to pee standing up. I can very clearly remember being two years old, my various family members gathered around me and the potty explaining why girls have to sit. I laugh just remembering it.
As a freelancer, a business owner, a blogger, an OCD nutjob with ADD tendencies, I’m not much better at the whole middle thing. For weeks on end I aim to please-please-please 12 hours a day, sometimes more, and spend 2-4 hours wishing I was two again. At some point I sleep, eat, and go potty. Then I crash. I point my metaphorical penis at the wall and think “Yeah! This IS way funner!” I digress into blow-off-everything-I-can chick. Then eventually I get back at it and become the me I consider to be the one in charge of pretending to be a responsible adult. What I do works for me — as in, I’m functional for the most part, and my bills are paid — but at the same time I have my moments of wishing I could be like all those lovely composed folks who do all things in moderation.
There should be a middle. I’ve tried hard to find it, with fabulous aim. I’ve read books, seen therapists, been drugged, taken e-cources, gotten hypnotized. In August I’m seeing a life coach. For now, I’m trying very hard to accept that I’m simply a better juggler than balance-beam-walker.
But I’m curious, how do you all find your balance? What is the middle you aim for?
Jul
1
Since this is no longer an income-generating blog, I check my stats here mostly only out of curiosity. When I need a good laugh, I skim through the list of recent keywords folks googled to find me here at write-from-home.com. My favorites this week:
1) schizophrenia and perfectionism
3) i have a nutjob working for me
4) reality show and nocturnal custom cabinets
5) pantyhose obsession confessions
The best part? Even though none of these folks found what they were looking for, every one of them stuck around and clicked on at least two more pages. (And none were spammers.) Must say something for my exquisite wit and fine writing skills, eh? [insert giggles here]
Care to share any crazy, arbitrary results from YOUR recent keyword analysis???
Jun
30
My Role Model, the Ostrich
Filed Under writing from home | 17 Comments
Ostriches rock. And because I’m procrastinating on a project — shocker, I know — I thought I’d stop in to bring you a bit of ostrich trivia, so that you too can dig my long-necked role model. Ostrich facts (according to wikipedia, which means they might not be true, but if I felt like fact-checking I’d go back to the job I’m getting paid to procrastinate on):
1) Ostriches can run faster than any other bird. 40 mph.
2) When threatened, the Ostrich will either hide itself by lying flat against the ground, or will run away.
3) If cornered, it can cause injury and death with a kick from its powerful legs.
4) Mating patterns differ by geographical region, but territorial males fight for a harem of two to seven females.
5) An Ostrich can live up to 75 years.
6) There have been no observations of Ostriches putting their heads in the sand. Ostriches do deliberately swallow sand and pebbles to help grind up their food; seeing this from a distance may have caused some early observers to believe that their heads were buried in sand.
7) Ostriches are large enough for a small person to ride them, typically while holding on to the wings for grip, and in some areas of northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula Ostriches are trained as racing mounts.
I’m allergic to horses, so I never got to ask for a pony. Maybe in my next life, I’ll ask for an ostrich.
Who (or what) is your role model? And why?
Jun
29
Tending the Freelance Garden: a Little Water Goes a Long Way
Filed Under writing from home | 5 Comments
Aside from the fact that he seems content in flashing his cute little rump to anyone within eye-shot, how many of you don’t feel like this kid some days? Short limbs, teeny tiny hose, big-ass garden to tend to: metaphor for your life too, or is it just working for me?
I received a lovely pamphlet from the village yesterday containing a report of all the fun chemicals in our town water supply, in addition to a complicated spreadsheet of who is allowed to water their lawns on which days, between which times, and with what types of hoses. (I’d love to be kidding.) All I can say is the village should take this moment to thank a variety of gods that I don’t own property, a lawn, or a sprinkling system of any type. Because rules? I’m all for breaking them. In fact, if I had a hose I’d probably be walking up and down my street right now looking for some water sources to tap into in pure defiance. (Specifically, because the cost of these fancy-ass pamphlets could have been put toward — oh, I don’t know — saving a really big rain forest somewhere.)
The absolute BEST part of the pamphlet was the part where they went on-and-on-and-on about the conservation of natural resources. Included were tips on how to brush one’s teeth without running water, as well as how to do laundry in a bucket. I’m seriously considering writing to the folks in charge and asking them to have their heads examined. Last I checked, we were spending tens of thousands of dollars to build (plastic) playgrounds in the (rich) part of town so the (spoiled) kids (who spend all day playing video games) would have some place to play (even though now that the parks have been built no one plays there). Fast-forward two months, and we are apparently very earth-conscious and so poor we can’t afford water. (Yet a lovely field nearby is being plowed over down the street where a new subdivision is being erected.)
But I digress.
The whole thing got me thinking about gardens — and how I’ve always sort of wished I had a garden. Except for that whole part about how I can’t grow plants because I kill them, and I like weeds too much to pull them up, I think I’d be really cool with a garden. I could sit in one, maybe have a little pond of fishes, and watch the butterflies. And my bunnies could eat some cabbage — assuming I could grow cabbage, which I cannot. Folks over the years have told me I could learn to garden if I practiced. I’m pretty sure that’s a huge lie, but I don’t have the patience to find out.
My father used to say the secret to keeping plants alive is not to over-water. I am starting to wonder if his theories about gardening also might apply to the whole freelance life.
A little water goes a long way.
I tend to be OCD. I over-think everything, obsess over stupid shit, make my clients think I’m the most indispensable person on the planet, and workworkwork myself into a state of burnout I have trouble bringing myself back from. Big fire. Little hose.
My new plan: learn to tend the freelance garden with less water. Clients don’t need me to respond to their emails at 3am (even if they think I do). Blogs don’t require five new posts per day, and comments don’t need to be immediately responded to (even if the Blog Gods might disagree with me). Not every new job lead has to be followed up on, especially when I don’t need any new work at the moment. Must conserve resources. Must learn to let the plants live.
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About Amy Derby
Formerly a corporate paralegal, I ditched the pantyhose to begin freelancing in 2004. I enjoy long walks to the coffee maker, never setting an alarm clock, and not wearing a bra to the (home) office. I can be reached at amy.derby (at) gmail.com.