Do the Freelance Hustle!

*This post was named Freshly Pressed on August 16, 2011*

One of my friends asked me on Sunday night, “so what do you have planned for the week?”  Good question.  Since the book is wrapping up and I have no other projects at the moment (a clear break in my 3 -tiered system protocol), I’m currently doing the Freelance Hustle.  It’s really easy to learn. Here, I’ll teach you:

1. Become cognizant of the fact that you don’t have anything in the hopper and you only have two more advance checks coming.  Plan to search for jobs in between Facebooking if you can fit it in.  Feel good about your goal-setting and carry on about your day.

2.  Avoid eye contact (and all interaction) with your bank account–if you ignore it, you can’t tell how small it is.

3. Blog.  After all, you’re just 3 forwards away from being discovered and scouring the Internet for freelance gigs will be irrelevant, anyway.

4. Allow your ever-diligent conscience to remind you that you’re about to be poor in about 2.5 seconds if you don’t start finding projects that pay right now, missy, and your blog isn’t one of them.  And then jack that conscience upside the head with a bottle of Malibu.  Yeah, that’s what 1.75 liters of pure coconut rum feels like, son. You like that?

5. Check your bank account while you’re on the island and resolve to do something about it the next day…and mean it.  But you better tell someone of your plans–just in case you need some firm, yet loving support.  Lindsay Lohan has a sober companion; you can at least have an “I’m a fan of four walls and a bed” companion.  You’ve just worked too hard not to.  Don’t undo all the progress.

6.  In the morning, brew up a pot (whatever that means to you), spend hours on craigslist, flexjobs, morningcoffee, HARO, facebook (strictly business), crowdspring and whatever other rabbit hole you can find to explore for leads.  Pour your heart and soul into crafting customized cover letters and resumes that reduce grown men to tears and make grownups out of babies.  I know you want to, but do NOT skip this part.  Always customize–unless, of course, you don’t really care whether you get the job.  In that case, just use your boilerplate for everything.  Oh, and you might as well include a photo of your dog taking a giant dump, too.

7. With a great flourish (and many rounds of editing behind you), submit them.  Grab that bottle of Malibu (it probably rolled under the couch after that incident with your conscience) and take a swig.  You’ve earned it.

8. Keep your laptop or phone fired up and with you 24 hours a day.  Keep refreshing your inbox.  Also, check your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts rabidly, because maybe they will contact you there.  As you wait, re-read your brilliant submissions over your sensible meals of PB&J, picturing the manic joy that will unfurl from the hiring manger when she reads your amazing prose, moments before she shows up at your house with bags of money.

9.  Nothing yet?  No response in 48 hours means they’re busy.  No response in 96 means they’re selective.  No response in 168 hours means you might think you just did a whole lotta work for a whole lotta nuthin, brother.  But don’t be sad.  They simply aren’t ready for your genius…but you’ll find someone who is.

10. And the most important step of all: don’t let this little stumble make you fall.  Recover and just keep dancing.  The key to the Freelance Hustle is to keep moving–no matter what happens.  Keep looking and keep trying.  And be open to new kinds of projects.  Keep easin’ on down the road, because sooner or later, the right audience is going to come along, love your performance, and want to bring you into their company…but you gotta keep hustlin’.  And on that note, it’s time for me to dance on outta here.

There’s Something I Have to Tell You

I’m just gonna put this out there:

I have no idea what I’m doing.  No, seriously.

There!  I said it…

What a load off!

Maybe I should say it again:

<Ahem> I have no idea what I’m doing….oooo!  Yes, that feels even better…maybe I should shout it, and indicate that by using caps lock:

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING!!!!  YES!  IT’S TRUE!

Niiiiccce….I’ve got goosebumps.

Now all I need are the hyenas from Lion King, and it’ll be an all-out tingle-fest.

Look…I’ve survived the past nine months of chasing this little dream here.  At times, I’ve more than survived.  I’ve actually enjoyed it and even found some bits of success here and there.  But I have no idea what I’m doing, where I’m going, or what I’ll do when I’m there (course, that’s assuming I recognize it when I arrive).

We all know my big declaration was that I want to be a writer, but I need to admit something to you all that I’ve been carrying around for way too long:

I haven’t the faintest clue what that means.

YES!  Another truth grenade, thrown right atcha.  Man, that feels good!  I should’ve done this MONTHS ago!  AHAHAHAHAHA!  It’s been weighing me down and keeping me up nights as I wait for the ambition police to come crashing through my windows at 2 am to unearth me from a dog pile (in my paranoid nightmare, I assume the dead weight of a 70-pound pit bull is nothing to them, since they are the ambition police after all, and they spend, like, 7 days a week in the gym–duh), wrestle me out of my quilt, and haul me into a holding cell designed for impostors and good intentions (you can tell where you are because of the freshly paved path just outside).

I guess I’m just not really sure what sort of achievements or jobs or contracts or deals one must possess in order to claim the title of “writer.”  I’m not sure how many days in a row I have to wear the same clothes and a hat because my creative process can’t be bothered to take a shower in order to earn the right to write.  And I’m not clear on how many gallons of coffee I have to drink whilst holed up in the corner of a café or diner or wherever I’m supposed to go to pound out brilliance.  I don’t know when I need to start carrying a notebook around with me or what exactly I should jot down in it…but I’m sure I probably need to do that before I can be considered decent and proper.  And I think I have to find some readings to attend. And I bet I have to belong to a group of my challenging-yet-supportive peers that meets every Wednesday in a big old house with a fireplace, hardwood floors, and a massive grey cat.  And I’m certain I have to start calling it “my craft.”

Well, I've been wearing the same jacket, hat, and chihuahua for two days. That must mean something.

So…I’m not sure when that will all happen, or if it will happen, or if I want it to happen.   Weird, huh?  I just don’t know.  The thing is, I love to write…so at least on some level, I feel mostly honest when I answer the question of “so…what do you do?” with “I write.”  That part I can handle.  What happens next–not so much.

The trouble starts with the inevitable follow-up question: “oh really?  So what do you write?”  That’s where the wheel comes off the cart.  It’s well-meant…probably full of kindness and interest, but my insecurity takes it as a major affront and desperately tries to redirect the spotlight.

“Well…you know…words. “

That’s how I’d like to answer that question.  But instead, I usually respond by prattling on about my latest jobs, sprinkle some unintelligible hums that show how ponderous I am throughout and finish strong with a mention of the book–ah, my anchor.

But really–I just write.  I don’t have a genre, I’m not working on a novel, and I don’t have a portfolio.  I write whatever I feel like writing or whatever earns me some rent money (speaking of…I’m currently available for anything you might need written or edited or turned into a screenplay of nothing but movie quotes).  I’ll write a resume, I’ll write website copy, I’ll write an article about how your grandma’s apple pie is like a Boeing 747.   I’ll blather on for pages about the camping trip I just took with you, compose a song about your dogs, or take over your company’s Facebook page and fill it with nothing but pithy and engaging status updates.

I just write…which is what a writer is in the simplest terms possible, I suppose.  But still, I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up before I’m carted off.

And also–what’s my anchor going to be when this book is done?  I need another one–and fast.  I have a bunch of ideas…but that just brings up a whole new set of problems:

When do ideas shift from being a pile of amorphous clicks on a keyboard to an actual book?  At what point do I get to answer the “what are you working on now” gem with, “ah–brilliant of you to ask…I’m currently working on a wonderful memoir wherein I tell the life story of my late cousin through vignettes of my time spent in the woods of Michigan ” instead of “well, I’ve been scratching some things down on scrap paper from time to time and reminiscing about my childhood camping trips but really–I have no clue if these things will even fit together to form a sentence, let alone a book so really–I’m not working on anything except developing a taste for ketchup sandwiches ”?

I don’t really know.  I don’t even kind of  know.  But if you do…or you feel like trying to figure it out with me…or you want to hire me to create a loving yet humorous tribute to beer for your local Oktoberfest…or you just want to put me out of my misery, hit me up.  But please–email or text only.  I’ll need to flash that evidence to get out of the holding cell.