Optimism

July 18, 2008

I am probably not an optimist. I don't think I'm a pessimist, either. A friend once said I was a "realist" of the Hope-For-The-Best-Expect-The-Worst Sort.

That may have been true then, but I'm not sure it's true now. Things changed, my life changed, I changed.

So maybe I am an optimist.

But let me tell you something about freelancing for a living, and this applies to novels or magazine articles and everything in between.

1. You have to be optimistic and have faith that something good is going to come along. Things have been a little dry lately since bailing on the full-time gig, exacerbated by some slow-pay clients, which is frustrating the hell out of me. But I sat down and started hunting for more work. There has been a little voice in my head that says, "You're not going to get work, the economy sucks, it's July and everybody's on vacation, you blew your good karma in New York when you turned down the job..."

And you've just got to tell that little voice to SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.

And today it looks like I've probably picked up a new client. I expect it to be the first through an open floodgate.

2. Put it one of two ways: things change and/or shit happens. Magazines go belly-up (so do book publishers), editors change jobs, publications decide to stop working with freelancers, etc. Aside from my contract job crisis this summer, I also did some work for a lab company that wanted me to write copy for their website. Alarm bells should have been going off, but I did some work for her although she didn't seem to be answering my questions or putting me in touch with the people I needed to be in touch with. I finally pulled together what I felt was 95% of the job and sent it to her. She came back with, "Oh, this is good, about 20% there." To which I responded with an invoice and the comment, "I can't go any further until I have feedback from the company."

Guess who hasn't paid the bill or gotten back with me? Sometimes you just have to wash your hands of a client and say, "Enough of that shit." Thank God I only spent about 5 hours or so on that gig.

But overall, if you want to keep your sanity, you have to convince yourself there's more, good work coming, that the checks are in the mail, that by God, things will work out.

Cheers,

Mark Terry