To the marriage of unlike minds

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage, mainly because my wedding is coming up in April (to a great guy, by the way, the patience to my impulsiveness, the calm to my storm, my very own amazing travel agent, and so much more.) I was browsing the Web one day and ran across some profiles of long-married couples so, of course, I read them.

Here's a quote from one: “Bill can be very knot-headed about things. When we have our spats, we each speak our mind and then we go on our way. We don’t always expect everything to be resolved or to change the other person’s mind,” says June Pritchard about her husband. They have been married 64 years.

June’s comment about her knot-headed husband (in my relationship, we have an extremely fair distribution of knot-headedness) is a good guide for any relationship, from marriage to friendship to business. I know that I have learned a lot about letting go of my need to be right during my 13 years as a freelance writer. While my clients do pay me for my expertise and experience, there are times when they want to do things their way. I have to let them. Once I’ve made my point (okay, once I’ve made my point twice), I let it go. You know the saying about leading a horse to water?

This doesn’t mean that I’m happy about the product the client puts out and generally, I wouldn’t use that piece as one of my samples. But the fact that the client wants to do things a different way (and, often in my view, in a less-than-perfect way) doesn’t mean I won’t work with that client again. In fact, if the client is a good one, I will happily work again with the client and we see eye to eye or the client takes my advice and thanks me for it. It’s oddly freeing to let someone else do things his or her way. I can let go of it and go on to something else.

I can learn a lot in my personal relationships from my client relationships. Too often, it seems to me, I’m vested in a need to be right about my advice, about what I plan to do, about how I see politics or religion or some other topic. But do I? Can I still be a good friend, a good girlfriend, a good spouse and not be the source of all rightness? Maybe if I don’t need to be the perfect advice giver or life liver, I’ll be a better spouse and friend.

One of my friends is extremely conservative (in my view) and there have been times when I wondered if I should continue the friendship because I’m pretty liberal. Then I realized that my friend’s conservatism was not the sum of all of her parts. She is generous and kind and loyal and more. Should I cut her off because there is one part of her character that displeases me? Beyond merely not cutting her off, maybe I should listen to her views, really listen, not listen with the idea that I’ll figure out how to rebut what she’s saying. Maybe if I shut off my “no” voice more often, I could hear what my friend is actually saying and then decide if I agree or not. Maybe conservatives have some ideas I could get behind. Maybe the political and religious worlds aren’t as black and white, right and wrong as I used to think they were.

Maybe rightness for the sake of rightness isn’t a virtue, after all. I’ll always be a knothead but I’m aiming to know better when to be knot-headed and when it’s just plain not-headedness, also known as orneriness.

A calling

Seth Godin writes a blog about business and he does it really well, often offering up nuggets that go far beyond just business. His blog is at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

This is from one of his posts:


I know doctors, lawyers, waiters and insurance brokers who are honestly and truly passionate about what they do. They view it as an art form, a calling, and an important (no, an essential) thing worth doing.

In fact, I don't think there's a relationship between what you do and how important you think the work is. I think there's a relationship between who you are and how important you think the work is.

Life's too short to phone it in.

Woe is the freelancer

I have a hardy and hard-to-squelch self-pity gene. Yes, it’s my mother’s fault. That’s a joke, Mom. Really! It's easy to whine when you freelance because you run into situations that call for whining and whining only. Seriously, if you want to freelance, you should be prepared for the woe that accompanies the wow.

Cover your ears, you stoics, turn away, you hardhearted! Because I am about to expound on the woes of the freelance life:

You never know where your money is coming from or how much it will be. Which is why you must secure two or three clients who will pay you a regular sum each month. And despair when they go bankrupt or change direction or fire your contact and dispense with your services. Better than despair is a long client list. Even if they come to you only as needed, they may very well tide you over until you find another one or two regular clients. (And, of course, you should have savings socked away for these rainy days. They will come.)

You have minutes and hours and days without structure. You can do whatever you want. That is bad, very, very bad, especially if you are the creative fun-loving type. Find a daily schedule that works for you and will help you bring in the money and stick to it. Err only occasionally and briefly. Keep to-do lists and deadlines. Post them where they can be seen and referred to as you are typing in the Facebook address for the fourteenth time.

You don’t have health insurance. Unless you buy it. Which is a daunting proposition for one person, let alone a family. Make sure you have it before you jump into the freelance pool. It is your lifeguard.

You will have feast and famine. The famine times will make you believe you will never work again. Feast times make you feel like a millionaire. You’re not. No, you can’t afford that stunning pair of boots. No, a new car is not a good idea right now. Have you heard the one about a grasshopper and an ant? It’s a good one for all freelancers and I’ve learned its truth the hard way. More than once.

You pay employee and employer taxes. I hate paying taxes (I believe in them but I still hate them). I shroud my home in black tulle on April 15 and on the quarterly dates for payment that occur throughout the year. If you want to freelance, however, that is the reality. Make sure you charge a rate that includes this sad reality. And to cover your expenses. No more stealing pens, paper, copies, etc. because you don’t have an employer to steal from. You are responsible for everything from paper clips and ink cartridges to computers and desks. Bear it in mind when working out your hourly rate.

A deadline is really a deadline. No fudging, no putting it off. If you tell a client you will have something done on x date, you need to have it done. Or have a really really good reason why. That’s why I keep my clients updated on my work regularly. If I’m having trouble getting a hold of people to interview, I tell my client. If I come down with the flu (an upside to freelancing-coming into contact with fewer germs), I crawl to my desk to let my clients know.

There is no one to shoot the bull with. And even spouses and significant others may not understand the ins and outs of your chosen career. That’s why formal or informal groups of like-working others are critical. I’m part of several e-mail groups, belong to two professional organizations, and meet with freelancer friends every few months. It’s invaluable—both because of the business you might find and because of the well of good advice and counsel you can get and give.

If none of this deters you, then freelancing just may be the career for you.

Freelancing is the place for me. You?

I’m always surprised when someone asks why I’d want to freelance. I assume everyone would freelance if they could. So why does freelancing work for me?

I’m my own boss. Sort of. Here’s a secret you should know if you’re thinking of getting into the freelance business. You’re never really your own boss. You have clients to answer to, deadlines to meet, taxes to pay. But the dynamic is different. I thoroughly enjoy 99 percent of my interactions with clients because we are on equal footing. I love being the expert writer, even when my clients are writers and editors (maybe even more so then because they “get it.”)

I really love the variety. I work mostly for the same basic type of client, an association or nonprofit organization. But the topics I write about range widely from civil engineering and local government reform in Ukraine to community development and autism research. I’ve loved learning about subjects I would never have read about otherwise.

And I get to do a lot of writing, some editing, and the occasional layout so I can put different parts of my brain to work.

I get to make things. It took me years to realize I have a craftsperson’s heart. I like doing better than strategizing. While I love meetings to come up with creative concepts, I wouldn’t like them so much if I didn’t get to then be a part of coming up with the words part of that concept later. I enjoy putting words to paper to create an article or a brochure or taking someone else’s writing and making it better. I often think of my work the same way a woodworker thinks of her work or a florist thinks of his work. I’m not creating art but I am creating a useful piece of information that someone else needs and it’s often creative, evocative, or lovely. It works for me.

I set my schedule. Hmm, here’s another secret: I do and I don’t. I take great pains to be in place when my clients need me and I have to meet my deadlines. But I get to figure out how to do that and juggle the rest of my life. Some days, even though I'm working away, I still feel like a high school kid cutting class for the day. It’s lovely to have that freedom and to know I can be disciplined when I need to be.

I'm rewarded for work I do as I do it. I like knowing that I can increase my income by doing more work. Of course, the inverse is true as well. The less I work, the less I get paid, something I often think about when my fiancee is home from work on a snow day, getting paid for being lazy at home.

Would freelancing work for you? It’s a question worth taking the time to answer before you jump into an increasingly crowded pool.

Making lemonade

If you're a freelancer by choice, you will probably have a sore neck when you're done watching this video because you'll be nodding yes throughout.

If you aren't doing what you love, though, this lemonade's for you.

http://www.hulu.com/search?query=Lemonade&st=1

The freelance life

I’ve been a freelance writer and editor for 13 years this month. I hoped when I started that this would be my last job before retiring and so it seems it will be. I’ve never been happier with a job though freelancing certainly does bring its share of stress, particularly if you’re single or your family’s sole breadwinner. But it offers many benefits to make up for its shortcomings and I still enjoy my work, mainly for its variety, for what I learn and for the many creative people I have worked with along the way.

I hope you will come with me on this journey of the freelance life…maybe you’ll find out you want a new career, or a new city, or just a bite to eat in a fabulous coffee shop. Whatever you discover through this blog, I’ll be delighted to hear about it!