I just spent the last five beautiful, glorious and hectic days in an unusually cold and gray Miami, Florida, so today I am catching up on work and keeping my nose pressed down hard to that bumpy grindstone. So, instead of offering my own blog post, I’m going to introduce a guest and one of my dear friends and fellow freelance writers, Lynne Beach.  Take it, Lynne!

Prologue:   Jennifer and I met during an on-line writing course. We’ve met in person also, but our first encounter was on the Net.  I can’t tell you the name of the course we took.  Not because of any proprietary limitations, but because it’s embarrassing as hell and I really don’t want anyone to know I squandered $150 on such an obvious joke. 

 The circus clown instructor had rules about what you could and could not write.   They weren’t helpful rules on style or composition, but veiled content censorship.  We were not allowed to write “anything violent,” or “too dark.”

Anyone familiar with Jennifer’s fiction realizes that Sunshine Mary the teacher may as well have duct-taped Jenn’s laptop shut with that edict. But our Jennifer is not a fan of “rules,” (Jennifer’s Note: Only dumb rules) and posted what she damn well wanted to. 

Frilly apron-wearing hack the instructor also imposed rules about posting personal information in the class forum.   I was forced to leave some pretty cryptic messages in an effort to give Jenn my e-mail address, as it was excruciatingly clear she was the only other enrollee with a lick of sense.

Fast forward a couple of years and here we are.  She has asked me to appear as a guest on her blog site, to share my (in)experience in trying to establish myself as a freelance writer.

Ink or Swim

Somewhere in mid-January, I decided to believe in my own writing.  Until then, I always felt amateurish and untalented.  There were other people I knew that labeled themselves writers, and I thought they dealt with an underlying torment that I did not.  I write because I can.  They write because they have to.  I felt “unworthy” of declaring myself a writer, because I didn’t have the soul-twisting obsession that I thought “real” writers have. 

I’ve always had the support of family and friends, but I never trusted it.  You expect friends and family to pat you on the back and say “good job,” even if you suck.  It wasn’t until I started getting feedback from less well-known acquaintances and strangers that I began to believe, and started thinking about freelance work.

I knew nothing.  I wanted to swim, but I didn’t even know where to find the pool.  So I did what I always do when I don’t know anything—I Googled.  I read every article I could find on breaking into freelance.  Then I did the other thing I do when I don’t know anything—I asked someone who does.  Enter Jenn.  She gave me the links to the best community sites, the feeds for the best newsletters, some great advice, and the thing I needed most.  Encouragement.

I reviewed the information she gave me, and felt impossibly overwhelmed.  What if I bid on a job and they PICKED me?!?  What would I do?!?  It seems pretty elementary as to what one would do, but I was terrified of being exposed as the fraud I believed myself to be.  I could see the others splashing around, but I was still watching from behind the gate.

Shortly after that, my sister came to visit and we talked about my new venture.  She is a magazine editor, and, although we share DNA, she has never held punches when critiquing my work.  I confessed my fear, and she said, “Look at me.” I did.

“You can write.”

“But…”

“You can write.”

“And what if…”

“You can write.”

“But I’m not…”

“YOU. CAN. WRITE.  Now go do it.”

And so, I walked up to the shallow end and stuck my toe in the water.  I developed a LinkedIn profile and set up an eLance account (though I’ve yet to take that preposterous test). Under the “occupation” heading, I typed, “p-h-a-r-m-a-c-i-s-t.”  Then I erased it and brazenly proclaimed, “freelance writer.” 

I began submitting queries and bids for jobs that captured my interest.  Most of them are medical/science gigs, since that is an area of comfort and confidence for me.  A few have just been for generic “writer wanted,” for this or that web article, and even a few have been “dream-print” opportunities such as short-fiction or narratives.  The shallow-end is peaceful, and I let the water lap at my knees.

So far, I’ve gotten one from LinkedIn but it was writing for scientific journals.  Which, on my list of ass-drag writing assignments, is number two.  (Number one is pets.)  Other than that, I’ve received ZERO inquiries.

My internal naysayer shouts Get out! Get out of the water!  She’s a real pain in the ass, that one. You’re just going to sink. Give up.  Not supportive at all.  You don’t belong.  Look at the diving board.  You’ll never stand up there.  My God, she’s loud.  But I’m learning to tune her out. 

Because I can write.

And I’m not going to sink.  Nobody sinks in knee-deep water.   I’m just going to move forward, my feet sliding across the slick liner inches at a time until my toes curl on the sloped edge of the deep. 

And one day, when my chocolate falls into the right jar of peanut butter, I’ll be swimming in offers.

For now, I’m getting some great practice just holding my breath.