freelancing

One of the problems that I’ve been struggling with since I started my freelance business has been holding my cell phone to my ear with my shoulder while I talk to clients and type notes on my laptop at the same time. To free up my hands, my parents got me a blue tooth for my phone on my birthday - you know, those things that short men with leather suit jackets always have stuck in their ears at the grocery store?

Well, I know it’s a little uncool to wear when you aren’t using it, but this thing has changed my life. Although its number one use is to allow me to take detailed notes during meetings with clients, I’ve also discovered an even better application for the blue tooth: it allows me to do whatever I want during the two-hour multi-office conference calls that I often have to sit through. During these calls I often don’t have to say more than “hello” and “nice talking with you.” The majority of these calls are about web design and roughly 5% is about written content - it’s kind of like listening to a baseball game on the radio but only having to pay attention to one inning.

For the last two months, I’ve sat through these meetings as if I were physically present at a meeting - kind of paying attention, very bored. But now my blue tooth - which not only frees my hands but also blocks out background noise — has unshackled me from my conference call prison.

Before the blue tooth I would do regular meeting things: drink a lot of tea, try to pay attention and fail, stare at the clock, think about other things I could be doing that are also not pleasant but that I would still rather be doing, like folding the laundry. Now, though, today - I actually did get to fold my laundry. And since I get paid to sit in on these meetings, it’s like I’m getting paid to fold my laundry! I also got paid to write some thank you notes, iChat, brush the cat, and pay my phone bill - all for the same hourly rate. At the end of the meeting, I even started writing the web content that the meeting was about, both saving myself some time and saving my clients some money. What a beautiful world.

It also makes me wonder what the other three people on the line are doing, since we all work from home. Is the coordinator flossing her teeth? Is the tech guy putting the final touches on that free verse poem he’s been working on? I never thought I’d say this before I started working from home, but it might be true: there’s such a thing as a productive meeting.

Me: Hi, my name is Sarah Aswell, and I’m trying to reach [generic lawyer name]. He contacted me this week about writing web content for his firm.
Assistant: Is he expecting your call, Barah?
Me: It’s actually Sarah. With an S. Yes, he told me to call at one.
Assistant: I don’t see your name in the appointment book.
Me: That’s strange, since he emailed me the meeting time yesterday and said he would put it in his Outlook calendar.
Assistant: Let me check with him. Hold on.

I hold. She returns.

Assistant: Hi, Barah?
Me: Hi. My name’s Sarah. Not Barah. I don’t really think Barah is even a name. I’m guessing that this ongoing issue might be why you can’t find my name in your appointment book.
Assistant: He’s in the middle of something. Can he call you back?
Me: Sure.
Assistant: Can I have your number, Barah?
Me: Are you serious?

…and then I gave her my number as slowly and clearly as I could, as if I were talking to an old person from the 1800s holding one of those huge gramophone horn hearing aids. I am sure this law firm will never call me back, although if a person named Barah actually exists on the planet (which I doubt) I wouldn’t be surprised if she got a call from the dumbest secretary that there has ever been.

Over the last two months, as I’ve been learning to run my own freelancing business, I’ve struggled with some of the non-writing aspects of the job: conferences calls, social niceties, corporate etiquette.

More specifically, I have trouble getting people to call me back. I leave messages. I write emails. I set up meeting times. But no matter what, I end up waiting for important phone calls when I should be working. Days of wasted time go by as clients who don’t realize I can’t work on their project until I talk to them about it on the phone - and much of the time I just need a one-word answer to a simple question like, do you want this in first person?

Today, though, I think I figured it out once and for all. And it is so, so, simple. Ready? About one minute before you want to an important client to get back to you about an issue, pour a big bowl of cereal. And not a hearty twigs-and-nuts cereal that takes a good seven minutes to absorb milk - I’m talking about your Rice Crispies or Cheerios. The cereals that are ticking time bombs of sogginess.

Your phone will ring as soon as you finish pouring the milk. You won’t get the first bite in before you’re deep in conversation: “Hi Sarah - sorry not to get back to you sooner, but I was engaged in some time-sensitive activities. Now, however, I have quite a chunk of information I’d like to walk you though regarding the ebook. It shouldn’t take too long - I would guess it will only take as long as it takes for a single serving of Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs in milk to deteriorate into a thick glue.”

And you can’t say, “Sorry, but even though it’s 3 p.m. I’ve got some Cookie Crunch to attend to,” or, “Sorry, but Count Chocula is on the other line.”

But even though you waste a bowl of cereal, but they call every time. What first seemed like an inconvenience is a blessing in disguise.

I’m pretty sure this can also be applied to other aspects of life, too. Waiting to hear back from that job interview? Try drawing yourself a hot bath filled with time-sensitive bubbles. Waiting for a boy to call about a second date after three days of torture? Try mixing a fresh batch of cement. He’ll want to talk about his feelings for hours.

When I first started my blog, I vowed I would never, ever write an “I’m sorry I haven’t updated my blog in so long, I am neither sick or dead, but merely lazy” entry. So that isn’t what this is. This is more of an “I have now promised myself to make daily updates a priority again, starting today” entry. With that said, I think it’s a good time for a Brood Lifenotes catch-up entry:

1. Michael Clayton was an utterly fantastic film that should immediately move to the top of your Netflix queue. And I’m not particularly a fan of George Clooney. After Ben and I had watched it, and after we talked about how commendable it was on several levels, we decided that its only considerable flaw was its title, which doesn’t exactly tell you anything about the movie or make you want to see the movie or even watch the trailer. We thought of an excellent alternate title: The Fixer. Too bad we weren’t around when that decision was made - they might have pulled in more at the box office. I’d go see The Fixer.

2. Brooklyn Brewery’s seasonal Monster Ale is a rich, robust, and complex beer that is a sheer delight to drink. HOWEVER - and this might be the biggest however in history - you should know before opening one that the alcohol content is above 10%. On Saturday night, Ben and I decided to stay in, which for us consists of walking down to the specialty beer store and picking out something interesting and different, ordering a pizza, and yelling at each other over videogames in good humor. This week I picked the Monster Ale, which is a very limited special run and which I had never seen before (although the same company’s Brooklyn Lager might be my most favorite beer, ever). As usual, I did not read the fine print on the bottle before enjoying three of said beers over the course of the night, and it was not until I was fall-over, not-in-the-good-way, what-is-happening-to-my-vision drunk at 9 PM that I investigated the situation and discovered I had drank the equivalent of a six pack in three hours. If you know what a lightweight I am, you can imagine what a sad, ultimately messy tragedy this was, particularly when adding the fact that we also ordered hot wings. It reminded me a lot of college. Ultimate lesson: everything in moderation, especially things that have “Monster” in the title.

3. Freelancing is everything I dreamed it would be. Even though Ben and I work hard all day and through most of the evening, the familiar feelings I associate with working (rage, frustration, mopey-ness) are completely gone. It makes a difference to do what you enjoy, I suppose. In these first weeks, it’s been difficult to get my workload right, which has resulted in several tough nights, but I’m learning every day. And I’m not so used to hounding clients for money constantly, but, again, I’m guessing I’ll begin to excel at that starting in exactly three days, when rent’s due. A lot of people warned me that I’d start to get stir crazy from not leaving my apartment for days on end, but I have been strangely unaffected - if anything, I’m much more content. This is probably related to some weird neurological problem I undoubtedly have. Work what you got, I guess.

4. I wish to god that I could share with you some of the stories I have about clients. Oh, the stories. Maybe I’ll start a six-month waiting period after I’ve cut people off before I talk about them publicly.

For my birthday, my husband, parents, and grandmother all pitched in and gave me enough money to buy a refurbished MacBook. It was much needed, especially considering that I now use my laptop for most of the time I am awake and cram it full of the crazy copy I write all day.

But here’s the thing: it is better than my old iMac in every way except one. It has a slightly bigger screen, it goes faster, it holds more, it picks up our wireless internet consistently. But the keyboard is considerably bigger than my former keyboard. I heard that there were lots of complaints about the original iMac keyboard being too small, but it was perfect for my puny, stubby little hands.

The result of the keyboard size shift is concentrated in a problem with my left ring finger and its constant confusion of the “S” key and the “Z” key. It seems like it can’t quite reach to “Z” key when it needs to and that, as a result, it now often overcompensates and hits the “Z” instead of the “S”, as if that’s going to help matters.

The result is that I’m very often mixing up my Zs and Ss, especially near the end of words. More specifically, all of my copy has started sounding like a British Rapper. Here are two examples:

“…that allow educational policy students to realise the skillz needed in….”

“… analyse chartz and tables for further….”

Let’s hope I can correct this problem before I turn in something like this to a client. …home boyz.

One of my least favorite aspects of this job is having to introduce myself at parties as a freelance writer. It sounds really stuck-up and kind of like a lie. It also seems to be a pretty popular thing for trust fund kids in New York to say, and if there’s one thing I’m not, that’s probably it.

So - I’ve been playing around with some alternate titles:

• Professional Bullshitter
• Stay-At-Home Mom, Except I Don’t Have Kids
• Word Hustler
• Technically Unemployed

At least those titles might lead to some more interesting small talk conversation. Right now they all seem to go like this:

“I’m, uh, I’m a freelance writer.”
“Like fiction? That’s so awesome.”
“More like business copy for companies. More like not awesome.”
“So you’re not a real writer.”
“I mean, I exist.”
“Excuse me, I need another drink.”
“Can I go first?”

I’m home alone until Saturday night - Ben is in Las Vegas all week covering a fight. I thought it would be especially hard this time around since I would usually be at work every day interacting with friends and getting out of the house. I thought that this week I would basically be in solitary confinement for me, while at the same time, I would be getting picture messages from Ben of his overflowing buffet plates and of him posing with Hooters girls.

Instead, though, I seemed to have found a sure-fire cure for loneliness: extreme stress.

In my deep fear of not having enough freelance work to keep me busy and pay the bills, I got myself into a mountain of work. And if you don’t think it’s confusing to spend an hour writing about dry cleaning methods and the next writing about 18-wheeler spinal cord injury settlements and the next hour writing about auriculotherapy (look it up - I know I had to), then you would be wrong.

I thought I might spend the week wistfully sighing and conjuring images of our post-wedding winter cabin, complete with crackling logs and wine and snow falling silently outside. And no deadlines. Instead, though, I’m spending every single second worrying about how the hell one writes a joint venture business plan.

It’s a weird feeling - I constantly feel like I’m back in high school and about to take a test I haven’t studied for. The feeling of all of your brain cells lining up and preparing to bullshit to the fullest extent of their ability. Have I ever written about the herbal treatment protocol for smoking cessation? Of course I have! I’m a living, breathing copywriter, aren’t I? I can’t even watch TV or call my friends - I’m just constantly thinking on how I can possibly pull these things off and save my ass.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m enjoying the crap out of my new job. Sure, I might be a bit stressed and more than a little over my head, but on the other hand I’m doing stuff I love, I’m actually getting to make my own decisions and think and voice my opinions, and I wore a wifebeater without a bra all day.

I’ll tell you one thing, though: if stress is cure for loneliness, could a takeout chicken parmesan sandwich and a beer be a cure for stress?

There’s only one way to find out.