Freelancing Isn't Supposed to Be Free

One of my regular freelance jobs is to write up the crime blotters for two cities in my county. Even though I live in a pretty safe area, I’ve read about some awful things done by some very bad people. I’ve also seen stuff done by people who really aren’t that bad, but suffered momentary stupidity and got caught, handcuffed and booked. Occasionally, I see the names of folks I know. We don’t print names in the paper, even though it’s public record and pretty much anyone can find out who was arrested this week for PC273.5 or HS11550 or my favorite, PC369i.

So, here’s the thing. If the weekly crime log isn’t processed by the records’ employee(s), I have nothing to write about, so I don’t get paid.

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. There’s only one guy who does it at one of the police stations I visit once a week, and he’d taken a vacation. He didn’t tell me he wouldn’t be there that week, so I drove about ten miles (one way) in morning traffic, got to the station, found out there were no crime reports for the past week, then had to go home. And, oh yeah, my regular freeway onramp was closed for repairs, so I had to go out of my way to find another one.

So not only did I not get paid for doing that city’s blotter that week, I don’t get paid for gas, which, in California, is something like a billion dollars a gallon. And I drive a Hummer. HAH! Just kidding. I drive a Honda. Still, I have to buy my own gas. I am not schmancy. I do not get reimbursed for expenses.

This also meant that, the following week, when I did the blotters, I had twice the work and only got paid for the one submission.

Got it? Yeah. Of course you get it. We’re talking grocery money here.

Last week, I got an assignment. Just a quickie. Which is good, because My Daughter the English Major is home from college for a few weeks, and I want to spend time with her before she goes to study abroad for two months in England, the Holy Land for English Majors.

This assignment should have been easy. I called the person I was supposed to interview and said that I would send an email explaining in detail what I needed for the advertorial, along with a copy of a previous advertorial with similar content. Efficient, right? My due date for the very brief telephone interview was last Friday at 3:00 p.m.

I called the woman Thursday. I called her Friday. I was told both times by her secretary that she’d call me back. She didn’t. I called yesterday after I did my two blotters, and the secretary asked me to hold a couple of times, then came back on the line and told me the woman would call me back.

I was skeptical. But she did. She actually called me back. She told me she couldn’t do the story this week.

OK, let’s do some moneymaking math, shall we?

Four phone calls + one email = no groceries.

I realize that most people don’t know I am not a staff employee of the newspaper and I don’t get paid unless I turn in work. However, I suspect that even if they did, it wouldn’t matter.

You know what makes me feel better about all this?

I'm done with my assignments this week, so The English Major and I are going out to breakfast.

A Site For Sore Eyes

I got to speak to the Ventura County Writers Club Tuesday night and the members were beyond gracious. That is, they laughed a lot, and I’m assuming it wasn’t all at me, but at what I said. Some of them even chuckled at my tacky pilcrow tattoo joke: “Why is that ‘p’ on your leg?”

Yes. Your suspicions are confirmed. I am a 12-year-old boy inside a… not-12-year-old woman’s body.

I know I've told the pilcrow joke in a previous post. Proving again that I am 12. I really should be outside right now, poking bugs with sticks.

I did manage to get some real information into my talk, which mostly consisted of how sucky* it is to be a professional freelance writer.

*I use the word “sucky” a lot. It must be Word-approved, since it doesn’t have a red, squiggly line under it. Funny, though, “pilcrow” does.

Anyway, in my speech to these published and unpublished writers, I suggested a number of websites to go to in order to check out the job market. While most people join local writers’ groups because they write fiction or memoirs or fictionalized memoirs, my area of expertise is nonfiction, so I thought I’d share some resources.

Here are the ones I use.

Ebyline
Elance
iFreelance
Mediabistro
National Association of Professional Women
LinkedIn

And now for the disclaimer.

Not all of these sites will work for you. Why? Because you’re gonna have to work the hell out of them.

I'm on Ebyline regularly because my newspaper uses it to send me assignments. Ebyline also emails notifications of projects posted by other publications and businesses, and I’ve responded to a few, but so far no bites.

Elance, iFreelance and Mediabistro post writing jobs. I pay a small monthly fee to use iFreelance in order to get placed a little higher on the list of freelancers, and to receive priority email alerts when freelance writing jobs appear. I’m thinking of canceling soon, since I haven’t been awarded any projects.

Why? Because that advertorial Wendy will write for you for $75, some grad student will write for $20. She may not do as good a job as Wendy, but, hey, you’re saving $55.

That’s why.

As for the National Association of Professional Women, I’m still not sure. Belonging to a networking group requires a lot of, well, networking, and even though I am social when I am in social situations, I am not a good salesperson in person. I love the cover of social media. No makeup or heels required. Sales pitches can be edited, and I don't have to go to evening meetings, when I'd rather be in bed, eating snacks, watching terrible TV and scouring eBay auctions for vintage purses on my laptop. My NAPW membership is for the year, so we’ll see if I make any business contacts.

LinkedIn is OK. I recently got a small job through it. I think people mostly use it to see what college/headshot/exaggerations their old high school classmates/former coworkers/people they only know peripherally are putting on their LinkedIn profiles.

Wendy's default profile pic. Taken a wrinkle-free fifteen years ago.

Then there are the LinkedIn connection requests from people I haven't met, either in person or online. I always wonder why someone I don't know, with whom I have no contacts in common, and who are in an entirely different business than I would want to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Dude, if I were able to help you enhance your career, don’t you think I would’ve done it with mine by now?

Help Wendy enhance her career. Visit her websites: Wendy Dager, www.wendydager.com, Advertorial75, www.advertorial75.com, The Write Cave, www.writecave.com, The Vintage Purse Gallery, www.vintagepursegallery.com, Vintage Purse a Day, www.vintagepurse.blogspot.com and A Discouraging Word, www.discouragingwordbook.com. She’s also on Facebook and Twitter. Why? She has no idea.

Haiku Pooh-Pooh

I’ve already shared the story about entering a beer-themed haiku contest, only to come in second to someone who used the word “breast-ess-es” in hers.

I don't think I told you about this part. When I went to the beer company’s online store to claim my prize (a certain amount of dollar credit toward an item in the store), there was something wrong with the outside vendor who operated the store and my order wouldn't go through. I called the beer company and finally got my lime green hoodie—in the wrong size. I offered to exchange it for the correct size, but the beer company people, who were very nice, let me keep it (I gave it to a friend who’s an extra-small), and they sent me the right size (not an extra small). So, all’s well that end’s well, albeit in something of a cluster*&#!.

That same year, I entered another haiku contest. It was on a website that offered prizes for haiku inspired by a picture they posted on the site. The picture was a a cliff overlooking a stream.

Kind of like this one.

Here’s my haiku:

The view is splendid
A means to a fitting end
Perhaps I will jump

Possibly sensing a disturbed—or maybe sarcastic, or sarcastic and disturbed—person, they did not acknowledge my entry.

I also entered a technology products’ website’s ongoing haiku contest with this:

The mom of a geek
Gets good computer advice
I pay in cookies

Did I win anything? No. Apparently, you have to be a geek, not just spawn one.

Now we come to last week’s haiku fiasco. A newspaper was sponsoring a haiku contest via Twitter. They invited people to tweet their opinion about a recent topic in haiku form. I checked to make sure that this newspaper isn’t owned by the same company as the newspaper for which I write, and, sure enough, nope, they aren't. So no conflict of interest to worry about. I tweeted my haiku, which I felt was quite good. Meaning sarcastic, with a hint of disturbance.

Healthcare Act a mess?
Not to worry—there's a fix:
Don't ever get sick!

I only entered because I wanted to win the first-place prize, which was a Kindle Fire. I didn’t care too much about the second- and third-place prizes, which was publication in the newspaper. I don’t need a byline. I need prizes. Or, better yet, money. But, in this case, a Kindle would’ve been lovely.

A few people retweeted my haiku, bolstering my confidence in its impact. Then it, along with nine other finalists, went on the newspaper’s website, where it was up for public vote. Anyone who knows me knows I suck at public vote. Meaning I personally don’t suck, but what’s sucky is that I have a history of not being able to acquire enough audience to garner the voting of tons of people with multiple email addresses, like, say, a teacher with plenty of students and coworkers. I’m not saying this teacher’s haiku wasn’t as good as mine—or even better—but, well, but.

Obviously, my healthcare haiku didn’t come in first. It came in second, to the one about teachers.

However, this is not where the story ends.

The day the contest was over, a Friday, I got several frantic tweets, an email and a phone message from the newspaper people telling me if I didn’t respond by 4:30 p.m., they’d give my second place win to someone else.

That weekend, I was traveling. I didn’t have Wi-Fi until Saturday. I called, tweeted and emailed my response. HEY, I'M OUT OF TOWN. So, yeah, they gave my second place win to someone else.

I’m a good writer
Not too lucky, however
At winning contests.

I’m not that upset about it, really. Sure, I would’ve been pretty irritated had I come in first and they gave the Kindle to someone else, but that didn't happen. The cool part is that I have another story for my book about what it’s really like to be a freelance writer. Still looking for an agent or publisher. If you know one, email me.

Poker in the Front, Writer in the Rear

I have another story for you. It may not seem as if it's related to writing, but hang in there, I’ll make the connection at the end.

My husband and I like to play poker. We also like helping our community. So, five or six years ago, when a friend asked if we wanted to play in a charity poker tournament, we said “Sure!” Actually, we probably said, “Do you want to go?” and then, “I dunno. Do you?”

 

One of my vintage purses. 

IMPORTANT: While I have been to poker tourneys in my city of residence, this tournament was a fundraiser for a high school girls’ basketball team in a neighboring city. The tourney took place at a restaurant (now defunct) in a city in my county that is not the city in which I live. Now put away the pitchforks and lanterns.

We paid our hundred bucks or whatever it was, went to the restaurant and were directed to the banquet room. I’m pretty good at socializing in situations where I don’t know anyone, but most of the other attendees were not what you’d call chummy. You know the type. Upscale housewives who don’t make friends outside their clique unless they think it will get them a free spa day, and husbands who are deciding whether to buy a new BMW or boobs for their girlfriend.

Oh shut up. I am not bitter. If I had money I’d still shop at thrift stores.

Almost immediately, we were regretting our decision to do something on a Saturday night. When you’re at a fundraiser and the kids who are benefitting from your donation have parents that are standoffish jerks, then you probably should’ve stayed at home, watching TV and eating pizza in bed.

We started playing poker. My husband was in for a while, but got knocked out. I was in and stayed in. I couldn’t help it. I just kept getting great cards. You might think that, because I like playing poker, there was skill involved, but anyone who’s ever played in a small-town tournament knows that the participants who don’t know anything about poker are generally the ones that end up winning. I believe it’s a corollary of Murphy’s Law.

I made it to the final table. And this is where the story gets worse. A guy started heckling me. Yes, heckling. At a fundraiser. For children. He was drunk. He was angry that “Wendy sucks out on the river,” which, in poker language, meant I kept getting a good card at the end of each play. Which was not entirely accurate, but I assume that’s how I beat him. I don't know. I wasn't keeping track. At that point, I just wanted to win a prize to make up for the crappy evening.

At first I thought the heckler was kidding. He wasn’t. So my six-foot-four-inch husband stood up and politely told him to knock it off. The heckler was suddenly quiet.

Worse yet, the guy sitting next to me at the final table kept taking chips off my stack in a “joking” fashion, but was actually keeping some. He also kept looking at my hole cards. He was cheating while pretending to be cute.

I think I came in seventh place, which made me seventh in line to pick from a pool of donated prizes. I chose a flowerpot in which there were some of those plastic pick thingies that go into bouquets to hold the little gift tags. I believe there were five picks, each with a gift card to a restaurant.

During the game, someone had stolen one of the gift cards.

And this is why I kill people in my books.

Free eBook, Unless You're Wendy's Parents

I’ve told you the saga of THRIFT ME DEADLY, right? No? Oh, man, it really is a saga.

I wrote this book about five years ago. I thought it was “experimental fiction,” but my daughter the English major—as in college, not British military—told me, no, it’s just fiction. Weird-creepy-I-can’t-believe-you-wrote-that-and-you’re-my-mom fiction, but still fiction.

I prefer to call it a “kitschy, dark thriller.” Because that’s what it is. A funny-but-painful diary of a thrift store-loving serial killer. She shops for cool stuff, she kills people, she shops some more, wash, rinse, repeat. I’d like to make it Lucite purse-clear (a point of reference understood by thrifters and vintage collectors) that the shopping part is the only trait I share with my protagonist.

With I MURDERED THE PTA and I MURDERED THE SPELLING BEE, people in my community purchased the book to see if they were in it, which they weren’t. Also, there were quite a few that asked who certain characters were in real life. As if a hunky police detective has ever fallen in love with me. No, that’s never happened, that I know of. I usually don’t find out about unrequited crushes until high school reunions, and the last one I attended was 22 years ago.

But we’re talking about THRIFT ME DEADLY. In 2009, as part of my experiment to send out something writing-related every day of that year, I submitted it to the Fabri Literary Prize competition, thinking I’d never win. Why? Because I’m always a bridesmaid, that’s why. So I decided to self-pub it as an ebook on Smashwords, a place to self-pub ebooks. Shortly after that, I got an email from the Fabri people saying THRIFT ME DEADLY was a top three finalist in the Fabri Literary Prize competition. I frantically called the guy in charge of the contest and left a message asking if the book’s being on Smashwords disqualified it. He said, no, just unpublish it while the judges are deliberating. I remember the conversation well, because he called me back on my cell phone while I was driving and I had to pull over to talk to him. He was very nice, but I still didn’t think I was going to win.

I didn’t. You know, bridesmaid. That’s me. Big, ugly, pink dress with a bow on the back. But the real bummer is that, even though it was a finalist, it doesn’t say anywhere on the Fabri website who the finalists are or were. It only has each year's winners. So you’ll have to take my word for it. My daughter, who was a high school student (and not yet an English major) at the time, was in the car with me when I answered his call. She’s my witness, so ask her. She’s frustratingly honest. Before she wanted to be an English professor, she hoped to become a Supreme Court justice, so there you go.

Actual maid of honor dress from my 1985 wedding. No bow in back, thank goodness.

After the contest I returned THRIFT ME DEADLY to Smashwords (even gave it away as a freebie as part of a donation thing for servicepeople overseas), took it down to rewrite it, re-published it as an ebook, and also put it on Createspace. It’s now available in paperback and for Kindle, but only on Amazon, because Amazon has a deal whereby if you sell strictly through them, you get to retire as a multimillionaire. Or something not even remotely like that.

You can get THRIFT ME DEADLY for free as an ebook right now until May 14 if you go to Amazon. Please do not read this book if you are easily offended. By anything. And please do not read it if you are my parents. See you on Mother's Day, mom!

Thrift Me Deadly Book Trailer

All the News That’s Fit to *$@! Up

This guy.

WARNING: Do not click if you are offended by bad language. Or stupid people.


I am so irritated by him. Not because he screwed up on his first day on-air, but because of all the notoriety that followed. Here I am—and maybe here you are—a working freelance writer—or, in your case, some other professional—trying to get that big break, and this guy does something horrible and then proceeds to go on Letterman.

Not actually on Letterman. On his show. And a few others. I don’t know what this alleged anchorman is doing now, but he must’ve been paid for his fifteen minutes-worth of appearances. Meanwhile, I’m sending proposals for freelance writing jobs where my competition is bloggers who charge half as much as I do. Or will do it just for the writing cred.

Look, I don’t want to be famous. That is, I’m content with whatever modicum of fame it is that I have. I just want enough money to be comfortable, and for my husband not to have to climb ladders for the rest of his life, and I’m willing to work for it. If all it took was saying curse words, then I’d have a #@$!-load in the bank right now.

In other, lighter news, and also observed on the news—the business news, that is—I saw this perfect-haired business reporter talking about an event she’d attended that was sponsored by all-powerful magnate Warren Buffett. She proceeded to hold up a white paper-wrapped box of See’s Candies (owned by Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway) and pointed out that ye olde tymey portraits on the box were of Buffett and Charlie Munger (vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway).

I don’t know if I saw it wrong or what, but I don’t think that was Charlie Munger. Although I can understand the error.

At least the business reporter didn’t use any swear words. Mrs. See would never have approved.

Speaking of Writing

Last month I was invited to speak to another group of wonderful women—the ESO Book Lovers—who put up with my juvenile one-liners. They didn’t seem to mind the one about my pilcrow* tattoo—otherwise known as a paragraph mark. You can see it over there, to your right. You can also guess what I said about it. Go ahead. Guess. It has to do with it being P… on my leg.

*Microsoft Word does not recognize the word "pilcrow." It keeps giving me the red, squiggly line. It does, however, recognize the word "squiggly."

So, yeah. That's me. What you see is what you get. So much for looks being deceiving. Goofy is as goofy does. Life is like a box of chocolates—nobody eats the marzipan.

I’ll be speaking at the June 11 meeting of the Ventura County Writers Club. The VCWC and I go wayyyy back, when I was a novice writer. At that time, I was a stay-at-home mom who’d sold a few articles and essays, but mostly wrote risqué greeting card copy. I worked as a freelancer for a greeting card company that would fax me (this was before email) dirty cartoons and I’d come up with the copy. It was and still is my favorite job ever. Pretty good money, challenging and fun. Would love to do it again. A bonus is that I no longer have to hide the pictures from my kids, who are now grownups, and I'm sure have seen much worse. Thank you, Internet.

I was on the VCWC board for years, but haven’t been a member for a while, mostly because I belong to the Groucho Marx School of Club Membership. Although, I did win the club's short story contest in 2005. Got $500, publication in an anthology, and it was the last short story I wrote that I actually got paid for.

I’m pretty pumped about doing a talk for them, which will be similar to the one I gave the book lovers’ group—all about my wacky career as a freelancer. I'll tell them the truth about rejections, always-a-bridesmaid outcomes, and lots of near misses—which is one of those phrases I hate because it really should be “near collisions.”

But no matter the outcome, no matter how bummed I get, and how much I want chuck it all and work as a greeter at Walmart, I keep writing.

Why? Because.