Flailing about freelancing
I know there are people out there, probably quite a few, who make money finding writing gigs, writing on topics and subjects as varied as there are grains of sand on the beach, and then getting paid for that writing. They always say that they don’t get a lot of money for it, and that’s probably true in the grand scheme of things, but I imagine that the pay is at least more than enough to cover the basic needs of a simple life.
A simple life, the basic needs – shelter, food, minimum medical care – that’s all I need. And when I put my mind to it, I can write. Why am I unable to connect these two dots?
I have a mental block on how. How do I find writing gigs? Where does one look? What websites, who do I ask (beg) for a chance? How much searching before I land a single lead that becomes a paying gig?
And then I have the doubts. I’ve been writing on this blog for decades now and it hasn’t blown up. Writing, alone, isn’t enough. There’s marketing and advertising and, yes, a bit of luck. There’s demographics. There’s the difference between writing for one’s self and writing for an audience. Maybe I don’t have what it takes.
The answer to these twin obstacles is: do it. Practice. Learn. Try. Try and try again. Grind. Keep going. If I want this, I have to not not do it, if you’ll forgive me deploying a double negative. These are skills that can be learned, and others have learned them, and I am still alive and therefore capable of learning and growing, even as old as I am (and I’m approaching my 6th decade which just seems impossible since in my head I’m still a kid in his 20s.)
The advice I’ve always seen for content creators these days is post regularly. Keep up the pace. Try to make your content a habit. This goes for TikTok, YouTube, and even self-publishing authors on Kindle or other platforms. Don’t just make a post and hope it goes viral; keep going, eventually there’s a critical mass or you have that one thing that resonates and lands in a lucky spot in the panopticon, and if you keep going after that you can retain some of the new audience members that showed up for your spike of attention-grabbing content.
Ideas are easy. I have a bunch of them stuck away in notes or rattling around in my brain. That’s not the problem. I need to actually execute the ideas, and post them somewhere where others can see them, and in a regular place where they can keep on being found. Which is what I’m doing now, I suppose. This project, the Daily Story Project, is another attempt for me to get back on the horse and try to tame it.
Here goes nothing. Trying is the lesson. If I’m not trying, I’m stagnating.