Ever since I started down the long and...perilous...road of a working stiff (that would be Junior year in High School, with an illustrious stint as a fast-food peon) I've had a very...let's call it "organized" framework to my days. In a nutshell, I've always operated with a set location, wage, and schedule that I could count on to remain more-or-less stable. Even when considering an hourly pay scale and variable shifts, the parameters of my professional life have been pretty consistent. Until very recently, that is. You see, I got this wacky idea, that I should look into getting hired in an editing capacity...since I can't even read anything these days without homing in on the typos, mechanical errors, misused homophones, egregious crimes committed in the area of "sentence structure"etc. (Oh, also my friends and family call me the Grammar Police...which I hope is an affectionate term. Hey, can I get a badge? And maybe a stunner?....I promise to wield it only in the case of reaaallly BAD mistakes, okay?)
So in the Fall, I signed on to a couple of freelance sites that consolidate and post a wide variety of jobs. I set up a profile, wrote a few sample cover letters, and started trolling through the feeds, looking for likely opportunities. Needless to say, with no "formal experience" to speak of (just my sincere assurance that yes, I am good at English...Cross my heart!), it was slow going in the beginning. I was also deliberately picky about what I chose to apply for, trying to ensure as best I could that 1)I really would be a good fit and 2) I got the sense that I would have a snowball's chance of being selected from the often-considerable pool of candidates. For a while...no nibbles at the job line. However, I'm nothing if not patient (Hahahahaha! Sorry, I meant "stubbornly persistent"...), so I kept at it in my "free time", spending at least a few minutes each day on the hunt.
And whattya know--it paid off. Just before Christmas, a client hired me for an ongoing project, helping him polish his short stories. Then, this month I got offered a short-term contract to work on a couple of company reports, and another ongoing gig correcting blogposts for business websites. Whoo hoo! On the one hand, of course I'm absolutely elated that I'm finally getting somewhere with this experimental endeavor. On the other hand....compared to my "regular job", I'm laboring for peanuts...so I don't see this becoming a replacement profession anytime soon. And one factor I never had to deal with before--never having been self-employed--is the exhausting and stressful nature of searching for potential employers....Every. Day.
The bottom line is: I don't know where this is going, or even whether it'll turn out to be a successful venture in the long run. I'm basically feeling my way, here, without any guidance (This is one of those situations where mentor would be nice...hmm, I wonder if you can find one of those on Amazon...) So for now, I'm going to focus on the undeniable enjoyment I get from bringing correct English to the world...one document at a time...from my Home Headquarters...while clad in my fuzzy pajamas!
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