Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left to Lose

I'm a writer who hasn't been writing much. Not here, not really anywhere. Of course, there's a long and involved backstory.

First of all, though Mr. Savant and I were legally and officially married last December, our wedding -- complete with ivory dress, bridesmaids, and an open-bar reception -- was held over July 4th weekend. So, needless to say, I'd been distracted pulling together the last minute details of that whole shebang.

Second, on June 19th, I fractured my left foot in two places (another long story) and have been immobilized and doped up on the loveliness of narcotic painkillers.

And third, but definitely not least, as of July 1, I no longer count Mr. Big as one of my clients. On June 29th, I got an email from Mr. Big's subordinate, my editor, stating the need to renegotiate my month-to-month contract. The terms of the proposed new contract basically amounted to twice the work, half the money, penalties if I did not deliver more than 1,000 words a day, and thus the complete elimination of any extra available time to work on projects for other clients.

So, I declined to renew my contract. The liberation and the happiness I feel because of this decision are ... I can't even put it into words. It's pretty fucking blissful, and that's not just the Vicodin talking.

I've reached out to a number of other contacts and have lined up a decent amount of work thus far, so I'm not quite as fearful as I used to be.

The problem is that I've been so excited in my freedom that I've taken to slacking off. Slacking off a hell of a lot. I've written a few pieces; lined up some additional projects over the next couple weeks, but mostly I've been cleaning my house, reading, watching HGTV and The Discovery Channel, and taking naps whenever I damn well feel like it.

The first two days I convinced myself that I was preoccupied with last-minute wedding plans. Last week I begged exhaustion from the whirlwind that was my wedding, the reception, and our micro-honeymoon in Cape May, NJ for two days. This week ... this week I have no excuse at all. I've just been lazy.

It's 11 pm on Wednesday night, and I haven't written a word all week -- at least not a word I get paid for. I did an interview today for a project, and I've lined up some more interviews for tomorrow. But I have deadlines fast approaching and no serious motivation to meet them.

I know this is my rebellious, immature self fighting against my own best interests. And I know, vaguely, that my mind needs to reset itself and 'heal' from the hell that was working for Mr. Big. But at some point, I have to put my foot down and just get on with it! I hope that point comes soon ...

Cutting Your Losses

I'm struggling with a decision--do I dump Mr. Big, my major client, my main source of income?

My reasoning: Mr. Big is my biggest client and is also my most difficult. I'm on a month-to-month contract. I am not a full-time employee. Yet I'm expected to maintain the same level of 24/7/365 availability, carry an incredibly heavy workload and contribute to strategy and planning sessions as though I were.

None of this is in my contract. And while Mr. Big continues to cut staff, has mandated that all full-time employees accept a 10 percent pay cut and take one unpaid furlough day every two weeks, I'm supposed to carry on joyfully, optimistic about the future. Layoffs continue, advertising revenue is rapidly shrinking, traffic to the sites is ebbing. This ship is going down like the Titanic.

I worked out the numbers the other day, and I'm supposed to deliver this for around $200 per story. I average about 600 words per story, which comes out to about $0.34 per word. That's paltry. I do have other clients that pay just slightly more, but they also treat me well. They understand that I am, for all intents and purposes, a mercenary. They are respectful of my time and my other clients and they appreciate my skills.

So, I'm seriously considering ditching Mr. Big as a client. The amount of stress, worry and despair it's causing me mentally, not to mention the time I spend daily working on pieces isn't worth the money. At what point do you stop bailing water out of a sinking ship and start swimming?

But then I get scared. What will I do without that income? What if I can't find enough other clients to make up for that? I've told myself in the past that I'd put up with this until the bitter end, until Mr. Big decides to get rid of me. But I am just not sure anymore how long I can hold on. But to voluntarily throw those checks overboard ... is that sheer madness? Or will it save me from insanity?

I'll have a slight cushion if I do so. Mr. Big pays invoices 45 days after I bill, which means I get paid for work I did two months ago.

I'm really torn, and I'm waiting for the last thread connecting me to Mr. Big to fray further and just ... snap.

Busy as a Bee

I've been incredibly busy. This is a good thing. I haven't been getting paid in a timely fashion, which is decidedly NOT a good thing.

I recently was offered new work from my employment site client that, on top of the average $600 a month I bill them, would amount to my billing an additional $2,000 month. Hells yeah. I'll take it.

I finished a big project for Major Technology Firm, which they said they loved. And yet, I've haven't gotten paid for the last two pieces I wrote for them, which they also said they loved.

Up to this point, I've had steady work that was easy to bill and simple to keep track of. Now, with more clients, more overlapping projects and new opportunities popping up, I need a system, a software program, something to help me keep track of when I billed whom, when I was paid, if I were paid, etc.

Tomorrow I'll write my requisite 500 words and then I'll get to nagging non-paying clients to find out where my damn money is. And then I have to make some calls to confirm vendors and plans for our wedding, which is in 26 days.

Mr. Savant is headed to the West coast for a business trip tomorrow through Friday, and it will be nice to have some extended alone time. I say that now knowing that by Tuesday night I'll miss him terribly.

Now, I have to go to bed and try to get some sleep.

Turn of Phrase

When I first started writing and reporting, I used to record all my interviews and then transcribe later. Let me tell you, it was thankless. Grueling. Annoying. Tedious. Frustrating. Pain-in-the-ass, Etc.

As I became more comfortable interviewing, my fingers (which were typing at about 60 or 70 words per minute before) became more adept at keeping up with what my ears were hearing.

So now, I simply type along with the person to whom I'm speaking. Of course, there are fast talkers and slow talkers, slurrers of words and folks with extremely precise pronunciation. There are eloquent speakers and stammering, 'ummm' and 'uhhh'-ers who can't quite get the words to come out right.

So, sometimes my notes from an interview say something like this: "...functionality built in in the event of an event."

What?!

Don't Drag Me Down

Once upon a time, I was in second grade. In an attempt to teach us proper research skills (or something, who knows), our class was given an assignment to pick a topic, use one source and write a short report on the subject.

At that age, 7 or 8, I was obsessed with horses. I read everything I could about horses, horse care, different breeds, showing requirements, bloodlines ... I was convinced that if I just gathered enough logical, sound information about their care and feeding that I could coerce my parents into getting me a horse. That never happened, and as it turns out, I'm allergic to hay dust, but that's another story.

I decided to do my report on Morgan horses. (If you want to know about them, just Google it.) But, as was and still is my way, I procrastinated. I put the report off until the last minute, and the night before it was due, copied the Encyclopedia entry word for word, and turned in the report.

That was my first and last experience with plagiarism. After a call to my parents, a spanking, and a new assignment for which I was to write about plagiarism, why it was wrong, and how to avoid it, there was no way I was ever going to endure that humiliation again.

As an English/journalism major in college (hat tip to Bruce Reynolds, my absolutely amazing, fucking incredible journalism professor), it was brought home again and again that a good, ethical journalist does their own research, writes their own words, in their own voice ... etc. etc. etc. And Prof. Reynolds had a saying that sticks with me to this day: "Even if your mother says she loves you, VERIFY."

I do that and more. With the advent of the Internet, it's even more important. But it also opens up new avenues and gray areas that can get me into trouble. Publicly available information is a gold mine for a journalist, but some people interpret the use of that information differently. Anyway, again, that's another post.

Fast-forward 25 years from that fateful day in second grade to a time about 6 months ago. I'd just begun working on a steady, month-to-month contract with Mr. Big. Our Web traffic was in the toilet, and Mr. Big hit upon a strategy to boost our page views, individual story traffic and our click-through rates.

Each of us, full-time or contractor, was to look through Google's Science/Technology and Business News pages, find a story of interest to our readers, and do what we call a "write-through," a reworking of an existing piece that another publication had posted, had picked up by Google and was generating a lot of traffic.

I was appalled, to say the least. Memories of second grade flooded back, and I voiced my objections to Mr. Big.

"This is dangerously close to plagiarism," I said. "What happens when someone decides our pieces are just way too close to theirs? This is so wrong." Others agreed. Mr. Big assured us that if we were extremely careful, we could avoid any issues. And hinted that we might all be out of a job if our traffic didn't improve.

Against my better judgement, I went along with it.

Six months go by. About a month ago, Mr. Big brought up a sore subject -- a former colleague of ours who'd just been fired the week before because her stories (Google or no) weren't bringing in enough traffic. He advised us that our write-through quota would increase, and that we'd each be required to do at least one a day.

Again, we all objected, and at that point he again brought up our former co-worker, saying that if we didn't want to suffer the same fate, we'd have to do this.

This is all a long-winded intro to my main reason for blogging this today. Yesterday, another magazine whose story I referenced for one of my write-throughs accused me of plagiarism.

I'm furious. Not really at them, honestly, but at myself. Why did I go along with this knowing full well what could happen? Why did I let Mr. Big's threats get to me? What the fuck is wrong with me? I KNOW BETTER THAN THIS.

Yeah, Mr. Big pays my bills and he's the main source of income for me right now. But is it really worth selling our my journalistic integrity? I have nothing but my reputation as a freelancer, and if that's ruined, I'm utterly fucked (for lack of a better term.)

I don't know yet what's going to happen. Mr. Big claims he'll back me up and has responded to the complaint. But who knows?

I'm pissed and I'm scared and I'm never doing anything like a write-through again, even if it costs me my one big, steady client.

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

The sun is out. No, really. The SUN. It's not supposed to last long; chance of thunderstorms again late this afternoon and tomorrow, but hey, I'll take it.

Last night I stayed up late writing two pieces -- both on network services management and monitoring solutions from different vendors -- that I will file today and Monday. This means I'm pretty much off the hook today, except for a client kickoff call and a vendor briefing.

Yesterday I had some errands to take care of, and Monday I'm having a financial advisor come over to discuss how to manage my money, talk about life insurance, college funds for Future Little Savants, long-term care plans for Mr. Savant's and my parents, you know, all that morbid stuff that you actually have to start thinking about as you and your parents get older.

One last thing. As a technology writer, it seems completely ridiculous that Microsoft's newest slogan is Life Without Walls. Because how are you supposed to have windows/Windows without walls to support them?

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

I always seem to blog in the middle of the night. It just seems right, somehow, to be in semi-darkness, posting my thoughts and the happenings of my day after it's all been done, right before I sleep.

So, as I've mentioned before, I have one steady client (we'll call this client Mr. Big) for whom I write at least 500 words a day. In addition to that, I have a client for whom I write anywhere from 500 to 2,000 words a week, depending on my 'bandwidth,' to use a buzzword. And I have a couple other clients from which work comes sporadically, once every couple months. It works out to a pretty steady stream of income, especially from Mr. Big.

Mr. Big pays the bills. He keeps the lights on, buys groceries and gas and even pays for my yoga habit. But there's a major issue with Mr. Big. The person that I report to -- for lack of a better way to phrase it, my 'boss,' -- is impossible to please.

This person is one of those hyper-manic, never-sleeps, control freak workaholics. This person believes they are an amazing writer, editor and manager, and is not. This person is, as a fellow writer once put it, like a ball hog on a basketball team. They talk the talk about teamwork, ethics, a common goal, and then ignore these platitudes when it's game time.

They desperately try to make every play themselves. They lay out a game plan and/or strategy, and then change the rules as it suits them, often without informing teammates that they're playing by 'house rules.'

They'll act as though they're on your side, that they want to support and encourage you, but then exploit any weaknesses you show them to grab accolades for themselves. Or privately push you to work on one particular 'play,' and then publicly berate you for wasting your time on an unimportant, meaningless pursuit.

It's ridiculous. It leads to uncomfortable situations, to say the least.

To finally move away from the basketball analogy, it results in my working for hours on researching, interviewing sources and writing pieces that are promptly discarded, often without a valid reason. There have been instances where I wasn't even aware I should have been working on a piece, but am then reprimanded for not doing so. This person has neglected to send me necessary background material I needed to work on stories, and then freaked out when I didn't file a piece on that topic, though I repeatedly asked for the information.

Enough complaining. I really could go on and on here, but the point is that there's a huge contrast between that person and my other clients, who cannot say enough good things about my work. I feel like I was going somewhere else with this, but I can't really remember where.

Probably something about how it takes all kinds, you have to take the good with the bad, The Client is Always Right, blah blah blah. But it also makes me think about how I really shouldn't put up with bad treatement and unpleasant clients.

I need to start marketing myself more effectively and try to shore up my client list, so that I can ditch Mr. Big, or at least cut down my dependence on that income. I think I'd be much happier if I did so.

This week I've written some personal profiles of job seekers for an employment assistance company, a piece on Citrix's latest enterprise and consumer virtualization tools, an article on some incredibly cool network virtualization software, and have done a kickoff meeting with a Huge Software Company client for a piece I'm doing on innovation in the automobile industry. Pretty cool stuff.

Tomorrow, an abstract for the software company and a piece for Mr. Big, and then maybe I can start reaching out to more potential clients.