Author: Brian

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.

“You can leave that on, if you want,” my dad said.

He was sitting in the passenger seat of my beat-up surprisingly-still-running late 90’s Honda Accord. He looked his full 86 years old; his neck held solidly by a body brace that was required to keep his spine in place so that the metal rods fused by surgery into his vertebrae a few weeks previously could heal correctly.

“Oh?” I asked. I had reflexively paused the music that had started playing as soon as my iPhone had connected to the head unit that was the one upgrade I’d added to this old car. Automatically playing Apple Music is one of the most frustrating “features” Apple has added. What if I’d been listening to podcasts earlier? Doesn’t matter. Automatically play Apple Music.

He’d needed the surgery to repair the damage that he’d taken falling down the stairs into the basement of my sister’s house, where he had his own living space for the past couple of years. Prior to that accident he had been pretty mobile and self-sufficient, driving for Uber for bar money when he wanted to. But now, after breaking ribs and parts of his spine, and getting him into the hospital and the surgery and then the complications after the surgery. Some of those complications are the ones that arise when an old man who wants to embody the American myth of self-sufficiency doesn’t want to cause any trouble or report any pain or discomfort or ask for any help at all.

“That was The Cure,” I said. “You liked that?”

“Yeah!” he laughed. “I kinda did.”

We were getting him to a follow-up for his surgery. I was scared and sad seeing him so humbled, but grateful that he was still kicking and that the doctors and surgeons were able to piece him back together for a little bit longer.

When mom passed away twenty years ago, I did not have the best relationship with this man. In fact, one of the last things I said to mom in her final days was “Don’t leave me with him,” but the situation had changed over the past decades. I was mad at him for things that mom had long forgiven him for, actions that she saw as helpful to their relationship. “If he’s going to be with someone when I’m gone,” she’d said, “who better than my sister?” My family would have made good guests on the Jerry Springer Show.

I unpaused the music and the melodic synths started again. Robert Smith’s quavery voice unusually hopeful and earnest. “This song is called ‘Friday I’m In Love’ dad.”

The Cure has been around for decades. I was lost in the thought that my dad had somehow missed them. But they weren’t really in his demographic, were they? Dad was never very punk, never very rock and roll. He was working class. Dirt under his fingerprints. Calloused hands from handling tools for work and play.

I laughed. “It’s one of their happier songs.”

And dad smiled and listened to noted weirdo Robert Smith pining for his love. I put the car into gear and we headed out to his appointment.

OK, it’s the first of the month, I’ve been in a rut, and I have the urge to see if I can get a streak going. What about trying 500 words a day for as many days in a row as I can manage? Maybe possibly for the whole month, 30 days in a row? A little mini-NaNoWriMo, if you will (which I’ve attempted but have never completed, so it’s an annoyance.)

I just need the motivation. I won’t count this post; this is the announcement post, the getting-started. Let’s shake the dust off this blog and get going, shall we?