Overstatements and the Writer

What I’m reading: White Butterfly by Walter Mosley
What’s on the iPod: Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend

What a week. I thought it would be slow. That was Monday. By Wednesday, I had three projects, two due in a week and a third needing some attention before Thanksgiving. Then there’s the new client I’ll meet with next week. Today I intend to prop my feet up on Jenn Mattern‘s footstool and have a NaNo write-in session with her.

Who says November and December are the slow months?

That leads me to today’s post. Overstatements. You’ve heard them; maybe even uttered a few yourself. I’ve heard everything from “Writing is dead” to “No one reads blogs anymore” to “It’s a recession; there’s no work.” Then there’s the infamous “December is slow” myth, which I’ve uttered myself. Truth be told, it is pretty slow normally, but not judging from the last two years I’ve had.

Why do we love a generalization? Because if we generalize — “Freelancing is dying” — we don’t have to try. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about the demise of freelance writing. For years people have been going on about why freelancing is circling the drain. Know what? It’s still here, and from my own perspective, the clients are multiplying. Oh, and to that “No one makes money in freelancing anymore” notion; nonsense. That’s your fear talking. Or you’re accepting what cheap clients are telling you.

Then there are the overstatements about marketing. “I tried that. It didn’t work.” That one gets my back up faster than most overstatements because I know if we look further into the “tried” portion of that statement, we’d see someone poked at marketing — just a few short jabs of effort — before throwing in the towel. You can’t try once and accept the result as total defeat. That’s not how marketing works.

In one unnerving case of overstatement, I remember a chap on a forum complaining about how all the high-paying jobs were gone. He said it was pointless for anyone to continue in freelancing because it simply wasn’t lucrative anymore. Well, you know me; I had to counter that. After I’d told him how well I was doing and how well many of my writer friends were doing, the truth finally came out: He was only doing this writing thing “for fun” and I took him too seriously since he considered himself retired from writing. Imagine if anyone took him seriously, though…

That’s what you get when you adopt an overstatement. You get a sweeping generalization that’s been formed through one person’s very specific, very skewed filter. Unless there’s something solid backing that up, don’t trust it.

Still, there are some general statements that remain true (and may always be true):

Content mills will never pay you enough. I get that it’s “easy” money, but it’s also low-paying work that teaches you bad habits, such as skimming and revising someone else’s content instead of creating your own original piece.

Your career will be as good as the effort you put into it. If you put little effort into finding new clients or learning new skills, your career will grow a little (or not). If you put a lot of effort into those areas, your career will grow even more. You control the path and the outcome. So maybe stop blaming the economy, the content mills, or the clients? And to those clients…

Chasing the low-hanging fruit results in the same. If you’ve ever lamented that freelancing is dead or no one pays writers what they’re worth anymore, think about your process. Maybe the reason you can’t charge more or get past that type of client who expects it all for bargain prices is because you’re looking in the same dried-up pool for work. Increase your rates, move away from these people, and go find clients who value your skills.

If you refuse to try new things, you’ve already failed. I threw this one in because it’s often the crux of the problem. That website you have may be getting you clients, but if you haven’t updated it in years or your images/wording is outdated, you’ll never know how many potential clients walked away before contacting you. And what about those ten-year-old brochures? Is that computer image on the front as obsolete as the machine itself? What methods or materials are you using that are dating you beyond a client’s comfort zone?

Writing is dead if you believe it is. If you harbor that naysayer attitude and use it as your excuse to not try harder, congratulations. You’ve just created your own reality. Any time you believe without verifying, you’re allowing someone’s own personal failure to shape your own career. It’s like letting that neighbor with the ratty lawn and troublemaking kids tell you how to mow your grass or raise your children. You wouldn’t put up with that, right? Then don’t put up with overstatements.

What overstatements have you heard? 
Which ones bug you most?