Whiny Freelance Writing Fails: A Rant

This post is a full-on rant. Grab something to drink while a get a few things off my chest.

The last month has been an eye-opener in a few ways. Our current stay-the-hell-home situation has exacerbated some of the things that before, when I had some modicum of patience, I was able to look at with curiosity and mild irritation.

I’m talking about whiny writers.

We’re all a tad whiny right now, so forgive me if I lump all whiny writers in with the select few I’m really wanting to go on about. I’m whiny too, as this post will reveal.

What I’m not is expectantly, helplessly, nastily whiny (and I’ll agree to that last point being questionable as you read through this post).

It’s the helpless part I’m tired of. It’s also the expectant part. In the last three weeks alone, I’ve seen writers get pretty pissy because:

• No one understands how they can’t find work
• People aren’t responding quickly enough
• Other writers aren’t holding their hand enough

To that I say:

Put on your adult pants and grow up already.

I frequent a forum or two where some of the posters get downright nasty and don the “You’re not being of much help to me” attitude.

In one case, some writer got upset because she didn’t get the expected feedback to her question. Instead, other writers, who were indeed being helpful, pointed out that she needed to concentrate on editing her work for starters.

She’d wanted a cheerleader. She’d received coaching. And foolishly, she got defensive instead of taking the advice for what it was — helpful. (Her sentences were a bit … rough.)

Another case is someone who wants a job, but not any job. She wants a custom-designed job that’s full time, yet freelance. She needs to work from home, and she tells that to employers at her interviews for the in-office jobs she’s applied for. And they’re just not smart enough to figure out that they should restructure their entire business operations to fit her needs. She didn’t lash out when she was told quite cordially that she was dreaming, but she didn’t stop whining, either. She’s continuing the search for her unicorn.

Then there are the writers who are ticked off because hey, I asked you a question an hour ago and no one has bothered to answer. You’re all useless (he didn’t quite say that, but close).

Yep. Freelance writers, apparently, exist merely to answer his posts. We must forego our work and babysit the forums so that in the event that this unknown human, who has never interacted with anyone on the forum, posts something, we can all jump on it and tell him how fabulous he is. Or how wronged he is. Or how sympathetic we are.

This post has a point beyond my bitching. It’s this:

[bctt tweet=”You cannot run a #freelancewriting business built around your ego.” username=”LoriWidmer”]

Why? Because honey, no one has time to deal with your mood swings.

Not clients.

Not other writers.

Not anyone in a position to hire you.

No one.

That’s the reason a lot of clients disappear. It’s the reason some writers, maybe even those who are complaining the most, are struggling. The expectation that a client owes a writer anything other than compensation for a job well done is ludicrous.

And yet, here we are.

When I was on staff at a magazine, I had a call from one of the big advertisers. We had an excellent relationship, and they were always good about giving us interviews when we needed commentary.

This call was a request: is there any way your team could not send R (a freelancer we’d used on occasion) to interview our execs? Last time he did, he’d insulted our CEO, gotten facts wrong, and had been nasty throughout the interview.

Mind you, the contact was not telling us what to do, but relating his experience with that freelancer. The company was more than happy to continue interviewing, but that guy had burned a bridge with them.

This is a multi-billion dollar company that wanted to avoid working with a freelancer because of his attitude: a multi-billion dollar company that spent big advertising dollars with that magazine every year.

It. Freaking. Matters.

We are not freelance writers. We are owners of small businesses. We are in the business of providing writing services. Our job is to make the clients happy, not expect the clients to bend over backwards to make us happy. Yes, we do require a few things from clients, including:

• Payment for our work
• Respectful behavior
• Respectful conversations

Notice what isn’t in there —

Ego.

No one should run a business built around their ego. It’s the quickest path to failure. You cannot get emotional about every bump in the road. You cannot tell off every client who’s asked for a revision. You cannot think that their lack of enthusiasm for what you think is outstanding writing is personal. It’s not. It’s their business. They have the right to have it represented the way they want to represent it.

No one gives Shit One or Two about your ego, frankly. If you want to call yourself the greatest writer since Hemingway, that’s your business. As long as you keep that ego in check when dealing with clients, you should be fine. But if your client hates the results of your work, it’s also a moot boast as your client didn’t hire a Hemingway clone. They hired your skills to get their job done. And you didn’t to their satisfaction.

That’s what freelance writing is all about — doing great work for clients who entrust you with their projects.

 

Writers, tell me your encounters with the whiny side of freelancing.