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Episode 246: Jenni Gritters on the Freelance Life, Not Waiting for Perfect, and Sh*t Sandwiches
157 Plays4 years ago
Jenni Gritters, @jenni_gritters, a freelance writer and co-host of The Writers' Co-op Podcast with her friend and colleague Wudan Yan, comes by CNF Pod HQ to talk about all things freelance writing.
Support the show by becoming a member at patreon.com/cnfpod.
Newsletter: brendanomeara.com
Twitter and Instagram @CNFPod.
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Transcript
Introductions and Backgrounds
00:00:00
Speaker
I think I wrote in my business plan, journalism budgets are shrinking and I am the substitute teacher. I will come in with no drama, handle something for you for two weeks and then I will leave. Like I think I literally wrote that down.
00:00:20
Speaker
Ah yes, the almighty riff leads us into another CNF Friday, or whenever the hell you listen to this. I'm Brendan Romero, and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. This week I welcome Jenny Gridders to the show, True Grit. How many times in college was she called that?
00:00:48
Speaker
I'm sorry I'm like this. She's 50% of the duo behind the Writers' Co-op podcast. The other 50% is Wudan Yan, freelancer to the stars. She of several episodes ago, go check that out or link up in the show notes. You'll see it. I guarantee it. That's a guarantee. Jenny is one of those six-figure freelancers that makes you say, shut the fuck up. Really? I mean,
00:01:17
Speaker
I mean that in the most flattering way imaginable. You got to believe me when I say that. In this episode, we get tactical about how she went about building her freelance writing business.
Freelancing Journey and Podcasting
00:01:27
Speaker
There's no reason why you can't as well, man. We talk about her freelance business plan, not waiting for the perfect time.
00:01:36
Speaker
Shit sandwiches? Yeah, that comes up. She's the mom to a toddler and the wife to a traveling nurse. They recently relocated from Seattle to Central Oregon, so she's wicked close to me, bro. This episode's brought to you by Casualty of Words, a writing podcast for people in a hurry. That's you. Episodes are me on mic, just like this, for less than three minutes usually.
00:02:03
Speaker
And it's a little shot in the arm. Someone once called it a gummy vitamin of goodness. And someone else was like, I can listen to this while I'm brushing my teeth. That's right. Casualty of words. Writing podcast for people in a hurry.
00:02:17
Speaker
All right, before we get the Jenny, let me give a shout out. Let me out some shouts to a few new Patreon members. Kelly Allen is a tier one CNF-er now for the audio mag only tier. That's a new tier. Cheryl Keffer, hey Cheryl. She comes to some of the CNF and happy hours, is getting the audio mag in transcripts. Jasmine is getting the mag in transcript. Azar, Dale Ingram, and George Parker.
00:02:46
Speaker
anti-tan as well those are the newbies thank you and welcome behind the velvet rope it's totally cool to put your feet up on the coffee table there's cold beverages in the refrigerator non-alcoholic and alcoholic it's your choice help yourself
00:03:05
Speaker
If you want to listen to the hottest literary magazine of 2021, you'll need to be a CNF and member. So head over to patreon.com slash CNF pod and shop around some nice goodies there. I was out for the for a walk the other day and I was thinking that I want to be a magazine and online
00:03:27
Speaker
Audio magazine that pays writers the most maybe not the most but I want to start to be known as like oh That's a place where you can actually make a happy buck. I'm hoping to pay writers I select for this issue $50 for their pieces. That's the that's the hope the more patrons I get members I get the more I can pay writers and the more I can pay writers the more submissions I'll get because people are gonna be like BO
Challenges of Freelancing and Community Building
00:03:52
Speaker
isn't fucking around and
00:03:53
Speaker
And why would I see an Evers? Yeah, sure I need to pay for the production because it is a heavy lift and it's not cheap. But I also want to funnel a lot of those funds into the pockets of people with the courage to submit their work. So speaking of that.
00:04:10
Speaker
Deadline for issue two on the summer themed issue is the 21st of this month. It is 16 days away as of this recording or The publishable day because it's publishing on March 5th. I Want more baby? I'm getting a few but you know, I want a nice little pile. I want some competition and
00:04:31
Speaker
There is competition, but I want this to be like March Madness, man. And why shouldn't it? It is March. Whoa. So if you don't make the cut, don't worry. Because you're not going to get a form rejection from me. You'll get some words. Some words of a little critique. Nothing too much, but something that'll say, hey, this is X, Y, and Z. So guidelines are at the top of the homepage of brendadomare.com.
00:05:02
Speaker
In any case, I don't want to keep you much longer. I have a pretty long outro that you can stick around for if you want. It's gonna be there waiting for you. Otherwise, you can skip it. I feel the skips in my chest. It's a weird cosmic connection to the podcast. I feel the skips. Yeah, see right there. I felt one. Yeah, because you know, about 10 seconds from now,
00:05:32
Speaker
Who would I be if I didn't introduce the pair of you, you and Jenny Gridders? Let's hit it. Yeah, so I was born in Boston. My dad was in residency there, so my family knew, not a soul.
00:05:56
Speaker
And we lived there for two years and then moved to the west coast, which is where I spent most of my childhood. So I spent most of my time growing up in Seattle, which would explain why I'm very outdoorsy. I love hiking. I spent a lot of my time outdoors as a kid. I actually, my parents just moved and so I spent some time digging through all those boxes of, you know, like report cards from when you're in fourth grade that
00:06:20
Speaker
your parents keep and found all this stuff about wanting to be a writer when i grew up i found all these little like books i'd written and things so um yeah it was a pretty creative outdoorsy kid i think it's sometimes amazing how those things track you know like 30 years later um i still have a lot of the same interest which is kind of screwy and cool
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, I know I have, back at my mom's place, I believe it's there, because I'm starting to work on some middle school essays and high school essays, and I know I have a box of notes from girls and
00:06:59
Speaker
other things that we would pass back and forth and like in this Nike shoe box and I hope she hasn't thrown it out but it's like such a gold mine of just weird awkward teenage stuff and I'm like ooh I gotta get my hands on this stuff
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, totally. My parents gave me a stack of like 25 journals from when I was in high school. And like, Lord, I can only imagine it's going to take a lot of fortitude to go through them. But I think they'll be fun. There's a lot of fodder in there for sure. I think about like, yeah, things I want to write about things that made me who I am. It was kind of cool to have them move and sort of be forced to, you know, look back in that way that happened a couple of weeks ago.
00:07:40
Speaker
So at what point do you really lean into this idea of being a writer as you go track through high school and into college?
Is Journalism School Worth It?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think when I went to college, my parents really impressed upon me the need to do something
00:07:58
Speaker
practical, I think, my dad's a doctor. And so I sort of leaned into thinking I would maybe be a therapist, which again, I think hilariously tracks with some of the things I ended up being interested in now. But I was a psychology major in college. But while I was completing that major, I did a lot of writing, I was a nonfiction writing minor, and I was doing internships at various magazines, I traveled a lot in college. And so I did a lot of travel writing,
00:08:24
Speaker
But I think I had a pretty starry-eyed view of the fact that I was going to graduate and just write nonfiction essays for a living, which I think is common for a lot of us. And I got to graduation and realized, oh, I have to make some money also. So I applied for a job as a copywriter at Amazon, and I got that. But as a backup plan, my smart, pragmatic professor at Bucknell, where I went to college,
00:08:54
Speaker
forced me to apply to a couple graduate programs in journalism, which was not something I necessarily imagined doing, but was possibly a way to write as a career. And so I got a full-ride scholarship to Boston University's journalism program and ended up, you know, choosing that over Amazon. Had I chosen the Amazon route, I might be very wealthy. Now, it was a neat foray into magazine writing, science writing, and understanding kind of how to do this writing, you know, as a career.
00:09:24
Speaker
That's great. Would you have gone to grad school in journalism had you not gotten a full scholarship? No. People ask me this question all the time. I think it's controversial. For a lot of folks, going to a journalism graduate program means making connections, which can be super important for building a career, especially if you don't come from a background where you know a lot of people in that field. And for me, for sure, that's the biggest takeaway is just the people I know, the connections I made.
00:09:54
Speaker
But yeah, the programs are too expensive. And I don't think as a journalist you can plan on making that much out of the gate and paying back those loans, right? So for me, the thing that made it possible was definitely that there was a scholarship involved. Otherwise, I don't think it would have been a feasible option.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, I earned an MFA back in 2008. So I went through 2006, 2008, a low residency thing. And it's something, and I kind of have to be careful how I frame this because I pitch MFA programs to sponsor the podcast sometimes. So it's hard for me sometimes to endorse it just because
00:10:31
Speaker
I think if you kind of go into it with enough rigor, you can build essentially build your own MFA by reading the right books, making, you know, building a little community, whether it's a writing group that kind of gets a little bigger or, you know, in whatever city you are, I almost feel like you can you can build it yourself and piggyback on each other's experiences in a way, just do the work. And in that sense, you can almost get the same thing out of it by just
00:11:00
Speaker
kind of cobbling it together on your own and you can eschew the debt in that way.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I run a podcast called The Writers Co-op with Wudan Yan, and she is a really interesting counter to me, I think, because she totally DIY-ed her way into long-form journalism. Everything she has done is self-taught, and I would argue that she is more successful at it than most people I know who went to graduate school, right? So I think a lot of it is sort of about how you use whatever opportunities are handed to you. There's not really a
00:11:32
Speaker
That's the thing with writing. There's no one golden path that if you go down it, you're going to end up as a successful person. I really believe that. So, you know, I made a lot of good friends, had a lot of good connections. I think I got a lot of my jobs because of the folks I met in grad school. But yeah, not the rule that you have to do it. I like what you said about how there's not one path. Yeah, there is no one path. I mean, in our podcast, the podcast I run with Wudan, it's all about the business of freelance writing. And one of the things we have pushed on is
00:12:01
Speaker
Tell us what your background is. Tell us if you have a partner. Do you come from money? Because all these things make such a difference regarding how you're able to navigate, right? We all come to the table starting at different points on the stairs, and there is absolutely no way for us to all achieve the same thing.
00:12:19
Speaker
has been striking to me. I feel that notion of being jealous, especially on social media where everything looks better than it is. I think that happens to me a lot where other people think that I am living the dream, and I'm always so careful to say, what I'm doing probably wouldn't work for you. My version works for me, but I'm not going to tell you to replicate what I've done because
00:12:43
Speaker
I have a very specific set of circumstances, right? And I'm coming to this with the privilege of having a partner and all sorts of other things. So yeah, it's one of my big push points, I think, that you have to figure out your own route through this in a way that's both going to make you enough money to live and sort of fuel that creative drive that obviously brought you to writing in the first place.
00:13:04
Speaker
So given that everyone has their own sort of, their experience that they're bringing to the table. And like you said, you don't want, you wouldn't necessarily prescribe everything that you have done to somebody else. So that said, what are some very common things that no matter what base you're starting at, that you could say like, okay, these are like three things that are stone cold. You need to be doing these things to start, to get a start.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think the first thing is that you need proof that you can write on the internet. You know, I work with a lot of young writers in my coaching practice who are trying to make it work as a freelancer. And the first big thing for chasing down clients and getting published is, do you have a place where someone could go to see what you can do?
00:13:55
Speaker
And that doesn't necessarily have to be paid work in the beginning like I hesitate to say like blog for free forever but you know just a few things that show what you can do that's big, I think the second.
00:14:06
Speaker
big bucket is developing a
Building a Freelance Career: Proof, Community, and Confidence
00:14:08
Speaker
sense of community. Like you said, you can maybe MacGyver your way into that MFA a little bit by having a tight writer community. You really can't do this by yourself. I'm very much an introvert. I wish you could, but you cannot. You need people who are going to have your back and hustle you along when you get frustrated with this path, because there's a lot that's very cerebral about writing and a lot of ways that we get in our own way. And for me, at least the only way.
00:14:36
Speaker
to get out of those bad hat spaces is to be surrounded by people who are.
00:14:40
Speaker
understanding of what I'm going through and also like can be like Jenny, you know, get back in the game. And I'm trying to think I think the other bit of this is just that there's a lot of mental and emotional work that comes around taking yourself seriously. I'm a big proponent of therapy in that regard, like working through some of your old stuff to be able to approach this with some level of confidence and understanding that you are
00:15:08
Speaker
Like, you're a business owner if you're running a freelance business, right? You are a writer if you are writing. And those hurdles, I think, are the things that get in our way when it comes to being really creatively productive. There's an element of imposter syndrome that can definitely kick in, because when you identify maybe more as a creative type,
00:15:33
Speaker
It's hard to say that I am also an entrepreneur in a sense, because ultimately, that's where so much of your energy really has to be. So then you can be the best creative self. So how did you maybe wrestle with that if you did it all to identify as not only a creative writer type, but also the type of person who is a business owner and that business happens to be you?
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, I have a good story about this one. I got laid off in 2018 from Wirecutter, which is the New York Times product review site. I was working there. And they decided to eliminate my whole team. And I had no idea. I've been at other places where I knew layoffs were coming. I had no clue. And so it really took me by surprise. I got a little bit of severance, but I had to grapple with a lot.
00:16:25
Speaker
during that time period about my worth as a worker. I was editing there. Did I do something wrong? I was interviewing for other jobs and thinking, I don't know if I want these jobs. It just really forced me to get super clear on what I wanted and what I didn't. I recognized that a lot of these newsroom jobs I was interviewing for were going to be
00:16:47
Speaker
the same crap that I'd been dealing with, that I was frustrated with, overwork, underpay, not really doing the creative work that I was excited about. And I also, by the way, interviewed for some non-journalism jobs and was equally like, oh my God, I'm going to be bored, you know, fundraising writing and things like that.
00:17:05
Speaker
So I had a great therapist, like I said, big fan of therapy who forced me to create a business plan for my quote unquote dream job. Like she was like, okay, if you're going to freelance, like what's it going to look like? I think that exercise really
00:17:21
Speaker
made a difference in terms of taking myself seriously because from the outset of deciding to freelance, which, by the way, I decided I would only do for three months as an experiment. Obviously, three years later, I'm still doing it, but I couldn't get up the nerve to even say like I'm doing this permanently, right? Like the biggest jump I could take was like, I'll try it for the summer.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I think that act of sort of being super strategic and direct about what I wanted started me out on this foot of taking myself seriously and having to think about making room for the financial gains and then making room for the creative stuff because you do need both. Like you said, you need the money to stabilize yourself enough to do their creative work.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think partially it was that exercise and partially it has been a skill gained over time. Every coaching client I have whispers to me that they have imposter syndrome as if it's this dirty little secret. And the reality is that I deal with it all the time when I'm working on new projects. There are certain types of work that I've done so much now that I know and trust that I can be successful at those things. But it is an act of
00:18:33
Speaker
approaching, terrifying, vulnerable things over and over again until you see that you can do them, until you can see and prove to yourself that you can be successful. So it's a mix of pragmatic stuff and mindset work for me, I think. What did that initial business proposal look like?
Crafting a Business Plan and Finding Clients
00:18:53
Speaker
So, Wudan and I are actually launching a course, an e-course, which kind of walks people through this exact method because I do this a lot during coaching. And I didn't realize it was unique until my therapist forced me into sitting there and like, what are my services? What is my mission statement? But yeah, it involved, first of all, checking in with my values, like what kind of work I like. I really am super independent. I like to manage my own time.
00:19:23
Speaker
do not micromanage me or I'll lose my mind. You know, there are very specific things about the way I like to work, the types of projects I like to work on and what I care about. This year, for example, I'm really like stoked on the idea of service, so helping other people. So that's one of my clear values. So it's about defining that I think upfront and then creating a business that allows you to get those things is the only way it's sustainable. So there's a bit of that, a bit of that actual like defining your services. So
00:19:51
Speaker
My services are writing, editing, and coaching. Specifically with writing, I write articles, and I also occasionally write newsletters. Getting really, really clear on that, I got clear on pricing, so how much I was going to charge for those services. I got clear on who I wanted to help. When I launched my business, I was very focused on health-related folks, but especially a health and wellness overlap, like where Eastern and Western medicine
00:20:20
Speaker
overlap. So that's what I wrote about journalistically, and I took on some of those clients who are brands in those spaces. So I was very clear on that. I was very clear on what they needed and how I was going to help them, right? Like I think I wrote in my business plan, journalism budgets are shrinking and I am the substitute teacher. I will come in with no drama, handle something for you for two weeks, and then I will leave. Like I think I literally wrote that down.
00:20:45
Speaker
But yeah, it just involved like that stuff you kind of learned in college about like, what's the need? What service am I going to offer? But it's a total spin on what you initially think about when you're, you know, going into a freelance writing business. Usually you would think about the writing, you wouldn't think about the rest, right? That happens to a lot of people. So it sort of is like nailing down what your best case scenario is before you get started with the work.
00:21:10
Speaker
And you alluded to it there with not thinking about the business side of it, but what else might you identify as common mistakes that you see people making that perhaps burn them out or perhaps they're just not hitting their potential and as a result, they might have to go get an unruly steady day job that just takes them away from this thing that they started that they wanted to do.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's a few things. The first is you need a mix of services and clients. So one of the big mistakes I see people making is like, I'm going to write personal essays. And that's what I do. And that's awesome. That is so important. And that is part of your business plan. But you actually need to have a few other things. I do some writing for an HR company.
00:22:02
Speaker
I actually love it because it's pretty easy. It pays really well and it doesn't suck a lot of my creative energy, right? Like, and then I do some editing. Same thing, low emotional investment for me. I'm helping other people with their writing and that leaves enough creative room for me to do personal essays plus I'm making enough money. So there's this art
00:22:20
Speaker
to mixing the services you're going to offer so that they use different parts of your brain. And I think they're very, like, for example, if I'm having a day where I'm just really not feeling creative, I have this other work I can go do so it's not wasted time, right? Because for me, especially nonfiction writing, like, I really have to be
00:22:41
Speaker
in a sort of clear headed space. And I have a one year old. And so there have been points in the past year where that has not been the case. So to have other services to fall back on has been hugely important. So I didn't have to go get another nine to five job, right? Like, those are my stability. So I think yeah, that's the first is mixing those things. And the second is just like,
00:23:02
Speaker
taking every assignment that comes your way. I did this in the beginning, right? Wudan and I call it the panic hustle. It's like, I have no money. And I'm just going to take whatever comes my way. There's something to be said for doing that early on so that you can think about which things are a fit for you if you're not sure, right? So like, my first few months, I think I did a few projects I just really hated. And it was like, okay, very clear. I'm not going to do those again. But what happens is people fill up their coffer with like,
00:23:32
Speaker
15 different projects that are not paid very well and have no through line. So they're not connected to the mission. They're not like, oh, I'm building my business. It's just like I'm doing random stuff.
00:23:42
Speaker
And I'm not getting paid enough. And I'm overworked. Boom, I'm burnt out and unhappy. I guess I go, you know, I got to go get a full time job. That happens all the time. And so when coaching clients come in, the work there is like, let's go back to the beginning and figure out what you want and define that very clearly what kind of work you think you want. And then we're going to laser focus on that. Also how much you need to make. And we're going to laser focus on clients who can pay you that so you don't get sort of lost in the, I just feel like they're like lost in the chaos of
00:24:12
Speaker
of freelancing in this terrible struggle hustle that, yeah, burnout is real, and it's not a great place to be. Do you end up recommending that instead of like starting on, say, day one, actually, you want to kind of start on day 365 and like work backwards and then try to engineer what it'll look like in more digestible pieces?
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of like auditing your business, right? And looking back at what you've done and thinking about, okay, is this client actually working for me? Like a lot of times people sort of get trapped in these client relationships where they're making crap money and then they're sort of like pinned down and don't have time to do creative work. So it's like looking
00:24:57
Speaker
with a very clear mind, the list of things you've done and thinking, does this work for me? Does this not? I do that at the end of every month, actually, also. I think it sort of helps you pivot. It's like, you know, you don't have to make that mistake for a year or get trapped for a year. Maybe you're trapped for a few months. But that sort of introspection aspect, I think, you know, I'm a yoga teacher, so that's probably why I have this sort of woo woo angle to all of this. But it but it has helped me
00:25:24
Speaker
keep this sustainable, I get bored very quickly. So I need to see when I'm bored and change things. But yeah, I think at the end of the first year, there's never a bad time to do this kind of introspective work, right? Like if it's at the beginning, great. If not, you can always get there a year or two or 10 down the road if you need to.
00:25:43
Speaker
Now when you first started you essentially gave yourself three months and of course that's turned into three years. So in those three months, what did you set in motion and how did you create the momentum that got the flywheel moving?
00:26:05
Speaker
First, I announced my business and cried. I always talk about this. People are like, it's so exciting to launch a business. I'm like, no, it's terrifying. It's actually awful because you've just told everybody that you're going to do this thing you really want. And if you screw it up, everyone will know. That's the reality. So yeah, I think I had this nice two-month padding after getting laid off. I wrote a business plan.
00:26:31
Speaker
Um, in June of 2018, I was like, okay, I'm doing this for the summer. So at the beginning of that month, I told everybody what I was doing. I was super clear about it. Like I am running a freelance writing and editing business. These are my services. These are the things I want to do. I was super amped up. So I was like moving at the speed of light. I think there was a lot of momentum in there. I had a few, part of the reason I jumped into freelancing was because I had a few connections who had said,
00:27:01
Speaker
If you decide to freelance, let me know and I'll give you work. So I did have a few clients that I started with in June and I think a couple of those ended up lasting like my whole first year.
00:27:13
Speaker
You know, that built-in stability, I think, was really lucky. And that was all just based on my network, right? It was based on me just like saying, I got laid off. I need work. It was very shameless. It was not the most fun to do. My strategy is always, I say, like, I'm looking for new clients, not I have no work.
00:27:32
Speaker
Um, but it's still a hard thing, uh, to put yourself out there like that. So I think, yeah, it was a combo of like massive hustle, uh, really talking to people, which is, I'm really not a good classic networker. Like I, I'm, I love to talk to people about what I'm doing. And so that ended up bearing fruit. And I did some pitching, um, not a lot, but some, you know, pitching publications, getting to know new editors, things like that. So.
00:27:58
Speaker
It was really busy. I think the first month I made $15,000 and it was like horrible because I worked way too much and I had to learn to scale it back. But at the outset that kind of money was crazy, right? Like it just seemed wild that I could make that much using my writing skills. So yeah, it was a mix of editing, writing and some reported journalism that month.
00:28:19
Speaker
That's incredible. I think that will blow a lot of people's hair back to hear that. I know when I hear that, I'm bald, but it blows my hair back. How can you get people thinking in those terms that that is possible? Yeah, it is possible.
00:28:43
Speaker
I'll say this, Brendan, like money is a game. Like money is like, if you say to someone, this is how much I charge.
00:28:52
Speaker
Oftentimes, like that's how much they pay you, right? And not necessarily in journalism or traditional writing worlds. Like I say this, keeping in mind that there's sort of a mix of clients in my coffer, right? So like, I'm working with a big retail brand, like, yeah, they're gonna pay me $100 an hour, right? And if they're paying me $100 an hour and I'm working for 20 hours, that's $2,000, right? So I'm pretty big on like figuring out what your
00:29:17
Speaker
income level is what your desired income level is and then basically working backwards and only taking clients who can pay that and then Keeping room for a couple clients who can't pay that but you're really excited about the work, right? So, you know $15,000 meant not a lot of journalism. It was probably like 25% journalism, right? And it meant working really
00:29:40
Speaker
freaking fast. You know, I'm a big fan of project rates. So what happened in those first few months is folks would say like, Okay, we'll bring you on for $5,000 to help with like, a website re up or something, right? And so I knew if I worked like hyperspeed, I was going to get paid double the normal hourly rate. So yeah, it's, it's truly possible, though, it just depends what kind of clients you're trying to find.
00:30:06
Speaker
If you're pitching cold pitching all day long and you're going from one off assignment to another one off assignment, it's pretty impossible to hit that plus you're exhausted. So it's the mix. It's that magic is the mix thing. But I work with lots of folks who bring in a solid like $12,000 a month as freelance writers doing a mix of content and some journalism. So it's doable, I promise.
00:30:31
Speaker
So let's just throw out one major retailer. It's just like use REI, for example. They were one of my big clients that first year. Oh, there we go. Perfect. So what does that look like? You're like, oh, there's REI. Of course they have written content. Somebody is writing that stuff. So how do I, as Jenny Gridders, walk into the door and say, hey, this is what I do. I can be of service to you. Let's do this.
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm pretty ballsy, because that's exactly what I say. You know, ideally, I have a connection in those places, right? Ideally, like, for example, with REI, I knew someone who knew someone, right? So I had someone make a direct connection for me there. And I, when I got in touch with them,
00:31:18
Speaker
some of this is luck, right? Like they were thinking about wanting to build out some product reviews and I had just been laid off from a company that creates product reviews. So, you know, it was sort of a good fit in that regard. But I do, I send an email and I say, hey, what's up? This is me. A little bit about me. I have been working in the industry for 10 years. I have a master's degree in this. Here's some publications. You know, I'm super efficient. I
00:31:44
Speaker
like, you know, I'm easy to work with. I'm super stoked on the content that you're making, and I want to work with you. Like, what do you need? It's, yeah, it's a little ballsy, but it works. And I think the thing is, is that I truly believe that I can help them, and I'm excited about helping them. Like, it's not false, right? And I do believe that I'm good at what I do.
00:32:06
Speaker
because it's been proven to me over years of working with other clients. So for them, I did some product review stuff, but I also did a lot of actual journalism, like reported journalism work for the co-op journal, which is their blog. So a lot of times when I'm talking to writers, I'm like, the work that you do now for traditional media publications, it actually
00:32:29
Speaker
can be sold for, you know, you can use those skills exactly for brands as well if they have publications. So yeah, a lot of what I was doing for them was reporting on outdoor stuff, news, lots of feature stories for them about mental health, things like that. So it was a really fruitful relationship for a couple of years, right? It was super fun. And I was just sort of there.
00:32:51
Speaker
I was there depending on what they needed because their direction was going to change. That happens a lot with big brands. I'm just there to help, to build things, to talk about things, to consult.
00:33:04
Speaker
I love to be there in that way and also not be full time so that I don't have to deal with the bureaucracy or the drama. Yeah. Seth Godin is famous for saying, especially in his freelancers workshop with the akimbo workshops, that if you want to level up as a freelancer, it's all about getting better clients.
00:33:27
Speaker
And that means going to the REIs of the world, target whoever it is and you take your skill there and you can ask for more money and then like a project rate. You can ask for a big rate and then if you do that really, really fast and do it well, it's like your hourly rate is quadrupled.
00:33:50
Speaker
It was that something that was very intuitive to you that or did you it was was that something like you had to learn is like i could that you know i could be pitching the local newspaper or i could. I never gonna make a living there but you know i gotta go find better clients and that's who who has the deeper pockets and then you know move my shingle over that way.
00:34:12
Speaker
You know, I had one month in my first year where I wrote 25 stories. Each of them were paid like $200. It was the most miserable month of all time. It was horrible. So I think I learned pretty quickly that like
00:34:29
Speaker
these little fiddly projects, you know, the $100, $200, $300 paid things were not actually worth it. Like what I wanted to go hunting for was bigger chunks, right? Big project fees, bigger things like companies that wanted to bring me on for $2,000 a month or something like that, right?
00:34:48
Speaker
And that mindset still stands. I'm pretty wary of taking small one-off projects. I really want either bundled projects or reoccurring projects, things like that. So I think I learned it only through trial and error. Like I said at the beginning, I just sort of ended up doing whatever I was doing. I was just whatever people would offer me. I was like, sure, yeah.
00:35:13
Speaker
I didn't feel great about those smaller things either. You know, my first year freelancing, I wrote 150 stories. I think my second year, I wrote maybe 30. And so there was just a big difference in the quality, you know, being able to spend a longer period of time. If it's $150 for an assignment, I can spend an hour and a half on it. And can I really do good reporting work in an hour and a half? Like, I mean, I guess if I need to do one interview, maybe, but I would rather
00:35:42
Speaker
be able to sort of work in larger chunks. It just suits my finances and my personality better. For sure, because you can't work any more hours. So the only way for it to work and maintain your sanity is to go out and find the better clients who are going to challenge you. But in that way, you're going to bring great work that you're passionate about. And yeah, they're going to pay a lot, but they'll probably get more than they paid for in the end.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah and you know it requires like ditching the clients that aren't paying you enough which I think for me is the harder part. I'm very much a people pleaser and I sort of like I don't make friends with my clients but I am often fond of them if I've been working with them for a long time.
00:36:25
Speaker
And so, you know, I try to be pretty clear with them. Like I have to go look for other work because my hourly rate is higher now. But it's that to me is like gutting. It's just a horrible part of, you know, having to say no. I made a spreadsheet for myself this year where I record all the times I've said no. Because if someone offers me something, my gut reaction is to say yes. But I have a lot less time right now because I'm taking care of a small human. And so
00:36:53
Speaker
I can't say yes, but it's really hard for me. It's so hard. But it's the only way that you can start making more is by redirecting your focus for sure.
00:37:02
Speaker
Now, as people get into this or even are dancing with that initial fear of taking an entrepreneurial leap, where have you found that people tend to get lost or they tie their brain up in knots that keeps them from jumping, if that makes any sense?
00:37:26
Speaker
Yep, it totally does. I always say I was lucky that I got laid off because I was forced out, right? It is so much harder to leave a full time.
00:37:35
Speaker
gig and dive into something like freelancing. When I watch people do that, I am so deeply impressed with their bravery. I think where most people get hung up is waiting for it to be perfect, waiting for it to be the perfect scenario. I have a lot of folks who are like, oh, once I have another project on board, then I can leave my job.
00:37:58
Speaker
And it's like, well, you're going to have to go look for that project. Like, it's not just going to appear. You know, you make your own best case scenario. And so, you know, a lot of people get caught up in like, my website isn't quite right. I don't have enough clips or evidence of past work. You know, all these things are just our brains trying to protect us from doing something scary. And so a lot of my coaching clients, I have them do work around like figuring out how to
00:38:25
Speaker
Like you said, sort of dance with the fear of it, right? Like whether it's sitting down and taking two minutes to write down what your fear brain is telling you so that you don't act out of fear. You act out of what you want or getting up and going for a run to sort of shake things up. There's lots of sort of strategies around that.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, the perfectionism thing, the wanting it to be the perfect time, the perfect website, the perfect brand name, the perfect client, like there is no perfect scenario. But once you get in it, you'll make it work, right? But yeah, it's just hard. Also, I think that's the other thing. People expect that at some point it might feel easier.
00:39:03
Speaker
It does not. It's always hard. You just kind of get used to the hard, right? But there's no moment in which it's going to be like, oh, this is so easy for me to just launch my own business. Nope, sorry.
00:39:17
Speaker
Because something that strikes me and what keeps me from sometimes taking more courageous leaps with my lifer career is I will think about these worst case scenarios in my head, whether that's getting audited by the IRS or
00:39:41
Speaker
even sometimes the contract nightmares that you and Woodan talk about. Thinking of those things sometimes handcuffs me in a way like, oh my God, how am I going to handle it? How am I going to negotiate this? Or if someone's not paying and I got to really crack the whip on this or negotiate something weird in the contract or sometimes that will tie me in knots. I wonder if
00:40:09
Speaker
you know, how you, you know, maybe wrestle with that yourself and how you maybe pull people out of that funk me like, listen, it's not as bad as you think.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the question is really like, which terrible, you know, there's a shit sandwich in every situation, right? Like, um, like for me, being stuck in a job I hate is far worse than the risks of, you know, getting screwed on a contract to be honest, right? Like, and I know that about myself. And so for some people, the stability is absolutely more important than the sort of consistent challenge and freedom of freelancing, right? So,
00:40:46
Speaker
Usually I talk to people about like, okay, what's the worst case scenario? On the flip side, what's the best case scenario? And then we talk about what would happen in the worst case scenario. Like, okay, so you get screwed on a contract, what happens? And playing that situation out, it often becomes evident that it's probably not as bad as you think. And for a lot of people, it's actually not as bad as the current situation that they're in, right?
00:41:14
Speaker
A lot of people come and they're like, I hate my job. I hate my full-time job. I just really want to freelance. They're so miserable that dealing with some of those other risks is less bad. I think that's true for me, absolutely. The freedom of freelancing, I'm living on the road right now. We put all our stuff in a storage unit and my husband is a travel nurse.
00:41:36
Speaker
I would not be able to do this if I had a full-time job. There's just a lot of freedom that's inherent. So for me, it's like, yeah, seeing the benefits to me always outweigh some of those risks. And then the other answer is just that you can't do it by yourself. You're not just going to be sitting there staring at a horrible contract by yourself.
00:41:57
Speaker
There's going to be other freelancers around you. You know, it's why Wu Dan and I do what we do and teach people about contracts. But it's like, there's no way to do this by yourself. But there's actually a lot of people out there who are dealing with the same thing, who can walk you through it, which makes it a lot less scary.
00:42:11
Speaker
When you get into this kind of racket, you have to be very organized. I'm someone who is inherently disorganized, and I have to do everything in my power. It is a struggle to keep things straight, keep records and spreadsheets and papers all straight. It's just a nightmare. My wife hates me for it.
00:42:33
Speaker
She is on me like a, like a linebacker on a fumble. Like if I have one thing out of place when it comes to at least, you know, financial stuff, business related stuff, like, you know, she's got that organizational brain. I'm just not there. So I always, I love unpacking how people stay organized and develop systems and routines. So, so for you, maybe are you inherently organized and how do you stay organized and what are those, what do those systems look like for you, Jenny?
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm an organizational taskmaster. All of my past jobs, I've been the air traffic controller, the one who manages the systems and keeps all the trains running. That is just who I am. It might make sense to you that when I was 16, my parents used to give me a chunk of money every year and I had to budget that money for the whole year to buy myself lunches and socks and things.
00:43:29
Speaker
It was bred into me very, very early to keep track of these things but yeah so I, again, along with that business plan I think when I started out, I was just very clear about sort of building myself the kind of system I would build if I was at a publication working as an editor so
00:43:48
Speaker
i did too many things like i had too many spreadsheets and like it got a little crazy so i've now sort of compressed right i have like one spreadsheet where i track all my assignments and that helps me see how much work i have coming in so for each month i have like
00:44:04
Speaker
I'll write down all the things I'm going to invoice for that month and look at the amount I'm pulling in. And if it's not my target amount, I know I need to go out and find something else to add to that list that month. So that spreadsheet is probably the most key one for me. And then I use QuickBooks because it automates invoicing because I hate chasing invoices more than all the things in the world. And so it actually sends reminders to clients and it'll tell you like,
00:44:30
Speaker
you know, this payment is due in six days. So those are my two main sort of organizational systems, I think. Woo Dan and I for our podcast have like the most giant Google Drive folder of all time with like a million spreadsheets and things because we both have friends like that. But you know, the reality is also that like,
00:44:48
Speaker
whatever works for your brain is what you should build. As an editor, I worked with a lot of very scattered writers and like no one had the same system. And that's okay. Like our brains are all different. But yeah, you need some way to know how much money you're making, and some way to know what assignments you have, especially once you have a lot of assignments. You know, I often will have like 10 or so cooking at the same time. And like, there's no way to keep track of those in your brain. And so yeah, like tracking those deadlines and things is important.
00:45:18
Speaker
And you basically have kind of like a business umbrella, right? Under which you kind of file from.
Structuring a Freelance Business and Financial Management
00:45:29
Speaker
And when you registered that, is that like, did you go the LLC route or like sole prop or, you know, assume business name? Like what was the logistics around that? Yeah, I have two LLCs now, actually. I have my business and the writer's co-op has an LLC. I always say like,
00:45:46
Speaker
cool. And I now own two businesses, accidentally. But you know, the reality is, is that from like a tax filing standpoint, LLCs really are the same as a sole proprietor. And so I always tell people, for me, it was more of like a mindset decision, you know, to have to
00:46:04
Speaker
have a business license on my wall and like pay quarterly taxes, like business taxes to the state of Washington, things like that really forced me to like take myself seriously. You know, for the podcast, the LLC has some practicalities where we funnel money through that and pay ourselves paychecks and have a shared bank account, things like that. You can't get a business bank account.
00:46:26
Speaker
unless you co-own an LLC with a person you're not married to. So yeah, I think there are some practicalities once you get into a little more complicated setup like the podcast, but it's truly like your decision. The one thing I always tell people is great is to have a business bank account that is separate from the checking account that you have.
00:46:48
Speaker
for your life or with your partner. I have that. And then I pay myself a paycheck every month so that if I make a lot this month and not a lot next month, I still the leftover. So say I make ten thousand dollars this month. I pay myself four thousand. There's six K still sitting in there. It pads next month a little bit. And that has been helpful for me in terms of just sort of, yeah, like managing the flow of money and separating it a little bit from my family's finances.
00:47:17
Speaker
Nice. And also you established, you're very organized, always been that kind of air traffic controller. I like that term. That's really, really good. So given that, you know, you're also a mom to a one year old and there's always, you know, social media and there's all the work that you have on your plate, you know, how best do you stay focused and on track to make sure you're, you know, getting your stuff done and, you know, like I said, just kind of staying on track?
00:47:47
Speaker
You can't see me, but I'm like cracking up right now because it's really chaotic. You know, like, I wish I could give you an answer that's like, yeah, it's so great. No, it's totally chaos. You know, I'm four days a week. I'm solo with my son and which means I just work during his naps. And you know, when he decides not to take naps, that's great because then I don't get to work. So it has been
00:48:11
Speaker
really hard. And it has been pretty high learning curve. What I have been doing lately that I think helps is taking about 20 minutes on Sunday night to define what my priorities are for that week. And it's usually like four or five things, but those are the things I have to get done. And they're not actually anchored to any one day. It's just like by the time Friday rolls around, I better have finished it.
00:48:33
Speaker
that has really helped I think in terms of like when I do get a window of time, I have this panic of like, oh my God, what am I supposed to do? I have so much to do. And so having really clearly defined priorities has been the only way to sort of not get lost in social media and answering podcast emails, but to actually like focus on the things that need to get done that week. Otherwise I'm screwed and there's a lot of evening working and sometimes weekend working.
00:49:01
Speaker
And there's a lot of me saying no to things, which is extremely hard for me. My husband jokes that most people would be stoked to work less. And I'm so sad when I have to say no to big projects. I love to work. But I also love hanging out with my kid. And so it's been a learning curve, for sure, to extract
00:49:21
Speaker
the super productive self from my identity a little bit and understand how to really focus on the things that matter. And actually part of that is like carving out time to do some more nonfiction personal essay writing, which I haven't done in a while, which is important to me. And so figuring out how to work that in and actually not let the high paid client work overtake that time has been, yeah, that's like my struggle in learning in the past three months, the thing I've been working on the most.
00:49:52
Speaker
What would you identify as some growing pains that you experienced, especially early on in your practice? I am just super prone to being the person who does everything. I think that was my identity in past jobs. Like, it was always like, oh, you have a question. Go ask Jenny. She knows, oh, you need someone to help with an extra project. Like, go ask Jenny. She'll get it done.
00:50:13
Speaker
Um, that was just always me. And so once I, you know, once you set out on your own, those things don't disappear. Like I wish they did, but like turns out like you'll drive yourself the same way you drove yourself at full-time jobs. And the awareness of that is, uh, hard sometimes. Um, the patterns you've developed at past jobs don't leave. So for me, um, you know, knowing I had to set myself an upper limit of how much work I was allowed to take on and how much I, uh,
00:50:42
Speaker
could make in order to prevent myself from taking on too much. And it still didn't always work, right? Because the result of the overwork is burnout, which I have also had periods of being crazy burnt out. When I was pregnant, I knew I was going to take four months off. So I was like a hustle queen and, you know, making like that like 13, 14K a month. And I was also pregnant and like really uncomfortable and it was just horrible. And so, yeah, like there was a lot of work to
00:51:11
Speaker
teach myself how to step back and not be the person who does it all. And then the other thing is that people pleasing aspect of me and learning that setting boundaries is actually kind with my clients. I don't want to be the go-to person for them because I don't work for them full time.
00:51:31
Speaker
And so defining the hours I'm going to work and the tasks I'm going to take on and, you know, all the logistics, defining that up front has made a huge difference for me feeling like I own my time and I own my business and I'm not going to get taken advantage of. I think early on I just, again, was like, yeah, whatever you need, I'm here, right?
00:51:53
Speaker
And it's like, whatever you need within x context is what I'm available to provide. Yeah, it's all kind of the same bucket, right? Just like wanting other people to approve of my work and love what I'm doing, whether it's overwork or, you know, being too acquiescent. That's been a huge learning curve. I think the past year I've been a little better about it, but those first two years, that's what would get me into trouble.
00:52:17
Speaker
Now as writers, it's very important to be as voracious as possible, a reader and a consumer of either articles, what's out there, colleagues' works to support them, even books and everything too. So what are you reading or what are some things that you return to in terms of your reading and a reading practice that helps kind of put that kind of fuel in your tank?
00:52:44
Speaker
Yeah, I've always been a voracious reader. When I was a kid, we would go to the library and I would get to pick out 10 books every week. I would get like, you know, I would like fly through them. And I actually still love reading young adult fiction and sci-fi. That's like one of my guilty pleasures. So those get mixed in with some of the more hefty nonfiction writing work. So, you know, I just finished, it's called the Grishaverse. It's a trilogy YA series.
00:53:11
Speaker
And so I pair that with like, you know, The Body Keeps the Score, which is a book about trauma, or How We Show Up, which is a book about community by Maya Birdsong that I just finished. So it's typically kind of like a mix of those things. And then I have a couple newsletters that dump into my inbox that have good long form writing that I'll sometimes look at. But I honestly also
00:53:35
Speaker
my interest in reading things on the internet ebbs and flows. Like sometimes I'm really in phases where I want to read books and I want to bury myself in long form work in a book context. And there's sometimes where, you know, I really want to be reading magazine long form. And those things change, I think, quite a bit. So I am working through the artist's way again, doing morning pages. And, you know, I read Big Magic a couple of months ago, things that sort of
00:54:04
Speaker
help you think about creativity and unblocking your creativity. Those are usually in the mix, too. So I guess I'm like a nonfiction plus YA sci-fi plus self-help mixer, if that makes sense. Oh, of course. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately. You know, early on, I would let's say 10 or 15 years ago, like I had a certain vision of what
00:54:31
Speaker
being a writer was what kind of a writer I would be and what kind of work I would be doing. And that's definitely a lot different now than I would have thought back then. And I've had to kind of come to grips with my identity sort of changing as a writer and a reporter and who would have thought I'd be producing podcasts. So I wonder for you, like, how has maybe your identity changed as a writer and creative person over the years?
00:55:01
Speaker
I think about this all the time, too. I constantly struggle with what to put in my bio. Like, am I a journalist or am I a writer or am I an editor? I guess now I'm a coach. I'm also a podcast co-host. You know, there's a lot. It changes for me so often as to how I think about myself and what services I want to offer to people. Right. So, you know, this past year has been a pretty dry spell for me in terms of creating journalism because I was
00:55:30
Speaker
So sleep deprived and had a young kid and I couldn't go out and report. It just wasn't a priority for me. I wasn't doing a lot of feature writing. Like I couldn't like synthesizing complex thought with everything that was going on was so hard. So I took journalists off of my bio. Right. I just said I was a freelance writer and editor. And then I added it back on. You know, the through line for me has always just been that writing is how I creatively process things. And I think
00:55:58
Speaker
The first year of running my business, I'd been an editor, a staff editor for so long that I was so excited to write that I was just going to write whatever anybody wanted me to write. And now it's more important to me that I am writing things that I care about or that have an impact on people. So I'm okay if the overall volume is less.
00:56:16
Speaker
But it needs to be something that matters to me, which makes it much more nerve wracking. I think the stuff I did the first year was very low vulnerability. And the stuff that I am working on now and pitching now is just there's a lot more me in it. And that's something I've been nervous about doing. It's something that sometimes gets worked out of you a little bit when you're in journalism, the idea that you would put yourself into stories or write reported essays, things like that.
00:56:44
Speaker
yeah like I think it changes every month, what I've realized is that I will always be writing in some way, and I will always probably be teaching in some way that's the writers co op is is you know a lot of what I'm doing is teaching same with coaching.
00:56:58
Speaker
So those two things, I think, will always be a part of what I do. But how that looks may change every year, every month, every week. Yeah. And as we kind of bring this airliner down for a landing, let's just talk a little bit about the podcast that you and Wudan started.
Growth of the Writers' Co-op Podcast and Social Connections
00:57:15
Speaker
And now you're just, what has that experience been like? And maybe unpacking that, what was the expectations you had going in and just where that
00:57:26
Speaker
where that journey has taken you, so to speak. Yeah, I had this really weird moment this week where I joined a text thread of a bunch of writers who were doing the artist's way morning pages stuff and
00:57:37
Speaker
I introduced myself and this one woman was like, oh my God, you're Jenny Gridders and you're here. And it's still so strange to me that people listen to Wudan and I talk and enjoy it and learn things from us and know who we are. We started the podcast, we started working on it in late 2019 and both Wudan and I were getting dozens of requests every week for people who wanted to pick our brains and
00:58:03
Speaker
understand how we were doing things. And she and I would text constantly about contracts and, you know, BS, like pay things, business stuff, we're both like really obsessed with it. And so one day, she was like, we should launch a podcast. And for whatever reason, like, you know, I have zillions of creative ideas that never get
00:58:21
Speaker
actually acted upon. And for whatever reason, this one did. So we sat down, we like had a meeting about what our first season was going to be about. And I'd actually been thinking for a long time about making an ebook or something that sort of collated how to run a business, a freelance writing business. And so our first season was that it was like business planning semantics, right? All of these sort of logistical
00:58:43
Speaker
things. And we got a huge following because we launched in March, which was right when the pandemic started, which was right when a lot of people decided they were going to freelance. So it's been a little bit of a crazy ride. I think our podcast has like 50,000 downloads now and we have a membership program.
00:59:02
Speaker
I have this robust coaching business now basically because of the podcast and we're going to launch e-courses next month. We have mastermind groups that are going to start soon too. So, it's been pretty wild and also really, really fun to just, I mean, it's all been an experiment. Like, would it be like, hey, should we do this thing? And I'm like, sure, you know, and then we try it. And if it doesn't work, it's like, okay, whatever. We'll just try a different thing, right?
00:59:29
Speaker
We were just like, oh, maybe we'll launch an event or two. And now that's a huge part of the business model. But yeah, it's been fun. And it also feels like sitting on a train that is just moving of its own accord. We've done no marketing. It's really just sort of word of mouth. But we've met so many cool people. And I think it saved me a little bit in 2020, which was such a hard year, to feel like there was sort of a through line and a way to help people, to help them empower them
00:59:57
Speaker
You know logistically give them tips for thriving instead of just landing in a Situation that they didn't want to be in in the first place. So yeah, it's been pretty pretty sweet season three launches in April and Yeah, I mean having a creative project to collaborate on with someone is not to be underestimated like freelancing is really lonely and so being able to work on something with someone else is is pretty awesome and
01:00:20
Speaker
That's one of the key reasons I started this podcast way back when was just to appease a lot of my loneliness, among other feelings. But it was definitely loneliness and admiring people that were getting to have these kinds of conversations. But no one was going to knock on my door to have them. So I was like, well, I might as well try to have them myself with other people. And that's kind of what this turned into. So.
01:00:46
Speaker
Totally. I feel like people are always like, oh, wow, so strategic, so amazing. And it's like, I mean, kind of, it's just Wudan and I having the conversations we would have over text, like publicly, you know, the second season we got to bring on freelancers to give their advice, like really successful people. And that was super fun. And season three is actually us doing live coaching.
01:01:04
Speaker
with folks who are dealing with things like we talked about today. So, you know, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, being over busy. So I'm stoked about that. It's been super fun. And also it's low pressure, because if we ever want to stop doing it, we can, right? It's just like purely for the benefit of the collaboration, the creativity and the service to people. And that is what has been great about it. I think like neither of us had many expectations going into it.
01:01:29
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, well, Jenny, give me a few social media handles to make sure that we people, if they want to follow and get more familiar with you, your work with Anne's work and the podcast, where they can find you. Yeah, absolutely. So my website is Jenny Gridders dot com. And I'm at Jenny Gridders on Twitter or Instagram. That's where I spend most of my time, although I have a
01:01:49
Speaker
troubled relationship with social media and tend to like leave it for random weeks at a time. And yeah, sometimes it's great and sometimes not. The Writers Co-op, the best place to find us is at TWC underscore pod on Twitter. That's where we talk about kind of everything that we're doing, or you can find the Writers Co-op, you know, wherever you podcast. And we have a Patreon program, which is how you get
01:02:12
Speaker
Worksheets like I give you homework and you know, lots of events and things like that through our patreon program, which is just patreon backslash TWC. So yeah, come come hang out with us on the internet and talk about making more money as a freelancer. And it should be noted that is Jenny with an I not a Y. Yes. Oh, yes. Thank you for that. Yeah, Jenny with an I not Jennifer, just Jenny. Fantastic. Well, it's great talking to you, Jenny. Yeah, thanks, Brendan. This has been fun.
01:02:49
Speaker
As we are wont to say, that was a toe tap and good time, wouldn't you say? And so we've come to the end. Thanks for listening and thanks to Jenny Gridders for the time and the insights. If nothing else, go subscribe to her and Woodan's podcast, The Writer's Caught, wherever you podcast. It's advice you can put into practice right away. If you want a side hustle or a full on front hustle in this day and age, I'm telling you, freelancing is the new stable job.
01:03:20
Speaker
And I work for a paper that is notorious, or I work for a paper that is owned by a corporate entity that is notorious for gutting newsrooms. So believe me, freelancing can extricate you from that anxiety, as its own can of worms worth of anxiety, but at least some of it is in your control. This show was a production of Exit 3 Media and everything by me, Brendan O'Mara. You'll want to head over to BrendanO'Mara.com.
01:03:49
Speaker
for show notes and to sign up for the monthly newsletter. As I continue to try to subvert social media, the permission asset that is my newsletter is the best way to stay plugged into the entire enterprise and get entered in book raffles and the like. I don't keep all the books I get. What kind of guy would I be if I did that?
01:04:09
Speaker
I like to give them away, man. I've been so overwhelmed lately, I tend to look around and get rid of stuff. Like the great Ras Al Ghul says, quote, when the forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural, end quote.
01:04:27
Speaker
Anyway, point being, newsletter gets you books because I like to purge books and not food. I did in college. I used to be a janitor at this bakery on campus.
01:04:43
Speaker
and they used to have a whole lot of leftover donut holes and I always have like I have a weird like perverse almost twisted relationship with food and I would put the glazed donut holes in my mouth I would chew them and like taste them then I would spit them out in the in the garbage can and my buddy Jayru was just like what are you doing like are you coming up with a new eating disorder I'm like yay man you get you get the benefit of the taste without having to eat the whole thing he was just like
01:05:14
Speaker
How do we get on this topic? Oh, purging. Anyway, point being, the newsletter gets you books, cool articles, blogs, podcast news, grants you access to the monthly CNF and happy hour this month. There's no guest, but the topic is social media.
01:05:29
Speaker
So we'll be jamming on that topic and I'll have just a few questions. See, see how you're handling it. How do you don't get sucked into the vortex of it? Maybe you do. Maybe you want to get out of that. So we're just going to have some drinks and talk about social media and how it affects or doesn't affect your writing. And we'll just have a nice little 40 minute happy hour. Sound good? I hope so. I'll be there and drinks will be on ice.
01:05:56
Speaker
Still doing the review for coaching jam. Post your review to Apple Podcasts. Any written review will do. Take a screenshot when it publishes. Send that screenshot to me, either creative non-fiction podcast at gmail.com or at brendan, at brendanomeira.com. Either or. And I'll coach up a piece of your writing of up to 2,000 words for realsies. I'm already helping a handful of folks. So do it. Do it.
01:06:24
Speaker
For now, you can keep the conversation going on Twitter and Instagram at cnfpod. Strangely, not a single person ever does. No one ever takes me up on the offer to keep the conversation going. It's almost like no one wants to do it, which is all the more reason that I need to fully just get rid of these social media profiles. If I told my wife that, she'd be like, this is why you fail, this is why you're a fucking loser. And I couldn't argue with her. That's the voice in my head.
01:06:52
Speaker
But maybe I'm doing it wrong, maybe not. Who the hell knows? At my website, down the right rail, I've created a newsstand of sorts of blogs I admire. That way I never have to troll social media to find a select few that I really, really like. It's like the old Google Reader, I think.
01:07:13
Speaker
I just I just had to build my own essentially and so there it is I I go down to that rail and I click on those and see see what they're up to on any given day if they've posted something new cool read it if they have a newsletter subscribe to I subscribe to it and Then I go about my day
01:07:30
Speaker
I'm running an end around social media as best I can, so if you get that newsletter, my newsletter, consider sharing it or forwarding it. I hesitate to ask you to link up to the show on social media as I try to get rid of it. It seems like a dick move to do that, but I want to make sure I'm making the best possible work while I'm getting off social media, but I don't know.
01:07:51
Speaker
It's a toxic shithole that just makes me feel like crap more than half the time and why would? Subject yourself to that for the purposes of self-promotion for a connection. I don't know man
01:08:05
Speaker
making the best possible working and just trying to get out of that toxic shithole that is any given twitter feed great essay title there by the way uh... i'd rather avoid it not get my ass datamined more than i already am i mean i'm typing this in a google doc
01:08:24
Speaker
And you don't think Google, Google bots are like scanning every damn word right now. Anyway, I'm crafting an essay on the erasure of all my tweets of 10,000.
01:08:37
Speaker
10,000, 10.2,000, I guess, to go. It's kind of a fun exercise and a sad one too. I'm calling it Twitter side for now. It's like going back through time and it's so cringe-worthy. And not because the things I tweeted were bad necessarily, but they're just sad, pathetic cries for attention. That's what's so sad about it. All for one like or worse, none. So it's like you're just talking to nobody.
01:09:07
Speaker
And the thought process that was oh Here's something funny and now I must either pull out my phone or if I'm on my computer and like alright Let me open up Twitter type this thing out and yeah, they're gonna love this one for this validation And why should I need that kind of validation tweets expire faster than sushi, so why? So why
01:09:32
Speaker
And this is why I actually delete any new tweets after a week these days. I've been doing that for a few months now. And this goes to a larger theme that lately I just want to disappear. Not in a suicidal way, just kind of vanishing. Go into my little cave and draw and write. Because I like to draw and write and make zines. But then I get the itch. I gotta take a picture of that shit and share it on Insta. Gotta get that dopamine hit. Gotta see the little heart light up.
01:10:01
Speaker
Gotta find a way to get out of my own head. Sad state of affairs, man. I tell ya. But don't worry. Everything's okay. I mean, it's mostly okay. Ha ha.
01:10:15
Speaker
I've got it good. I do. But you know how it is. It's all tough. Parents getting old. Dad turns 77 today. Seems in good spirits. Can't believe he's made it this far. Memories are fading. His is a little slippery. The mothers is real slippery.
01:10:31
Speaker
You know, you just kind of feel like, aside from that, you kind of feel like shit. Eat too much, drink too much, just to escape the mundanity of it all. Constantly fret over not doing enough, but you find the time for bullshit over there, but you won't do the hard work over here, and the to-do list grows, and that tomato sauce keeps getting crustier and crustier on that casserole dish, until you're just like, fuck it. Fuck it, man.
01:10:59
Speaker
Listen, things are trending real dark, real fast. So I'm going to get out of here before things get real bleak, like wedding singer bleak. So stay cool, CNFers. Stay cool forever. See ya.