24 Hours' Worth of Letters, Essentially Verbatim

Dear Client I Really Enjoy Writing For:

I am not sending you my September invoice right now, because I have not yet submitted the work you'd asked me for. I have, however, written it--and will be happy to send it to you as soon as I receive the checks for my July and/or August invoices.

Sincerely,
Temporarily Confused

*******

Dear Editor of Freelance Gig for Which I've Been Auditioning Without Pay:

Let me first thank you for all your prompt responses to my questions over this past not-quite-a-week; you've been most helpful. Nonetheless, I think that I need to withdraw my name from consideration for Freelance Gig. This is, I believe, mostly my issue, and it's one of not realizing that the whole 'this is something you can easily do in your own time, in concert with a full-time job even' vibe does not really apply to this audition period.

Simply put, I can't do this job well, and if I can't do it well, I might as well not do it at all. I don't think it will do any of us any good if a writer-to-be spontaneously combusts in the middle of the night. And I KNOW it won't do me any good to lose my almost-full-time job with its almost-full-time paycheck in the pursuit of a very interesting, but ultimately not-at-all-full-time gig with you guys. Not to mention having to juggle kids and volunteer activities and other freelance work...I should have known better. I apologize.

I wish you good luck in finding the right person for the job.

Thanks again,
Temporarily Confused

*******

Dear Elementary School To Which I Send My Kids:

I am requesting a full assessment of my child, N Confused, in all areas of his suspected disabilities for the purposes of determining whether or not my child qualifies for special education services. I understand that i am to be given an assessment plan authorizing this assessment within 15 days of your receipt of this request.

I am also requesting that an IEP meeting be set within the time required by law so that we may discuss the results of the assessment and the type of educational program my child requires.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Temporarily Confused

[For what it's worth, this last letter? Copied almost word-for-word from the handout The World's Greatest Pediatrician gave me just for this purpose after hearing me kvetch about how hard it is to know what to say to get the job done. I love her.]

More about money and self worth

Let me be clearer, since I really wasn't on Friday when I first wrote about this: I know what I need to do to make more money. What I need to do to make more money is to trade in on job satisfaction. I can go back to an office; I can take a job in an office doing corporate PR. I don't want to do the first one, though I will if I have to; I *really* don't want to do the second one, though I will if there's a gun pointing to my head. (Sometimes, a gun is shaped like a mortgage payment for which you do not have the amount of money needed. Luckily, we're not there yet.)

The thing is, I thought that there were ways I could make more money withOUT trading in on job satisfaction...at least not in a big way. As a long-time science and medical writer, I know that having such a specialty can up your per-hour/per-word/per-whatever fees. I like writing about science and medicine, and while I was kindasorta hoping that when I went to my current job I'd be moving into parenting writing for more-or-less good, if that's not to be, that won't kill me.

Except that those jobs that I'm looking at now, the ones that are paying less than I made 20 years ago? They ARE science and medical writing jobs. I think that's where my deep, dark mood of these past few days is coming from...the discouragement of realizing that my fallback may not be there to catch me, that Plan B needs a Plan C. Or, rather, that Plan B isn't going to be enough on its own, and I might have to institute multiple Plan Bs...a surefire recipe for mental collapse...to make it work.

Nothing is dire, and nothing is set in stone, and there are exceptions galore to this rule, I know. I know people who are making very nice freelance salaries in my field. I know people who don't have to work 60 hours a week to make that happen. I know people who are very happy with the way their careers are going. But there ARE fewer and fewer of those people, and I just don't happen to be one of them. And because, in the past, I *was* one of those people, I'm feeling really...lost right now. Twenty-plus years into a fairly successful and seemingly well-planned career, and I'm not really where I assumed I was. I think I only paid mental lip service (try to untangle THAT metaphor, why don'tcha?) to the idea that taking my work home--i.e., giving up an office job--might put me back a few steps on my career path. In reality, I thought I would be different. I always had been in the past. People knew who I was; they knew my work, and my track record. They thought me talented. They wanted me on their team. When push came to shove, surely they'd still be there for me.

And maybe they are, but I'm not finding them right now. Right now I'm only finding people who are interested in me...if I will work for $5 to $10 an hour less than what I'm currently making, and a good $20-plus an hour less than what the going rate for such work was in 1990. And that's one of the LESS offensive options in front of me right now.

Stop me if I've told you this story before, but...Back when I was an associate editor at ABigScienceMagazine, I was once talking with an assistant editor/fact-checker--i.e., someone who was below me on the masthead for the magazine. Inadvertently, she revealed her salary to me, and I realized that she was making the same amount of money as me...with a good three to four fewer years in the business, in a job below mine, and with an hourly salary that meant she was eligible for overtime, whereas I was not. I blew a gasket, ranted and raved to friends and family for days, and finally decided that I had to say something to my boss. Whose response was something along the lines of, "You shouldn't measure your self-worth in terms of the money you make."

I was caught off guard at first, because this seemed to be true, and rather deep as well. And then I woke up and realized that that was complete and utter bullshit. I pointed out to my boss that if he thought that way about the magazine ("We shouldn't measure our worth in terms of how many copies we sell, or ad dollars we take in") he'd be out the door by the end of week with his Rolodex in his pocket and his future in publishing fairly well over. He had the good grace to blush, give me an immediate $5K raise, and then to promote me just a few months later, to the tune of another $15K. Which, I might point out, put me at a salary--in 1993--that I am now having to fight to get back to.

And that's why I'm cranky. And I think I have a right to be. Even if I really don't.

Less than what I'm worth

I spent this morning complaining about being offered two new freelance gigs...or, rather, being given the chance to take tests/do some kind of audition for two new freelance gigs. What's my problem? My problem is that my career seems to be going in the wrong freaking direction. It seems like every offer I get these days pays less than what I used to make...or even what I'm making today. And yet there are reasons not to turn them down flat, reasons to take the tests or do the spec work or whatever and see what comes of it. Still, how is it possible that, 20+ years down the line, I'm earning LESS per word, per hour, per week, per year, than I did when my career actually started to take off? How is it possible that someone with 20 years' experience in the writing and editing field can have to work two or three serious jobs to make enough to live on? (This is not about Baroy; comments about his work life are unwelcome at this point. This is about the fact that writers and editors get paid less and less each year, even before you do things like adjust for inflation. This is about the fact that I made $1 a word as a writer in 1988, and now have to fight for jobs that pay half that.)

[Stefania, Jess, I don't think this actually qualifies as a Life Change, but dang. It's definitely a Yearning for a Change. Does that count?]