Freelancing Is Not For the Weak

 I. am. growling.

One of my clients, who I've worked with for years, is a publisher. While the relationship with the company is long, they keep changing my project manager. I don't know the inner machinations of that, I just work with whomever I am presented with.

My latest project manager is such a hot mess that I want to scream, cry, throw up and die. She's traumatized me so much that when I did another job for a different client, I expected some BS when they got back to me about the finished product. For them to say 'this is fine, here's your payment' literally rocked my world.

I've had nitpicky clients. 

This isn't that. 

This is giving me an outline, telling me to follow it and then telling me that the outline they told me to follow isn't working and I should change it but in such a way that it sounds like I should have known it wouldn't work and should have done something else.

Every single milestone, it was the same. Yeah  we told you to write this but now we see that it doesn't work even though you asked several times if we were sure this is the direction we wanted to go and we said no, now we're saying, do it differently.

It it wasn't for capitalism I'd insist on charging them for a rewrite because it certainly wasn't a revision. 

I want to tear out my hair. 

So finally, they send the work to the editor - after hanging about with it for a week. They stayed with it so long that upwork paid me for the job before they got back to me. And the editor pointed out every single thing that was wrong with the OUTLINE in their comments. My project manager acted as if it was just another revision that I should attend to.

I had to put my foot down and ask her, "So all this is in the outline - I don't understand what you want me to do. Spell it out." I want to see if she dares to say rewrite. 

I dare her.

She is literally making me think I'm crazy. At one point I had to talk to my kid about it - I was like, "Is this what microaggressions feel like?"

 He told me that I should tell my brain to just shut the fuck up because it's making things worse. 

I get it. 

Because my thoughts are certainly not helping. So I'm writing them here so that I don't go awf on Miss Thank-You-Very-Much-for-Your-Work-We-Appreciate-It-Now-Here-Are-All-The-Things-You-Need-To-Change-That-I-Previously-Told-You-You-Needed-To-Include.

AAAAAHHHH!

Now, a bit of housekeeping. 

My Books and Where To Find Them

So, I was looking through my data on D2D and I realized how little money I make on every book. There was this one month I sold ten print books worth ninety dollars and I only got fifteen of those dollars, after like, three months. Seeing it all laid out in black and white was really a wake up call to me. The way I do my writing, is more of a hobby than a profession because I still want to enjoy the process and they say monetizing what you love is a way of killing the joy. I don't know - so far so good. 

But part of the joy of writing is sharing my stories. I want you to read them. I want to make a difference in how you think and move in the world using my stories. So I do want to disseminate them far and wide. 

So they'll stay on D2D because they do have a very wide distribution but I will, from now on, be marketing only my kofi bookshop. That is where I will build my community and I hope you'll come over and follow me there even if you don't buy anything (right away). 

At this time of year, many do celebrate various holidays and for the bibliophile in your life, I have many an offering. And guess what? For the next month and a half, my books (on kofi) are 25% off. So take advantage of the offer, support small business and join a growing community of active thinkers (I hope).

Use the discount code below as you shop.