Forget the Excitement: What Nobody Told Me About My First Writing Gig?
I have been a writer or so I tell myself, for a long time. Writing is the only other thing after smiles that comes naturally to me. However, I never received a single coin for any of my pieces and curiosity to test the waters finally took over in March, early this year. I tried several freelancing apps like Fiverr and Freelancer but none of them worked. I have long accepted that I am yet to understand how online working functions. Someday maybe. Just when I thought my first gig would never happen, a member of a WhatsApp group I belong to texted that he was in need of a technical writer for a short project.
As one who has never dealt with a client before, DM’ing him was the craziest and the bravest thing I have ever done. This I did about three hours later since he posted and by then I knew some experienced writer could have already gotten the prize. Luckily for me I live on ‘There is nothing to lose’ and ‘You will never find out till you try’ kind of mantras. I rolled the dice and waited. Ten minutes later, I received a reply and as they say, the rest is history.
Below are few things I only learnt after getting my first gig and not before:
1. Clients Want Previous Work, Published or Unpublished, For Your Vetting.
To be honest, it never occurred to me that the client might require previous samples to assess my skills. So when the question came, I was caught off guard and for a moment I thought I was done for. It is true I have written a few good pieces of poetry, articles and essays that have been published in an e-book and even once won a finalist certificate in an international contest, but it is also true that I have never put together a technical piece. Although I had explained that I had the capability to grasp IT jargon easily given my Computer Science background, he was on insistent on submission of past work. Out of desperation, or rather the fear of blowing up the chance, I ended up handing two creative articles whose titles I now find embarrassing to mention. Somehow, they were enough and that is how I landed my gig!
2. Naivety Will Lead You To Mention A Sad Figure As Payment.
I had read before that when it comes to stating your pay, you have to be careful not to sound ridiculously high otherwise the client will imagine you are there rip them off their hard earned money, and not to go too low unless you want the client to dismiss you for not promising high quality work. I guess this advice only works for seasoned writers. Nobody had taught me how to navigate the world of payment terms and negotiations so in my naivety and eagerness to please, I quoted a sum I later came to realize was too low. Extremely low. At that time when I had no idea of what kind of a project I would be working on, I was exhilarated and felt as if I had struck on gold. As work progressed, I regretted the pay I quoted but was satisfied with the adrenaline my body was producing.
3. Impostor Syndrome Will Kick In So Hard You Will Want To Quit.
After we had planned out all the logistics and a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement was in place, my client emailed me his project with the instructions to follow attached. We had agreed that payment would be on performance so it was now up to me to live up to my promises. I spent the first day trying to understand what the project was about and what was expected of me. However, by the end of the day it was clear I had comprehended nothing and I could as well go and sleep. It was an entirely new topic I had never encountered before and I had not the slightest idea where to begin my research or writing. I had a week to submit the first draft and I spent the first three days turning the internet upside down, being scared, contemplating my inevitable failure and eventually ended up with nothing to show for it. I was so afraid of messing up that I dared not attempt anything. With only four days to go to the first deadline, I was literally going insane.
4. When You Submit The First Draft, You Submit Your Insecurities and Vulnerabilities As Well.
Writers have a knack of writing ‘How to…take life easy, live with no worries, not give up power to torture you, be confident etc’ articles. Everywhere we are reminded of how we should not allow the things we do control our lives. Like why stress yourself for something that has not happened yet? But we are all human. As a first time professional, the minute I clicked the send button, the need to be validated became intensely overwhelming and there is nothing I wanted more than being validated as a writer. In the presence of validation, money lost all its essence and its initial appeal. I knew that I could have traded money for validation in an instant given the chance. I spent the weekend poring over could-be mistakes that I had made, re-examining the entire draft looking for something to calm me down. If my client was not pleased with the work I had done so far, it would without doubt lower my self-esteem and it would be probably be a while before I could apply for something like this again. Whatever he would say was a big deal and I could not pretend like it was nothing.
5. It’s Never That Serious and Who Knows, You Might Surprise Yourself!
Prior my first draft submission, all of our communication was via WhatsApp and through email. I was so keen to appear and be professional that I started being overly anxious of every word I texted. I was very careful not to appear too forward, unserious or even worse, have him think I am insinuating things outside our contract. I was very particular and very soon I had mastered the art of robotic communication, emotionless and straight forward. I had taken everything so seriously that he once commented during our physical meetings of how he had wondered if or not he was working with third year undergraduate.
In addition, I had unconsciously allowed the assignment to take up almost all of my time. Anytime I was free and not working made me feel like I was not serious enough. I remember that in our first meeting, my face was rock set with seriousness I barely smiled when greeting him. I was so serious I was not human. However, as the conversations and the interactions progressed, I learnt that he was human too, that he smiled, that he took breaks and that he made mistakes too. At one point I could even argue his points and grammar and convince him of my perspective in the middle of laughter!
