LANCE - What happened when I just did the thing
Welcome. I’m Anna Codrea-Rado and this is my newsletter about being a freelance writer and all the mixed feelings that brings. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for it here A much-loved business catchphrase is “work on, rather than in, your business”. The idea is that if we don’t make time to look at the bigger picture, we’ll find ourselves endless spinning on the hamster wheel. In my book, You’re The Business, I wrote about the creative coach Jen Carrington’s CEO Days, a monthly (or even better, fortnightly) check-in and strategy session. It’s good advice. Especially for freelancers, who are prone, as we are, to avoiding any non-billable work. It’s such good advice in fact, that I recently realised that I’ve been taking it too far. I love a spreadsheet almost as much as I love a strategy. I’ll very happily spend an afternoon faffing over quarterly earnings and coming up with various ways in which I can improve my business. It’s my professional Achilles heel. I tie myself in knots over which order to do things, creating systems and processes so convoluted that I don’t get round to the doing itself. Take this newsletter. I’ve been in a bit of a pickle with it for months now, unsure of which direction to take it in after more than four years of writing it. My instinct was to MAKE A STRATEGY!! and so now I’ve got Google docs coming out the wazoo about it but I’m not really the wiser about how to actually proceed. It’s a form of analysis paralysis, something the questioner in me has a tendency towards. Recently, I started writing more features and essays. I’d stopped partly because I was writing my book but also because I didn’t have enough time in my schedule due to all my strategizing over the newsletter. And then the stars aligned. I’d had a flurry of ideas at the same time that a couple of editors reached out to see if I’d want to write for them. Rather than agonise over the most ~strategic~ way to execute my ideas, I just... pitched them without a second thought. It’s been invigorating to write more. It reminded me that I love the thrill of a deadline and the mental workout of formulating an argument. I also like being edited. The freedom to post my unfiltered thoughts here in this newsletter is something I’ll always cherish, but I do think the best way to grow as a writer is by working with an editor. It also reminded me of the less fun (read: awful) parts of writing on the internet, like late payments and Twitter trolls. Sure, I might have been able to work all of that out from a strategy, but it wouldn’t have sat in my bones the way it does now that I’ve actually gone through it. There are things you can only know from doing. So for the time being, I’m just doing the damn thing.
💌 P.S.SOME PERSONAL NEWS
RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS
WHAT YOU TOLD MEA few months back, in a list much like the one directly above, I shared a link to a newsletter writing fellowship worth $50,000. Newsletter reader Tania Rabesandratana, a science journalist based in Catalonia, clicked that link and applied. Tania sent me this email this week:
How bloody cool is that! I post these opportunities and never know if they're of interest or value, but this has inspired me to include more of them :) So, this week, tell me. What damn thing do you need to just do? Post your thoughts as a comment or just hit reply to this email and let me know. I’ll share my favourite in the next issue. SUBSCRIBE AND SHAREIf this newsletter made you get on – or off – the hamster wheel, please press that little heart button and then forward it to a friend. And if you aren’t already, sign up to receive it directly to your inbox every Friday This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. The revenue generated supports this newsletter. All my work is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. |
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