this woman’s work

Yesterday we homeschoolers headed out to a Wexner Center school program for the Frog Bride. Afterwards the performers had a Q&A session and the kids asked lots of great questions (Noah wondered why there was only one actor in the show). Me, I wanted to know how in the hell those guys make a living and if it’s a real living or one where they still need to borrow money from their parents.

When I did that talk at the GCAC, I told the artists that they need to become their own patrons. The way I see it, people who get to live purely creative lives are few and far between and PARENTS (particularly mothers) who get to live them are even fewer. But many of us can live partially creative lives if we play our cards right. I mean, I’d rather sit around all day and think deep thoughts and write those deep thoughts down then stare at my page and sigh and go daydream for awhile and then come back and edit before I go back to staring into the middle distance. Unfortunately I have to make a living and I also have to wipe tushies, buy groceries, yell at people who leave their soccer shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor, discuss the merits of High School Musical II vs. High School Musical I and otherwise live my life outside of my head most of the time.

I have been itching lately to write but life has conspired against me. Having lots of work is a blessing even if it’s a creative curse and in this economy I’m grateful for my over-scheduled calendar even if it means I’m feeling a little run ragged. So it goes.

I’ll admit that I was feeling jealous of that guy hopping around the stage like a Frog Bride and jealous of the musicians accompanying him but I was also feeling inspired.

What I told the GCAC crowd is that creatives are good at finding creative solutions, right? We can find inspiration in odd places (like catalog copy or writing up a brochure) and we can also build skills when we stretch our corporate muscles. Plus we’re driven enough that we manage to squeeze the good stuff in around the mundane details of actual in real life living.

At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m cursing my calendar but blessing my billing. There’s time for everything if I’m willing to work in fits and starts. (And neglect the children some — they don’t mind. It means more television for them!)

But this freelancing I’ve been doing, I’ve learned a lot that’s benefitted my creative career not the least is to find opportunity and (important part) be willing to reach out and grab it. I’ve also learned a lot about marketing, a lot about networking and reminded myself of how much I enjoy public speaking and direct service with clients. To grow myself professionally I’ve had to stretch myself personally and since a creative career is a career (meaning I’ve never wanted to be Emily Dickinson) what I’m getting out of this less creative one has so far served me well in other ways.

Anyway. This is a buck myself up post because I’m itching to write this one essay and just haven’t had the time AT ALL and am looking at more work coming down the pike.

My GCAC workshop is full so that means there are a lot of people who are hoping I have something useful to say. I’m hoping I have something useful to say, too. It so happens that the workshop is coinciding with a small crisis of confidence I’m having in my own career, which makes me a tough sell on my own talk. Ha!

I’m using some of my writer quotes for the powerpoint presentation. I want to have something for people to look at both to keep me focused and because I know some folks in the audience will be visual. (It’s for all types of artists.) I don’t know anything about the practicalities of careers in other practices so I’m keeping things very loose and basic and not planning what I’m going to say too much. Instead I’m going to be pulling from the audience, particularly two friends of mine who will be there and who are very talented visual artists. (Sharon and Melissa) Originally I was going to try to get Sharon to teach this with me because she is doing AMAZING things but I could never get my stuff together enough to organize that so I’m just going to use her a whole heckuva lot.

I’m nervous/excited about it. It’s both better and worse that people I know will be there (Pennie’s Nate’s sister will be there, too — she’s also a visual artist).

Ok, back to work!!

So I’ve got a gig coming up with the Greater Columbus Arts Council where I’m going to be talking about making a living from writing and am pulling together what all I’m going to say. Do you guys have any input on what kinds of things you’d want me to address if you were attending a session like this? Here’s the description:

Writer Dawn Friedman will talk about her switch from part-time writer to full-time freelancer and family breadwinner. She will discuss the challenges of balancing artistic and financial needs and share the way she learned to market her job skills her creative self.

Tomorrow is billing day and I need to sit down with Brett and figure out how much one client owes me. This client has paid in dribbles and drabs, which is ok but wreaks havoc on my invoice system because Billable doesn’t have a way to mark invoices as partially paid. I have to go through and mess with ‘em manually and I’ve been avoiding it for too long.

Get this. I’m supposed to deliver this talk in June for the Greater Columbus Arts Council:

Becoming a Working Artist: What it Takes to Make a Living (Workshop)
June 25, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
GCAC Large Conference Room, 100 East Broad Street, Ste. 2250
Writer Dawn Friedman will talk about her switch from part-time writer to full-time freelancer and family breadwinner.  She will discuss the challenges of balancing artistic and financial needs and share the way she learned to market her job skills through marketing her creative self.  Space is limited to 25 attendees, so pre-registration is required by June 13 to attend this informative event.

And of course that came into my email and my addled insecure little brain shouted, “Fraud!” at itself because I was invited to do this during a particularly high point of my life last year and today happens to be a rather low point of my life this year. (That sounds overly dramatic — I mean I’m having a week where I spend a lot of time worrying.)

See, I made sure my work calendar would be clear while I was in Portland (for the most part) and kinda forgot to line up work for the weeks after, which means down the line there the mailbox will be woefully empty of checks. Oops. That reminds me — any of y’all got any writing you need written? Because I’ve got a keyboard right here and I’m not afraid to use it!

As you can see, I’m hustling. And the meetings are revving back up and soon (one hopes) the email box will be filling up with assignments again.

I know one thing I’ll talk about at the workshop is branding because I absolutely absolutely absolutely think that branding is vital to consider in a creative career although it might not seem quite like it on the surface. Branding is such a shallow word for such an important thing, which is that you (I) need to understand how people see you (me). The difference between a working (as in trying to make a living) artist and a corporation is that the corporation is something of a slave to its brand and an artist isn’t but an artist still needs to understand the message her work is sending in order to understand how to get more work.

I mean, this is as simple as saying if you’ve built a reputation as a sculptor and now you’re working in pastels, you have to understand that some folks will have a hard time visualizing your work outside of the sculpture box they’ve set you in and this may play into how they feel about giving you a grant or a show or a commission. It doesn’t mean that once you sculpt you must always sculpt; it means that understanding what you’re up against in other people’s minds will help you get around those barriers.

What I’ve realized recently is that I’ve built a pretty good platform within the adoption community and now I face the danger of limiting myself (i.e., only speaking to the adoption community) and that I need to concentrate on my brand as Writer. Because I’m not an adoption writer — I’m a writer who writes about adoption an awful lot. But I want to have room to write about other things and (importantly because of the message I want to send) I want to write about adoption for more than just an adoption audience.

Is this making sense?

These are two things that I think confuse other writers: branding and marketing. And these are huge things. Once you’ve understood your brand, you have to understand how to market yourself (I am confused by this myself and am working hard to get clear on it, which means sifting through a whole bucket of neuroses. So fun, this artist stuff). Some of it — the marketing — is obvious like knowing which clips to mention in a pitch to this market or that. But some of it is hard like knowing how to hammer down the doors when I have huge emotional roadblocks to pitching. (What is up with that??? I’ve been pitching for, what, 8 years now? And still — the horror!)

Oh and if you want to come to my talk even though I’m outing myself as a person afraid to give it, hit up the good folks at the GCAC. I’ll be awfully glad to have you.