Good grief! It's been two weeks since I last sat down to put pen to paper, or rather manicured fingertips to keyboard. Time flies when the work outweighs the play... yes, you read that correctly – this (sometimes but not enough to effect the waistline) starving artist has been working more than she's been brunching & lunching. Why? Well, it would appear that I've landed with my very white bum in the butter and this freelance copywriting thing is shaping up to be what I've always wanted: A way to be creative and earn some dough, a way to live the way I want to and actually make a living.
Over the past 14 days I've strolled from one freelance gig to another and been handed bigger and better opportunities on the back of small projects that I nervously accepted and hammered away at my Macbook 'til all hours of the morning to reach an end result that I was happy to submit (wow that was a long sentence. I can hear Mrs. Williams – my grade 12 English teacher – shaking her head in disapproval).
For two years I've been trying to get into the creative side of copywriting. Trying to find an agency willing to take a chance on the girl with the Fine Art degree who sometimes needs to spell her name rather than say it when the st-st-stuttering is making an irritating appearance. Don't get me wrong, I've been given opportunities to learn the ropes by great people (one person in particular, she knows who she is) who saw passion as a good enough substitute for experience, but it's been in trucks and cell phones and insurance, it's been newsletters and employee profiles... it's been beige and I'm ready for hot pink.
It's kinda like when I was thirteen and my mom let me buy my first pair of high heels, only 'high' was a bit inaccurate, it was a pair of kitten heels so it was a heel in structure not stature. The first time I went out in my heels I felt 6-feet tall and had to think about every step so I didn't take a tumble into the chip n dip table at a school disco. My first job as a writer was kinda like those kitten heels, equally thrilling and daunting at first but I soon learnt to walk without thinking about every step and in a few months I could run up an escalator while on my phone and putting sugar in my takeaway latte. You see, much like my journey in heels – I was wearing six-inch snakeskin platforms by 15 – I needed to take the next step with writing.
And so, when a couple of months ago an old friend from school phoned me in desperate need of copy refinement for an ad campaign I jumped at the chance. I wasn't 100% sure I could do it (much like the first time I put on a real stiletto heel) but I was going to give it my best shot, say a prayer and trust that the Lord opens doors for a reason and likes to shove you through it before you can make up excuses.
That event was a turning point. I received rave reviews and the seed was planted – "I could do this. I could let my art become a hobby again and my writing pay the bills." I could take what I'd learnt by writing in beige and turn it into something hot pink. I could turn trucks in fast cars, pharmaceuticals into cosmetics, insurance into retail therapy and maybe one day, maybe maybe maybe, Mr Price pumps into Manolo Blahnik ballet flats – cos while I'll always love my heels, it's just not a good look when you combine puppies and parks.
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