blog @ spacebarpress » Job Hunting

Taking an Official Break

Julia — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:34:15 +0000

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged here in a while is that I was on vacation for two weeks at the end of February. I was in Vancouver watching the Winter Olympics! It was a spectacular time to be in Vancouver, even more so than normal. People were feeling very patriotic and were wooing and cheering all the time. Impromptu O Canada’s were sung at amusing times, like during curling matches or waiting in line at security to get into an event. We Canadians are a patriotic bunch, just as patriotic as Americans, however we’re not normally as vocal about it as they are. We just put on a Canada flag pin or sew a flag on our backpacks as we wander the world, we don’t normally wear a Canada tshirt under a Canada hoodie with a Canada scarf around our necks and Canada mittens while cheering “Go Canada Go!” But we did, and we liked it. We really liked it!
Now that I’m all rested up and my voice has recovered from the two weeks of cheering, I’m going to buckle down and get back to the freelancing attempts. Yes, famous last words, but I’m really going to try harder. As I mentioned before, I signed up for the first course in an Editing certificate, and I’m going to start devoting more time to getting things off the ground. Honest.

Building the Writing Habit

Julia — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:12:18 +0000

So it’s been a few weeks since I posted about how I was going to post twice a week here, and as you can see, that has gone really well. Since I know it takes a long time for a behaviour to become a habit (you have to repeat it 21 times before you stop thinking about it — I read this somewhere once, I think it was even an official thing like a medical study or something), I was hoping the posting twice a week would do it since it was a small thing.

Fat chance.

BUT, I have been sticking to my two other resolutions, which were to start some light exercising twice a week (trying to work myself up to some bigger things) and also checking out the freelancing job boards once a week. I’m pleased with that, as I want to be sure to keep my fingers on the freelancing pulse as it were, and also get off my duff to make sure I don’t turn into a complete couch potato.

So while I haven’t actually spent much time writing per se, I’ve at least started to ease back into the writing pool by checking the job boards. Next up I’m hoping to start applying to a few jobs, but I figure I should increase my posting frequency here to make sure my writing’s up to snuff. I’ve been doing a lot more actual writing at the day job at Acme Co., which is nice, and also getting my hands dirty with some fun things like SharePoint 2007, which have helped with my day job satisfaction. That’s always good. But my ultimate goal is to work freelance from home so my daily commute is only 5 minutes (and that’s with a pit stop in the kitchen for a coffee). Small steps, one at a time.

Trying to Overcome the Nerves

Julia — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:15:13 +0000

Most of the time when people ask me why I haven’t started doing any “serious” freelance writing, I tell them it’s because I don’t have the energy to do it after coming home from the full time job. But that’s not really true. It’s partially true, but not the real reason. The real reason is the cliched one: I’m just too scared to apply to ads.

Yep, it’s true. I am a wimp.

There, now that it’s out in the open, let’s see about getting me over this fear. The other day Yolander wrote about applying for freelance writing jobs as part of a series she’s doing on the subject at All Freelance Writing. And I must say I was very happy to read this post because she debunks one of the biggest “myths” about freelance writing: that you have to apply to 10-15 gigs per day or week in order to find a job. This is another thing that’s got me a bit scared, particularly because I am working full time right now, so I just do see how I can possibly find the time and the energy to apply to 15 jobs a day. There’s just no possible way for me to do that. Weekly, maybe, but daily? Forget it.

But Yo talks about how she went for the quality queries rather than the quantity queries. She targeted the ones most appropriate for her and went for it. This is something that I need to do. I need to get into the habit of looking for the ads in the same places, but then only apply for ones that fit some criteria for me.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Once I get into the habit of looking at the ads and job boards, I’ll be looking at figuring out what my “ideal job” criteria are and then applying to the ones that meet them. That might mean I only apply to 5 jobs in a month, but as long as they’re the right 5 jobs, that’s fine by me.