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Four Lessons From 10 Years of Freelance Writing
“Welcome. Your office is here in the back.”
The manager of the college bookstore led me through racks of clothing and shelves of books before squeezing into a room uncomfortably lit with blinking fluorescents and outdated computer monitors.
“It’s really more of a storage room with a desk, but don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”
God, I hope not.
It was 2008. I had just graduated from college in the middle of the Great Recession. My degree? Film and television with a focus on editing.
I’d contacted nearly every studio, news outlet, production house, independent film company, offering up my freshly pressed resume and credentials.
But nobody was hiring new editors. I received more, “any other time we’d love to have you but” responses.
I would have rather been told my demo reel was trash. At least that I could work to improve on.
That response told me to pack it in.
So I ended up expanding my application reach, including the “Web Manager” for a college bookstore.
After just a few hours on the job, I discovered a Web Manager was nothing more than a guy who grabbed orders from the printer, collected what the person ordered, then shipped them…
