A tale of two freelancers

September 28th, 2006

People, I wish you could see some of the goofy-ass writing samples on my shelf from my first few years as a freelance word mercenary, back in the nineties. I’ve been straightening up my office tonight, and as a result, cracking up. Some highlights:

• Copy for those “What’s this?” plaques you’d see in front of a tree stump or patch of stinky moss in a national park—in my case, Arizona’s Kartchner Caverns State Park, which for a long time was a supersecret cave before opening to the public in the nineties. The best plaque I wrote was about bat guano.
• Script for an old Victoria Principal informercial. I swear to effing god. I even got product samples. Most of them made me break out.
• Companion audiotapes for books like this. If I remember correctly, one had a tip in it about how naming a star after your sweetheart (which you can actually do for a tidy little sum) will get you in her pants faster—and forever.
• Back covers for computer programming books with names like Talk Java to Me (best Worst Cover Ever!), Erotic Connections: Love and Lust on the Information Highway (by some dude named Billy Wildhack who now serves up sex news online), and Fatal Distractions: 87 of the Very Best Ways to Get Beaten, Eaten, Maimed, and Mauled on Your PC (by the guy who wrote the “Trouble with Tribbles” episode of the original Star Trek series—random, I know).
• Catalog copy for products like the Eroscillator, the only vibrator ever to receive an endorsement from legendary sexpert Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

Gawd, are you still reading this post after suffering through all that? And, why did I not wind up on welfare?

These days, I’m happy to report that my freelance gigs are far more staid ‘n steady, meaning I don’t have to write about beauty products, bat turds, or anything remotely related to William Shatner. (At least until the next recession or equivalent of the dotcom crash.) Since people are always asking what I’m working on, here’s a sampling of what I have cooking this week:

• Turned in a career profile of a former student to Seattle University’s alumni magazine today. (700 words)
• Interviewing and outlining article for National Association of Female Executives magazine. (650 words)
• Finishing up the caption-y text for a very cute photography book that a local publisher will be putting out next year. (approx. 2000 words)
• Negotiating rates/schedules for next week’s megacorp copywriting gigs.
• Reviewing page proofs of my book! Yes, my pages are here. And the designer did a fanfreakingtastic job. The original graphics are perrrrrrfect. I believe my email to the editors today said: “Pages! OMG! O! M! G!” No turning back now. This chicken’s about to hatch a book.

Entry Filed under: Book, This freelance life