First things first, it is very weird experience to be writing for myself.
I've worked in marketing for over ten years now, and in content marketing for just about a decade, and I've gotten used to producing content with other people's goals, SEO keywords and tone of voice in mind. Knowing nobody will read this before it goes live is both freeing and absolutely petrifying.
But here we are. I launched my freelance consultancy in April 2021 and ever since then, a wasteland of a blog has sat on my website, forlorn and unloved, waiting for the day I might actually appear to draft something in Wordpress and hit send. I wanted to avoid that with Substack, which is why I'm essentially word-vomiting in an effort to get that dreaded 'first post' out.
Because at the end of the day, I reckon what most of us writers - be us content marketers, copywriters, journalists, authors, however you like to write and whatever you produce, you're a writer - fear is the blank page.
Did you ever get that advice when you were in school during essay season, when teachers were basically like 'just write any old nonsense down, it's getting something down on the page that matters, you can edit later!' I sincerely doubt that without a client's word count on my mind, I'll edit later. Let's see shall we? (Side note, if you see a typo in this, no you didn't).
What can you expect? Well, I just told my partner what I'm writing and his immediate suggestion was 'dog blog'. You probably will come across me writing about my pets at some point just for fun, but sadly, the world is not yet ready for dog blog.
At the moment, I'm thinking more along these lines:
Marketing: What's happening? What's interesting? What could you possibly learn from that wild and crazy campaign that everyone's talking about? Think pop culture for marketers, but trying to extract useful tidbits that we can all use beyond ‘get a £50k budget and do a London Underground station takeover’ (looking at you, Barbie). I actually spoke about this in my Marketing & Publicity Conference talk back in July, which I will gladly do the reader’s digest version of here.
Freelance life: I get asked about this, a lot. I get emails and DMs asking questions all the time, usually from other people in my industry wondering if we can have a coffee because they're thinking about it, or they just quit their job or got made redundant and they think it might be right for them. I like to think I'm pretty generous with my time as when I was starting out, there were a small group of people who were incredible at soothing my anxiety and sharing their own knowledge. I credit them hugely with how I got where I am now, and I'd like to deep dive a little more into some of the thoughts and anxieties I've had around it. It might also be a nice chance to reflect on how far I've come, since I'm frankly terrible at that.
Just… general professional anxiety and stuff I find interesting: I once had a university friend say to me a couple of years after graduating, I forget we’re the same age because you always look like you have you shit together. Guess what? People who look like they have their shit together, often do not. We’re just really good at looking like we do because it’s how we *hold it* together. I don’t know how useful it will be for you for me to talk about it but I don’t know, the world is on fire, let’s all feel collectively anxious together, right?
So, I end this post with the comment that I started drafting it in April 2024. It’s November, so it took what, seven months to summon up the courage and hit publish? An awful lot has happpened in that time, including today’s news that I’ve been shortlisted for Freelancer of the Year 2024 (The Bookseller). So, that’s awesome.
One thing I very much want to do, to embrace the yonder days of Tumblr and MySpace (but make it ✨professional✨) is share a track with you that makes me feel things. Whether that’s reflective, hyped, powerful, despairing, I don’t know. Just something for your playlist.
So here’s the first. It makes me think of home, friends old and new, and makes me feel connected to the world around me.
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