On giving away your best stuff. For free.
(With Jenna Butler)
I am a great admirer (and a student) of Ash Ambirge. Her website is The Middle Finger Project, and I’ve taken one of the courses she offers: Unf*ckwithable Freelancer. She doesn’t use the full word (even though it’s not really a word), so she doesn’t get censored by search engines etc.
Ash is as real as it gets. She swears like a bar full of sailors in her course and on her blog, which is cool by me, because so do I. Her course and her blog are full of humour, kindness, generosity, laughter, and authenticity.
One of the lessons in her master class advises freelancers to give away 25% of our best stuff. For free.
It took me a long time to wrap my head around that idea. How are we supposed to earn more income as freelancers if we’re giving away a quarter of our knowledge? And then, of course, it hit me. I already do that. This blog is my freebie to you, and hopefully it’s educational and entertaining in equal measure. My weekly (or so) editing tips aren’t rocket science, but they work for me, and they’ll likely work for you too.
After I finished that lesson (and before I understood that I’m already giving good stuff away for free), I realized it felt good to give things away. In Ash’s words, a good freelancer wants to always be helping, not selling. That sounds honest and real to me.
This relates to editing (your own work and the work of others) in this way: when you give, you get. There are several people in my life who are allowed to see my work at the shitty first draft (or shitty thirteenth draft) stage, and my relationships with these readers are reciprocal. If I send my work to particular friends (I always check first to see if it’s a good time), I expect that they will send me their new draft when they’re ready for feedback. Beyond taking turns buying the wine, there is no transfer of money, nor would I ever want that.
I started to think of other ways I could give away my stuff for free. I think volunteering is the best way, outside of the parameters of a reciprocal reader relationship.
I will always answer emails asking me specific questions about the writing life, whether the questions come from someone I know or not. I’m happy to provide a few links and smiley faces to help a person on their writing or editing journey. It’s five minutes out of my day, but hopefully it sends the asker down a rabbit hole of self-discovery. This maxes out at about four or five emails, though. I guard my boundaries well, and after a couple of days of free advice, I will point the emailer to my hourly consultation rates.
~~
I love visiting Jenna Butler’s college writing classes, and she graciously asks in me in once per term to speak to her students. I live five minutes from the college, so the only outlay for me is a bus ticket or parking for a couple of hours. In other words, it’s no chore. I get as much from her students as they (hopefully) get from me.
Jenna is an amazing professor and the feeling of her students’ respect for her permeates every class of hers I’ve ever set foot in. Her students LOVE her, and I think that’s part of why they’re so open to having other voices chime in once in a while. They trust her to expose them to people who might be able to help them out in some way. I visited her current creative writing class the other day, and we always allow the classes I participate in to evolve organically (though it looks like we secretly coordinated our outfits to show up to class in sweaters of the exact same colour and texture, I SWEAR we did not). I decided to read a new essay I’d been working on.
Before I read it, on a whim, I asked for feedback from the students. What’s working? What’s not clear? How can I flesh it out or cut it back to make it more effective? I got so much great feedback from them that it overwhelmed me. I was frantically writing down what they were saying, and then joked, “Thanks for your free labour!”
Jenna and I discussed this later over lunch, and I came home feeling like I had given (as well as having received) a really positive experience. My gift to the students was the new work that no one had heard before. Their gift to me was the freedom to respond to it with honesty and kindness. We all gave away our best stuff for free that day.
~~
It’s a fine line. I’d love to be able to help everyone and give away everything I know. But you know? Editors have bills too. I can’t do it as much as I’d like, and I have to tug in my natural tendency to over-mentor to ensure that I stay mentally healthy and can buy the groceries and pay the internet bill. The key is balance, and once you find it, it gets easier to figure out how much to give. The measurement is the value you receive when you edit someone else’s work (or even your own). Is the work better? Did they buy you a prosecco (or whatever you like)? Did you buy yourself a beverage of choice for showing up for yourself in your work? If so, then yay! You’re on the road to giving your stuff away with no regrets and no loss.