Raison d'etre

A Story by Chris

First post

First entry. What to say? Perhaps I'll justify my actions.

I am a lawyer. I tried to be a landman. I've been employed as such off and on for about a decade. Unfortunately, the way the market works is that lots of landmen are employed on a contract basis. The practical effect of this is that you're always one phone call away from unemployment. It's a sort of latter-day sword of Damocles, minus the fortune and power. Adding to this tenuous situation is that event now known by some as the Great Oil Crash of 2014. Because OPEC chose to not cut production in November to halt declining prices, there was far too much oil in the market. Saudi Arabia wanted to depress the price of oil in order to throttle the shale boom in the US, and they succeeded. The price of crude oil was cut approximately in half over a six-month period. My services became even more expendable just as I was looking for a new contract. Thank you, Ali Al-Naimi.

So my résumé has been out in the marketplace since mid-October when I was notified that my contract at my current place of business was going to end. Since then I've applied to hundreds (possibly thousands) of open positions and posted it to dozens of relevant job boards. The results of my work to date have been two unsuccessful interviews, both in December, and not a single callback since then. Now I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do know it when the Universe is telling me that it's time to do something different. I've read about and known of many people who have used times like these as transition points into much more successful endeavors. Maybe now it's my turn?

For the longest time I have wanted to run my own business. I was going to say "be my own boss," but as has been pointed out by others who have gone this road before me, there is nothing less true -- if anything you wind up with more bosses, not less. I've wanted to be captain of my own ship, accountable to no one, and master of my own destiny. I am now learning that, of these three clichés, only the first is marginally true about going into business for one's self. But the allure of having that small amount of control that one gains when one strikes out on one's own (channeling Virginia Woolf; probably a sign of bad writing) has always appealed to me. Trudging into the fluorescent corporate hell that is the 21st century office and spending my days confined to a fabric-covered metal box making someone else rich was never me.

Therefore, I have decided to become a freelance copywriter. Why? Because it sounds neat, seems like it pays well, apparently I write good, and because at this point I really have nothing to lose if I fail. I've been reading books by Bob Bly for the past few days. One point he has emphasized is to write in a conversational style. I'll attempt to do just that here in this account. I've also bought books on writing, like how-to's on writing copy and freelance writing. I've also become reacquainted with the Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White's Elements of Style -- those books our poor senior English teachers exposed us to back when we were young and dumb and too ignorant to truly appreciate these wonderful books.

I'm still doing my homework on the subject, so I'm not yet ready to solicit offers, but if any of you are aware of a business or organization looking to outsource their written copy in the near future to someone who will do it cheaply (for now), please let me know. I'm not sure how I'll use this site. Probably not to bare my soul or anything along those lines. But I figure the best way to get my writing chops back is to just start writing, so that I shall do. Or will do, in order to write more conversationally.