Put Your Head Down and Keep Pedaling

I make my living as a writer for a marketing company and a news blog in Portland, Oregon.  Yesterday, I raised my hand to hit the send button on an assignment with the marketing company.  "Ding."  I heard my gmail notifier tell me that I had an incoming email.

"We haven't heard from you in awhile, and have decided to assign the project to someone else.  Good luck in your future writing."  Mind you, I had sent them work on Friday and had three more articles ready for them as soon as my finger touched the button.  What?  My anger took over as I started barking unreasonable commands at my dual-processor computer.  It froze.  I fumed.  

I had worked all weekend and felt all sacrificial.  Did they expect that?  We had a few terse emails.  I got fired and rehired in the space of ten minutes. At lunchtime I walked home to get a bite to eat.  My landlord met me at the yard for a bit of confrontation.  If he had known what I had just gone through, I think he would have held off for awhile.

Walking back to my office I thought back to my recent experience as a canvasser for Penguin Windows.  I hated every single second of that job but needed them at the time.  I had a little script I gave at each door.  "You know, the whole world is a stage". Shakespeare said it not me.  I performed several times a day to a hostile crowd on my little three by four concrete platform.  

One day I had this pleasant conversation with a housewife about the beauty of windows.  I asked a couple questions about their panes.  The husband came around the corner and just went off on me all protective like.  You would have thought that I had made a pass at his wife.  He finished by saying rather rudely, ":You can leave any time."

As I walked away I started thinking and feeling all sorts of things.  I said it out loud.  "Stop."  I had to force myself to let it completely go.  I went on canvassing.  I set an appointment at the next house. "Take that you, you, pane in the glass."  Later that day I processed the experience.

I remembered that experience today.  For the marketing company I write about chickens.  Yeah, that's right, chickens.  It takes a good writer to make chickens exciting.  They pay me poorly to write good quality copy about chickens.  I do a good job for them.  

I need them right now.  "Stop."  I had to just put my head down and keep pedaling.  I produced two more breed articles today which they liked.  As a writer I try to think and feel deeply.  I take time to observe, to make connections, to record.  Those thoughts and emotions come in handy even when writing about chickens.  However, even as a writer sometime you have to place those things on the shelf and just get the chicken s.....article out to your editor.

Okay, so now I've processed it.  I have another couple articles to write for tomorrow and need to get on my other job as a beat reporter.  So put the head down writer.  Keep riding and writing.

My Office...Eat your heart out Mr. Gates