Picking up where I left off. . .
January of 2008 found me in a turmoil. My boss went on an extended holiday, and there was no work to be had for a month. I was almost completely destitute and had zero options in sight. That was when I learned not to put all my eggs in one basket. I started desperately looking for other freelance work and thankfully, I was hired to write for the now-defunct online magazine, Poise Daily.
Writing for Poise was a lot of fun (and the rate wasn't shabby, either). While my regular job had me writing endless articles on mortgages and video surveillance and cigarette cases, I got to write about Macbooks and fashion and my travels for Poise, to name just a few. By the time my boss came back from her holiday, I continued writing for Poise on the side until the woman who owned it decided to pursue other things. By then, I had also learned how to get other legitimate freelance work, so I always had a steady stream of side jobs to keep my mind at ease.
I enjoyed an income that kept soaring for the next few months. And then, the recession hit. Several of my boss' clients pulled out, so I (along with the rest of my team) was forced to take a pay cut. Even my side jobs suffered. I ended up having to take more and more assignments for less than my usual rates. I started working 16-hour days just to keep my income consistent. Unfortunately, so were my stress levels!
It got so bad that I decided to let go of the worst-paying side jobs and take a day job that paid well. So for the third time since I moved to Bangkok a year before, I was employed by a Thai company. The job was to teach rich and/or smart Thai kids how to write their admissions essays to Ivy League universities. I quite enjoyed it while it lasted. Once again, I was earning a healthy income and I felt secure once again. The downside was the horrible commute from Nonthaburi to Silom (and back) that I had to suffer every day. Eventually, I had to give it up, too, because it was just too exhausting.
By then, things have started to pick up somewhat online. A very pregnant Chin (who was getting ready to leave her day job by then) and I then decided to pool our client base together and start our own writing company; thus, Women Who Write was born. We kept at the business through my move back to the Philippines (with Steve in tow) and all the way through the first quarter of 2009 when the declining rates of online writing jobs forced us to finally throw in the towel.
February found me with another day job, this time back in my home country. I was writing a book on government grants (ick!) for an insufferable Russian and his equally insufferable Filipina girlfriend, the Evil Couple who ran several companies under one roof (a call center, a lending firm, and an online ESL school) and spent half the time screaming at all and sundry. It was a nightmare, and thoughts of being stuck there for the rest of my life had me crying in my cubicle almost every day. That job was, without a doubt, the lowest of all of my life's numerous low points.
But you know what they say: when you're down, you can't go anywhere else but up. In April, the same month that I got married, a regular client offered me a full-time job complete with a substantial monthly salary. Several of my pre-recession clients started crawling out of the woodwork with projects anew. And to top it all off, a project was awarded to me out of nowhere in one of the freelance sites I use to bid on projects periodically.
It was the project to end all projects; it was high-paying AND long-term - every freelancer's dream. I didn't even remember bidding on it! It turned out I bid on it months and months ago, and because the client didn't make any decisions, I promptly forgot about it. And suddenly, there it was, all mine for the taking! Without even thinking twice, I quit my shitty day job (not an easy feat, as the Evil Couple refused to let me go) and went back to being a full-time freelancer.
As the months progressed and the project grew, I was no longer just writing. Now, nearly six months later, I'm running full-scale search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns for my client's numerous clients. My job is to get these clients on the first page of Google for the keywords they're targeting. The whole concept was really nothing new to me as this has been the focus of my online writing career, but now that I'm also handling the more technical aspects of SEO, I'm finding the whole thing both refreshing and quite challenging. No, I did not need to get an online degree or anything like that. All I needed was a very patient and supportive client who had a barrage of instructional PDFs for me to study daily, and I was good to go.
Though I like to think that I've got the whole thing down pat two months after we launched in August, I still don't. I'm continuously learning and keeping myself updated on the best and newest SEO strategies. I know, it's about as exciting as acne treatment, but it is extremely lucrative. It has since allowed The Husband to quit his shitty teaching job and escape from the clutches of the Evil Couple. He's now in-charge of the video marketing part of the job (yes, we do that, too), and he's slowly easing in to the life of a home-based outsourcer.
Of course, with this full-time job, plus a couple of other (also full-time) writing work on the side, I do find myself spread quite thin, even working literally side-by-side with The Husband. I do, however, now have a team of fantastic women writers who write extremely well, plus a plethora of software that automate the bulk of my tasks. I'm working harder and longer than I ever did in my entire life, yes, but you know what? I actually love it! And no, it's not just about the cool four-figure monthly income (in dollars), a huge deal where I am. It's the freedom of knowing that I'm working because I want to work, not because I have to.
It's been a long and arduous journey towards the job of my dreams, and now that I'm here, I can honestly say that it's been worth every effort, every disappointment that came my way. I hope my (not-so) little tale will serve to inspire anybody who's trying to find him or herself and that dream job that truly is a dream-come-true. It can be done. Never let anybody tell you otherwise. I've done it, Chin has done it - and we're only two of millions who have done it the world over.
