Monthly Archives: June 2021

Penman No. 416: Tips for Freelancers

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Penman for Monday, June 21, 2021

A GROUP of freelancers—people who write for a living but who prefer not to be tethered to any single employer—recently asked me to share some advice on how to get the most out of their job. Even in normal times, freelance writing has never been easy. You are basically on your own, dependent on your network of contacts and on your resourcefulness to get that next assignment and get that story published. While the Internet may have opened up new opportunities, it has also intensified competition and imposed new demands. 

Having been a professional writer and editor for almost 50 years, I was happy to give them these tips:

1. Broaden your interests. If your main interest is arts and culture, learn something about science and technology. Know your history, and gain even a basic understanding of economics. Don’t be choosy. As long as the job pays fairly and will not harm you in any way, do it because it will be another learning experience and will add more value to your résumé. 

2. Expand your capabilities. Learn the basics of good photography and invest in a good camera (even a good smartphone), as it will add value to your articles and make them easier to sell. Learn to write bilingually, especially as many clients will need scripts or articles in Filipino. Expand your genres, so you can write not only features but scripts, speeches, reports, and other marketable materials. Master the language, so you can also do editing work. Learn the basics of web design. 

3. Know the market. Writing single articles can be fun, but I doubt that they will make you enough to support yourself and your family. The physical magazines have shrunk to almost nothing, and while there may be money to be made online doing nearly mechanical work, you will want something more engaging and more remunerative. In my experience, a freelance writer can make the most from writing commissioned books. 

4. Learn to market yourself. This means you have to put yourself and your name out there, meeting people from all backgrounds. You may have to attend art exhibit openings, book launches, anniversaries, and other functions to make contacts and get to know what’s going on. Get on the mailing and invitation lists of embassies. Make friends with key media people. You may even have to do a few “freebies”—free publicity—just to get known. Maintain a blog that will display both your writing and your photography—indeed, your style—so potential clients can have an idea of how you write and how you will treat their material. Write a book—that will be the best way to get yourself noticed as a writer. Ask yourself: if someone were to Google my name, what will they find? Provide a positive answer to that. 

5. Be thoroughly professional. Be mindful of appointments, contracts, deadlines, accreditation, receipts, and taxes. Treat every job, no matter how small, as your first, last, and only job. Attend meetings promptly, dress smartly, speak knowledgeably—all of these contribute to the impression your client will make of you. Digitally record all interviews, after asking prior permission; never rely on handwritten notes. Back up your files to the Cloud and to an external drive. If the job is big enough, ask for a written contract, or at least a signed conformé to your proposal. 

6. Treat your work as a business. You will get more—and also more substantial—writing jobs if you are able to issue official receipts. This means getting properly registered as a business enterprise with the SEC, the BIR, and other agencies. To get government contracts, you need to be accredited with PhilGEPS, or the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System. These accreditation processes can be tedious and expensive; you will also have to file taxes every year and do your own bookkeeping. But if you want to write for a living for the rest of your life, it’s an investment that will pay for itself in the long run. 

7. The writing life can be full of delightful freebies. I’m not telling you to reject them outright—Lord knows your professional fees are small enough, so these can be taken as compensation in kind—but don’t lie, and don’t be a party to fraud or misrepresentation. If you can’t write honestly about a product or a service, don’t take any favors coming your way. Like they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch—but make sure your lunch isn’t poisoned and will kill you later.

8. Maintain your integrity. As I said, don’t be too choosy and too proud, especially if you’re starting out and trying to build a name. But don’t undersell yourself, either, and try not to get exploited. I say “try,” because in practice, at some point or other, someone will exploit you, whether you’re aware of it or not. Learn to say “No” if and when you have to. Compromise is good and even often necessary, but draw a line in the sand beyond which you will not go. Money is important, but it is not everything. Other and better projects will come. Unless you are desperate, do not take on jobs that will not make you happy; at least, make them pay well for your unhappiness. 

Penman No. 415: Stay Curious!

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Penman for Monday, June 7, 2021

OVER THE past month, I was asked to speak to two groups—one an assembly of teachers, and the other of students—to share my ideas about college education, and specifically the kind of liberal, interdisciplinary education being offered at the University of the Philippines and other progressive universities.

Rather than talk about curricula and theories of education—never my strong suit—I opted to look back on my 36 years of teaching and on my own experience as a student to figure out what I truly learned from that crucial period in every young person’s life, beyond the books we read. Some of these realizations came long after college—which was all right, since one of the things that college should teach us is that education is a lifelong process that goes beyond degrees earned and seminars attended.

So I came up with a 12-point wish list of what I as a teacher want my students learn—whether in my classes or outside of them, at school and in life. 

I phrased these 12 statements as simply as possible, without too many elaborations, because I didn’t want to sound like a research paper. Rather, I wanted my listeners to think of these statements as provocations, things to keep at the back of their minds, and for the students to remember four or five years hence when they graduate from college. Here goes:

1. You don’t have to understand everything right away. In any case, you can’t. Some things in life will forever remain mysteries—some of them wonderful, some of them perplexing. Staying curious is what matters to the lifelong learner. Boredom is often just the absence of curiosity.

2. Engagement helps—and by engagement, I mean investing yourself, putting in your time, effort, and maybe even money behind some belief or idea or activity that means something to you. Sometimes engagement is the best way of knowing, learning, and finally understanding. 

3. Not everything has to have practical value—at least not yet, or maybe ever. Value can mean more than utility or money. Delight and discovery are their own rewards.

4. You are not the center of the universe. Not everything has to do with you. However, every connection you can make to the world around you leaves a mark that you were here—and that, in your own way, you mattered.

5. Learn to see time in years and centuries, not seconds or hours. If you want to foretell the future, look back to the past. We may seem to be headed for the future, but in fact we will all inevitably be part of the past. How will you want to be remembered?

6. Intelligence, cleverness, knowledge, and wisdom are very different things. Knowledge without values is worthless and even dangerous. The middling student who has a sense of good and bad and right and wrong is worthier than the summa cum laude who doesn’t.

7. The first thought that comes to your mind may not be the best one. Pause and think before you speak or write, especially in these days of Facebook and Twitter. Speech but also silence can require courage and good judgment.

8. Learn to love something larger than yourself, your family, and your prized possessions. “Nation,” “freedom,” “justice,” and “equality” are very attractive ideas, but you have to learn to bring these big words down to earth, in concrete forms, actions, and decisions. Can you accept that you are your housekeeper’s equal as a human being? 

9. Be prepared to take risks and to make mistakes—and even to fail. You can learn more from failure than from over-performance. Everybody—even the very best of us—will fail sometime, and it will be good to believe that we are all entitled to at least one big mistake in our lives.

10. Be prepared to change your mind. As you grow and learn, some things will become more simple, and others more complex. You are not a fixed entity; you are changing all the time, and you can change faster than the world around you. 

11. Technology can be deceptive. It can lead us to believe that the world is changing very fast and for the better. That may be true for some of us and for the way we live. But for many others left behind, the world is no better than it was a hundred years ago.

12. Competition is good, but cooperation or even compromise is often better—and necessary. Poems are written by solitary genius, but bridges, cathedrals, and nations are built by many minds and hands. The best way to deal with loneliness is to find meaning in the many—to learn from and to contribute to the experience of others.

With that, I wished the students the best on their next adventures in college, and just as Steve Jobs told us to “Stay hungry, stay foolish!”, I urged them to stay curious, so they will always enjoy learning, inside or outside of school.