About Me - Q & A
Are You My Mother?No. But I'm hers. She's cute, right?
She's also responsible for a five-year gap in my resume that I don't intend to fill with awkward terms like "domestic manager" or "household coordinator."
Becoming a stay-at-home mom gave me a lot of new things to write about. And while I was poring over parenting and women's magazines to find out how to calm a colicky baby, or to learn the secret of serving up peanut butter with pizazz, I studied style, tone and content.
And since I've been courted by advertisers for everything from diapers to dishwashers, I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm the one in our family responsible for researching major purchases - including health insurance, automobiles, credit cards, internet service, household appliances... well, you get the idea. If you're selling to the average American consumer, I am your target market.
What Else Qualifies You?
My writing. You can check out a few of my samples on this site, and more are available if you would like to see them. My qualifications include character traits like reliability, independent thinking, a flair for the dramatic, an analytical mind, and to be completely honest, a fickle curiosity. Everything you want in a freelance writer.
Where Are All Your Snazzy Titles?
If you would like a copy of my resume, please contact me. I would love to send you one. For now, here's an informal (and possibly more telling) overview:
Before my career changed dramatically with the birth of my daughter, I had a darn good job working for a major hospitality corporation.
One of the best things about working in a corporate environment - aside from steady pay, health insurance, professional training, and paid vacations - is getting the snazzy title for your resume. I had quite a few of them for my last job: administrative assistant, sales coordinator, sales reporting systems analyst (my favorite!), and bossy office lady. I got to do what I love: write sales letters, greet customers and field complaints, develop a new and improved organizational system, throw in my 2 cents, and learn new things in an impossibly short amount of time so that I could train the other employees and the executives.
But Wait - Isn't There More?
Yes. Sure. I have also worked in a real estate appraiser's office, owned and operated a residential cleaning business, worked in the archives at the headquarters of a big-name corporation, in the sales department of a construction products supplier, handled multi-line phones for a multi-inhabited office building, and I especially like to brag that, at one time, I had clearance to get into NASA. Okay, so I was just delivering blueprints for the company that installed their new phone system, but still, it's impressive, eh?
And of course, waaay back - in my younger days - I did my mandatory stint in fast food. Back then, we had a thing called "customer service," which included smiling and doing whatever we could to make a customer's experience a pleasant one. That's where I learned it, and I still embrace the concept. (This is also where I explored the nuances of targeted marketing. For instance, most of the time, big guys in construction hats would like a cherry pie with that.)
Again, all this exposure to people and businesses translates into great training for freelance writing. I am as comfortable interviewing the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation as I am writing Top Ten Tips for Removing Soap Scum.
Why Not Stay With the Cushy Job?
As proud as I am of my diverse skills and varied responsibilities, I really just wanted to be a writer. I was frequently exasperated when the higher-ups made bad writing decisions. I can't blame them: I didn't really toot my own horn about my super-secret identity as a wordsmith. I did rescue more than one crummy sales letter - subversively, of course - by making offhand observations like, "You probably want those points to be up at the top, right? To grab their interest?" (Some people call that "tact." I thought I was being sneaky.)
So for all my fancy titles, the one I wanted was "writer."
I decided to finally lay claim to that one. My first article was published in 2005. Since that time, I've said the words, "I'm a writer in Wichita, Kansas..." many times when calling to set up interviews. I'm still not used to it! Part of me wants to say, "Hello. It's me. The one with the disposable income, who makes 75% of the buying decisions in my home. It's me. Your target market."
Carolyn