I quit my comfy, stable job last year, put ads on Craigslist and Kijiji and entered the wild world of the freelance scribe. I had seriously low expectations. Colour me surprised when I started receiving replies.
Some of my jobs are standard web content creation and parenting articles. But then there are the weird and wacky ones. After a stint on an arranged marriage site penning enticements for those seeking ideal partners, it suddenly occurred to me that many love-seekers get no replies because their profiles suck. So now I also ghostwrite dating profiles, creating characters so much cooler than myself that if I weren’t married, I’d totally date them.
Turns out there are people all over the world looking for writers for both business and personal reasons – sometimes way too personal. A recent ad posted on Craigslist sought a romantic-comedy writer to compose a short story about professional women in their 20s and 30s who wear excruciatingly painful heels.
My novels, none of which have seen the light of day, are all in the romantic comedy genre, so I knew this gig could be mine.
Darth got back to me that night through internet messaging. Where, I asked, was he planning on publishing this tale? It occurred to me that perhaps this was all part of a brilliant marketing strategy for a shoe manufacturer. After a long pause, he responded – the material was only for him. I understood. This gentleman had a foot fetish, and his hired writers’ stories were his “outlet”. Nothing explicit, he assured me. I turned him down.
I have always known that I could write killer soft-core: “She dug her long fingers into the soft flesh of her feet, kneading and rubbing….” But knowing what Darth planned to do with my clever turns of phrase was a complete gross-out.
I’ve been asked to work for almost nothing, truly for nothing, and have yet to see payment on a few projects. Sometimes I write about the most personal details of my own life, and sometimes on subjects I know nothing about. I’m addicted to trolling for work, and get a thrill every time a job opportunity pops up in my inbox.
And perhaps one day you’ll see my novels on bookstore shelves (or more likely online). Keep an eye out for the one about the 28-year-old lawyer whose Manolo Blahniks are just killing her.
news@nowtoronto.com
