Freelancing offers freedom and fulfillment, but only if you let it. It can be yet another form of work drudgery, the daily slog, the good ol’ shit work. It can be everything and all things you hate. How? Read on!

Hey kids! Freelancing is great, innit? But only if you follow some key rules.

See, freelancing is a little shady. Why on earth would you give up the never-ending safety and security of the regular, normal work world? The answer is simple – you want to do something the regular work world frowns upon. You’re weird. You’re a little touched in the head. So naturally, you must do everything in your power to convince yourself and the rest of the world that you’re not a complete and utter flake, and that you can be relied upon to deliver something of value in exchange for some monies. Such as:

Wake up on time.
Set that alarm for 5:30 every morning, smack yourself in the face, avoid that snooze, take a cold shower (invigorating!), and get your ass moving. Only by staying on a regimented, never varied schedule can us naturally nonconformist, lackadaisical, generally untrustworthy creative types find the routine necessary for success. Only by emulating that painful pain of the painstakingly painful outside work world can you find the discipline needed to reign in your inner sloth, pound out that report/article/logo/code/whathaveyou and put mac and cheese on the table. So learn to love the clock that is your taskmaster, your masterblaster, your … something else that ends in –aster.

Get dressed.
Think you can cut back on costs by wearing comfy clothes and reducing the need for that money IV hooked up to Ann Taylor Loft? Think again, slackass. Once you’ve roused yourself from bed while its still dark, it’s time to agonize over the outfit for the day, spend some time getting those curls just right, and slather on some makeup/aftershave. Hum the chorus to “Manic Monday” by the Bangles while you do it, and chuckle at the witty recognition of the pain of daily office life. Only by sitting in uncomfortable trousers and tight shirts can you really feel like a productive, contributing member of society, someone that can make the moolah to finance your PB&J and the occasional beer. Revel in wedgies, sweaty feet, and dry clean bills, freelancers, and find the key to unlocking your greatest potential!

Work nights and weekends.
You are a freelancer. You are the sword that is needed to defend the royals’ honor and damsels in distress at any time, no matter your needs for cocktail hour, a sex life, or sleep. Put your clients’ needs to bounce the 14th iteration of eblast subject lines off your noggin at midnight ahead of your own needs, you selfish prick. How else can you demonstrate that you are professional, that you are worthy of paying invoices, and that you can be trusted despite your shady eschewing of the traditional work world? In fact, state your ability to be at clients’ beck and call clearly in all your contracts, bids and every other sentence. Then you shall be respected.

Take every assignment that comes your way.
What, you think you can afford to be picky? Hallelujah and pass the ammunition, what the hell are you smoking? You should feel grateful that the man that can barely string words together has emailed you and generously offered $50 for writing his website. You should feel absolutely thrilled that the person using neon on their current website will pay you $200 IF he chooses your website design. You can’t afford to be choosy! You can’t rely on your talent to pay the bills! You can’t negotiate! They’re all gonna laugh at you!!

Trust your clients to do what is right.
When the glorious moment comes at which someone decides to bequeath you their precious work, you must accept it gratefully and silently. You may suggest deposits, contracts, and clear details on project scope, but if the client righteously rebuffs the overture, you must accept it. They are the boss, and you are the minion doing their deeds. There is no need for your protection through paperwork, for the boss is like the absolute monarchy of old, installed by deities and immune to questions of trust or fairness. Do you really think a god will screw you over? And if he or she does, don’t you think you kind of deserve it??

Revise, and revise again, and please sir, may I have another?
So your work has been turned in. You think you’ve done well, but what the fuck do you know? See, your client is not happy. They want to give you a gold star for effort, sweet cheeks, but what they really wanted was something a little more. What they wanted more of is locked away in the unbreachable, unfathomable, mind-boggling vast and deep reaches of the client’s brain, and the only way they can think to translate it to you is with requests for “lighter copy,” “happier design,” or “passion and drama in the story of orthopedic surgery.” What are you waiting for? Sure, we may not understand their requests, but our job is to revise an unlimited amount of times until they are happy. And fold that time into the generous fees they offer.

Well there you have it. Sure, it can sound undesirable. But you chose this weird path, didn’t you? Get used to it. And learn to love hating your life.

What, you think you have something to add? Figures. If you have other rules that good little freelancers should follow, go ahead and leave a comment!

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Literature is filled with dudes that wax poetic about other dudes as they travel the harsh terrain of life in a singular and lonely way. Some are hailed as geniuses; most don’t do much for me.

But from this tradition of dudery comes Cormac McCarthy. He’s a writer who matters.

Over 40+ years and 10 novels, McCarthy has moved from ultraviolent yet flowery and verbose works to stripped down and utterly heartrending pieces of fiction. He’s a natural rebel as he breaks common writing structure rules: Witness the complete absence of dialogue tags or even punctuation. Ride along with his run-on sentences, followed by fragments, completed with entire thoughts expressed in a word. Just try to follow the time and space jumping, and keep pace with narrator and perspective changes.

But McCarthy’s quiet rebellion goes further, and establishes a truly genre-bending and exciting canon. A good majority of his work, especially the most well known books, revolve around a Southwest of the past or the present. Westerns of book and film could once be said to be the domain of pride and (male) code and rah-rah country sentiment. They were traditional, with a firm sense of morality, of who was right and who was wrong. McCarthy completely upends that tradition, narrating with characters that make questionable actions, that are pushed by confused and degraded driving forces. They’re often the bad guys. Even in the rare cases when his characters are acting from a sense of right and protecting others, their inherent selfishness is still carefully displayed.

The world is messy and violent and dangerous. McCarthy shows that to extremes, but also makes the tales seem natural, inevitable, even necessary. It’s exhilarating, and truly frightening. That’s the power of good writing, and it comes from McCarthy.

A few choice examples from the McCarthy realm:

• Outer Dark. A man and a woman search for each other in a desperately poor landscape haunted by nightmarish figures. Incest! Cannibals! Wandering! A dark little tale that’s often overlooked in his canon, but one that sticks with you.
• Blood Meridian. A band of men “patrol” and hunt the lands of Texas and Mexico. The book is dominated by two words: The Judge. One of the creepiest, most hilarious nightmare figures in literature. An ultraviolent and dirty book steeped in historical accuracy, one currently being translated to film, which could be transcendent or just sick and wrong.



• Border Trilogy. Three novels placed on the border of territory and myth, with men done in by their loves, their lusts and their loneliness. All the Pretty Horses and Cities of the Plain are the bookends that garner most attention, but for a simultaneously amazing and infuriating read go for the middle chapter, The Crossing.
• No Country for Old Men. A good old boy takes a stash of cash left behind from a drug deal gone bad. A chase ensues. Seen the movie? It’s terrific and terrifically faithful to the source, with some amazing performances. But you get more from the book. It’s sweeping and focused at the same time, with yet another creepy, funny and just wrong villain in Chigurh.
• The Road. After an unnamed apocalypse, all hell breaks loose. But McCarthy keeps his vision of this nightmare almost exclusively pointed at a father and son traveling together. The fear is palpable, and the despair inescapable, and when we finally see a little bit of what’s to fear, it’s shocking. Just as shocking is the capacity for real emotion and love in its presence.

Got a McCarthy favorite? Tell us about it in the comments!

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And…we’re back.

QRW is now returning to its regularly scheduled program, but with a few enhancements, improvements and otherwise niftiness! Check out our new design and features. Read about Quiet Rebel Writer and what this whole hubbub is about. View some greatest hits. And get ready for more righteous, rockin’ rebellion on our way to being the best damn writers and creatives ever. Ever, I say!

Wondering what’s coming up? Oh my dears. Here’s just a taste:

Monday: One way to inspire, impress and otherwise push us to keep writing is by looking at the masters. They are Writers that Matter, and they should be on your bookshelves. Today we’ll look at Cormac McCarthy, he of the “Quotation marks? I defy thee!” philosophy, as well as the “Blood? Check. Cannibals? Check. Heartbreaking emotion? Damn effing right, check” game.

Tuesday: Freelance writing is awesome. But it can also blow goats. If you want to learn how to make it really, really blow goats and ewes and rams, then our weekly Freelance Reality Dose is for you. This week: “How to Be a Freelancer and Hate Every Minute of It.”

Wednesday: Writing is tricky. It’s hard. That’s why it’s the craft that occupies fifteen shelves of resource books at your bookstore. What’s worth your time and money? For Resource Review, we figure it out. Today we look at one gem from another rebel, The Renegade Writer.

Thursday: Another way to inspire, impress and otherwise push us to keep writing? Learning about living, breathing, and eating freelancers like you and me, folks that have made their own paths, effed up and learned from it, and are making it happen. They’re our peers, our office buddies without offices, and our daily encouragement. Today we talk with Elizabeth McQuern, blogger, writer, and comedy producer in Chicago.

Friday: And how about that writing? To end the week we turn to Creative Life&Links, where we look at the best kickass examples of writing in the “famous” world, in the bloggy world, and here in the QRW empire.

But oh – there’s more my friends! QRW now has sister blogs, and you simply must check them out. First up is a little concept you might recognize, now given its very own individual home in the interwebs: Word Porn. This week, we discover weird words and stories for yokels, violent dissolution of empires, hatred, and those powerful benies that make us whore ourselves out. Don’t want to miss a day? Subscribe for your daily dose!

And coming very soon is a place to recognize and celebrate those rebellious lasses that we find in history, in books, in popular culture, and in our everyday world. What Would Octavia Do? presents females and feminist heroes that break rules and make our world better because of it.

Exciting stuff. And you’re a part of it. These blogs are where you need to be.

Hey you!

Yeah, you. Beautiful, loyal, ever supportive subscriber and reader that you are. I’ve got something special for you.

All right, so that sounds pervy. But I do have some good news for all of us: Quiet Rebel Writer is coming back, and its going to be even more righteous and rockin’ in its quest for rebellious creative success.

In a few short weeks, expect to reconnect and re-obsess over this unique corner of the blogosphere. This is where writers and creatives can learn from the greats, learn what not to do, learn how to make your own rules, and learn how to preserve the love and joy of writing in the face of the day to day. This is where you need to be.

Oh, and there’s more. I’ll have a few exciting announcements in the coming weeks about expansion and plans for world domination. Expect to see Word Porn and more goodies in a whole new way.

So in summary: You rock. Thanks for your continued readership. And get ready for some new QRW goodness.