A few weeks ago, just before I left the house to shop for new curtains for the bedrooms_a task long overdue_my husband diverted me, said this: Don’t force it. It’s OK if you don’t find the right thing this trip.
I had wanted to change out the drapes before family came over for Thanksgiving, but I agreed. I had to relax.
In the weeks prior, I’d been struggling to figure out how to position myself as a freelance copywriter. I’ve been running my editorial services business for nearly five years, so I wasn’t freaked out about the freelancing part. It was the niche part I couldn’t process.
I had ideas, discarded them. I wrote notes, lots of notes, on a legal pad. I quizzed myself: What am I interested in? What are other people passionate about? Travel kept bubbling up, lingering. OK, I’ll write about travel.
But what about it? Well, I’m intrigued by resorts. I know the association world well. I occasionally write destination descriptions for education cluster brochures. My brain juggled the variables for a while, then built a formula out of them, and a solution: writing for the convention and visitors bureau industry.
I am excited.
I start Googling. Turns out there’s an organization called Destination Marketing Association International. DMAI’s website showers me with ideas for potential clients. I ask a colleague, a meeting planner friend, if she receives material from CVBs. Indeed she does. She offers to share.
I am blown away. They’re big. And beautiful. Thick, fabulous books with heft, full of text that I can write. Text that I would love to write. I take them home, allow them to stew on an end table. I hold off until the weekend, then tune in, turn on.
Now I know I’ve found my niche, because I want to cry. I hold in a mild, serene weep, don’t want to indulge in it for fear of jinxing the momentum.
The intensity lasts. I find more CVB publications online, and now I’m starting to analyze them. I get it immediately, recognize the writing as if it were my own.
There is nothing forced about this; it all seems organic and true. Looking back at my earlier posts to this site, I see they are driven by that nagging sense of urgency to declare my niche, on the spot; to use a bazooka to launch the copywriting arm of my busines; to be the most clever person in the room. I’m just not that kind of girl.
I say, with a hitch in my writing voice, I can’t wait to get started. Again.
Happily, I don’t have to start over with the bedroom curtains. I’m constantly drawn to those two rooms now, inspired.
