why long-form blogging is not dead<\/a> and probably never will be despite the endless predictions of its demise.<\/p>\n—–<\/p>\n
While I was sawing, painting, hammering, nailing, and sweating in the crazy winter sunshine, a potential opportunity fell out of the sky.<\/p>\n
It’s far too early to talk about it in any detail. Perhaps nothing will come of it. Let’s just say that if everything were to go well, it would give me a chance to work on something I care about while also doing corporate communications.<\/p>\n
Other than that brief stint in the dying days of JPFO (which was more activism, organizing, and hand-holding than corporate anything), I haven’t done corporate communications since the early 1990s when I left to follow my passion, go out on the edge, and take the kind of principled stand that does not go well with the ability to earn a living.<\/p>\n
Near the end of those cc days, I compounded the difficulties of the work by moving hours away from the last of my local clients. Although I was accommodating them by traveling to meetings and such, they were nervous about the whole backwoods thing. One editor, who had taken me with him (as a freelancer) over the course of 12 years from one Fortune 100 company to another, paid me a nice backhanded compliment. “You’re far and away the best and most reliable writer I’ve ever worked with, ” he told me. “But why the hell do you have to live out there in the boonies?”<\/p>\n
I remember the moment I happily sat down and wrote “moving on” letters to the last three clients and left business writing behind me “forever.”<\/p>\n
Now it’s 20-ish years later and this potential opportunity practically lands on the lawn. (Potential<\/i> opportunity, I have to remind myself. There are many places this could still go, including nowhere.)<\/p>\n
The query came from someone I know as a friend and supporter, not a business contact. But the moment I opened the very corporate-style job description\/qualifications list he sent, that side of me started stirring all over again. “Yeah, I can do that. And that. Yes. And even if I’ve never done that, it’s nothing that’s beyond my reach.” Not only can I do most of the things on that list, but I felt my mind easing smoothly back into that world. (“Okay, this would require some coordinating. And what if we constructed a human narrative to show that? And I can get so-and-so to advise me on the other …”) The prospect stirs me.<\/p>\n
It also scares me. By conventional corporate standards, I’m not technically qualified. If they were collecting resumes and mine turned up in a big stack, they’d toss it in the first go-round, no need to bother with an interview. If by some act of wild libertarian daring, some corporate type did interview me, I’d have to explain, “Oh, never mind that I lack one of your major job qualifications; I’m a quick study.” My friend’s considering me only because he’s been observing beyond the resume for years.<\/p>\n
Which is another scary part. I fear to hurt my relationship with the fine friends involved — as sometimes happens when people who know each other in some other context become client and contractor. <\/p>\n
Sometimes I just want to say, “Hey, you know. About that thing? Just forget it. Not for me. Thanks anyway. Thrilled you thought of me. But … um, I’ve got to go tear up the kitchen floor. Or something.”<\/p>\n
Other times I’m like, “Damn the torpedoes; let me at this project.”<\/p>\n
But both blogging and putting up drywall are definitely less scary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alrighty, then. Rain has now grabbed me by the scruff and tossed me and my projects firmly back into the house. So here I am, at the computer, and will try to catch up on blogitude in the next few days. Actually, “rain” came Monday night in the form of one of those fogs so heavy it drips. The fog melted some of the outside work I’d done. Cedar boards are textury. They hold wet paint a long time in their woody little crannies. Even though I’d painted many hour earlier while the day was still sunny … eeew. Oh<\/p>\n
Continue readingRainy day musings<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-improvement","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}