I can't believe I spent nearly a week trying to write a letter to a client telling him that I can't do the job. The problem that kept holding me back from sending that e-mail is my tendency to scrutinize my own writing and trying to be eloquent (by all means, absurd, I know) with my language as much as possible, even if it is merely a formal letter meant for declining a client's job request/proposal. Excessive writer's pride, and that had cost me dearly: the client is very, very disappointed. Put yourself in his shoes, you'd be more or less as pissed off as he is when someone you've given the job to wasted a week of what could've been a completed job handed over by someone else.
The thing is, I can't help myself. I love to write, but I'm too eccentric to be practical with my words in the so-called 'working world'. Things like real estate just won't do for me, but again, overconfidence killed me, and it screwed me up good. My desire to create a strong freelancing career led me to become overconfident and I took more risk than I should. First major screw-up in my still developing career as a freelance writer.
I didn't sleep at all since Tuesday night, and as soon as I reached home by late Wednesday afternoon (after sending that dreaded e-mail), I overslept for nearly 10 hours. Woke up, and I still have a job to do. I've disappointed a client the first time, and I'm sure as hell would not want to repeat this with another client on the list, who had very much hired me for the job. The rolling ball needs to kept clear of steering into bad bumps.
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