About this website
The purpose of this site is to encourage people (especially women, and especially women of color) to be independent and do what they love (oh, and make money doing it. Because being broke sucks). I feature wonderful entrepreneurs, as well as talk about the ins and outs of working for yourself and running your own business (which are ultimately much better than being an entry-level ladder-climber). Other than the career stuff, I also take the time to wax poetic on the beauty of life and love.
I grew up with very entrepreneurial parents–my father held several high-powered positions in the corporate world, but went on to do his own thing. He ran several businesses, and my mother also had her own fashion design studio, hand-making haute couture garments for weddings, proms, formal events, and even casual wear.
Yeah, I was one of those kids who was all embarrassed to be wearing custom-made clothes on picture day at school. But of course, that was because I was a little snot who wanted to do the opposite of whatever my mother told me.
Either way, I ended up growing up to be one of those rebellious people who decided to eschew the traditional linear way of thinking: high school, college, entry-level job, work your way up the corporate ladder.
Fuck. That.
After years of doing the whole slavery thing, I decided that I was COMPLETELY over people telling me what to do. I have fundamental problems with playing the “yessir, massa, whatever you please” game with “higher ups.” When someone tries to convince me to do something, my oppositional mechanism kicks in, saying, “I DO WHATTA WANT!”
I went to journalism school and during my senior year, I realized that I didn’t want to be a slave to a salary that someone decided I was worth. How are you gonna tell me that 20 hours of my day, five days a week, equates to $24,000 per year at the Chicago Tribune doing stupid stories about fires in black neighborhoods?
I’d rather kill myself. Dead serious.
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The Freelance Writing Era
At the end of my senior year, I decided to take things into my own hands. I started mizChartreuse for personal blogging and asked my friends if they needed anything written professionally, whether it be a resume revision or an artist biography for their band’s website. Eventually, my random work developed into a freelance writing business called Charlotte’s Web of Writing. And this is what we (I mean, I) do:
Personal biographies/portfolios
Press releases
Business correspondence letters
Internet marketing
Ghostwriting
Copy editing/proofreading
Website content
Feature stories
Interviews
Creative writing (pretty much everything BUT poetry)
Journalistic news articles
Basically anything that requires a pen/paper/parchment/keyboard/the Internet/typewriter to produce. Oh, and a creative mind.
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Life is short; why not make it one big joke? It makes the day-to-day dramz much easier to deal with–and that much more hysterical. Don’t take yourself too seriously, live one day at a time, keep on truckin’, and do what you love above all else–the rest will fall into place.
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And beyond the entrepreneurial blogs, if you go through the archives you will encounter the stories of my “BOOM! Hilariousness Bomb” life. There are plenty of self-deprecating tales, obnoxious opinions, and stories that encourage, inspire and entertain. In the pages of this website you’ll find stories about my frequent misadventures, unique viewpoints, and ridiculous observations of society and pop culture.
All I can say is this: working for yourself is a million times better than working for someone else who dictates how much your personal production is worth in US Dollars.
Eff that.
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If you are interested in hiring Charlotte for your next writing-related project, contact char@mizChartreuse.com
