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• The most difficult piece of writing I've ever undertaken was my undergraduate thesis, which focused on the literary psychoanalysis of our obsessive attraction to abject horrors- more simply, why we are compelled to look at things that horrify us, and not look away. This is a difficult topic to write about effectively because the psychological mechanisms involved actively prevent individuals from really realizing or holding on to the conclusions I reached. My solution to this was to make the tone of my writing a little bit more casual and to use a lot of accessible metaphors and examples to keep my audience engaged. In the end, the reviewers were so interested in my work that even after my twenty-minute presentation they questioned me for a further forty minutes.
• Generally when I miss deadlines it's because my initial estimate of how long the work will take is upset by a discovery somewhere along the way which necessitates that I take more time with the writing in order to produce a consistently satisfactory finished piece. I've found that there are usually two reasons for this: either I find some new piece of research which changes the conclusions I've been working on, or something particular part of the process ends up being far more time-consuming than it should be. With writing, the former is usually the case, while with editing, it's usually the latter. The last major time I missed a deadline was for the capstone report for my MLIS degree- the actual organizing of the data discussed in the report took longer than I planned because in previous instances of doing the work I'd had someone helping me with the grunt work, and I'd underestimated how long it would take. However, I only came in an hour and a half late.
• In the ad hoc copy editing work I do, I am particularly well known for producing documents which flow exceptionally well, which are easy to follow, and which exhibit particularly on-point aesthetic consistency in formatting and citation use. I have an excellent eye for minute detail as well as how well a piece is working overall. As a writer, I have been lauded for my approachable style and the cadence and variety of my sentence structure, which keep the writing interesting. I can be kind of wordy, which is not necessarily seen as a negative in my academic background. My overall writing performance has consistently been reviewed as clear, thoughtful, and of notably high quality.
• My main interest in freelance writing, to be very blunt, is the flexibility of being able to work remotely using my highly-trained skill set to supplement my income. I have done ad hoc freelancing work for the past seven years, and find editing work incredibly satisfying. I am also interested in continuing to sharpen my writing skills and keep them in top shape, and know that this job would give me a great opportunity to do that.