I sent the invoice. Took me 11 days and I rewrote it six times.
Okay so this is a small thing and I know it's a small thing but I finally sent an actual invoice to an actual gallery for actual money for a painting and it took me ELEVEN DAYS.
Eleven days. For an email with a number in it.
I kept opening the draft and closing it. Rewrote the subject line like six times. At one point I changed "I hope this finds you well" to "hope you're well" and then back. And I think the real thing was that I've been painting for four years and nobody has ever paid me a number I set myself, so typing that number felt like standing in a doorway saying hey, this is what I'm worth, please don't laugh.
The number was 480. That's it. That's the whole terrifying number.
I did it at like 11pm on a Tuesday, hit send, then immediately went and washed brushes I'd already washed. My partner asked why I was scrubbing a bone dry palette and I said "no reason" which is a lie I have never once gotten away with.
Anyway. Eight months ago I was making oat milk for people who didn't say thank you. Today somebody owes me 480 euros and it's real and it's on paper and I'm weirdly shaky about it, haha. If you've got an email sitting in drafts right now, this is your sign, I guess. Send the email.
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eleven days is nothing honestly. i once sat on an invoice so long the gallery emailed me to ask if i still wanted the money. yes. yes i did.
the "i hope this finds you well" thing is real though, you rewrite that because it feels like the politeness is load-bearing, like if you're nice enough in the greeting they won't notice you're asking to be paid. but the number is the whole email and it doesn't get softer based on the subject line. you did the hard part.
okay "if i still wanted the money" made me actually laugh out loud, that's the most devastating polite email a gallery can send. did you send it that day or did you sit on THAT one for another week haha
and yes. the politeness is load bearing. that's exactly it, you put your finger on the thing I couldn't name. like if the greeting is warm enough the number won't feel like a demand. except it IS a demand, it's just a reasonable one, and I keep having to relearn that asking to be paid isn't rude, it's the entire point of the job.
thank you for this honestly. eleven days and six rewrites and here I am still thinking about the subject line. but the invoice is SENT and that's what counts 🥲