Why should I try to get work as a writer?

 I am an excellent writer

 I am an award winner

Many people over my 15 years as a writer have sung my praises for the style, quality, and variety of my writing. I have earned several awards, but none of this matters unless you have a degree.

I am not known for praising myself

 I am an excellent writer

                              I shall have to believe what I have been told

If I am known for one thing it is I rarely sing my praises, my credo is "Self-praise in no praise."

I would rather copy and paste a nice comment from another person praising my writing, than go on about how good I am.

I joke about an adage I use which to me is a truism - a person who pats themselves on the back too much, can end up with a dislocated shoulder.

I knew of one such person, she would constantly put me down on the site we were on, always praising herself. 

Then one day, the axe swung my way; I was invited by a friend of hers to enter a writing contest the friend was running, at first I declined as I knew the tactics of her friend - win at any cost - however, I was coaxed by some of colleagues in the writing community to enter.

The person invited her friends to view the contest, which she was broadcasting as her showing me up on a public forum, boy was she wrong, despite getting a friend to hack the site to delete one of my stories, (which was returned), my story came back and outperformed her stories for a second time. I didn't get a prize, though I had been in the running for at least third from the start, ans her last trick was to send in a "ringer", a cheat to force me down to fourth. Not that it mattered, as none of the top three got anywhere in the end.

I did consider going on the site, to show her up, but that isn't my style, and there was no point as she'd invited her friends to the show, so they knew how badly she was shown up. This was one of three contests I beat her in that year, and I was supposed to be a bad writer, if I beat her, what did that make her?

I have often been cited as a bestseller, which I dispute as my eBooks have not sold well, other than my Science Fiction series over a decade ago.

I know what I am capable of, when I was on the Upwork site, my writing was constantly praised for its variety, and quality, and I had several repeat offers of work as a writer from clients.