Freelancing isn’t for everyone. It’s a cycle of feast or famine, with very few of the perks and benefits associated with full-time, formal employment. But the free in freelancing stands for something that makes up for all the things you don’t get. Because what it stands for is freedom.
For a while, a long time ago, I had a run of ‘proper’ jobs. I finished at university, and went to interviews, and got the type of job that comes with office hours, a pay cheque, a bonus if you’re lucky, and paid annual and sick leave.
But it got to the point where I’d been promoted quite quickly to the position of Features Editor – which is a kind of middle management position in magazines ‒ and I found it wasn’t quite hitting the spot for me.
Don’t get me wrong: I worked with wonderful colleagues, enjoyed the work, was good at it, and really looked forward to being there every day. But I was commissioning other writers and training junior writers, and not really doing much writing myself.
So about 20 years ago, I took the plunge, and decided to go freelance – to enter the gig economy long before it was cool to call it that.
I was fortunate. I was married to someone with a regular salary, which made the feast-and-famine financial cycle a bit easier to bear. In time, I had children, and freelancing gave me flexibility that few office workers enjoy. I got to write every day, for different clients, and I got to be there for my kids whenever they needed me, so it felt like a charmed life.
But then, about four years ago, in the throes of a divorce, I panicked. That feast-and-famine cycle nipped at my heels, and I decided I’d better get a proper job again, for all the reasons that good and sensible people get proper jobs: a regular salary, job security, predictability.
In a matter of months I was utterly, utterly miserable, despite the lovely people I worked with and the very noble cause we worked on together.
And even though I worked from home, since it was a virtual organisation, and still had the flexibility I needed, I was more stressed, working harder and longer hours, and – not to put too fine a point on it – bored stiff.
The beauty of what I do, you see, is that no two days are the same. Today I might be writing about shades and awnings for your home, tomorrow is plastic surgery, and next week I’ll tackle personal finance. And the people I meet!
They all have stories, and I love nothing more than to extract those stories (gently, I promise) and tell them to the world.
I get to write articles and blog posts and books and scripts. I work on websites, and edit and proofread magazines. I probably learn something new at least once every second day, if not every day. I am a mine of random information as a result. And that’s what I missed. The stories, the variety, the learning, and the words. Oh, how I love words: the endless of combinations of syllable strings that festoon our minds with images.
And so, after consulting with two financial planners, just to make sure I wasn’t doing something completely mad, I went back to my first love. Working with words, working for myself. And it’s been bloody hard – but absolutely worth it.
It’s hard and it’s exhausting because there are no guarantees. If you’re not working, you won’t be eating in a month or two. There’s no paid leave; there’s no sick leave. You are your own CEO, HR manager, head of IT credit control clerk, bookkeeper, marketing manager and public relations officer. And that’s just before 10am.
Like any job, it has its boring bits. There’s administration and money-chasing and tax (ugh), and some serious slog work that has to be done, often after hours and on weekends.
But I get to be curious and creative, to play with words every day and bend them to my will, to inspire other writers in my training and coaching sessions – and get paid for it! And that makes all the anxious poring over bank statements and budgets, and the daily hustling and haranguing, more than worth the effort.
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