being freelance

Sex, banking, cookery and leaflet drops

Being freelance is good in that, in theory, given a certain degree of knowledge, you can write about pretty much anything. The subject matter is as wide as your interests – and mine are fairly broad-ranging.

Being a starving freelance is also good in that it encourages you to get off your fat arse and start looking for assignments.

Today, I’ve fired off speculative emails to a food magazine, the PR chief of a major bank and the editor of a high-brow “adult” magazine for the educated reader of erotica. Can’t get much more eclectic than that!

Two of these approaches stemmed from requests I’d had to connect on LinkedIn, so it will be interesting to see if, as the site’s aficionados claim, it’s really good for business.

Meanwhile, in connection with the afore-mentioned fat arse, I’ve impulsively arranged to do a leaflet drop for a local estate agent. I delivered the Yellow Pages a few summers ago and rather enjoyed the exercise. I have to deliver 1,000 leaflets by next Wednesday. The pay’s rubbish but at least the experience should provide fodder for my blog!

Back to being a starving freelance

I’ve been inactive on the blogging front for a fair while because I’ve been working full-time for a publishing company, writing a daily business news bulletin. Somehow the complexity of business news and the pressures of daily deadlines don’t lend themselves to fulfilling the creative urge. After a 7.30am start every day and having emails coming at me for hours on end, demanding attention, the last thing I want to do is continue sitting in front of a screen.

It’s interesting and absorbing work, though. I start at 7.30 in my dressing gown and rarely stop, except to get dressed and get some breakfast when my bulletin goes to press at 8.30 each day. Life after about 3pm, when I tend to finish, is strictly active – that’s when I go for a swim or play squash, do the food shopping, get the car repaired, pay the bills… any of those things the average 9-5 worker doesn’t get a chance to do during the day.

Anyway, the second of my three-month contracts is coming to a close as my bulletin is being taken in-house, along with the rest of the company’s regional bulletins. So I shall be back on the market as a full-time starving freelance. A scary prospect in a way but I look forward to not having to cope with 64-page financial results at the crack of dawn!