Not Unemployed but Self-Employed.

Observations On Freelancing: My “new” Life.



"If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented." - Stephen King

_{(my sister quoted this to me, it has been a great source of motivation.)}

Not Unemployed but Self-Employed.

Apparently my current status is unemployed, aesthetically this appears to be a socially unacceptable predicament. As the days go on, I can see my friends and family grow gradually more concerned about what I do with myself all day, having this much free time-can’t possibly be healthy.

It was a strange life choice becoming a freelance writer. However, it is an occupation whether or not it meets the criteria that society associates with typical “employment”. As I spoke about in my last article on the subject: Observation on Freelancing, I was granted this opportunity by the blessing of an illness- Otherwise I would of never quit my previous job. It is hard enough to balance a regular 40 hour work week with the rest of your life, and throwing a writers dream on top of that just was not working for me.

I have been told time and time again that to be a “writer” one must dedicate themselves to it full-time. With any sort of artistic endeavour it must become your life before it can “be” your life. I struggled with procrastination and misdirection, when I was dedicating my energy to a full time retail position. There was even a time where I considered giving up becoming a writer, to settle into a lifetime of clothing store management, how is that for wasted creativity?

Getting here, was the big step, however learning a “writers discipline” is possibly one of the greatest struggles I have endeared. As a usually hyper active and caffeinated twenty two year old, I normally have the attention span of a golden retriever pup. My “life” is on the internet and the internet is full of so much shiny stuff to look at- occasionally trying to focus, is like having twenty active people in the room each dancing a different jig. There is a lot self-discipline to be learned and practiced if you want to have any level of success as a freelance writer online. The important thing I realized was that I needed to establish a healthy routine, that would encourage me to continue to write everyday. On top of this I needed to continue to look for new ways to promote myself in order to make as much money as I could to support this “career” choice. With freelancing you have to consider your time investment as equity, building your writing portfolio will eventually need to be the means of your survival therefore you need to take it seriously.

I have built some resemblance of routine that seems to be working for me. Currently I invest up to 8 hours a day to my “writing”. Although this does not always manifest itself in articles, or paid writing assignments, I do make sure that I am actively doing things that are beneficial to my portfolio. For example, when I find myself hitting a roadblock, I still allow myself to take time to surf the net and gallivant on social networking sites. However the objective of this is now brainstorming; I keep notes on the things that I see and think about- because they may become content for my next article. I do plenty of research on films and movies, because currently most of my paid work involves film reviews and criticism. Even when I watch Youtube videos, or get lost in Wikipedia, I try to remain considerate of how I can spin this into a writing project. I even consider reviewing my Hubpage statistics and commenting on other writers articles as part of my typical work day.

Being “self-employed” may allow me the benefits of getting to sleep in and eat my breakfast while staring at a computer screen. Sure, I do get to consider watching a two hour movie as being part of my “work”. These are sugar coated upsides to the fact I am still not making any real dollars although, last week I did purchase myself a new sweatshirt and buy mother lunch with income that I made “freelancing”. I am currently remaining on the optimistic side of the occupation because I am finding the more of myself I invest into it: The more I continue to see back.

Brandie Tschauner
©2012