Mom, Dad you’ve disappointed me. Neither of you wrote in questions to ask me about being a freelancer so now, as promised, instead of recapping our Writer’s Workshop: Freelance Nation I’m going to do as threatened and talk about writing in my pajamas.
I really am. I must admit I didn’t take notes at the freelancer panel, I am a bit of a nervous public speaker and so I was concentrating on being coherent and listening to the advice imparted by my fellow panelists Jill Cozza Turner and Judy Katschke. If you already know me, this’ll be familiar but if you’ve been wondering about the mystery woman behind the blog read on.
Yes, I am a freelance writer. To many people that means I sit home all day in my pajamas and eat bon bons. Not true. I sit at home all day in my pajamas and write my butt off. That is, when I’m not hustling for work which is a full time job unto itself. I went from having a 7 year, steady 9-6 (or sometimes 9-9 or sometimes 9-10, production is what it is), structured job as an in-house writer and story editor where I had supervisors and office hours like everyone else, to making my own schedule with no one to supervise me but me. I gotta admit at first I felt like those ants that Homer frees from their space ant farm on The Simpsons.
Where do I start? What do I do with my day? Am I allowed to watch “One Life to Live” (the answer to that is no) but then I realized that I’ve always been good at structuring my own workday. I’ve always motivated myself to make my deadlines and get things done and a workday from home is no different. So I try to have an 8-hour workday. I don’t watch TV (unless it’s for research), I am allowed to go to yoga and no, I don’t sit around in my pajamas for the most part. Especially if I have a phone meeting. I will make sure to shower and brush my teeth just in case that person I have a call with somehow has Smell-o-vision.
Being a freelancer is about being disciplined and feeling like a professional. I make myself presentable before client meetings and I have a designated workspace and designated office hours. Since you really have to hustle to get work it’s easy to think that you should be hustling 24 hours a day but I think it’s just as important to have boundaries of work time and personal time as it is to make sure you don’t go in the opposite direction and end up watching TV all day. I read Cynopsis and congratulate my colleagues when their shows get picked up. I read KidScreen and everything David Kleeman writes. I’m standing around the water cooler with my good friend the internet making sure that even though I’m isolated in an office of 1, I’m not alone and I’m not an island. I go to every Children’s Media Association event I can, networking is part of my job, too. One of the more fun parts.
How do I got about finding actual paid work? After 14 years in the business (yowser) I have a lot of contacts so I am sure to keep up with them regularly but not too regularly. Time can pass slowly when you work alone all day and sometimes a day can feel like a week. I keep a notebook and write down every person I’ve contacted to say hey, every person that I’ve followed up with about potential writing work. I write down the date and make sure not to email them unsolicited for at least a month. When I was on the other end as the person who looked for new writers I hated it when someone would call me over and over again to check in. It made me feel guilty that I couldn’t hire them and it made me want to duck their phone calls. What I appreciated was a once a month or less frequently, “Just emailing to check in” that I could return with a simple answer as to whether or not we were looking for new writers. Now, I’m new to freelancing and one thing I have to look into which I think would be helpful is finding an agent. For the past two years I’ve been getting by on my talent and Brady Kid-like charm but I am looking into getting a person who’ll hustle for me and especially someone who will read my contracts since I’ve racked up way too many favors on fee consultations with my fellow writers and lawyer friends.
But it’s all part of the learning curve. For now, I’m really interested in trying out writing all different kinds of things and that’s the beauty of being freelance. On any given day I write e-books about dinosaurs who ride trains, teleplays about flying pirates or I help new producers give voice to their visions. When I’m not being paid I write anyway: spec scripts for older kids shows (an area I’ve yet to explore professionally), scripts for horror ideas (my extracurricular passion), witty emails, the blog, whatever. So yeah, I’m happy to be a freelancer (remind me of that during the summer slow down, please). It’s a lot of fun. And a lot of work. And I like it that way.
