Siany: On being a freelancer and full-time tea drinker

A lot of people have been asking me about being freelance recently. The good points, the bad, how to get clients. I'm not a good freelancer but things are going my way at the moment, so I thought I'd write about what being freelance has been like for me over the last year. maybe it'll be helpful, maybe it won't.

In many ways, I seem to have a dream work-life. I don't get up until 9, I write for lots of fun clients and I get to watch telly as I work and my commute to my desk in my bedroom is pretty easy. And all of that stuff is BRILLIANT. I'm freelance because I needed to be. After my stint with Messy Media ended abruptly early 2008, I found myself suddenly jobless and needed some writing work. Would I be freelance if someone had offered me a full-time writing job? No, probably not. But I didn't have enough experience back then . So I rinsed everyone I knew for contacts, begged for work (seriously, freelancers with no money have no shame) and pitched some editors. The Hospital Club gave me my first real commission just over a year ago. I still write for them now and will spend the rest of the evening writing a feature about the Free Range exhibition for them.

But last year, I still ran out of money. I was working for next to nothing for shit clients and I didn't know how to get decent work. I had no idea what I was doing. After borrowing enough money from a friend to get by, Webjam offered me a part-time job. Without that, I have no idea what I'd have done. Freelancing for half the week meant I had money coming in but I could build up a client base. It also gave me time to work on my own ideas and I launched Poppycockney. While that wasn't successful, I learnt heaps and met some great people - Jane and I still write together on Domestic Sluttery. She's incredibly talented. More people should hire her.

By the time my Webjam contract ended, I had a pretty good client base and I knew a few more editors. I'd done a guest editing stint on Dollymix and I wasn't scared of going it alone. I figured I had three months before I really started to worry. I've been really lucky this year and I've landed some great jobs. But it's not without my share of crap either. I just don't big those up. Earlier this year, I very nearly took a job writing academic essays.

Most importantly, Domestic Sluttery is going really well. If I wasn't freelance, I could never have launched the site and put as much into to as I do (between three and four hours a day). My work is fun. Really fun. I have days when I don't feel like writing, but I don't have dull clients. The freedom I have in my work is brilliant. I get to pitch things that I want to write about. People think I have a billion clients and I'm running around London from gig to event to cafe and stuff. I don't (although when I started I thought that was what it would be like). I have about six sites that I write for frequently. That can vary from a large amount of posts a week, to a feature a month. But honestly, there's not much variation in my day.

My freelance friends work harder than anyone else I know. I'm not saying that everyone in full-time jobs doesn't work hard. Don't moan. I've thought nothing about working every night this week. And I'll work this weekend too. My work/life balance has been a little off this month, although it's better than it has been. When you're launching a site, you don't sleep until you're happy with the work you've done. When you're looking for work, you have to do this on top of the clients you already have. And then there's the unexpected deadlines, the sudden extra research you have to do, and the client that just won't leave you alone to actually get on with your job. Freelancing is so much more than writing blog posts and features. It's the rest of the work that takes up the time and that's the most important bit. Talking to PRs, finding work, pitching work. That's how I spend my evenings.

And then there's the clincher: I don't get holiday or sick pay. I'm off to Berlin in a week or so (yay! excited!) But next week, I'll have to write double my usual work load because otherwise I lose a week of pay. If I'm sick, I either suck it up and work through it, or miss a deadline. And I think I've missed three deadlines ever. That's freelancer suicide. A freelancer's work is their own. Generally no one can cover, and being reliable means that you keep clients. That's like gold dust. The worst thing is putting your heart and soul into a piece and not getting any more work. It sucks.

I'm not suited to freelancing. I don't like being out of control and don't cope well when things are going badly. I'm very easily distracted. I also actually like daytime telly. But I love my job. I also love that I work when I want so if I'm hungover, I can sack the day off and drink tea all day and reading interiors magazines. Most of the time I don't. Most of the time I work until my eyes are bleary and I'm jittery with caffeine. But y'know, that's fun too. Because Domestic Sluttery is the most fun. Because I have great clients and people entrust me with sites like Dollymix and Walletpop. And because people pay me to do what I love doing every single day. I might work too hard (I'm Siany and I am a self confessed workaholic), but my worst work day ever is still going to be a pretty good day. I go to work happy and usually, no matter how late it is, I finish the day pretty happy too.

So for those of you've who've asked me recently, yep, being freelance is pretty damn cool. But if you asked me to write this post the day I'm doing my tax return, I'd expect a very different answer.

Flickr image from Foxtongue's photostream.