Born free(lance)

I just quit my job to go freelance – am I mad?

I’m sitting down to write this the evening after the working day before. A normal day at the office, only it wasn’t. Because today, I told my employer that I’d like to resign. To take the plunge into the world of self-employment. To go freelance.

That’s right.

Today I chose to abandon a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. To dismiss the steady security of a safe salary. To face the world armed only with a six-year-old laptop and a head full of dreams.

“What? Why?!” I hear you cry.

Probably because I’m in the throws of a mid-life crisis, that why!

All good things come to an end

I’m six-months off being in my mid-late-thirties. That admission is worded quite specifically. It gives you a clear indication of how I’m wanting to present myself to the world. Of how I’m desperately putting off saying: “Yeah, I’m in my late thirties.”

And that’s one of the reasons why I’m probably having a mid-life crisis. Of sorts.

I’ve held down a steady job for over eleven years now. I proved to myself, my family and my friends that, despite my ultimate dream to write and perform, I can also wake up and grind down.

But, as a pessimistic, impatient and irritable dreamer I just couldn’t give up on that ultimate dream.

Even though I’d said in my twenties that I’d give it all up at thirty if I “hadn’t made it”, the (potentially misguided) determination never wavered when I hit that age.

The dream’s not going anywhere, it seems.

So, for over a decade I was working 40 hours a week while spending the remaining waking hours writing, re-writing, planning and, occasionally, auditioning.

But the human body can only do keep that up for so long. The mind doesn’t have the capacity to juggle needs over dreams forever. A compromise had to be made. A deal had to be struck.

Quitters gonna quit

I make no bones about the fact I’ve quit before. That’s right, I’m a university dropout.  

But unlike most quitters pursuing a creative career, I haven’t quit the obvious thing. Most of my drama college pals have long since given up acting and writing. Competing priorities and an exhausting, unpredictable industry took them to the point of saying enough’s enough.

But not me. No no. I’m continuing to bet the house on my creative pursuits working out.

So instead I’m weaning myself off the flowing teat of cash from the bosom that doth provide. All for a punt on something that may or may not happen.

I must confess, there is something this time, though. Maybe. Something that could happen. It’s far from certain and it’s certainly not definite. But despite that, my mind is instructing me to go for it.

This could be it. The chance to get a bloody foot in the door.

At the very least it seems to be enough to make me turn everything in my life upside down in order to clear my diary for a potential workload that I’ve been waiting for forever to land on my desk.

If my mind’s interpreting it that way – then I must surely go for it! My mind’s always right – especially when it convinces me to do things like order a McDonald’s at the end of a fasting day.

Never steered me wrong, my mind.

Because like an addict who needs to know the next fix is coming, I need to know it could still happen. That all the work wasn’t for nothing. That I wasn’t misguided. That my mind is on my side, rather than laughing at my expense.

As a writer, you can sort of justify writing whether you’re getting paid or not because it’s cathartic, it requires discipline and it’s good for the soul. As a performer, or worse still a writer/performer, there’s an ego that needs massaging alongside.

I can’t say I shoot videos, put on plays and write scripts because it’s cathartic. No, in fact those activities are all stressful and time-consuming. But I do it because I want people to notice me. To hear me.

To see me.

 So if that’s my starting point – it doesn’t take much to seduce me down a vaguely promising path.

Will you take the red or blue skill?

Now we’ve established a sort of controlled mid-life crisis is afoot.  And while I’m thrilled to be turning my life upside down on the promise of the off chance, it is calculated.

I don’t want to abandon the skills I’ve built up in my professional life. Not at all. I take a lot of satisfaction and pride in my professional work, and I’ve demonstrated I can do it.

That’s a conundrum we all face if we’re juggling two ventures – knowing when to prioritise one over the other. It’s delicate, too much of one thing can lead to failure at both.

That’s why, after weeks of pondering and soul searching – the pathway revealed itself. It was obvious.

A moment of absolute, crystal-clear clarity.

Freelance. Of course! I can blend my two careers and on my timetable, too. I can fit things around other things. Genius!

I can work when I need to as a freelance writer to keep a roof over my head while working on realising the dreams to eventually increase the size of said roof. Maybe even own the roof one day, too!

That’s a laugh.

It’s scary though. Really fucking scary.

I’m doing this with no savings. No clear idea of how it’ll go. And it’s only thanks to a patient, supportive and caring employer that I have an initial client to start me off. Something I’ll be forever grateful for.

And if you’re going to take a risk – then you might as well do it when the stakes aren’t too high. I don’t want to end up homeless – but I rent, so that’s already uncertain anyway. I enjoy a holiday, but I’m prepared to sacrifice Disney World for a year (if I must) for a trip to the Kent coast. I’m also in the fortunate position of having no dependants, no kids and no (significant) debt.

Not that that should stop you if you’re feeling the same way I am and you do have those responsibilities… but the risk/benefit analysis is tipped more in my favour. In short, if my pipedream fails spectacularly, it won’t ruin anyone else’s life.

I also think it’s worth remembering that us creatives, still trying in our late-mid-thirties (and beyond), have been freelance forever. And often we’re working for clients that don’t pay. We write, we audition, we give all of ourselves on the off chance. Because aside from confidence and self-belief, we only really have the off chance.

So the way I see it, I’ve been freelance for long enough. Now it’s time to earn some money from it.

DL x