#21 The truth about being a freelance journalist

The good, the bad and the ugly

Hello everyone. This week has been a strange one for me. I celebrated six years sober and, in a lovely instance of serendipity, a piece I wrote back in January about getting sober ended up running this week. You can read it here.

The timing of its publication felt like a little cosmic nod to my anniversary. I've had lots of kind emails and messages from people I know and people I don't which is cheering, especially as these personal pieces can feel excruciatingly exposing - like you've taken off all your clothes and are sitting naked while strangers appraise your body. Urgh. I also went on television (Talk TV - which went off air two days later (!) I promise not due to my appearance) for the first time on the back of that piece and I got very nervous and tongue-tied and overall learnt that I am not a TV person. Give me a pen and a paper and I can express myself no problem, but when it comes to actually speaking words out of my mouth... not so much! 

That wasn't my only anniversary this week. I marked one year as a fully fledged freelancer on Monday and, in all honesty, I'm still wrapping my head around that particular life choice. I bumped into a former colleague a few days ago. She asked how I was finding being freelance and all I could burble was: 'Oh, it's terrible and also brilliant - there are great things but it's horrific,' until I ended by yelping: 'I don't know where I'm going!' Read on for what freelance life is really like... 

The truth about being a freelance journalist 

When I was made redundant last April from my feature writer job at a newspaper, it was a shock. I felt like I'd been winded. But I had also longed to go freelance. For years, I'd been envious of my freelance friends, kept tabs on the work of freelance journalists and yearned to be a member of the club. Suddenly, I didn't have a choice in the matter. I was out of a job. There were no others that I wanted advertised and lay-offs would soon sweep through the entire industry. So with my wedge of redundo money in hand, I decided to give it a go. 

In all honesty, I didn't have high hopes. I hadn't even really properly pitched before (I've written about how to do that here if you're interested) but I sat down in front of my prehistoric laptop (I had to give the company one back) and sent out my first pitch. Miraculously it was accepted and ended up in The Times magazine. I have since had many, many pitches turned down - or, that freelance special, simply ignored - and I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the first one hadn't been successful. Would I have got demoralised and given up? I wouldn't rule it out. That first accepted pitch gave me the confidence, which I'd lacked up to that point, to think this freelance proposition could actually work out.

So what's the freelance life really like? Well, it's the most creatively challenged I've ever been. I've never felt so stretched in my capabilities (in a good way!), fulfilled by my work or engaged in my career. I've written pieces that I actually feel proud of - quite a novel sensation for me, to be honest. I've felt fully engaged in my career. I've relished the blissful freedom of doing whatever the hell I want with my time and the sublime sensation of being free of bosses who don't know what they're talking about, petty office politics and the presenteeism of my former workplace.

On the other hand, I've never felt so nail-bitingly worried about money. I've never felt so on the wrong side of a power imbalance as a freelancer pitching an editor. I've never felt so lonely or isolated in my work life and there have been moments when I've longed for a shitty office with strip lighting and grey carpet and colleagues to shoot the breeze with. There have been some rough mental health periods and I have wondered whether they'd have been easier if I had a nine-to-five I simply had to show up for. 

The freelance life is a seesaw of highs and lows. Sometimes you're on top of the world, sometimes you feel like a piece of gum someone scraped off their shoe, it all depends on the day. 

Good day: Wake up at 8am - late enough to feel indulgent, early enough to feel the possibility of productivity. Pad into the kitchen to make a coffee and gaze at the view outside your window, congratulating yourself that there is no commute. Scroll through the news and note down some ideas that you'll turn into gold-plated pitches quality newspapers will be honoured to publish. An editor calls and asks you to write something that you want to write and she'll pay you handsomely for it. You feel the warmth of her attention and a lovely glow of importance. You sink into that deep flow state and scribble, scribble, scribble, moving from your desk to your sofa because that's how is most comfortable for you to write. You send her the copy bang on time and she emails back immediately, telling you it's great. It's only 3pm but you decide you're done for the day - because you can. You walk up to your yoga studio, noticing the beautiful wisteria clinging to the buildings and the luscious green of the common and you spare a thought for those poor souls chained to their desks missing out on everyday wonders like this. You spend an hour doing vinyasa, taking care of your mental and physical health and you're thrilled to notice ab muscles forming thanks to all this yoga you now have the time to do it. At the end of class, you turn around and see a friend, a fellow freelancer, also in class. You say hello and both congratulate each other on choosing a life of freedom where you can attend 4pm yoga classes. You say: 'Fancy a coffee and a piece of cake?' because you can and he says 'yes' because he can because you're both lucky, lucky, lucky freelancers. You potter down to that pretty French cafe, order a flat white and a tahini salted caramel brownie and a notification flashes up on your phone - you've just been paid for two pieces you wrote. Ah! How lovely! Now you can buy that jute rug you've been eyeing up. You hear about your friend's creative plans and you tell him yours and then you potter back home, get changed, and go out to meet friends for dinner. You are living the life.

Bad day: Wake up at 8am but don't get out of bed until 10.30am because what's the point? Your last five pitches have gone unanswered, you're chasing four late payments, the editor who took one piece is now no longer replying to your emails and it is clear that you are persona non grata in the world of UK newspapers. Instead you sit in bed, scrolling through Instagram wondering what these influencers are getting paid, and then scroll through Twitter, getting more and more infuriated at all these "personal news" tweets announcing people landing plum jobs that you are absolutely sure they do not deserve because you would quite like to be foreign news editor of the FT, despite having no experience in foreign news except for that time you flew to Cyprus to interview a woman who had once dated the Tinder Swindler. You decide that the newspaper industry is all run on connections and you are doomed because nobody likes you. You eat a bowl of tortellini flavoured with drops of Tabasco which is, to be fair, delicious but not all that nutritious. You sit in front of your laptop and send a few follow-up emails, meekly telling editors you know they must be very busy but if they could please let you know if this pitch is for them, you'll be so very thankful. Two email you back to tell you that actually, no, the pitch is not for them. You tell them how thankful you are that they told you that. You log into your bank account and realise things really are quite dire. You wish your friends didn't work stupid nine-to-five jobs because you'd really like to have a long, clingy, self-pitying chat with someone right now. You finally call your freelance friend Charles and tell him you are worried about the state of the industry and ask him what he thinks it's going to be like in 30 years. He tells you that he believes in 30 years AI will have wiped humans off the face of the earth so not to worry about the future of journalism. You try to take comfort in the possibility of an incoming AI-driven apocalypse but somehow it's not that reassuring a thought. You decide it's time to face facts and scroll through LinkedIn for jobs. You see a role as a copywriter for a concrete making firm. You try to work out whether you could spend five days a week writing about concrete and decide, with a swallow and the sobering thought of your bank balance, that yes, you could. You then see the job is offering a £25k salary and already has over 100 applicants. You slam your laptop shut with tears in your eyes. You realise it's now 4pm and you are still in your pyjamas. You change into your jeans - but keep on your pyjama top - and go for a stomp around the common, envying all those souls in their comfy offices with their daily tasks and their friendly colleagues and their lovely monthly pay cheques. You come home, change back into your pyjama bottoms, cancel your plans because you realise you are in no financial position to go out to dinner, get into bed because it is chilly and you refuse to put the heating on and think to yourself: my God how is this my life? 

Listen - because I can already see the flurry of concerned emails flying in from my friends and family who subscribe to this substack - these two daily accounts are very much hyperbolic but that seesaw between the good and the bad, the highs and the lows is the freelance journalist experience. Sometimes I think I'm an absolute moron to be going down this path but, at least for now, it's the path I want to go down. Something inside me whispers: keep going. And so I am. And really, the joy comes down to the freedom of the freelance life - not only that you can go to yoga classes and wake up whenever you want etc, but that you can go after the work you want and, indeed, you can say no to the work you don't want. I can pitch stories and make things happen in a way I never seemed to manage in a staff job. So yes, it's fucking terrifying but I'm also hopeful. But I might just be a moron. Time will tell. 

*** I stole this good day/bad day model from the truly fantastic Dolly Alderton's erstwhile newsletter Dolly Mail. Annoyingly I can't find the exact one still online, but most of her archive is here ***

Recommendations 

Baby Reindeer 

Oh. My. God. You. Guys. This. Show. Ok, I don't actually know how I feel about it - what do you think? For those who haven't seen it: it's the number one show on Netflix right now and it's about a struggling comedian/barman who finds himself with a female stalker called Martha. It is downright disturbing and so bleak but I could not stop watching it (even though I wanted to!). It's the portrayal of the stalker and the relationship between stalker and stalkee that really makes the show so compelling. Also, Jessica Gunning, who plays Martha, is absolutely fantastic - you feel sorry for her, you're also terrified of her, you like her, you loathe her. Just a brilliant character played by a brilliant actress. When I finished watching it, I thought: my goodness, I'm so frightened of picking up a Martha. And then with cold dread I thought: or becoming a Martha. 

Hot Tin Roof liquid blusher by Nars 

I'm going to start sneaking in some product recommendations. So, I picked this up when I went to my new friend Madeleine Spencer's home for dinner. Madeleine is a brilliant beauty journalist who doesn't have a Substack but you can follow her on Instagram (her account is v informative and fun). Anyway she gets sent lots of products and at the end of dinner, she produced these big sacks of products and my friend Emma and I scavenged through them on the kitchen floor like shameless savages. Why can't every dinner party end like this? I picked up this blush and I love it. It's quite a strong bold red so you only need one teeny tiny dot on each cheek and then you blend blend blend and it gives you a really ruddy cheek which doesn't sound great but actually looks lovely - like you are just a healthy lass with the kind of flush a quick burst of aerobic activity would give your complexion. 

How a psychedelic retreat helped me face up to stage four cancer

I found this piece about how a young mother found acceptance around her terminal cancer diagnosis by taking Psilocybin at a retreat in the Netherlands really moving.

How AA Gill Found The Will & The Way to Stop Drinking

When my piece about getting sober came out this week, I was reminded of my absolute favourite piece of journalism: AA Gill's account of going to rehab and getting sober, published in Tatler. It is really a phenomenal piece. I read it when I was early in recovery and it was so comforting. It remains the most gorgeous bit of journalism I've ever come across. And the ending! My God, what an ending. He really was such a superstar of a journalist. Simply the best. 

That's it for this week. Thank you as ever for reading. There are a few new subscribers here - welcome and I hope you enjoyed this post! Sending you love wherever you are and I'll see you next week xxx