During The Game I could never get enough money socked away to cover my expenses for a year (granted they were really high expenses) and have enough (or lucrative enough) contracts to keep the pipeline full , but it gave me a taste of the whip you slave under and the wire you walk going freelance.

I would love to freelance, love to leave this crazy job, but I worry about being able to make ends meet and losing what I do have.

I tell myself that if, no, when I start to sell, I can off my mortgage and take a real look at freelancing. The issue is getting it to happen. So, I just keep my nose to the grindstone and continue to put out the best product I can.

Thanks for all your advice. It will be my bible when I finally get there.

I hope your hunches are good–that you made a similar move back in the day is very encouraging.

Enjoy your teaching this week.

Cheers,
Ev

Ev, I got a 20-hour per week job when I made the switch from non-fiction to fiction. I had to pay the bills somehow and I was cutting out the bulk of my income to try to move to a different part of freelancing. It worked. So good luck with the interview! I have a hunch it’ll all work for you.

Good stuff here. Thank you but also argh–

I run my own freelance business, Ev’s Writing Services, and I love it for all the reasons you mention, yet in two hours I have a day job interview. The position is just twenty hours a week and I want to have more time/energy to focus on my fiction, less financial demands that I be constantly advertising/looking for jobs.

I hope I’m not copping out . . . but I guess, even if I am, I can always quit a few months down the line.

And congrats on doing your own negotiating. Awesome and brave!

Cheers,
Ev

If I take up a work-for-hire project, I don’t necessarily bring to it the same love as I would something entirely my own. Doesn’t mean I won’t try to bring to itt the same level of craft, nor that I won’t have fun putting somebody else’s character through their paces.

If you can enjoy your work, you might be a hack, but at least you’ll be a happy one.

Art and craft are entwined, and trying to pull them apart and pin them to different boards is, from where i sit, a waste of time.

You might prefer Picasso to Norman Rockwell, but both men knew how to use their brushes.

It’s a rare writer who doesn’t have some kind of day job, at least for a while. sometimes that might be asking somebody if they want fries with that; sometimes, it might be doing a novel in a shared universe. Most of the pro writers I know have done that, and there’s no shame in it.