freelance writing – Kit Smethurst

Posted on March 3, 2020August 13, 2020 by kitsmet

Freelance Feast or Famine

Duggees3 Duckbadge GIF by Hey Duggee — Image courtesy of Giphy

“You wait for a freelance job and then three come along at once”

“They don’t make freelance jobs like they used to”

“I remember freelancing when it was all fields”

The problem with sourcing your own work is that it’s difficult to turn anything down. This means that some days you can end up with an unwieldy mass of words to write or admin to do, and other days you can be twiddling your thumbs wondering if you’ve been forgotten about. We call this “Freelance Feast or Famine”. The fun gameshow you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite.

Surprise Yes GIF by Hey Duggee — Image courtesy of Giphy

Last week I did my regular admin job plus some extra content for a company I work with as and when they have projects for me. That amounted to 30,000 words. It was a lot to take on, but anyone who works in this game knows that when a job comes up, it’s better to take it than turn it down and risk not being offered any more work again.

It can have a detrimental effect on your health. Last week, by Tuesday evening I was unbearably tired, my eyes were dry and red and my wrists and fingers ached so much from repeated keyboard striking that it wasn’t funny. Then, you invoice and you see that actually the extra money was worth it, even though you can’t put a coherent thought together.

The periods without work are even worse. You wonder if everyone has forgotten about you. Or that if things will ever pick up. That feeling never goes, even when you’ve been in the same situation a million times.

My husband works as a Sound Engineer and is lucky in that he is a full time employee with a company. He faces some of the same issues. This time of year there is little to no work on for him at all, and it gets to March and there’s a vague sense of panic when nothing comes in. This year it’s even worse for him as the Corona Virus and Brexit are both likely to have a massive impact on his work. The former, hopefully short term. The latter – who knows? The music industry and touring crew are likely to be very heavily impacted by the loss of freedom of movement. It’ll make it inordinately expensive and too restrictive for bands to tour here and similarly, for bands to tour in Europe. The knock down effect will mean that touring crew won’t have any work, and what work they DO get will be liable for higher rates of tax and different amounts of National Insurance depending which country they go to, plus ridiculous amounts of paperwork and hold ups with shipping equipment. It will price my husband and many others out of the game.

The shorter (hopefully) term impact of Corona Virus means that large events are already starting to be cancelled, with a big question mark over the summer festival season or any long term gigs over the coming months. It’s a bit bleak.

So both short term and longer term the onus is on me to keep the money rolling in as we don’t know when anything substantial will come his way.

Hoping the freelance feast continues, for now.

What do you do in quiet times? I know I need to be better at keeping my website updated and my blog on a regular roll. When I set it up I determined I’d do one post a week and that still hasn’t quite happened yet. You’d think I’d be better at it with my marketing and linkbuilding experience. It’s like anything else though, when you do it for a living you don’t necessarily want to spend your free time on it either…

Posted on February 3, 2020 by kitsmet

Fanny Candle and the Side Hustle of Shame

gwyneth paltrow i need to steam my vagina GIF by Nightcap

Early last month the news broke that Gwyneth Paltrow was, via her website Goop, selling a candle that ‘smelled of her vagina’. I’m sorry if you’re eating, drinking, or generally now trying to scrub that image from your mind. However, she has, and it’s there. I’m not linking to Goop. I’m just not. You can search for it yourself. If nothing else it’ll give you a good laugh. And an idea of what people with too much money and time on their hands do with it all…

Henceforth she is now known as Fanny Candle in our house. What could be a finer way to set fire to £58 than with a tumbler of wax that has the aroma of ‘complete con’ all over it?

So, this got me thinking. Never a good sign. As freelancers, we all need some kind of side hustle or second, third, fourth job to keep us going when times are tough and tax bills are high. What are yours? I’ve tried to come up with a few that might help me earn a few extra pounds this year.

Design a perfume called ‘Despair’. Not only will this fragrance have base notes of black dog and a rich fruity undertone of chagrin, it will come in a gigantic litre size bottle, perfect for carting round with you in your tartan shopping trolley and squirting liberally on all the soap dodgers you encounter on the high street.

her majesty love juggling GIF by Warner Archive

Come up with the world’s first automatic plate spinner. For when being full time freelancer, wife, banker, chief cook and bottle washer simply isn’t enough. This handy gadget will enable you to spin more plates all at once and with even more chance of dropping the lot at any one time.

Develop a freelancer’s self cleaning toilet. One that flushes all the bad jobs and recruitment agents away so you don’t have to.

Market the freelancer’s diet plan. The surefire way to success in all that you do professionally. In basically includes all the major food groups, so long as they’re carbs. With added sugar. And lots of tea. On the hour, every hour. None of this drink eight glasses of water and have a handful of almonds as a snack if you’re peckish bullshit.

Design a lifestyle website that offers quackery of the highest order. Obviously, this will in no way copy Goop. No. Not at all. No sirree bob. I won’t be offering vagina steaming, jade foof eggs or cleansing diets that make you crap your liver out and snatch Dairy Milk from the mouths of infants by 5pm on the first day. No, this will be sane, well thought out advice such as ‘Why crisps are part of your five a day if you really want them to be’, ‘Gin and tonic: it’s a portion of fruit, honest’ and ‘Sleep is for wimps: how to enjoy being a chronic insomniac whilst your HUSBAND LIES NEXT TO YOU SNORING CONTENTEDLY GOD DAMN HIM’.

What ideas for side hustles do you have? Get in touch and let me know.

Posted on January 14, 2020January 17, 2020 by kitsmet

Self Care Tips for Freelancers

Well, today is one of *those* days. The ones where you have to admit defeat before lunchtime and say to yourself ‘it’s just not happening today’. A combination of a night out on Friday night, coming down with a sore throat and slight cold afterward, and this morning waking up with the arrival of Aunt Irma (that one’s for fans of the IT Crowd) has left me feeling pretty tired out and unwell.

As I sat on the sofa this morning, mainlining tea and trying to bring myself out of the stupour I was in, thinking of all I had to do today, I suddenly thought “No, I’m not putting myself through it” and so, logged on to the virtual office I share with my colleagues, let them know I was doing the essential, bare minimum to make sure I wasn’t behind – did it and logged off. Je ne regrette rien. Sort of.

The guilt has of course kicked in now. I should be doing this, I should be doing that, I’m dropping my colleagues in it… etc. However, in the entire time I’ve been freelancing (eight years) I’ve taken precisely one and a half day’s sick leave, and had the subtotal of ten days annual leave. That’s in eight years. EIGHT. COCKING. YEARS. Why do I feel guilty? WHY?

So, I’m pulling that face right now and giving myself a talking to. I don’t get sick pay, I don’t get holiday pay, so I have to keep going. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t sometimes say ‘enough is enough’. Last year, I worked through three quite bad winter colds and one bout of what we now think was whooping cough. Little wonder when Spring sprung I couldn’t be arsed.

I’m not keen on the phrase ‘self care’ but it seems to be the trendy in thing to describe what any ordinary Joe would call ‘looking after yourself’. So as we head properly into 2020, what can freelancers do to improve their self care?

Don’t work till you can feel your eyeballs leaking out of your head. This year, set your own office hours and stick to them. It’s easier said than done, but anyone who works in an office, or freelances/hotdesks will (as far as possible) work 9 to 5. Why are we any different? If you have to do overtime, do it, but make sure you note how long you’ve spent and take it off in lieu some other time.

“Yeah, I like fitness. Fitness whole pizza in my mouth”. Don’t pressure yourself to join a gym. You’re a freelancer. Where are you going to get the fees, for a kick off? Instead, simply pledge to take fifteen minutes every day away from the desk to do something physical. Hoover the floor. Zip up your pac-a-mac and walk to the shop. Run up and down the stairs a few times so you’re out of breath. Exercise doesn’t need to mean donning lycra and crying on a running machine next to someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘lard’. Housework counts. Walking to get a pint of milk counts. Lifting a bag of Kettle Chips on the sofa whilst watching Hey Duggee doesn’t, sadly.

Say “No”. It’s a complete sentence. Don’t feel you have to say “yes” to everything. Saying yes to everything is the reason I’m my own worst enemy at times. Learning to say “No” is hugely, hugely liberating. “No, I can’t do that”, “No, I won’t be able to”, “No, I’m terribly sorry, I’m planning to give myself a lobotomy that day” are all valid. Maybe not the last one, but…sometimes just simply “No” is enough. No reason needed. You can then feel free to cuss under your breath “No, because you smell of poo”. Mature.

Drink enough. And no, I don’t mean gin, though that’s very tempting at times. Keep properly hydrated through the day. I know. I’m boring myself now. The simple act of getting a glass of water, or filling the kettle to make a cup of tea not only gets you away from the desk for a few moments, but means you’re keeping your mind sharp and tiredness and fatigue at bay. Not drinking enough water during the day is one of the biggest causes of the little known condition ‘Freelancer’s Brain’. That’s the one where you realise you’ve been sitting in the same cardigan, at the same desk, doing the same work for the last three weeks and you’ve only wee’d once. Keep hydrated. Boring, but necessary.

Victoria Victoriawood GIF - Victoria Victoriawood Anorak GIFs

Treat thyself, Amen. Go mad. When was the last time you had anything new? Freelancers don’t tend to treat themselves very often, because they worry about money. When we have it, we save it ‘just in case’. Can I briefly divert to tell you about a brilliant app I’ve found called Plum? I’m not being paid by them, or getting any money from anywhere else to advertise, but I’ve found this little app to be a brilliant help in putting small sums of money away each day without me having to do anything. That haircut you don’t think you can afford? You can with this. In no time at all you’ll have enough saved for that red lippy you’ve been coveting. Tools like this make a very worthwile addition to any freelancer’s self care arsenal. Knowing you have a small amount of money put aside for a treat can go a long way to making you feel a bit less like Mistress Ploppy.

Posted on January 9, 2020March 25, 2020 by kitsmet

A Woman’s Work…

This weeks missive comes to you during a post Christmas and New Year slump, which has really proved the old adage that ‘a woman’s work is never done’. The festive season came and went, and I carried on working. We’re a week and a bit into January now and I’m already at peak tiredness with no sign of a break forthcoming.

We all of us know, whether we’re freelancers or not, that our work life balance is so important. Not just for our physical wellbeing, but for our mental health too. If you’re tired out from constant work and domestic shenanagins then you’re never ever going to be performing at top level, no matter how much effort you put in.

Last year, as an early 40th birthday present, me and Himself got tickets to see the absolutely sublime Hannah Gadbsy at the Palace Theatre in Manchester during the sell out run of her latest show, ‘Douglas’. Hannah is a huge inspiration to me. Rarely have I come across anyone in life who speaks to me in the way she has done. Like Hannah, I am a late diagnosed autistic woman, and so many of the thoughts and feeling she expresses in her work resonate with me strongly.

One point she did make and one that will probably resonate with many women from all walks of life, was just how much free emotional labour we give every single day, without realising it. As well as the work we must do to earn money, pay bills and keep a roof over our heads, we must also take care of the emotional needs of everyone we live with, other family members and lastly, ourselves.

How many of us do just that? I can’t speak for everyone, but from my own experience I can say I rarely do – and when I DO do it, it’s usually because I have reached a stage at which I am simply too burned out to try anymore and my body says ‘enough’.

This isn’t going to turn into a man-bashing exercise, and nor is it meant to be seen as one (though to quote the great Jo Brand “I think men are fabulous…as a concept”), but often I do wonder what goes on in the minds of men as they see us going about our lives.

My husband (lovingly referred to as ‘Himself’) has a job that means his working days and shift patterns are all over the place, and often he’s away from home for periods of time. When he works, he really works. He puts in long hours, runs on very little sleep and often gets little time to eat. So when he is home or has days off, his downtime and rest is of course, super important.

However, his work is slightly seasonal, so from Christmas through to Spring, he might have very little to no work on at all. This puts added pressure on me to be the main breadwinner, and also to keep up with running the home. Over the festive break, his rest and recoup was important as he was tired out – but now we’re in January, no sign of any work and he’s still in staying up late, long lay-in mode. Meanwhile, I’m running round meeting myself coming back.

This year, things have got to change and last night, I tactfully brought the issue up over dinner. If there was no work available, he must get up earlier, with a purpose and do SOMETHING in the house every day, cleaning, domestics or preferably DIY. If he didn’t want to do that, then he must go into work and ASK THEM to find him something to do, to take the pressure off me as main breadwinner, chief cook and bottlewasher. Either way, he could not expect me to carry on as I was, and not react to it.

This morning…no change. Early days. At least I have spoken my mind. But…the worm is turning.

Posted on January 1, 2020 by kitsmet

What Every Freelancer Wants in 2020

Happy New Year. It’s January 1st and (thank God) Christmas is over and done with for another year. Though, to be perfectly honest, if you’re a freelance writer you probably didn’t get much time off – just enough to hit your nearest and dearest over the head with a Turkey leg and fall asleep in front of Gavin and Stacey (who let them into the front room in the first place…?)

As we hurtle into the new year, what does any freelancer want? Peace and goodwill to all other freelancers, of course. And payment on time. We just want to do our work, watch it publish and…get paid for it. Anything else is a bonus.

Imagine a world in which sane employed people turn up to their place of work every day, put in an honest day’s graft, then another…then another…then at the end of the month are told that there’ll be a delay in paying them, or ‘sorry you did all that work, I can’t pay you this month’. There’d be mutiny.

As freelancers, many of us accept this as the norm, and find ourselves chasing invoices, or delayed payments…sometimes both. Why do we accept it? We’re already bottom of the pecking order when it comes to sick leave/pay and holiday entitlements (we get none of either), so the cherry on the cake is obviously to spend seven days a week working, then not be paid for it. Woo!

If you’re someone who sub contracts work out, or hires a freelancer to help you in any capacity, show them the respect they deserve – pay them on time. Compliment them on their skills. Tell them they’re great to work with (unless they’re not). Recommend them to other people who may be in need of the same services. Do your bit to make sure they feel valued, in a marketplace than can often treat them like dirt.

All any freelancer wants, at the end of the day is to be able to pay the bills and put food on the table. The old ‘it’s good exposure’ for you chestnut won’t wash anymore. Exposure does not buy the Daz that washeth thine undercrackers. Nor does it purchase family sized bags of Kettle Chips, to be scarfed in front of a Military History documentary on BBC4. Exposure just leaves you cold (and can often get you arrested)

My wish for 2020 is that all freelancers everywhere should be paid sufficiently, adequately and on time for any work that they do, in any capacity. Amen.