SiteFeast or Famine: The Freelance Lifestyle
After our son Traver came home in January, I took off on maternity leave for the month, fully expecting to jump back into work on February 1. I didn’t really take off of work totally — I did send queries and letters of introduction, hoping to rack up work for February. But February came and went with hardly any work. And so did March. And April. It was the longest “famine” period I’d ever had, and I worried that it was more than a famine thanks to the economy.
Then, in May, things started picking up. By a few weeks ago, I had up to five assignments due per week. I picked up a regular blogging gig, and a Complete Idiot’s Guide assignment. My husband, a stay-at-home dad who writes on the side and runs BoardgameNews.com, also picked up some magazine work, and was hired with me to co-write the Idiot’s Guide. We had to hire a “father’s helper” to come in for three hours a few days per week to entertain Traver while Eric worked. (I work at an outside office.) I wake up with pangs of panic, and my neck and stomach hurt from the stress. My friends would say my house is clean, but it’s not clean to me — and I have no time to neaten up the way I want it!
That’s the freelance life for you: Feast or famine. If you want to make it as a freelancer, you have to be smart enough to save cash during the feast to prepare for the famine — and the fortitude to make it through parched periods of no work followed by avalanches of assignments.
I’ve become pretty good at making it through famines without worrying too much. Instead of going nuts about it, I pick up the marketing pace and use the rest of the time to enjoy myself. I know that the situation is temporary, and soon enough I’ll be drowning in work.
I’m not so good at handling an overload of work. I tend to get stressed, and then I get stomachaches, headaches, and a stiff neck and back. I don’t exercise as much because I’m so busy with deadlines, which makes the stress worse.
You’d think that after 12 years of full-time freelancing, I’d have come up with a way to even out the mountains and valleys in my freelance career. But no matter when or how much I market, the feasts and famines remain. So it’s just a matter of getting used to them.
Or celebrating them. After all, it’s hard to have too much work — but if you can put a kibosh on the worry, it’s nice to have so much free time during a famine. During the last, four-month famine, I had a great time with my husband and our new son.
So: Do you experience the feast or famine? Have you found a way to even out the bumps? Do you worry about the famines, or have you learned to deal with them? Please post in the Comments below!
15 Responses to “Feast or Famine: The Freelance Lifestyle”
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Victoria (Everman) Klein
Said this on July 16th, 2009 at 3:00pm:I’ve been going through a terrible famine for nearly all of 2009. I just started getting more web writing work, but as far as magazines, I’m pitching like crazy & getting no where. Each yeah, I’ve been making progress as far as profits, but I’ll be lucky if I make $5,000 this year – and that’s before biz deductions.
Honestly, I have no good way of dealing with it – I’ve got $20,000 in credit card debt to pay off & can’t even make the monthly payments because my income is so slow. I got a part-time job helping a personal trainer, but he just started his own business and my hours are few.
Working out helps a lot, as does yoga, but the hardest part, now that have do have SOME work, is I get a brain freeze, don’t know where to start, and then don’t do anything until 2-3 days before the work is due. Trying to push myself through it only makes it harder to concentrate.
I give you credit for being able to enjoy the famines – if I was more established, I could easily see myself doing so … maybe one day …
LindaFormichelli
Said this on July 16th, 2009 at 8:50pm:I’m sorry to hear you’re going through a tough time, Victoria! I’ve actually been doing more articles for trades and custom pubs than newsstand pubs these days…maybe those are places with more work to offer? I hope your famine ends soon!
Kristine
Said this on July 16th, 2009 at 9:40pm:I’m going through a famine too…wondering if it’s my pitches or the state of the economy and all the publications folding?
Eric Angevine
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 9:52am:I’ve only been doing this for one year full-time, but what a year I chose! I had been writing on the side for a while, and decided to take the leap in August 2008. It was feast right away, and I was very encouraged. Then the economy tanked hard and it’s been up and down ever since. I lost a regular gig with ESPN.com and a data entry job with encyclopedia.com in the same week and I’ve been in a bit of a tailspin in the past month as a result.
Fortunately, I got a job editing a basketball preview guide, but I get paid upon publication, so I’m busy AND broke at the same time. But it’s a high-profile job, so I have confidence it will lead to another feast.
Just discovered your website, but I’ll enjoy coming back!
Julie
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 10:46am:For some insane reason, I decided to make the leap into freelancing right in the midst of this economy. Talk about nerve-wracking. So, although I’ve freelanced on the side for years, I have only been a full-time freelancer for a month and a half now. That’s not really long enough to contemplate whether I’m feasting or dealing with a famine, I guess. But it gives me hope to hear that as much as there may be downs, there will be an up again.
One of the things I’m struggling with is switching gears between the two modes. After coming from an 8-to-5, juggling the ups and downs of work days and weeks is tricky. Things started out slowly with my freelance work once I became a full-time writer, but then this past week I’ve been so busy with two projects that I hardly even had time to eat. They’re both due today though, so then I expect next week I’ll be back at that slower pace, where I have more time to market but also more time to stress about the work I’m not doing … I guess that’s just the nature of the beast?
Cognitive Connection July 17 « a.k.a writer
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 11:53am:[...] Renegade Writer Blog. Feast or Famine: The Freelance Lifestyle [...]
beth
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 3:30pm:Thanks for this post! I’m expecting a baby this fall and would love to hear if you have other thoughts on planning for maternity or other types of leave – would you have done anything differently? Any tips that really worked for you?
Star
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 3:54pm:You mean you don’t have “six months in the bank” like all those highly paid TV credit experts like to blat on about? LOL. After 28 yrs of this and today’s particularly irritating famine, all I can say is stock up on ramen–even Kraft Dinner costs too much. I blog weekdays on stuff I come across on how to make do that isn’t totally idiotic. Six months in the bank? They must be on crack–and can afford crack! So jealous.
Star
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 3:55pm:My blog, Do the Hopey Copey, is http://hopeycopey.blogspot.com.
LindaFormichelli
Said this on July 17th, 2009 at 4:54pm:Thanks for your comments, everyone!
Star, we always save money from the feasts to fund the famines! It all works out.
Beth, I was very unscientific about my maternity leave. I just didn’t accept any assignments that would be due in January. I also let all my editors know in a mass e-mail (with their e-mail addresses in the BCC line, of course) that I would be unavailable, but that I’d love it if they would consider me for assignments due in February. In January, when I had a lot of downtime (I didn’t know newborns sleep so much!), I did some pitching and sending of letters of intro. When I returned from maternity leave, I again e-mailed my editors to let them know.
But don’t rely on *my* advice…after my maternity leave I went three more months without work!
Diane
Said this on July 20th, 2009 at 11:42am:I haven’t found any ways to deal with it, and in fact it’s taught me that after I graduate (I am going back to university this September, and will get more in loans than I’ve earned in the last year – I can’t wait for the regular income! How sad is that?) I want an office job.
The boredom of commuting and the 9-5 lifestyle are worth it for financial security: I’m in so much debt right now it cripples my creativity. Having said that, in famine times (hello, 2009!) I try to work on my own stuff (book proposals, personal essays, memoir etc- you can do a lot without being commissioned, and I’ve sometimes been able to sell stuff on spec). It’s hard to motivate myself though, and I consider full-time freelancing to be one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. It’s only thanks to my parents and my credit cards that I’ve gotten by. My health situation precludes me from getting a job at Starbucks or somewhere, but otherwise I’d be first in line to sign up. Roll on September!
Star
Said this on July 20th, 2009 at 1:12pm:When you say “we” save money–do you have two incomes over there? That helps with saving!
LindaFormichelli
Said this on July 20th, 2009 at 2:52pm:Star: My husband is a part-time freelance writer and stay at home dad, and I’m a full-time freelance writer. So we both get the feast or famine!
Mary
Said this on July 23rd, 2009 at 9:13am:You know, Linda, sounds to me as if that famine after bringing your baby home was just what you needed. I do believe things happen for a reason. Thanks for sharing your experience. I do think freelancing will be well worth the uncertainty and am always inspired by your posts.
Jackie
Said this on July 29th, 2009 at 4:09pm:I rely on freelancing for my sole income as well, for over the last five years. There are up and down periods. But I agree that like Linda, I know they won’t last long. With me, they usually last a couple of days at most. During those days of not much to do I take the time to relax, learn, read, get out and do things… I know that within a few days a lot of work will come in at once and I will be buried in assignments. It always happens that way. The down periods are the perfect time for writing up more queries, book proposals, blog posts, finding new markets, sprucing up your Web site, etc. In the end, it all evens out monitarily.