Manage Your Freelance Time, Protect Your Writing Time
Writing is the Gift You Must Protect
This week has been a wild, adrenalin and caffeine driven power march through my own edits on The Ghost Lake, galloping towards the deadline and swinging between elation and something like dread. But I am loving it. I am living a life that I began working towards ten years ago. Most days I’m up by 6.00am. I brew my coffee, I sit in the office space I created for myself, I listen to the jackdaws and the wood pigeons outside my office window and feel the sun creeping up behind the blinds to greet me. I can hear people getting in their cars and heading out to work and I feel utterly lucky to be able to do the thing that I do - writing, workshops, facilitating, mentoring. Because I’m an early riser I generally have a couple of hours of some sort of writing related activity (more on that later) in the bag before the day really begins.
Right now, as I am days away from deadline, I am enjoying pushing hard, challenging myself to improve what I’ve written, driving this book to a landing place, really growing my voice through it. This takes time. I’m shuffling obligations and still might have to cancel a thing I have planned for the weekend in order to make that glorious goal; to print it for posterity, and then to press send on the email; the book written, ready to work with the editor at The Borough Press to bring it to a shine.
This takes time. And with the best will in the world, the advance I received (bear in mind that most advances are paid in four parts over two years) will cover only a tiny scrape of a month’s work. A couple of days, realistically, if you do, as I have, eeking it out month by month, the aim being to reduce the amount of non writing work I did, and increase the amount of time I had to write. This worked, but it worked because, going into this project, I had planned everything out, put some boundaries around the work I would and wouldn’t do and took a bit of a pay cut. The pay cut hurt, but it it made me feel that I had control over my destiny, that I was finally prioritising my writing.
I watched the Wham documentary this week during much needed brain decompression time. I was struck by two things. First, how shy George Michael was, how he needed his friendship with Andrew to reassure him of his (enormous) talent and potential, and how generous Andrew was, never once showing jealousy or hatred, but instead supporting his friends talents. Second, how George realised that song writing was his talent, and that that must be protected. One line from the documentary resonated with me: song writing is the gift I must protect. It was such a simple message and I took it away, writing it in my planner to remind me - accepting that writing is a talent, a gift, and that by seeing it this way it made it a precious commodity, something to be protected against my own self doubts.
Last week someone I know from the poetry community commented on one of my many morning pics (the taking of the morning pics is an act of accountability that gets me to my desk) and asked if I had any blogs about managing time as a freelancer and writer. I do…somewhere in the mists of time on my website… but I realised my process has changed so much over the years that it probably wouldn’t be relevant now.
Not everyone has money to sit on while they write. It’s one of the biggest blocks to people from non traditional backgrounds, from non affluent backgrounds, to getting into the arts. I’ve literally just been writing about this in my book so I’m a bit riled up about it. If you’re like me and from a working class background, without the nest egg, you will need to first accept this, accept that the aesthetic of the writer doing nothing but writing, of being an (unpaid) intern for a year building contacts and learning publishing skills or media skills while you plan your novel, fresh out of university…that’s not for you. That wasn’t for me. Though I hold onto the dream that at some point I will be successful enough to make writing my priority all the time, I am realistic enough to know that that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. But if you want it, and ‘it’ is different to all writers - you will find a way of working for it, kicking down the doors and making it happen.
Now, to the planning. I read this article by Russel Nohelty last week and so much of what he said resonated. Especially the part on how he had fallen into the trap of doing a huge amount of non writing stuff in order to fund his writing, but never quite got around to the writing part. I did that. I’m a chronic people pleaser which is part of the problem, but one day I realised that I would have to find a way of making ends meet while pushing for a career as a writer as the priority. That meant not putting the hustle of work first to fund the writing, but taking the leap and writing to seek future opportunities (in my case a book deal) trusting that that would happen. It did. I had to put my money (or lack of) where my mouth was and take a chance on my own writing. But I also needed to pay my mortgage.
For me, to counter the people pleasing, and the imposter syndrome, I had to take control and that meant putting a structure in place that would be the building I’d live in, even when I felt homeless and bereft in the writing community. Because sometimes I let the voice in my head that tells me I’ll never do this thing, that writing isn’t a proper job, that it’s not for the likes of me… win. Insert meme of Golem “nobody likes yooouuus, you don’t HAVE any friends”
I had to build a structure to support my drive to be a writer, and support the need to make ends meet, without letting ‘making ends meet’ swamp the writing and the potential to make ends meet through writing.
Where to start.
Get a planner you like, that can show you exactly what’s going on in the day, the week, the month, the year. I like passion planners, but it irritates me that because it’s an American brand it doesn’t feature British bank holidays, which means I often accidentally work them.
Plan for the time you have, not the time you want to have. This is my biggest piece of advice for anyone, don’t over commit because you will under deliver. That does no one any good. It’s something I recognise in myself. I feel it is a reaction to being under pressure. I try and do ALLL THE THINGS when really, I need to do less things and manage the time I have effectively, making the things I do better quality, which inevitably leads to better opportunities.
Now, protect your writing time. Put your MUST DO appointments in the planner. These aren’t necessarily just meetings or dental appointments, these are your MUST DOs, the things that will have real impact if they are not done. For example, I have an elderly dog who can’t go out of his routine without chaos ensuing, so his walks have to be blocked in like appointments. Poop appointments. I do not put housework in here. I do not put exercise in here, because that is not my priority. My priority is writing. I want to be a writer. I build those things into the time I have left once I have done my writing time. It is why my house looks like a crack den and I am a bit plump. But if you want to do it, there will need to be sacrifices. The good news is, if you project manage your writing, if you set a goal and work out how much time that goal will take, if you place boundaries around the time you have priorities, you will find that you will be able to bring those other things back in as priorities too. You’re work will be more substantial, it will be higher quality, it will have more value and therefore, eventually, you’ll do less of it. But you’ve got to get to that platform first.
Freelancing. If you are building your freelance career, growing your work base, working out what works for you, you need to allow time not just for doing the work, but also hustling for work. This looks different from one person to the next, depending on the sort of work you want to do. I run courses and workshops and mentoring etc, these are my ‘side hustles’. I run a magazine too, which takes up a massive amount of time and is not for profit, so although I am passionate about it, right now it is being run in snippets of time left over from everything else. To run courses and workshops you have to work out, and factor in, time to actually run the workshop, preparation time and also, if you are running it yourself and not for other people or institutes, the enormous amount of time for admin and promotion: answering emails, messages, making sure everyone knows how to use zoom (Margaret, you’re on mute, again) etc and that is where people fall down, they don’t factor that in. You need to factor that in when you work out what to charge too, because you need to pay for your time. You are not sitting on a nest egg. There is no magic money in your bank account at the end of the month. YOU are responsible for that.
You might be looking at all this in despair. You might realistically not be able to see how you will fit in the writing time, or how you will fit in your life, or your work around writing time. And this is yet another sacrifice. If there is no time to write, you have to make time. You have to gather the slivers of time around other jobs, you have to get up and get that half an hour in before anything else gets in and interrupts your time. I run an early morning writing group once a month for five days to give people space to do just that. Join us! If you think it can’t be done, Victoria Bennett wrote her memoir All My Wild Mothers in tiny stints of candle lit writing time while being a carer for her seriously ill son, and for her parents. I don’t say that to shame you, but to inspire you.
It’s awful, but you will have to say no to some stuff. I’m on a hiatus from writing book blurbs and endorsements, mostly, right now. They take time, and they should do. I love doing them because it’s like giving another write a boost, but I have to prioritise my own writing right now.
The final thing, that will feel like it contradicts everything else. You need to enjoy it. Everyone has days and activities they don’t enjoy, but one of the reasons people want to work creatively is because they enjoy it. Do not suck the enjoyment out of your work. Find the paid activities that you enjoy the most and find ways to monetise them further, rather than grindingyourserlf down doing work where you feel unappreciated and unvalued. I did that, and it burnt me out. I’m telling you all this so that you don’t have to.
Enter the Spelt Poetry Competition
Spelt is on a mission to validate and celebrate the real rural experience. We are a print magazine of creative non fiction and poetry with a focus on nature. Our main source of funding is the Spelt competition. This year, our judge is Jane Burn, she’s brilliant and we are honoured to have her working with us. We’re looking for poems on a nature or rural theme, open to interpretation. We are open to entries from around the world and we do have some subsidised places. It’s just £10 for up to three poems and you could win £300 first prize and publication in Spelt. Please do share and think about supporting Spelt. More info here:
The Dawn Chorus
The Dawn Chorus returns in August 7th-11th inclusive, 7am-8am UK time. Come and join us in our friendly zoom group, prioritise your writing and get an hour of creativity in before the day really begins. Book your place here:
August Writing Challenge
Don’t forget, in August I’m running a free writing challenge through my substack, Notes from the Margin. Deep Summer - A Sensory Experience is a taster for some of the things you can expect when I begin offering a paid option in September. More about that in future posts. Subscribe for free and enjoy the writing challenge. Read about it here:
Thanks for reading, until next time
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