It didn’t occur to me to go freelance straight out of university. Instead, I applied for internships with film companies, jobs on local newspapers and a few wild cards, like a sales position at Vogue House that I hoped would be my key through to editorial.
Several times, over the next few years, I’d break down into tears of frustration. I’m not a big crier. I cry (when not grieving) about two or three times a year. But I really wanted to work, and I just couldn’t seem to get a job.
I did book-keeping for my dad’s business while applying for jobs. During one stint, I wrote a novel from the kitchen table between applications. I did try freelancing, at this point, but other than a job writing a press release, nothing came through.
So when, eventually, someone I knew posted about a copywriting job on Facebook, and I said I was going to apply, and she said I’d be perfect for it, and I went for the interview and got the job, I thought I’d made it. Good money, an office, a future.
Except, in that 90% male tech business, they didn’t care to support women through maternity leave. So, I lost my job when I said I was pregnant. So did my boss. And it was rubbish but also, the best thing that could have happened.
I don’t want to gloss over the hard bits here, because I definitely spent the early months of ‘maternity leave’ flitting between doting on my most beautiful baby daughter and trying to work out what the fuck I was going to do for work.
Back then, transcription was a job, would you believe. I thought about doing that. I did bits of journalism. Got a part-time job on a digital magazine and then, when that looked like it was about to fold (soon after, it did), I launched my own platform.
Me, my laptop, the kitchen table and a baby who napped for about five or six hours a day. (I lucked out. My second baby did not do this.) I spent those hours writing and editing articles, uploading them to the digital magazine and promoting them.
I went to networking events. Not many, because I hate them but some, because I thought that was what you were meant to do. I did all the things you were meant to do and it wasn’t exactly easy or linear, but I did end up with a book deal to write…
The Freelance Mum. A book about how I’d just about made it work as a freelance writer, running a business from home, with a toddler and, now, a newborn baby. After that book was published, I launched an online course and my career came together.
The internet made all of this possible. I created an entire career, from home, using my laptop and the internet. It’s wild. At points, I was making £10-20,000 a month using my brain and the internet and my computer and phone.
So, when people talk about going offline and the internet being evil and whatever else, I stay a bit quiet. Yes, time in nature is wonderful and we need real people in our lives and love and touch and connection. But, the internet opens doors for people like me.
People who hate in-person networking. Who are shy and/or neurodivergent. People who feel safer making contact online, first. I wrote a whole chapter about this in my second book, Shy. About how the online world is a shy person’s friend.
And I continue to work almost entirely online. The Creative Way. And to teach others how to grow a creative online career, from home, using just their laptop and the internet. In fact, I’m running a course on exactly that, through August.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.