Tuesday, 4 September 2018

One day one photo - 4: Freelance life

My writing for magazines has always been done on a freelance/contributor basis, alongside my day job in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. 

So a typical day for me would be to go to the office in London, do medical copywriting and have meetings about meetings about medi al congresses or client meetings, and  then after work, at weekends or on my days off I set things up to do my other activities in cycling journalism. 

My castle my rules - with daytime radio and TV!
Life was certainly varied, but it was hard trying to juggle everything. It was especially difficult on those days where I had a deadline for submitting an article to an editor and I was trying to polish the copy at 6am before dashing off to catch the 8am train into London Bridge.

Then after work I would get on with the journalism again. So I  never stop working! Finding time to train and be fit on a bicycle was a challenge to say the least.

Then there are the press invites to attend events on a Tuesday afternoon or a Thursday morning, and of course all that was out of the question!

But now, I have gone freelance. For me, that means taking control. There's a certain amount of discipline required to getting up every day and setting down to do enough work to sustain a reasonable standard of living.  But I  think I have developed that over the years, though I have become quite familiar with the daytime TV and radio shows. 

It can still get quite busy as sometimes I work into the evening and at weekends, but overall I feel much more appreciated by my clients, I take more pride in my work, I can decide what direction my writing takes, and I am completely removed from corporate politics.

So now I can decide which days I do cycle journalism and which days I do medical copywriting. Plus I can go to press presentations or even cycle trips during the week. Of course, like with most things there are limits to what I can and can't do. Also I have to strike an optimal balance, as one activity pays much more than the other. (No prizes for guessing which one.) But at the end of the day, I am the one who decides. 

Yes, it's now a case of "My castle my rules" and that makes it all worth it!
 

1 comment:

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