New Writers: Are You Ready For The Lonely Side Of Freelance Writing?

By Dan Smith

I didn’t always know that it was freelance writing I wanted to do as a career, but from being 8 or 9 years old, I’ve always known that I wanted to be my own boss, something that I always thought would lead me to working as and when I wanted, whether from home or my business’s offices.

To me, it was always the way that I would know I’d ‘made it’ — if I could choose where and when I worked, that meant I was the boss and could make my own rules. It was as simple as that.

When I started freelance writing — and for many years to start with — I worked freelance alongside a full time, salaried position.

I’d go to the 9 to 5 job during the day and then spend all evenings and weekends writing. Yeah, it got to the point where I was really struggling to keep all of the plates spinning, but I managed to do it, as I knew that it would eventually lead to me achieving my goal of being self-employed full time.

Earlier this year, I accepted a part time salaried position that was extremely flexible. I took it because aside from being tired of what was then my current salaried position, the flexibility meant I could work as and when I wanted, which was one step closer to me achieving my overall goal.

And that’s when I realised my goal had to change somewhat.

With the new salaried role, I had to — and still do — work from home. Great. It sounded perfect to start with.

However, it started to get a bit problematic a few weeks in.

Sure, it was great not having to get up early to shower and get ready for work — I could (and hey, it’s turned into a bit of a habit) get up a little later than normal, do some work for an hour or so while having a coffee and then go get showered when I’ve caught up with my e-mails — but after a few weeks of spending all day behind a computer, I realised something that I never thought I would — I was missing people.

I can be a sociable guy. I like hosting parties and I like chatting with friends and family. I’ve even got a bit of a penchant for meeting new people at the minute. But I do like my own time and I’m just as happy reading a book completely on my own as I am mingling with a group of people. It’s because of this reason why I always thought I’d be absolutely fine when it came to working by myself full time.

I don’t think anyone can actually prepare you for it, though.

When you’re working in an office job for 8 hours a day, although you’re in the office, you don’t actually work for all of those 8 hours. You have a lunch break. You make coffee a few times. You go to the toilet.

Sure, you do all of those things when you’re working from home, but without one thing — human interaction.

There’s no going for lunch with a colleague. No having a quick gossip while the kettle boils. No bumping into a colleague for a chat when you’re going to the toilet. None of that.

You can’t even bounce ideas off a colleague without having to jot them down in an e-mail, send them across and wait for their reply.

And the truth is, it’s actually really, really difficult to cope with.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken on more projects where I can actually get out of the house and the agency work I talked about last week is increasing day-by-day, which means more meetings, more trips to the office and more interaction with others.

It’s not great all the time, I say that openly, but when you’re given the option of sitting behind a computer by yourself for 8 hours or doing some travelling to a meeting, I know which one I now choose.

Don’t get me wrong, I love freelance writing and I always will, but I think it’s important for new writers to be aware that it can be a lonely career and it could be worthwhile getting into the mindset from the start that you shouldn’t be aiming to working from home all of the time.

Image: diamond geezer (Flickr)