28 December 2018 Frustrating Friday

[KathyB]

It doesn't feel like Friday today, and it is going along just like a Monday. Enough said?

[Chris L]

It doesn't feel like Friday today, and it is going along just like a Monday. Enough said?

And you have another Monday coming in three days!
(At least you'll get an actual weekend in between. And a holiday on the 1st, not that freelancers like us ever really get holidays.)

[scenicdesign71]

Have I mentioned -- notwithstanding the things I miss about designing, not having done any the past six months -- how much I don't miss certain other aspects of freelancing?

Not to gloat: the things I do miss about it, I definitely miss.  Perhaps not enough, just yet, to dive back into it the instant my spring TV hiatus arrives -- there are a couple of important personal projects that I really want to nail down before jumping into any new design gigs, and they're involved-enough that I can't really seem to make any real inroads while working fifty-hour TV weeks.

But I do miss it -- enough so that, if the right design were to come along...

[Chris L]

Freelancing can be a joy when it works. You get to do what you love and get paid for it. When it doesn't work -- well, there's always another freelancing gig out there somewhere if you look hard enough for it. Usually.

I've lucked out currently with a gig ghostwriting novels for would-be authors, by which I mean people who want to see their names on the covers of books without having to do much of the actual work beyond earning the money that pays my bills. The one I'm writing currently is a lot of fun and the guy who's paying for it seems to like what I'm doing, so I'm happy. What I'll be doing when I'm finished with it I don't know, but I'll spend the next few months trying to line up another "author" who wants the privilege of paying my bills. With luck, I'll get to write something else that I actually enjoy writing. Maybe the guy I'm writing for now will want to see another book to follow this one. My dream is to find somebody who wants me to write an entire series.

The downside of ghostwriting is that you don't get to see your own name on the cover of the book and, unless you negotiate it in advance, you won't necessarily see the money for any subsidiary sales, though given the moribund state of the publishing industry at the moment, I'm not too worried about missing out. I figure I can keep this up until I either go senile or develop arthritic typing fingers -- and by then I'll probably have some sort of voice-activated keyboard that will understand me well enough to do the typing for me.

@scenicdesign71, I do hope you find some more work you love as soon as possible. Based on the designs I've seen here, you're excellent at what you do, better than I am at writing books. But set design is a much more specialized skill, one that you seem to have honed to a genuine art, where "art" is really the appropriate word. You seem to have reached the point where you can pick and choose the job that you really want to do and that's a very nice place to be at.

[scenicdesign71]

Again with the blushing.  Thanks, Chris -- I must talk a better game than I play, to use a pet phrase (one of many) of a notorious graduate-school professor of mine.  I want to write more here, but if I get started I'll be at it all evening, and I actually have plans tonight.  But I will come back to this.