....and why it was such good timing.

Hello again.  This was originally part of the previous post, but then I realised it is a bit self-indulgent (sorry) and worthy of its own little home, which you are very welcome to drive straight past if you prefer.

On the same day that the winners were announced I received an email which, to cut a long story short, meant losing a big chunk of work I had lined up for September. The income from this work has pretty much been the bedrock of my financial plans for this half of the year. (I say plans, but I don't really have any. What I really mean is that knowing this money was on the way was making me feel a lot more relaxed about having no income in August, or beyond November.)

It rocked me to the core, and not just because of the financial implications, although those are pretty dire. The biggest problem was having to accept the fact that IT WAS ENTIRELY MY OWN FAULT. I had been procrastinating, for no particular reason, about filling in a form. If I'd done it when I was supposed to and before I had forgotten, there wouldn't have been a problem. But I didn't, and there was, and as a result I lost the work.

This scared me. It also forced me to confront something which I have known for a while now; the things I am worst at are the things which you ned to be good at when you are self-employed. Pitching for work, controlling finances, demanding payments, negotiating rates, planning ahead; none of these are things which come naturally to me. I'm not good at them, and because I don't like not being good at things, I try to avoid doing them. It's not a great strategy, I know that. But there's another key skill for succesful self-employment, which I'm not great at either: self-discipline.  The cold facts are that if I remain a contractor the time will come when I simply can't afford not to be good at these things any more. A little sooner than expected, now.

I constantly question whether freelancing is the right option for me; I left a perfectly good job, which I could do perfectly well, to try something different which I'm not doing very well at all at the moment. Was it the right decision? While all of my instincts scream yes, the practical side of me is suggesting (quite loudly) that I should just stick to what I'm good at and find a real job. I want to trust my instincts, but they really worry me sometimes.

How is any of this relevant? Well, these were some of the thoughts bouncing around my head on Friday afternoon, causing all manner of confusion and chaos. Then I saw my name among the list of competition winners on Rowan's website, screamed several times and promptly burst into tears. There are few things which would match the rush of delight and disbelief I felt at that moment, but (and this is something I didn't realise at the time) the overwhelming emotion was actually something else. An enormous sense of relief.

Writing is another thing I'm new at, and another thing I'm not sure if I can do. Knowing that someone else liked my story enough to rate it among her top eight, among a field of over 300, made me think maybe, just maybe, it is something I could get good at after all. I'm under no illusions; this was just one story, and just one competition. But somewhere, mixed in with the questions and worries and insecurities that have been jangling around in my brain, there's now also a tiny scrap of faith. It's the only thing keeping me brave enough to keep trusting those crazy instincts of mine at the moment.

(I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to be feeling this confused about life in general. According to every magazine article I've ever read on the topic of getting older, being confident about who you are and what you are good at and what you want from life  is meant to be the best thing about your thirties. It's some sort of trade off for the wrinkles, harder-to-shift extra kilos and general sense of impending physical doom, apparently.) 

Anyway, enough of this.  I have stuff to do. Work to find, invoices to chase, a diary to fill.  Plus, as an author I was chatting with recently (yes, this is how I roll now)  jokingly said during our conversation "the problem with being a writer is that as soon as you finish one story, people expect you to produce another one". Easy for her to joke about; she had just signed a three book publishing deal. But still, I know how she feels.