It’s officially been a month since I quit my full time job in favour of a freelance existence. So far, so good. I’m still in one piece, people have been paying my invoices in a timely fashion and I haven’t become addicted to day time TV (to be fair, we don’t have a TV aerial, so this is less to do with willpower than I would like to think).
I haven’t quite managed to write loads of stories, which to be honest was kind of the whole point, but I have really enjoyed the chance to pet a really cute dog, play with my bookshelves and do a lot more reading. There’ve been quite few train journeys in the last few weeks, so I’ve been making the most of my new wee Kindle.
That said, I was feeling quite discouraged for a while, because I think I read three novels on the trot which I’d heard were good but turned out to be kind of unsatisfying. I won’t say what they were, because I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night for the thought of author’s Googling their own names and making lists of every slightly negative thing anyone has said about them ever.
Luckily, this disappointing run was broken with A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I loved and which reminded me what it feels like to be in the hands of a capable author. More books like that please. How much time can I reasonably spend reading and pass it off as research?
Lynsey May 
Reading as research: AT LEAST two hours a day!
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That’s what i like to hear!
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Good luck with your freelancing. I haven’t quite got to the stage where I can quit my job to do what I really want to do, I’m still at the stage where I spend most of my spare time writing in the hope of becoming a freelance writer, but I’ll get there…eventually. In the meantime I will follow you to see how it’s done 🙂
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Thank you very much, and good luck to you too – I’m sure you will get there.
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Glad you’re having a good time of it! And how much novel reading can you pass of as research – that’s a question only you know the answer to…
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Cheers Nik! I’m scared of jinxing it, but it’s been grand so far.
So, 12 hours a day then? ; )
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For me, the distractions come in the form of obsessing over some ridiculous and completely time-wasting project, e.g. (to use a recent example) working out the most satisfying way to collect story arcs in non-existent paperback anthologies of comics I read when I was 10.
Somehow the work all gets done – it helps that I’ve developed different methods for making it more ‘fun’ (in reality, just more varied), tricking myself into thinking of it as a challenge or game rather than work. Don’t tell my conscious mind, or the game will be up.
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Ha, I do the same. The second part, not the non existent arcs bit. Mainly, I don’t mind repetitive tasks, as long as there’s something else to think about too!
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Repetitive tasks are the best! More of them for Lynsey!
Also, if one of those books you didn’t like was by Michael Crichton, best not to mention it. After a DC-based critic named Michael Crowley (who graduated from Yale) wrote bad things about him: “Crichton introduced a character named “Mick Crowley” who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. “Crowley” was portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a small penis.”
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Meep. Although, it might be a good claim to fame for me!
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