FREELANCING
To be a freelancer is to live and work in the throes of a perpetual anxiety disorder...
It’s from this observation that I’ve been thinking a lot about Time and Economics. And I’m afraid to say that it fills me with a distinct apprehension.
I make my living as a freelancer so I guess it‘s no surprise that my mind is preoccupied with the twin forces of time and economics. I work in an industry where some 70% of workers are freelancers. Gig to gig I trade skills for fees, but unlike ordinary wage jobs, freelancers have to spend as much time on finding and maintaining the work as they do on the work itself. And that is the trap of Time and Economics…
There’s an ancient Greek adage that “Life is short. Art is long.” For creative people the number of hours in the day never feels enough, the years pass by quicker and quicker, but the labour of art seems endless.
I feel that way a lot lately. That I’m running out of time and the jaws of economics are catching up. It took me 20 years to get to where I am but the things I really want to do seem more than 20 more years away. Every day is not enough time. The treadmill turns and turns leaving you running to stand still, hustling just to keep the economic paradigm in tact — making sure you have enough work to get you to the end of the year, choosing which gigs to say yes to, which you can afford to say no to, and trying desperately to under promise and over deliver so as to not tie yourself in knots.
Whilst globally a great many industries are concerned about disruption, automation, and the gig economy, the reality for freelancers in the screen industry is that the uncertainty of employment, and the sheer effort to maintain work, is our long-standing norm.
And it’s not healthy...
There is no magic answer to the problem of freelancing in the screen industry. It is an unassailable reality. But I fear we - as an industry - don’t talk about the true ‘costs’ of freelancing as an economic paradigm. The grind of working gig-to-gig most surely levies a heavy toll.
Freelancing taxes us financially because we can never be ahead of the game. There’s no such thing as ‘savings’ because with the next job never guaranteed you never know how long the savings will have to last. So even when you have money you are afraid to spend it which creates a constant financial anxiety even when times are good. A run of gigs doesn’t change the fact that a bill in the mail causes you to flinch, a grocery shopping trip is always a mild source of concern, and selecting No to a receipt at the ATM is a self-imposed habit of denial that you just can’t break.
Freelancing taxes us physically because we simply can’t afford to be sick. We don’t get paid if we don’t work, we easily fall into a mind-set of not seeing doctors and ‘pushing through’, and everything is compounded by the physical wear and tear that a constant state of stress ensures.
And Freelancing taxes us mentally. Work never stops because even when you’re not actually working you have to be hunting for the next job. You easily slip into a mentality where down-time feels like wasted-time, and you need to always be ‘on’. And because you’re in a perpetual state of fear that you may not get the next gig, you work yourself into the ground in an ever-present effort at over-compensation. This in addition to the hyper competitiveness of the screen sector which generates a siege mentality where everyone‘s afraid someone will take their spot. All amplified of course by a propensity for insular gossip and tall poppy syndrome that is quick pull down others. Add on top a solid dose of imposter syndrome and self-doubt which is par for the course for any creative professional and you have ripe cocktail for mental breakdown.
Yep, freelancing is unhealthy...
Tied to the economic paradigm of freelancing is also the distinct, but rarely discussed, power imbalance. The decisions that affect freelancers the most are made by those who aren’t freelancers. Those who’s next pay check is guaranteed dictate the fortunes of those who have no such guarantees. When networks and production companies put back a shoot, hold off on the next stage of writing, delay script notes, curtail cash-flow, request extra revisions, or insist on development work be done before development funds can be spent, the only impact for them is to their business work day. But these choices have profound personal home, life, and family ramifications for Freelancers. A delay for a network is a business inconvenience, but a delay for a freelancer can be a mortgage payment missed and a power bill not paid.
Perhaps more than anything it is this power imbalance that places freelancers in a perpetual anxiety disorder.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I do feel very privileged that I get to work in a creative industry. I tell stories for a living and that’s no bad thing. I love my job, it is a pleasure and privilege, and I’m well aware that there are a great many people who would kill to be in my position and be paid to tell stories. I’m also, in truth, a freelancer who makes a decent, and occasionally good, living doing what I do. I work with wonderful creative people and count all my colleagues as friends and comrades. But as I get older I can see the flaws in the system and feel the cracks ever widening around me. And it makes me worry about Time and Economics…
When I lived in LA in the late 90’s as a twenty-something kid, I had an older, wiser, housemate named Carlos. And on the wall of Carlos’ house was a large poster that said ‘Life without industry is guilt. Industry without art is brutality.’ Those words spoke to me then and continue to shape me even now.
I was able to acknowledge to myself at a young age that I really didn’t have much by way of talent, but had an ego big enough to think that didn’t matter. It was a combination that fed an over-active case of imposter syndrome to which the pithy truth of the statement on that poster was an empowering antidote — guilt can be assuaged with labour. The result today is that I’ve garnered a good reputation in the industry as reliable and am often referred to as the busiest guy in town. But the older and wiser I get, the more I realise this is a double-edged sword…
I acknowledge that even now spending a couple of hours writing this post on my phone has triggered no small sense of guilt that I ‘should’ have spent this time trying to find my next gig, or working on a script, or getting ahead on stuff that I have to do tomorrow. I’ve always believed this work-ethic attitude to have served me well - delivering a good reputation and allowing me to maintain consistent work as a freelancer in a brutally difficult industry. But as I head into middle-age I’m slowly realising the cost of this mindset — the trap between Time and Economics and the physical, financial, and mental toll of being a freelancer… Perhaps if Carlos hadn’t stuck that poster to the wall in 1998 I might be a different person now, living a different life…?
There are times when I think about quitting. About letting go the chase for gigs, the hustle for writing jobs, the deadlines and the mental wrestling, the plotting, and outlining, and scripting and Skype meetings and writer’s rooms. Despite the fact that I’ve never ever wanted to do anything else, there are times when I think about letting it all go do something else. And I have these thoughts about quitting more than perhaps I’d like to admit…
But in having these thoughts I’m prompted to try and understand the parameters that make someone like me who is doing exactly what they’ve always wanted to do, quit doing that thing. Is that the real cost of Freelancing?
Yet, like all things, this too shall pass. By next week I’ll be fired up again and boring my daughter senseless with long-winded monologues about the new ideas I’m working on (for now at least she’s a captive audience to my monologues). But, even as my enthusiasm returns I’ll still be aware that for the 20 years behind me there is more than 20 years ahead of me - 20 years caught between time and economics. If Im going to last the distance - if any of us freelancers are going to last - I think we’re going to have to think of better ways to live within the freelance paradigm without losing our minds.
Time to go to bed now. Tomorrow is another day.