The Bored Freelancer Thread

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In between filling out applications for real jobs and trying to act prudently in the ringing of commissioning editors and the reading of review books, I flip between cabin fever and agoraphobia and AAAAGH.

However there are distractions and my idle hands have led me to the devil's playground of ILX. Here I can bitch with impunity because so many of us are in the same boat.

Freelancers, REPRESENT!

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

where was this thread 2 months ago? ;)

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 28 November 2003 13:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Today's distraction: cream of green pepper soup.

you need:
a blender
three peppers
an onion
two cloves of garlic
salt
pepper
olive oil
a cube of stock
some cream
oven preheated to 160c

cut up peppers and onions and slice garlic; place in shallow tin.
drizzle olive oil over vegetables, add salt and pepper and maybe a sake cup full of water so veg does not burn when you place in oven.

let this roast in oven for an hour. break up stock cube into blender, boil kettle, add about a teamug full of hot water to the stock. never blend boiling water, trust me. when veg is done roasting shovel it straight from the tin into the blender. now blend. you will not napalm your hand blending hot things as long as they are not mostly liquid. when fully blended pour or spoon in about the equivalent of one of those small pots' worth of cream, then blend until cream is fully mixed. You can either eat the soup after blending or transfer to a pot to make it richer by slightly reducing on low heat.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

occasional freelancers reprazent!

or: how i learned to stop worrying and tolerate my proper job

― enrique (Enrique), Friday, 28 November 2003 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

hey hey, one of my many editors just dropped me a note that he's got a bunch o'stuff for me!

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 28 November 2003 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a hangover. Freelancing means not getting worried about work when your friends produce the margarita mix. All freelancers cook too, as Suzy shows up thread. I've just called my friend Paul, who NEVER used to cook, but he has recently gone freelance and he was making carbonara sauce. I never used to cook either.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Pitched to an editor last Friday who is a nice guy. He keeps promising to return my call in a busy week where he is moving house (two days away this week) and I'm hanging in there because he seemed tickled by the idea. But have to go to edgy style mag to do post and don't wanna.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i didn't cook, apart from lunchtime fry-ups but that doesn't really count does it?

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

No, but you get into the zone of 'I have found these excellent organic cumberland sausages and dry cure bacon, and these posh mushrooms in the clearance pile, and this furiously artisanal bread from Berwick Street' and before you know it no café style cooked breakfast will ever be RIGHT ever again.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

dammit i skipped lunch and now want a suzy fry-up badly

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

YOOMW

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh ha! Doing feature for Dance Mag and they want lots of case studies taken from local newspaper reports. Okay, I said, can I come into the office on monday and use lexis nexis? Um, they said. We cancled our subscription, let us speak to Older Rock Mag next door.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Lexis Nexis - the name *really really* gets on my tits. It's like calling it Poopy Woopy or Kissy Kissy or summat. Grr.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Anna, that is typical Ecrap.

The cooking thing comes from the desire to at least do *one* thing right in any given day.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

what's a Lexis Nexis and can i eat it? i am so hungry now my brain is addled

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

(also possibly one thing that you don't have to have anyone else tell you you've done it right?)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

(that sentence approached Hopkinsian levels of hall of mirrors I fear)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 28 November 2003 15:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Reasons Why I Hate Teleworkers Who Follow Scripts:

When waiting for call from editor, there is nothing more annoying than to have to deal with representatives of the service economy. Especially when they ask for your partner, they're clearly from a call centre, and refuse to divulge name or company when you offer to take a message. When you tell them that all legitimate callers are usually happy to provide this, and they ask 'why?' that is probably a VERY GOOD time to hang up on them.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 28 November 2003 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

suzy i swear i'm leaving right now, but this is essential:

anti-telemarketing counter-script

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 November 2003 18:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh man oh man. I've got a couple editors I write for on a semi-regular basis (and have an 800-word piece on the "oh damn it where can I get an angle on these people; their website tells me nothing" Stills), and I am sort of trying to figure out whether I should seek out more editors to pitch to or stick with the ones I have right now and cultivate a day job. I'm still kinda new at it.

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Friday, 28 November 2003 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I REFUSED WORK today.

It was an interview with Irish dullard David Kitt and I wanted to go to my literary journalism class, I mean I'm paying good money for College I might as well actually do something. I had nothing to say to boring David and they were only asking me cos someone else had something to do. So I said no thanks, they wanted 3 hours after calling me too.

I feel quite proud of myself, this might lessen if the phone doesn't ring in the next week. I am so sick of pitching ideas, I might as well be PITCHING THEM out the window!!!! Witty!

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 28 November 2003 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Can't you write and asinine Zoe Williams or Mil Middleton style column.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 28 November 2003 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Further gripes, they ASKED for top 20 albums and singles by Monday which I didn't bother sending in because lets face it Speedy J's mix of Adam Beyer's Ignition Key isn't going to top any of their awful indie polls, in fact they probably throw it in the bin as soon as they see Elephant or Hail to the Thief isn't at number one.

Then on Thursday I got a mail "can anyone who hasn't sent us their top 20 albums/singles please do so today". Why, so you can not pay me? Honestly it really is like they're doing me a favour by me working for them.

Furthermore I then suggested some sort of tactical voting with the two dance writers there only to recieve a snotty reply, possible strop since they can barely write and seem to have had words with editor about me doing dance work/stealing their jobs.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 28 November 2003 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha! Sitting in offices of Older Rock Mag because Dance Mag do not have any desks (not so bad, much prefer the music and the people are very nice). Neither of these magazines have Lexis. Neither do MOR Rock Mag, or Metal Mag all on same floor. I'm now doing the job of the bloody editor and phoning Reuters and begging them myself. I'm about to jump from the fifth floor window.

― Anna (Anna), Monday, 1 December 2003 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Sob. Entire staff of Older Rock Mag now standing about drinking champagne to celebrate someone's birthday. All are looking straight through me. I feel so fucking in the way and uncomfortable.

― Anna (Anna), Monday, 1 December 2003 17:54 (twenty-one years ago)

dance MUSIC mag or DANCE DANCE mag? Like profiles on ballerinos?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 1 December 2003 18:05 (twenty-one years ago)

the swimmer?

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 1 December 2003 18:09 (twenty-one years ago)

aye

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 1 December 2003 18:16 (twenty-one years ago)

aye

― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 1 December 2003 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Same shit, different day.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm here! is there no pasta-related dish that cannot be improved with an excess of mozarella?

― stevie (stevie), Friday, 5 December 2003 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

£1.69 for bag of potatoes at Iceland. Don't need to leave house for another week! Wait, there's .09p on the electric meter. That 'emergency' thing is so great!

― dave q, Friday, 5 December 2003 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

(re 'call center', if anybody asks me anything while I'm on that "temporary emergency cash-money" (heh heh) job I tell 'em everything! Even my home address. As in REAL home address, like where I was born. If they ask for names of the supervisors I read out the corporate masthead of the whole company and give them the manager's home number. Once I get to the part about how I ended up doing this because I only lasted three months in university they're convinced I'm legit! They still won't say if they're 'fairly' or 'very' dissatisfied with DynoRod Plumbing tho)

― dave q, Friday, 5 December 2003 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

wtf @ this whole getting emailed the next morning for reactions thing? when did this shit start?

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

just got asked to do a job which involves travelling about 300 miles, to a club which is sort of dodgy, probably alone watching hard house......

and yet I found myself agreeing to do it......

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 24 February 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

Henry - I got one of those for 24 Hour Party People, and they hassled fiercely until I responded. It serves no purpose whatsoever for anyone apart from creating busywork for the PR so they can appear to be working. Was so tempted to say cocaine necessary for full enjoyment of movie.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 24 February 2006 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

it's kind of intimidating (at my level of the game), like we won't get invited again if we speak the truth. maybe the idea is if you write something super-asslickey they'll put it in an ad.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

No, they can only blurb from published copy. But isn't it tempting to give them answers that sound like cheesy straplines?

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 24 February 2006 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

i think i'll ignore her, vaguely flirtatious sign-off or no.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

Up until 2 finishing magazine, back up at 6:30 to get kid to school, now back to bed for a couple of hrs then coffee, then chinese food

fuck one livestock industry and all who sail on her

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Friday, 24 February 2006 14:37 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

Considering I've been a freelancer for two months now, I get the feeling maybe I should post in this thread now. I've drunk more martinis in the past eight weeks than I have in the rest of my life combined. But still, wow, getting paid money for sitting in your home office and typing shit all day, godly.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:51 (nineteen years ago)

it doesn't last.

― Bea Arthur - Lost COmic GEnius ? (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:53 (nineteen years ago)

i mean, i know it's different over there in hobbiton with your socialized medecine and all, but i will never -- can never -- go back to freelancing. i like being able to go to the doctor too much.

― Bea Arthur - Lost COmic GEnius ? (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

Can't you just emigrate to Cuba?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:57 (nineteen years ago)

i freelanced from 2000 until February. after awhile it's no fun.

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

people who can actually keep it up and make a living at it and not lose their minds are to be commended tho.

― Bea Arthur - Lost COmic GEnius ? (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 23:10 (nineteen years ago)

it doesn't last.

Some crappy days, some really good days and a lot of days in between.

― Offisa Pump (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 00:46 (nineteen years ago)

But now that the kid is done with high school, I don't know when I'll ever have to set my alarm clock again. I know it'll happen someday, but no idea when.

― Offisa Pump (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 00:48 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Jesus Christ! JESUS CHRIST!!!

I'm getting too old for a month like that.

― Rock Hardy, Saturday, 11 August 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

But it's over now and I'm drinking.

― Rock Hardy, Saturday, 11 August 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

Erotic Review want freelancers! How creepy should I appear in an e-mail to them?

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 11 August 2007 08:21 (eighteen years ago)

Are you a bluestocking young posh girl with a family country house and a yen for old duffers? No? FUGEDDABOUTIT.

― suzy, Saturday, 11 August 2007 16:57 (eighteen years ago)

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 11 August 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

The last issue I saw had the Pipettes on the cover.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 11 August 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

Fucking Borders

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 11 August 2007 17:54 (eighteen years ago)

seven months pass...

from **** ****** <****_******@******.co.uk>
to Dom Passantino <jur✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧>,
date Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 2:22 PM
subject Re: .

hide details 2:22 PM (16 minutes ago)

Reply

So you’ve lowered yourself to work for ****** then?

No.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:39 (seventeen years ago)

Commissioning editor zing culture.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:39 (seventeen years ago)

y...yeah?

― That mong guy that's shit, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:49 (seventeen years ago)

Wouldn't mind, but it was Horse and Hound magazine.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:51 (seventeen years ago)

I love the smell of a burning bridge in the morning

― That mong guy that's shit, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:52 (seventeen years ago)

Smells like an uncashed check.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:59 (seventeen years ago)

"Tells you about horses and how to take care of them." - Dom Passatino

― Abbott, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 17:34 (seventeen years ago)

six months pass...

Going to be a nerve-wracking year or two.

― I'm the wire monkey, not the soft monkey (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 16 October 2008 13:34 (seventeen years ago)

I'm hoping Cyrus will watch videos until Scott comes home so I can get my work done. I feel like I'm either a bad parent or a bad worker, hard to combine the two... I think fondly of the days when we could afford daycare every day and an office out of the house. But when I don't have lots of work I feel so lucky to have the time to spend with my kids.

― Maria :D, Thursday, 16 October 2008 13:57 (seventeen years ago)

Client for whom I'm ghostwriting has dropped off the face of the earth since my last e-mail. I got half my upfront payment, but I'd kinda like the other half...

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 16 October 2008 18:15 (seventeen years ago)

half my payment upfront that is

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 16 October 2008 18:15 (seventeen years ago)

eight years pass...

Ive got my first piece of freelance work, and have no real idea about how to set up being paid. Its only a weeks work, though at a not insignificant day rate. Ive only ever been full time, or on a rolling contract via umbrella company before

UK based Software Developer

― anvil, Tuesday, 4 April 2017 11:40 (eight years ago)

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