I write and paint but haven't made a masterpiece yet.
I know my freelance writing cycle, I know it well, come June I begin to worry about money, July brings a frantic panic as I search for work and August leaves me in painters whites filling in my income gaps.
I absolutely love my lifestyle. In fact I just turned down my "dream job" because I couldnt imagine punching a clock for 40+ hours a week. I also didn't know if I could handle the stress of a newsroom again. I know that being a freelancer and self-employeed takes a rare bird and I'm about as rare as a passenger pigeon in this respect but how can I give up never setting an alarm clock? Taking time out of the middle of the day for a run or a visit to the zoo with my niece and nephew? Or sometimes just taking a day off for no good reason at all? Now before you all decide to quit your 9-5's, there is a downside. I work most nights. I roll out of bed and feed the cats, put my coffee on and turn on the computer and begin working. I work every weekend. I work way more than 40 hours a week and I know that I'm much more productive than I ever was at an actual job. So there is stress and there is a lot of work but for me this is the right way to approach it.
So, for some reason in the summer I find myself without work quite often. I should have learned by now that I need to save a bit to get myself through these lean times, but I'm a slow learner. The thing that always baffles me is why the writing world slows down for me at this time of year. I have writer friends that are flush with work at this time of year and they struggle in the winter, which is typically a busy time for me. But this schedule is actually good for a writer who just happens to own a painting company. In my lean times I pick up that paintbrush and begin knocking on doors.
I think the best schedule for me is one painting job a month so I spend between 3-10 days out of 30 doing physical labor, but in the summer I'm willing to don my paint stained togs every day for a month or two and belly up to a large project. I'm not sure if the rest of the country is the same as the midwest, but this is actually a good time to find painting work. The late summer, early fall is a bit better. People are making those lakehouse purchases they've debated up until now and taking advantage of some late season sales. There are also the people who bought before the season and spent the early months repairing the big problems and are now ready to aesthetically rennovate their vacation homes. And then there are the people who I really relate to, the ones who were going to do it themselves and then just lost track of time. They're at a point where they'd rather have someone else finish it so they no longer have that reminder of their shortcomings staring them in the face.
Most people in the interior decorating business see their biggest influx of business before the holidays, even the DIY stores get busier at that time of year, but I know the mid summer to mid fall crowd is out there and ready to rennovate, and I'm getting my painting supplies ready.
