A little over a year ago, I walked out of my safe (but soul-crushing) full time job, and into the great unknown!
Well, actually. It was more like …
A little over a year ago, I walked out of my safe (but soul-crushing) full time job, and into the prospect of becoming a freelance writer!
Ok ok. Here is the real, naked truth:
A little over a year ago, I walked into my boss’s office at my safe (but soul-crushing) full time job, told him I was going part time, and started doing a tiny bit of freelance writing. You can tell how dedicated I was by my lack of bio on that site.
Walking away from a steady paycheck, in exchange for a life of freelancing freedom, is INCREDIBLY scary. You think it’s going to be liberating, and creative, and that you’re just going to sit in coffee shops all day, being your quirky freelancey self. Like a Carrie Bradshaw or a Joan Didion, only better. You’re going to write for Gawker and Jezebel, with an occasional New York Times “Modern Love” essay thrown in for good measure, and just for kicks? You’ll do food reviews for Texas Monthly. You’ll convince the editor to kick you a per diem for barbeque. Eventually, someone at Food and Wine Magazine will read that, and invite you to be a guest contributor for a future “Soul of the South” series! It’s going to be great. Really.
Only it does not go that way.
Finding steady work as a freelance writer (or, a freelance anything) is hard. When you’re stressed about money, it’s impossible to be imaginative. You stare at a blank screen, thinking: “This article sucks so bad, it’s going to be the one that gets me fired.” And then, when you’ve finally banged out the article, that stupid fucking article that you stayed home on a Friday night to finish, you have zero energy left to go hunting for more clients. Clients you desperately need if you want to pay for things, like, electricity. The whole enterprise is less Carrie Bradshaw, more Boba Fett.
So I was delighted, thrilled, when my friends, local actors Ted Meredith and Erica Lies — part of the Austin: Mortified team, the latter of whom was my Mortified producer — created a miniseries based on this lifestyle. Appropriately enough, it is called “Freelancers.”
Here is the pilot. I LOVE the opener — I so relate to Erica’s character!
I asked Erica Lies how she and Ted conceived of “Freelancers.” Here’s what she said:
And that, my friends, is how you start a web series! If you have time, go watch my other favorite series from the Ted-Erica friend group, “Hey! The Zooey Deschanel Show.” I posted about it here a few months ago, and we all laughed our faces off.