On Keeping 'Er Lit
Is that a phrase that means anything to anyone outside of Northern Ireland?
It’s a month since our last Museletter so it’s time I sat down and put pen to paper again. But I’ve got to be honest – every time I think about writing this instalment, I come up a little bit short.
I’ve just got less pzazz this month; no pep talks, no pithy nuggets of wisdom about how to keep pitching while Rome burns. Not even a vaguely comforting ‘It’s all going to be ok’ sentiment from someone’s wellbeing account on Insta.
AND YET... if I’ve learned one thing from five years of running online courses for freelance journalists, it’s that you won’t find a better community of people to be yourself with. Our secret Facebook group for our students is my number-one favourite virtual place to hang out, and I know it’s not just me who feels like that, because someone recently called it the friendliest place on the internet for freelance writers, or words to that effect.
So, concerned as I am about the state of our industry (and everything else that seems to be going wrong around me), I know that opening up and being honest about this feeling with my fellow freelancers is probably more helpful to anyone reading this than any self-help style schtick I could muster. (Apologies if you prefer the cheerful tropes. I’ll hopefully get back to those next month once I’ve been revived by a little staycation.)
But if you feel a pervading sense of gloominess about your own freelance fortunes or a nagging feeling that your career just might not bounce back from this as you’d hoped, I want you to know that we’re in this together. I’m right alongside you, feeling it too, not shoving platitudes down your throat or just cheerily trying to sell you another course.
And here’s what else I want you to know. It’s not you. (Well, it might be.) Ha. Sorry, it really isn’t. It’s this horrible fecking pandemic and its nasty, far-reaching effects. I know I am brilliant at my job. I know I stick out as a safe pair of hands to the countless editors who’ve commissioned me so consistently over the years that I was easily able to keep our family of five afloat when my husband lost his job last year. I know my work is good, because I have a folder of compliments I can never share with anyone because they sound like things I must have written myself.
All of these things are still true. They’ll continue to be true when we get to the other side of these difficult days. Yes, I’ve lost work and had professional setbacks lately like everyone else I know, BUT my professional worth and the quality of my skills aren’t in question here, even though it can sometimes feel like they are. I’m still a good writer. I can still write a kick-ass pitch that gets an instant commission. I still spent 12 glorious years writing for a living and feeling happy about my working life every single day of the week. I still know a feck-ton about how to carve out a sustainable career as a freelance writer, and there’s still an enormous amount of value in sharing that with others.
A lot of this is probably true for you, too. Deep down, beneath the crisis of confidence, you know you’ve got what it takes to make a living as a freelance journalist. You know you’re a talented writer. You know this is what you really, really want to do with your working life, otherwise you’d have exchanged this path for something much easier ages ago.
So do me favour. Don’t let that spark of self-belief go out. Oh, I know how hard it is to keep it aflame right now. But if you let it get snuffed out, I’m not sure there’s a quick or easy way to bring it back to life. So guard it. Fiercely. Practice telling your inner critic to do one when it starts asking if you wouldn’t be better suited to stacking shelves or pulling pints. (Unless you want to, of course, in which case can you show me where the flour is, please, and mine’s a pale ale. Ta.)
Read the last piece you had published and note how bloody fantastic it is. Ponder your most recent professional accomplishments instead of dwelling on the dispiriting bits of your current working reality. Talk yourself up. The writer Anne Lamott recommends, at times like this, talking to yourself as you would a lovely friend if they rang you up and started questioning their worth in the world. Take her advice. It helps. I’ve tried it.
And above all, give yourself a break. I hate the old ‘give yourself permission to…’ phrase, but feck it. If you need to, give yourself permission to be really freaking pissed off about the state of your career / industry / private life just now. It’s ok to grieve the things you’ve lost. Actually, I think it’s essential to do so if you want to come out the other side of this with your marbles still in your possession.
Every damn tweet or social media post you read that twangs at the very heartstrings of your own inadequacy and makes you feel like you’re failing at a whole new level compared to yesterday? Allow yourself to feel it.
And then? You know where this is going. Let it go. Why? Because that’s how you keep your own spark alight. Better still, breathe on someone else’s spark and help them keep ‘er lit, as we say in Northern Ireland. It’s just a lovely way of saying KEEP GOING, chum.
Talk to other freelancers about how you really feel, too, and walk away from the conversations that make you feel like you have to pretend it’s all going really marvellously well if it’s not. (And if it is going well for you, then bloody well done. We’re proud of you for keeping your pecker up in a pandemic. You should be too.)
In other words, hold your nerve. Stay strong. Keep ‘er lit. And yes, keep pitching.
Until next month, pitchers…
A piece of advice we valued: We’re keeping them anon so as not to embarrass them, but one of our lovely students reminded us today that feeling angry or sad or just overwhelmed isn’t necessarily an unreasonable response – sometimes it’s actually a perfectly rational reaction.
A piece we loved writing: This month I got to wrote a juicy ‘dossier’ feature for the December issue of Psychologies magazine about how to pivot careers when yours stalls and you feel like you’ve lost your path professionally. (Um, very damn funny, Universe.)
A piece we loved reading: This piece which features Linda Aitchison baring her soul brilliantly.
A podcast we enjoyed: Miriam Margolyes being honest about, well, everything.
Students we’re especially proud of: We always adore seeing our students’ work out in the wild long after we’ve parted company. Alice May Purkiss recently wrote this piece for Penguin about how her cancer diagnosis has changed the way she reads. It’s a beautiful read.
Dates for your diary: Fancy a week with us in your inbox helping to polish your pitches and generally up-skill your freelancing? Next month, back by popular demand, we’re running not one but two Pitching Mentoring weeks – take your pick from 17th-21st August OR 24th-28th August.
Places cost £199 and are *strictly* limited so that we don’t end up overwhelmed and weeping into cocoa, so be quick if you’re keen. These sell out fast and when they’re gone, they’re gone. You can book your place or just find out all the juicy details on the shop section of our website.
We’re also – news flash – wrapping up our £99 self-paced Cracking Pitches Course because we’re going to be launching something bigger and better (and more expensive) in the Autumn. So if you need a fast, affordable way to fuel-inject your pitching efforts, snap this one up quick before we pull the plug on it next month. Because of the pandemic it’s a bargaintastic price at the moment but – we’ve been officially informed – it’s worth several times that. Again, you can buy the course or just find out more about it via the shop on our website.
Heidi & Hazel
Muse Flash