The Perks of Freelancing

On one of the editing-related e-mail lists I subscribe to wrote that for her, the best thing about freelancing is

the chance to get to know my neighbors and neighborhood in ways the 9-to-5-ers can't. I have a dog, and we're out and about for anywhere from an hour to three hours every day. As a consequence, I've gotten to know the people who live up and down the street, storekeepers, the waitstaff at the local coffee shop, etc. And I take note of the natural world in the way the light changes throughout the day, the chirruping and calls of animals from the nearby zoo (as well as birds in the two trees outside my top-floor apartment), how the breeze comes through the window, the scudding of the clouds, etc.

Now, I long to get out and about more. For me right now, the best perk of freelancing is being home when my children are home from school. Now that all of them are in school (or grown), I have more time, but still not enough to allow me to regularly take, say, two-hour breaks outdoors. My youngest is in kindergarten, so he still requires more supervision, including during homework time, than his seventh-grade brother does, and he's young enough that I'm uncomfortable letting him stand alone at the bus stop down the street in the morning (out of my line of vision from the house) and walk home alone from the bus stop after school.

But I take the long view: Soon enough, I'll be back outside, getting in some walks and some gardening on weekdays. Meanwhile, I get to kiss boy cheeks and hug boy bodies every time they're available. One day, I'll have to learn how to edit without the sound of between-sibling arguments or movies and computer games in the next room.



self-employed freelancer copyeditor editor editing publishing manuscript books perks children EditorMom