What I Fear Most About Freelance Writing
By: Rachee Ross
Tags: Freelancing, Life Lessons, Fear Of Failure, Writing

This Job is Horrifying

Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

When I was a teenager, I had a clear vision of my adult self. She was free-spirited, with flowing blonde hair, a fresh baguette in one hand, a notebook in the other. She was outdoorsy and effortless. She had a large, bounding retriever at her heels. She worked for herself and took no shit.

Life had other ideas.

Now, I’m in my mid-30s, having spent the better part of two decades taking shit. I’ve worked countless dead-end jobs I’ve hated for salaries I’ve hated even more. I’m more goth than boho, my appearance requires more effort than I’d care to admit, and I don’t buy baguettes because I can’t comfortably eat that much bread. I have a pomeranian sleeping by my feet.

There came a time when I realized that I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t pretend to care about a thankless job. I couldn’t stomach the politics and the hypocrisy. I couldn’t force a smile to countless other drones over lunch. I could be a freelance writer and be the one thing that teenage me envisioned. I could be the independent woman that I wanted to be.

The thought was thrilling. It was empowering. It was downright horror-film-level terrifying.

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash

I’m afraid of writing.

Writing is hard. There are days when it feels like you’re waist-deep in mud, trying to slog through to the bottom of the page. There’s no glamour here. I’m not lounging by a pool, sipping a cocktail and typing out well-crafted paragraphs at great speed. More often than not, I’ve got a lukewarm cup of tea, and I’m struggling not to throw my laptop across the room in frustration. I write some absolute junk sometimes. I have awful ideas and even worse sentence structure. I feel like I’ve forgotten the only language I know.

And it’s all there in front of me, on screen. It’s staring back at me, glaring with its beady, haunting eyes, judging me with every keystroke.

I’m afraid of being honest.

Forget about me speaking my truth. I don’t want to do it. The truth can be ugly and unpleasant. It makes me uncomfortable. Who knows how my authentic self might cloud the opinions that people have of me. I might publish something that inadvertently upsets someone. I could say something that my friends disagree with. Maybe my family will be disappointed and disown me.

What if no one ever looks me in the eye again?

There’s a dagger hanging tenuously above me, reminding me that I’m always on then brink of typing the wrong thing, leaving myself vulnerable, and garnering disgust and hatred from those closest to me. No thanks.

I’m afraid that I will fail horribly.

I’ve put all of my eggs in this thread-bare basket. I can’t afford to fail at this. But, that’s a huge, petrifying possibility. I don’t have it in me to return to an office job. It’s soul-sucking. It’s draining. It’s a slow, living nightmare that plays out for 40 hours a week until you’re finally consumed by it and you slump over in your uncomfortable chair.

It’s the thing that frightens me the most.

Failing at writing is a life sentence with no chance at parole and every time I sit down to write, I’m sitting awaiting trial. My lawyer is a hack and my anxiety is taking over.

I’m not entirely convinced I’ll ever get over any of this. There’s always something waiting around the corner to get me, but for now, I guess I just keep writing.