From Learning the Trade to Staring at Walls: The Joy of Freelancing
I’ve been a freelance writer for fourteen years. My first client, the Christian charity Stewardship taught me all the basics of being a writer for hire (don’t go over the word count, ferret out the real story, get some good pull quotes and always deliver on time). A couple of years later, a former interviewee got in touch having formed his own charity, Church Growth Trust. I’ve been writing for them ever since, twice a year in their member benefit magazine Foundations, and I love it (and them).
Over the years, I’ve written articles about ancient churches and those who formed Friends’ groups to look after them, have temporarily taken over the planning and delivery of Stewardship’s Lent campaign, written three blogs a month for a Christian guesthouse in London, researched and written blogs for a prestigious military members’ club in the capital and produced articles for Torch Trust. All this came from a fellow freelancer at Stewardship and I thank him for it.
In 2018, I set up my own little service writing blogs and content for small Suffolk business. In late February 2020, I sat in my dining room in my writing nook suffused with a glow of self-satisfied contentment. “Gosh, Ruth,” I mused. “You’re going to have to start a waiting list at this rate! Things couldn’t be going better.”
But as we all know, something
unprecedented was just around the corner.
I lost nearly all of my freelance work in lockdown, but I did invent Isabella M Smugge and picked up another two clients in that strange summer of 2020.
And really, that’s what I want to talk about today.
When I’m giving talks, I often mention the vital importance of keeping our writerly muscles exercised and flexed. In the course of a couple of months, I can find myself writing book reviews for the parish news, a blog for our village newsletter, a scattering of website copy and preparing critiques of other writers’ MS’s. I rarely say no to any writing job and this means that I can turn my hand to pretty much anything, a useful skill to have in these difficult times.
Exquisite Home, a local estate agent, is one of the clients I got in the summer of 2020. Working for them has taught me so much and also been an absolute godsend when it comes to writing about an aspirational lifestyle blogger. What do I know of integrated wine fridges and hand-painted kitchens? In and of myself, nothing, but many of the people I interview about their homes have invested heavily in such things. #winwin
Here's how it works.
I receive an email asking if I can write a piece, I get a link to the photos and a floor plan, plus the contact details of the client. Like a private detective, I peer at every image, noting up unusual features, exposed beams, inglenook fireplaces, Indian sandstone floors, butler sinks, integrated appliances and so on. Once I’ve done each room, I head out into the garden, zooming in on perennials, shrubs and trees. I end up with a list of questions to ask the home owner and can only hope and pray they are the Right Sort.
They come in three types.
2.
Ideal
3. Voluble
Here’s a typical exchange with a Number One.
Me: “So why did you like the house?”
Them: “Don’t know, really.”
Me: “OK. And how about the area?”
Them: “Yeah. It’s all right.”
Using my most persuasive interviewing techniques, I squeeze information from the reluctant home-owner and then pad out my piece with rapturous descriptions of the local area (AONB[1]! Delightful walks! Excellent transport links!) and hope and pray I can burble on about spacious interiors and charming south-facing back gardens enough to fill my word quota.
Number Two is ideal – chatty, friendly, full of lovely memories and anecdotes. Their interviews write themselves.
Number Three is also lovely but has goes into far too much detail. I may end up with ten pages of notes which must be distilled into just a page and a bit and that’s tough. Paragraph after paragraph about exactly how they sand blasted the oak beams, what the local carpenter said when he built the bespoke staircase and the Latin names of every plant and shrub in the garden – it’s an embarrassment of riches.
Over the last two years, I’ve developed a new talent. I’d almost go so far as to describe it as a mild super-power. When gazing at people’s walls, I can nearly always spot if they’ve used Farrow and Ball paint. I’ve got to the point when I can even guess the shade. Rectory Room Red, Cornforth White, Sulking Room Pink – you name it, I’ll guess it. This has been a huge help when creating the world of Smugge. I have become an expert on trends, just as my heroine is. This year, for example, I know that the Pantone Shade of the Year is Veri Peri, heliotrope to you and me, which is going to affect everything from bridesmaids’ dresses to feature walls.
For my upcoming book, The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge, I’ve invented a posh paint company (top selling shade Gauzy Gutter) and am planning a spin-off for book four. Making up paint shades with funny names has been done, brilliantly, before by Marian Keyes in The Mystery of Mercy Close and I’ve got a few jokes noted up already.
In case you were wondering, this year, the top F&B shades are School House White, Stone Blue, Breakfast Room Green, Incarnadine and Babouche.
So that’s:
White
Blue
Green
Red
Yellow
Writing for clients is a wonderful discipline. It has increased the breadth of my knowledge no end and helped me take the most basic of realities (a square room painted in white and green with a stone floor) and add value like a boss.
Life is copy and I never want to miss an
opportunity to learn or increase my reach. From little acorns mighty oaks grow.
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