Freelance copywriters rarely take breaks: the state of the economy, the sweeping changes in the business and easy availability of other writers tend to stand between us and the word “no.”

As does what I’ll label Freelance Paranoia.

You can have money in the bank and a stable revenue stream and a list of clients willing to clean your keyboard if only you’ll write for them, and it’s still hard to say no.

After all, it could all go away tomorrow.

The thing is, it all could go away, and while the paranoia whispers “you’ll move into a damp cardboard box under the overpass,” reality suggests you’d only face a slog. A reboot.

Hardly the end of anything.

Right now, my wife is in Ethiopia retrieving our daughter’s two year-old sister. They arrive this weekend, so I’m taking a couple months and attempting to smother my 3.5 year-old and 2 year-old Tax Deductions with affection.

Which is why I spent the last three months turning away all new work and jettisoning a few existing clients.

For a while, I’m limiting my workload to two clients.

You work your ass off (like my wife and I) and through teamwork and sheer dumb luck and the accident of birth, you find yourself in a position to work slightly less and enjoy life slightly more.

At least for a little while.

That “enjoyment” might take the form of longer articles for interesting causes. Or it might manifest as marathon games of kickball with a pair of daughters.

I’m not ruling anything out.

We’ve been gifted extraordinarily fortunate lives; it’s a crime not to share a little of that good fortune every once in a while.

Keep writing (I am), Tom Chandler.

Posted in Business of Freelancing, Personal.