If you understand the independent worker, the self-employed professional, the freelancer, the e-lancer, the temp, you understand how work and business in the U.S. operate today.
The life of the professional writer - like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podiatrist - is predicated on willpower. Without it there simply wouldn't be any remuneration, period.
Freelancers are 'free' because they take risks - they don't like being told what to do. That's both exciting and daunting, because you have to police you.
I'm a freelance writer, and I work alone at a big desk in the living room of my apartment. There are many days when I don't utter a single word to anyone but my husband.
When I was a freelancer, I thought this journalism thing was a racket, and now that I'm where I am now, I know it's a racket.
I got asked by a freelance journalist to jump in front of Princess Diana's funeral. How pathetic is that? That would have been the stupidest thing on the planet.
As a freelance writer, I'd be asked to become an expert for various magazines on any subject, whether food or wine or history or the life span of veterinarians. I was completely unschooled in any of these things.
My father started his own business, and before that was a freelance lecturer, and my friends are artists and musicians; they don't have real jobs - none of us have real jobs.
When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.
If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelance writers are the leaders in society - the people who start to get new ideas out.
The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.
I got a journalism degree. I started doing journalism - I interned at 'Cosmopolitan' magazine in the 1970s, which probably wasn't the best place for me, and I spent six or nine months freelancing. Anyway, I wasn't that good at it.
People really in the meat grinder of the front lines are not, for the most part, insured or salaried network correspondents. They're young freelancers. They're kind of a cheap date for the news industry.
I am really only interested in new information, not freelance opinion. I don't really care what you think off the top of your head.
I just really like people, and being a freelancer can be lonely during the day, when you're at home trying to write anything you can. 'Flight Of The Conchords' was so wonderful because I had a family for two years.
My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical, you see. Of course, I was just as determined to do it.
I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life. I think that is the real writer's life. On the other hand, it's good to have another job. It gives you something to do.
At the very beginning, I was a page at Letterman, and I freelanced for any place that would let me write any word. I wanted to do this so badly. Then when I got a tiny bit of success, I was petrified that I was going to lose it.
A recession is very bad for publicly traded companies, but it's the best time for startups. When you have massive layoffs, there's more competition for available jobs, which means that an entrepreneur can hire freelancers at a lower cost.
I used to be a freelance journalist, so I had to write fast, but I always found writing nonfiction constraining. I like the freedom of fiction, where I get to invent everything, and tidy, conclusive endings are within my control.
If you're into a leather-jacketed crime fighter and his artificially intelligent robotic supercar, tune into 'The Good Wife.' If, on the other hand, you prefer the misadventures of a freelance itinerant trucker and his simian sidekick, check out 'The...
