Is This Hot Streak Just a Fluke?
Maybe my career success is an accident. Or maybe I’m finally in the right place.
This year was one big career experiment for me. After getting laid off from my media job last year, I decided to take the leap and freelance full time throughout 2024. It was something I’d been doing on the side since 2021, so I felt confident enough to give the full-time thing a shot — even though I knew it was very possible it wouldn’t work out.
In January, a few months after I’d made my decision, an old colleague of mine reached out to see if I’d be interested in some editing work. That manifested into a contract that’s lasted almost eight months now. At the same time, I took a writing opportunity that I heard about from a friend. It was short-lived, but helped me make a bit of money while I searched for other opportunities.
A few of my long-time clients also got in touch with writing projects in the spring and summer, and I got to work on some fun stories (like this feature on the 90s concert scene at Marquette, my alma mater). I also started teaching writing classes regularly at a local bookstore, which has been a dream come true. And then last week, I landed a new client and started talking to another potential lead on a project that may or may not pan out into something big.
Needless to say, this year of freelancing has been exceptional by the standards I set for myself. I’m making more than I did at my last two jobs; not by much, but enough to live comfortably and have a decent-sized emergency cushion. If the money stopped coming in today, I’d be able to pay my bills through December.
I’m well aware that a lot of people who choose this path — or a forced into it by way of layoffs, etc. — are not nearly as fortunate. That’s why making a modest, livable salary in my first year as a full-time freelancer feels like such a massive feat.
And at the same time, I’ve been confronting some conflicting feelings as we barrel towards 2025. Like, was this year just a fluke? The more I experience success — like gaining new clients or landing contracts for cool projects — the more I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Part of me just can’t believe this freelance thing is actually working out.
I’m very, very reluctant to buy into the narrative that success in any creative field happens due to hard work alone. I’ve known folks who grind for years only to be let go from their dream jobs with no severance or be passed over for roles that they are more than qualified to be in. Either that, or they land jobs in toxic workplaces that pay absolutely dismal salaries.
Jobs in media are especially scarce. Even if you do find a role, most people burn out or get laid off at some point. We’re taught to be grateful to even be in this field. So a lot of people tolerate terrible working conditions and bad pay for the sake of getting their byline out there. It’s not all bad, but good jobs are really, really hard to find. And getting them often depends on who you know, rather than how good you are at your job.
I was only 23 when I quit my first job at a national publication, where I was asked to do the work of four different writers and editors for as much as I could make working as a manager at Target. That’s when I jumped to my second job, where I was laid off only two years later. At least it paid better?
Honestly, I was surprised I lasted four years in the field before my first layoff — some only make it a matter of months. In the words of Olivia Rodrigo, it’s brutal out here.
So you can imagine my surprise when things actually started going well for me this year. Freelancing is often touted as the uncertain path that can lead to financial ruin, but so far I am experiencing the opposite. Holding full- and part-time jobs in journalism was actually more uncertain, because I was putting all my eggs in one basket. If my company suddenly downsized or dumped so much on me that I was forced to quit, I’d lose everything.
Now, if a project doesn’t pan out or I lose a client after their budget goes kaput, it’s not the end of the world. Stressful, sure. But I don’t lose everything all at once.
That being said, I did not anticipate being booked all year long with a wide variety of work when I’d only just begun freelancing full time. I’d anticipated needing to take on a part time job at some point (I applied and interviewed for several at the beginning of the year). But that hasn’t been necessary yet.
It feels like a string of good luck. I’m having trouble accepting that this hot streak is anything but luck, because the journalism industry has been literal garbage to me and so many other people. But I’m starting to realize that my internal narrative isn’t the full truth. Maybe there’s some degree of luck involved, but I also think I might just finally be in the right place career-wise for doors to open.
Honestly, freelancing has always been an appealing path to yours truly. I got curious about it when I was back in college and had the opportunity to work with a freelance journalist on a big investigative project. It seemed like the perfect blend of variety, entrepreneurship, and creative freedom. Those were all things I craved in a career.
But since the general thinking is that freelancing doesn’t offer the same security as a job, I decided to go the traditional route out of college. I quickly learned that I don’t do well at 9-5s for a multitude of reasons that I’ll probably elaborate on one day. Covid made traditional office work even more suffocating, and by the time I was laid off, I was ready for a big change.
This year was the perfect time to do it, too. Ryan and I were settled into our new town after our big move out of the Milwaukee area, and he had just gotten a new gig at the library. We were in a decent place financially (minus the car chaos that ate into my savings last winter), and I already had several awesome freelance clients that I had worked with for years. The challenge was really just to scale up.
And the moment I took the plunge, the work started to roll in. All I had to do was tell people I was open to it. I’d been building my networks for years, and a bunch of wonderful journalism and marketing people I’d met throughout my career showed up exactly when I needed them. The timing couldn’t have been better.
I also stayed open to different types of work. From 2021-2023, I took on mostly journalism projects and a few marketing assignments here and there. Now, it’s flipped; most of my income comes from marketing work, while a small sliver comes from journalism. I went where the money was while still holding space for passion projects.
When I look back, I see all the hard work I put into making my dream job a reality. The career transition I made in 2024 is no overnight success; it’s years in the making. And at the same time, there’s no perfect formula for making this work. I don’t think freelancing is for everyone, and nor do I think it’s an easy path. And there’s absolutely some degree of luck involved.
I just need to remind myself that I deserve some credit, too. My anxious brain wants to believe that everything good in my life is an accident. But that wouldn’t be fair to my young self, who started writing for the school newspaper at 17 years old and got her first journalism internship at 19. Almost a decade later, she’s finally seeing the fruits of her labor blossom into something great.
Maybe you, too, have some goal you’ve been working towards that’s finally starting to come to fruition. Or, maybe it’s not. So many of us have to play the long game to get where we want to be. And even then, there are no guarantees. But it’s better to try to reach that destination than to spend a lifetime wondering what could’ve been.
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