by Annie Varberg
This past August, I chose to go out on my own and become a freelancer. I’m a content producer by trade, and I wanted more flexibility and exposure to working with multiple clients on a wider variety of content (ads, films, docs, etc.). I knew freelancing would have its ups and downs, the natural ebb and flow of finding projects and clients, especially as I’m just getting started. Plenty of people asked if I was prepared to network like my life depended on it. Plenty of people warned me about the inevitability of work droughts. I could handle it, I said, though I wasn’t so sure those warnings applied to me.
On Day 1 of freelance life, I had more momentum than I knew what to do with. I had a big shoot to produce for an iconic brand with a great creative agency as my client. I had several hot leads for future clients, all contacts from past jobs I’ve worked and friends of friends who were looking for a producer’s help. I received positive feedback on my work, and my enthusiasm for production was at an all-time high.
The first major project turned into a second major project for another iconic brand with the same creative agency, and wow, does it get better than this? Just two months into the freelance life! When the second shoot wrapped, I wasn’t sure what my next project would be. But a week later I had a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, (that’s four friends removed), reach out about filling in as producer on a local Chicago shoot for yet another iconic brand.
That last shoot wrapped 6 weeks ago, and since then, mostly crickets. At first, I tried to enjoy the quiet and use, what I assumed would be, a week or two at most to recover from a busy Fall. I got back to cooking elaborate meals (something I love to do), exercising in the afternoons (because lunchtime workouts are so much better than the early morning), and reading tons and tons of plays. But then a third week of quiet came and I started to grow anxious. Maybe the next project won’t find me, I need to find it! The dreaded networking cycle began. LinkedIn searches, Google searches, introductory emails, and calling on people who know people.
For the past 4+ weeks, I’ve gotten in the ugly habit of checking my email every 30 minutes and feeling flattened when nothing besides promotional stuff shows up. Each day without a project, I’ve grown more and more disheartened, doubting all the decisions that brought me to freelancing in the first place. Should I have chosen a full-time job so at least there’d be a steady stream of work to depend on? I wasn’t so sure. I chose freelancing after many months of prayer and affirming conversations with trusted family and friends. Far from a flippant life decision. How could just 6 weeks of quiet shake up something I was so sure of?
Guess who also began to question everything after just 6 weeks… yup, the Israelites. God literally split a sea into two parts to allow this massive group of people to walk through the middle of it in order to escape Egypt, a country where they had been exploited and enslaved for centuries. God then put the sea back together over their slave-masters, letting the Israelites walk free. The Israelites found themselves in a desertland, so God brought them to “12 springs of water” to live their first few weeks as freed people (Exodus 15:27). Miracles upon miracles.
Two verses later, it says, “on the 15th day of the second month” (some quick math for you -- that’s just 6 weeks later), the Israelites started complaining, saying that they were hungry and it would have been better if they were still slaves because at least they’d had a reliable source of food (Exodus 16:1-3). They were physically hungry, and that hunger drove them to question everything. (Isn’t it interesting that the author of Exodus felt the need to tell us how much time passed between their deliverance and their questioning?) Though my lack of work cannot begin to compare to a group of people facing starvation, I can sympathize with how easy it is to quickly forget what God has done. How easy it is to fear the unknown and crave the past, even if the past was objectively worse.
God hears the Israelites’ complaints and answers them by letting free food fall down from the sky so they won’t go hungry again. This free food gig lasts for over 40 years as they continue to wander through the desert (Exodus 16:35). But the Israelites do not learn their lesson. They face countless other hardships and continue to forget what God has done for them, free food included. Essentially, their wandering is marked by a cycle that looks sort of like this: forget, complain, remember, repent, keep going. Forget, complain, remember, repent, keep going. The most human behavioral pattern I can imagine. I mean, can you blame them? 40 years is a long time to wander a desert!
I know droughts happen for artists all the time. During one of my recent “free” days, I read Jenna Fischer’s (Pam on The Office) The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide. If you haven’t read it yet, do! It’s chock full of very practical tips on how to approach an acting/artist career. How to deal with work droughts is one of the major themes of the book. Jenna shares her own experiences with years of auditioning and hearing nothing back. She interviews several other actor-friends who all share similar stories of waiting, doubting their career choices, and then finding a reward for sticking it out. Of course it doesn’t work that way for everyone - her friends are famous for a reason. But reading about their experiences made me feel less alone.
A friend recently remarked that my choice to become a freelancer was a vulnerable choice. I’m not sure I would have picked that word a few weeks ago, but I see what she means. I do feel vulnerable. I have no idea how long this work drought will last. I have no idea when I’ll get that email or phone call that takes me back to the stream. But I do know that vulnerability begets vulnerability, which is why I chose to share this.
Droughts are inevitable and annoyingly unpredictable. They can start and end without warning. If you’re in a season of drought, whether it be a work drought, spiritual drought, relationship drought, or a physical drought, I hope it helps even a tiny bit to know that you’re not the only one. If you’ve forgotten why you chose the path you’re on, this is your nudge to take a moment and remember Who brought you here, and to keep showing up.
[3 hours later]
Minutes after writing that last sentence, I received a phone call while on my way to the grocery store. My former boss wanted to know if I have the availability to take on a new project. “I’m free as a bird,” I told her. She laughed and reminded me of advice she’d given me before: always enjoy the down time between projects. I laughed too, thinking of the irony of this essay I’d just written. Not to mention the boredom and fear I’ve felt every day for a month.
I could spend time thinking of a way to rationalize why that phone call came when it did, but I truly don’t think there’s a formula. All I know is this familiar cycle: forget, complain, remember, repent, keep going. Just keep going.
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