The joy(s) of freelancing.

So there I was, walking the dogs in the drizzle and wind, and it dawned on me: this is why I went freelance. So that I could walk the dogs when they and I want (OK, I could do without the rain...), instead of at crack of dawn in the dark before work, and again in the dark after work, having spent the day in some overheated office with people I don't really like.

Though actually I've never had a job like that. I've only ever worked in an office for two periods of a few months, and both times it was with people I could at least tolerate and at best have a good laugh with. It was the hours I hated.

I prefer to start work when I'm ready and finish late than to get up at the same time as the rest of the world, have lunch ditto, drive home ditto, and then watch the same TV as everyone else. I'm not a ditto. I don't even have a TV, which put me at a bit of a disadvantage at the "water cooler" (or kettle, as we called it).

I'm told a lot of people miss the chat when they go freelance. I don't - maybe that makes me a curmudgeonly, anti-social boor, but I like to work in silence and just get on with it. I get distracted by the view from my window (those roses really need pruning and training back to a trellis: a job for a still day this summer), or by the dogs arguing in the background over who gets to lie in which bed. But I can hang on to my train of thought through those distractions where I can't with words or music going on in the background.

Most people when they consider becoming freelance writers think they'll be working for themselves. They won't of course: or if they do, it probably means they have no clients or editors clamouring for copy by yesterday. It takes loads of guts, self-belief and dedication to work completely for yourself, writing a book that may never get published, or painting a picture that may never be bought, admired, hung on a wall. More than I've got!

I may not (yet) make a lot of money at this writing business, but it sure beats the daily grind, and I can do it wherever I want - and whenever. That's my kind of business.