We're All Freelance

3

23 Jan 2012

How I became a professional illustrator
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It happened.

I got paid to draw things.

And I'm not talking about the fiverr illustrations i did this fall. Those were just practice. This was a real job from a real paying client with real business goals.

Getting paid to do illustration has been a goal of mine for a while. But it was always one of those "someday maybe" goals that sit around in the back of the drawer collecting dust. But the important thing is that I had it as a goal and I wrote it down. Because the opportunity came like a flash.

My phone rang. It was my old Quiznos client from my days at Cliff Freeman. I was freelancing at an agency in the city. My partner and I were waiting for feedback. I had some time to talk. So I answered the call.

"Hey, Tom," Chris said. "I've been seeing your drawings on Facebook. You think you can do a quick-turnaround thing for me?"

Here are some phrases that entered my brain:

You don't have time for this.

You shouldn't bite off more than you can chew.

He doesn't have a big budget. It's not worth your time.

"Sure thing," I said. Here's why: I remembered my goal. I had written it down. And now here was the universe handing it to me on a platter. No, it wasn't the cover of Time magazine and I wasn't going to get famous from any of it. But that wasn't my goal. My goal was to be hired as a professional illustrator.

So I spent the next forty-five minutes drawing on my ipad. And I sent them. And they used them.

And here they are: the pieces de resistance(s).

See the little spot illustrations? Look closer...

Okay. So they're just little doodles. Like I said, I don't think I'm going to get in any illustration annuals with them. (Maybe that should be the next goal.) But my illustrations will be on every Quiznos box from here to Los Angeles. I am offically a pro.

The moral of the story: Write down your goals. Even the "someday, maybe" ones. And when the universe drops an opportunity in your lap to fulfill a goal, recognize it.

And do it.

Now, does anybody know any illustration reps?

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13 Jan 2012

On Your Feet, People
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Photo by Phil Toledano.

My back started hurting before the Christmas break. I had pulled something, I told myself. So I rested it. But it kept hurting. That's when I was sure I was dying. Yes, my freelance gig here on earth was over. It was a good run. We did some good stuff. But the party was over. (You didn't know I was a drama queen?)

My doctor took an x-ray. He said I have a bit of arthritis in my back.

"Arthritis? I'm 41," I said.

"It's just overuse," my doctor said.

OVERUSE? What did that mean? I'm not a huge runner. I mean I've been exercising a bit more over the past couple of years. But most of my adult life I've just been sitting at a desk, typing things into a computer. So how do you "overuse" your back cartilage doing that?

As it turns out, sitting at your desk, typing things into a computer is a terrible thing for your back. A bit of googling told me that bad posture (as you have when you are hunched over said computer) can put enormous amounts of strain onto your muscles, which leads to wear-and-tear on joints. In short, bad posture causes arthritis.

It gets worse. The simple act of sitting can be deadly. Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana found that people who sit for most of the day are 54% more likely to die of heart attacks. And it has nothing to do with smoking habits or exercise. If a non-smoking gym-goer sits for most of the day, he or she is 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.

So maybe I wasn't being overdramatic. Maybe the arthritis was a warning sign of things to come. If I didn't stop sitting at my desk bent over a computer, I was going to die. But I'm a freelance writer. How do I make money if I can't sit down and bang out some wordage on a daily basis?

The answer: Stand up and bang out some wordage.

Behold the standing desk. They've been all the rage recently. But it turns out they've been around for a while. Thomas Jefferson and Ernest Hemingway used standing desks. And while it is true that they're both dead, they didn't die from too much sitting. And besides, Rob Schwartz from TBWA\Chiat\Day and Matt MacDonald at JWT both have standing desks. And they were totally alive last time I chatted with them on Facebook.

Why a standing desk? Standing burns more calories every hour. Standing allows for better posture. Standing keeps the glutes firing, which is another way of saying it works your butt. But the best reason of all was this quote from Rob Schwartz:

“When you’re sitting, you’re naturally recessive, you’re receiving. When you’re standing, you’re ready to do something …"

Action, Jackson. Standing desks are for men and women of action (I call them Freelancers). Chairs are for lazy people who aren't comfortable thinking on their feet.

So I did it. I made my desk into a standing desk. I'm standing while writing this. Feels good. Want to make your desk a standing desk? Here's how. Or you can just get one of these. Let me know how it goes.

Wait, are you still sitting down?
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31 Dec 2011

10 (Freelance) Resolutions for 2012
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Hey, it's almost 2012. In fact, I hear it’s already happened in Australia. So it’s time to start making resolutions. And, if I may be so bold, I'd like to suggest one for you. Well, ten actually. But they all fall under the header of this one:

Be More Like A Freelancer.

Follow the rules below and you will find yourself doing things you've always wanted to do. People will wonder where you get all your energy. And you may even find yourself making more money.

Don’t worry. This doesn’t mean you have to quit your job. You can act like a Freelancer without giving up the steady paycheck. You just have to think of your job as a big gig that pays you bi-weekly and covers your health insurance. And remember that it's a gig that can end at any time with very little notice. Because it can.

But if you start acting like a Freelancer now, you’ll be more than prepared should the whip come down. So how can you act like a Freelancer even as you’re kicking it as a staffer? Here are ten ways we can all be Freelance.

1. Stop complaining. A freelancer knows that complaining is a waste of time. Especially about work. A Freelancer never complains about work. Because work is where the munnies come from. And money is the stuff that makes all other things possible. The habit of complaining attracts other complainers too. And they tend to be energy-draining, vampire-like people. So stop complaining now. This one resolution will transform your life. Here's a great website to help you: http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org

2. Know your day rate. A Freelancer always knows her worth. Her day rate. Her hourly wage. What is your time worth? Figure it out based on your salary here. Then understand that all the time you spend watching tv is money you are spending. And you can’t put it down as an entertainment expense. I checked. So what could u be making if you used the hours between your job and sleeping? Make it your second job to do something you’ve always wanted to do.

3. Know the problem. A Freelancer is always clear about what problem he’s being paid to solve. If he is not clear about the problem, he cannot get the work done. And then he will not get paid. Or at least won't get called back. Understanding the problem to be solved is crucial. This means a Freelancer listens really well. And a Freelancer asks questions. A lot of staffers don’t do this because they are happy with things being confused. They’re still getting paid, after all. Be the staffer that wants to solve the problem and you will be like a golden god to your boss. He may even freelance you after you quit. :)

4. Write down your goals. A Freelancer is always looking for the next project. Once she has solved this problem, what's next? A Freelancer always has several goals to reach for or problems to solve. That way, she always knows what to do with her valuable time. Get a book on goal-setting. A good one is Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy. But they all say the same thing: Write down your goals in the first-person-present tense. Imagine what it will feel like to achieve your goal. Try to envision it as accomplished. Read your goals every day. Work backwards and set out concrete steps to get to your goals. If you don’t know how to get to a goal, ask someone who has done it. Have big, giant goals and smaller ones too.

5. Make everything "work". It seems like Freelancers are always doing something. That’s because, when he is slow, the Freelancer turns to personal projects. These are things that may not make a lot of money right now, but may turn into something down the road. Or can get him attention. Or are just fun. What do you like to do? It doesn't matter if it makes money, you should treat it just like work. Make it a goal, with a list of actions to be taken to reach that goal. Hold yourself accountable. Or get someone else to hold you accountable if you need to have a boss.

6. Do one thing at a time. A Freelancer does one thing at a time. When you're charging for every hour, you have a real grasp of this truth: it is impossible to do two things at once. Block out distractions. Try putting everything you have to do into your calendar. Say no to people interrupting you for “a quick question”. Adopt the Getting Things Done habit of putting all your “to-dos” into one physical inbox on your desk and one virtual inbox on your laptop or phone, instead of having them all over the place.

7. Use the Network. A Freelancer sees opportunity in everything and everyone. They're not just random people you met at a party. Or on Facebook. They're connections. They're leads. And they could be the people that help publish your novel. Or join your rollerblade gang. Or introduce you to the guy who knows the guy who builds the helicopter you've been designing in your head. People are opportunities. Does that sound cold? Because it's not a bad thing. And you have stuff to teach them too. Give and ye shall receive. By the way, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

8. Sing your own praises. A Freelancer is his or her own salesman. And PR machine. So a Freelancer is always looking for ways to promote the business. How could you promote yourself better? Start a blog. Or a funny tumblr. Or a bowling league. Build a website of your work. Start a mailing list and send out emails. Brag, brag, brag about the work you’ve done. Because it’s awesome.

9. Make time for your favorite people. When you're staff, you end up having to spend eight or ten hours a day with people you may not like. A Freelancer makes time for the people who really matter. Schedule lunch with a friend every week. Schedule a night to get home early and play a board game with the kids. Again, scheduling is the key. And keep these appointments just as if they were work appointments. In the end, they are more important.

10. Smile. A Freelancer is always smiling. Because a Freelancer is the master of her own destiny. And is 100% responsible for everything that she has accomplished. If she is having a down day, she knows a good day rate is right around the corner. If she makes a mistake, she owns up to it and learns from it. And she keeps smiling through it all. Freelancers laugh at themselves. Because they know that fear is evil. And that a smile is magic.

By the way, I recently read this article that said that 2012 will be the year of the Artist-Entrepreneur. (Isn’t that just another word for Freelancer?) Hopefully some of the resolutions above will help you put yourself in the same league as Louis CK and Radiohead. But I’d be satisfied if they just made you a little bit happier.

Happy New Year everybody.
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19 Dec 2011

IRONS IN THE FIRE
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It's the biggest watch-out you hear when you tell people that you're going freelance: you're probably not going to "produce" much. Meaning: "Sure, you may pull a good day rate, make sure you don't let your career suffer and end up with three-year-old spots on your reel."

To this, the freelancer in me wants to scream, "Well... you're just JEALOUS...! And... And... Stuff!!!" But I know it's partly true. Historically, not many freelancers get asked to go to Brazil for the big time TV shoot. Some do -- and if you're one of these lucky ones, just keep your big stupid mouth shut :) -- but most are happy just to get paid to generate ideas. If they get a copy of the finished piece (and it's anywhere close to how they wrote it up) they might use that. But mostly, they're just guns for hire.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t be producing.

These days, you don't need no stinkin’ agency to "produce". Because there are so many easy ways to bring ideas to life. With a little bit of effort (ok a lot), you can build a website just as well as R/GA can. With the right camera (or just a friend who is a budding director), you can make as good a piece of content as BBDO. Use your social network to get that thing seen by the folks at Adweek Talent Gallery or Creativity and suddenly you're "producing" your face off. And the irony is that you might just be better off than the staff creative who is spending all of his or her time on that big, juicy client.

It takes a lot of effort. You have to be a special kind of person, someone who truly loves the creative process. I call them Makers Of Things. And they're the people i was always looking to hire as an ECD. MOTs are people who get things done on their own. They build websites. They create lines of sneakers. They write blogs. They are craftsmen. The blacksmiths of the twenty-first century. I would choose them over someone with just a great television or digital campaign on their reel any day.

You don’t have to be a freelancer to be a Maker Of Things. You just have to have the freelance mindset. Make ads during the day. At night, make a book. Or a painting. Or a line of surfwear. Don’t know how? Figure it out. Don’t want to do that? Grab every brief at your agency and make stuff for those. Just get more "irons in the fire" (as those original blacksmiths would say). Not everything is going to work out. Some things aren't going to be as good as others. But you’re in control. And you’re learning.

Then put another iron in the fire. And another. And another.

This weekend, I got the opportunity to shoot a spec TV spot with director Ted Melfi. No agency. No client. It was a script I’d written five years ago. A few weeks ago, Ted asked if I had anything that might make a good spot. So I sent the file. Another iron in the fire. And then I went back to the comic book, the freelance gigs, the illustrations. Then Ted called and said he wanted to fly me out to LA to help shoot one of the spots.

Okay, so it’s not a line of sneakers. And I wasn’t in Brazil. But it felt pretty damn good.
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12 Dec 2011

We're All Scott Bakula
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Remember Quantum Leap, the TV show where Scott Bakula would leap from time period to time period? He never knew who he was when he got there. A fighter pilot. A bartender. A chimp. Or the reigning Miss Universe. Whoever he was, he had to figure out quick why he was there. So he could fix what needed to be fixed. Save the life of the important scientist. Or fix the marriage of the parents of the future President. And then, in the end, he would always leap again. And then he would look in the mirror and see a strange face looking back at him and he would say "Oh boy."
That's sort of what freelancing is like.
One week you're a digital writer building the tone of voice for a financial website. The next you're writing Super Bowl ads for Google. The next you're helping to win a pharma pitch. Each one could be your whole life. Each office could easily be your office. Each boss, your boss. And you never quite know when the mission will be over. When you hand in these pages, will you be shot back into the quantum stream of looking for work? Or will you be stuck here for a while, living the life of a direct mail writer in a sleepy office near the bathroom?
(By the way, I think there may be a correlation between the niceness of the bathrooms at an agency and the quality of the creative. But that's another post.)
Scott Bakula was always hoping the next leap would bring him home. But where is home for a freelancer? What is the goal? I'm sure every hired gun would answer differently. For some, it's a number. I met one freelancer who just said "two million dollars, dude". Another was working hard on a website that he hoped would become huge, so he could stop leaping. And then some are just looking for a place to settle down into a culture that feels right.
I'm a little bit all of the above. Or maybe I'm just a Leaper. Scott Bakula didn't even remember who he was in Quantum Leap. It sounds silly to make a popular TV show sound too existential, but I think his mission was to find out who he was. And he hoped someday to end up there. Quantum Leap went five seasons and, in the end, he never did get home.
But maybe he was home the whole time.
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4 Dec 2011

Making It All Work
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I'm a big fan of David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, the productivity book that has taken on cult-like status among process nerds like me. If you havent read it, get yourself a copy. It will change your life. And then you can mark "change life" off of your to-do list.

David Allen wrote another book called Making It All Work, which isn't as good as GTD (nerd alert!), but does dovetail nicely with the theories of We're All Freelance (maybe someday someone will say WAF... a boy can dream.) It's all about putting all your to-dos into one big basket, instead of saying "This is work" and "This is personal", he's saying it should all be work. That way, it's all "important". This is what We're All Freelance is about. Each of us is a little business. A brand. And whether we have a full-time job or not, in the end, we are all working for the betterment of ourselves and our family. Call it Me, Incorporated.

This attitude turns things that used to be hobbies into projects. I've always liked drawing and cartooning. And I always wanted to write a story about my crazy dad, an airbrush artist and classic car enthusiast who was known in my town as "Mongo". But I never had time for either of these things. They were "silly dreams", not important enough to trump the "real work" of making advertisements to sell candy or financial software.

But now, as a freelancer, I have made "Making A Comic About My Crazy Dad" into project #1 for Me, Inc (actually, I named the company Mongo Industries. Dad would be proud.) The comic was a way to honor his memory and start building my skills as a graphic novelist. I broke down my goal into actionable to-do items, just like a GTD nerd should:

1. Sign Up For A Comic-Making Class At SVA.

2. Practice Drawing On The iPad using Fiverr.com and some nice, willing friends.

3. Gather Stories About Dad.

And a couple of months later, the first twelve pages of The Book of Mongo is complete. (See cover above.) None of this has gotten in the way of the emailing and cold-calling being done by the sales staff at Mongo Industries (also me). Gotta pay the bills. But next week, while I'm slaving away at ads, the printers will be humming. And soon The Book Of Mongo will be available for purchase. And for publishers to fight over as a longer graphic novel.

I guess that's the next project. I'll have to remember to bring it up at the next Mongo Industries board meeting. I need a gavel.
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28 Nov 2011

5 WAYS TO TALK TO YOUR FAMILY ABOUT FREELANCING
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Ah, the holidays. The smell of roasting turkey. The warmth of a Duraflame petroleum log burning in the fireplace. And the sound of friends and loved ones merrily asking, “So, would you take a real job if someone offered you one?”
You wince. You remind yourself that they’re not being snarky, just concerned. And then, as you explain that you’re not unemployed and this is a real job and you chose this path because it gives you the freedom to pursue your own projects and seek out new experiences, you suddenly realize something:
Your family thinks you’re crazy.
Talking to your family about freelancing can bring up all the insecurities inside you. Those little voices in your head that tell you you’re not good enough. The voices love to get confirmation from others. “See? Told you you were crazy and misguided. How could you possibly think anyone would pay you that much just to think?”
Well, to badly misquote President Roosevelt, the only thing you have to fear is the fear of Uncle Frank. He comes from an age when jobs were guaranteed. When social circles were smaller. And networking was harder. You are an alien from the future. And it’s a future that frightens him.
But what do you do? How do you respond? Here are five ways to fight back against the family festivity freelance fear factor:
1. Talk about your goals. According to personal power gurus like Stephen Covey, one of the keys of goal-setting is to tell your goals to others. Take this opportunity to espouse your goals and use your family as a sounding board for how you can attain them. Who knows? Grandpa may have had a similar experience when he was trying to start his cleaning business. Suddenly, you’re bonding.
2. Turn the tables. Ask why they haven’t considered going freelance. Tell them how amazing it is. Make it a game. Every person you convert to the wonderful world of freeagency gets you 100 points. There’s a great article on freelanceswitch.com that gives lots of reasons to be thankful for being a freelancer. You could become the family freelance guru!
3. Get some leads. Does Uncle Frank know people who might need your services? Hand out cards. Show your website. Jobs can indeed come from anywhere. Even family.
4. Ask about a time when they took a risk. People love to tell stories about something courageous they did. There’s always something to be learned for the freelancer. Equate what you’re doing to what they did. Unless it’s a story about how they once stole a goat mascot from a rival college. In that case, just smile and nod.
5. Give them your day rate. And watch their mouths hang open. Then say something nonchalant like, “Pass the cranberry sauce, please.” Okay, now it’s you who’s being snarky.
Just remember, peace on earth, good will unto men (even Uncle Frank) and, in the end, We’re All Freelance.
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20 Nov 2011

THE MYTH OF THE LONE FREELANCER
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When people think of freelancers, they often think of them as hired guns. Samurai. Lonely wandering warriors who face every day with only their laptops and a brave face. They cut and run. They don't need no one. They're loners. They're rebels.

Call me a nancy pants, but I've leaned heavily on my friends to guide me along the way. Other freelancers tell me where the work is. Creatives and recruiters who I've met along the way in my career are thankfully returning my calls and emails. And then there's the social web. Honestly, I don't know how anybody did this before LinkedIn and Facebook. Respect, prehistoric freelancers. It must have been exhausting.

Others in my freelance circle of, yes, friends tell me the same. They say the best part is that being a freelancer makes it easier to choose who you actually want to spend time with. That developer who makes cool websites. Or the writer who always has thoughtful critiques. Or the art director who turns garbage into art. (More on that last one in a minute.)

When you're staff, you spend a lot of time with your co-workers. You have to. You rely on them for so much. And they rub off on you, whether you like it or not. You find yourself complaining like your toxic cubemate. Or second guessing what your fearful boss might say. And before you know it, your job is a living hell. Your only recourse is to find the people in the organization who inspire you and start spending more time with them. But it's hard work. Because your boss is screaming at you from down the hall again. And your toxic coworker is laughing as you skulk back. You have to move to a different group. Or ask for a transfer. Or get a new job.

Or go freelance.

Being a freelance friend is also hard work. But it's way more fun. (And there's less screaming and laughing and skulking.) You have to cultivate it. You have to be inspiring back to the people who inspire you. You have to give to get. (A very tiny example: if you want to get more LinkedIn recommendations, start recommending people without them asking. Try it. It works. It's karmic.)

All this turns you into a positivity engine. It forces you to be the change you want to see in the world. Wait, was Gandhi a freelancer?

Back to the garbage. Justin Gignac started http://www.nycgarbage.com before I met him. Since then he's made other awesome websites and art projects including The Justin Gignac Freelance Status Apparatus®, an app that simply announced Justin's freelance status, but also advertised his awesome brain.

Justin's newest venture, with another big-brained freelancer I'm honored to know named Adam Tompkins, is called Working Not Working, and it is based on Justin's Freelance Status App. Currently in beta, Working Not Working will allow freelancers to announce their current status to the recruiters and clients of the world. Working? Available? Available Soon? But its real genius will be karmic: Each freelancer will be able to choose just ten other freelancers who they hold in high regard, thereby giving a scoring system to the whole freelance world.

So, will you be my freelance friend? Okay then, how about we just hook up on LinkedIn?
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15 Nov 2011

Rhythm Is A Dancer
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(illustration by Kevin Howdeshell. http://kevincredible.com)

People like to complain about the drudgery of their jobs. “Same shit, different day,” they say. But here’s the thing about having to go to the same desk in the same building in the same city at the same time every weekday:

It is a drumbeat.

A staff job is Ringo in the Beatles of your life. Yes, it has a big nose. And it does wear a pinky ring. But, whether you realize it or not, a staff job keeps your foot tapping while you’re dreaming about Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane. It sets a rhythm that you can hide in when you need to.

I left my Ringo behind in September, quitting an ECD position at a big New York agency on a good account with nice people. People told me I was crazy, but I was excited to do something different for a while. Work with smaller places. Learn new skills. Pursue personal projects. And I don’t regret my decision for one minute.

But I think I wasn’t ready for the sound of those drums stopping. Suddenly I had to set the agenda. I had to make the meetings happen. I had to get myself to the computer at my desk and get cracking on that blog entry. I wasn’t naive. I knew going in that I would be doing these things. But knowing something in theory and doing it in practice are two very different things. (Case in point: this blog entry is two days late. Yes, your money will be refunded.)

At a staff job, there are people who handle all that stuff. They put schedules together. They build time into the schedule for you to noodle around. They get you on the phone with the client. And you can fight it all you want and say it’s stupid and hate your job, but it gives you something to do while you're trying to do whatever it is you really love to do (for me, it's making up stories about brands) or while you pursue your dream of one day doing something else.

It gives you a rhythm so you can write those crazy songs about girls named Lucy. Floating in the sky. With diamonds.

Circadian rhythm is a fancy term used by Chronobiologists. It’s what the rest of us call the Body Clock. (Yes, I wikipedia-ed this stuff.) It is the body’s natural cycle and it is internally driven. But there are many external cues, called zeitgebers (German for “time giver” or “synchronizer”. That’s wikipedia.com!), that can affect the rhythym. Light, for instance. Or eating lunch. Or getting to your desk and grumbling hello to your cubemate.

Change any of these external cues for any period of time and you get an effect akin to jet lag. You feel “out of time”. You get tired. You get cranky. Mess with any human’s Circadian rhythm long enough and they go completely, utterly insane.

I have no interest in going insane. But, as a freelancer, cut loose from all my zeitgebers (which is what I will forevermore call work friends) how do I build my own rhythm? Here’s a few things that I’ve decided:

• On days when I’m working from home (or, gasp!, not working), I will sit down at my computer with my coffee by 9am.
• Even when I’m not working, I will spend at least four hours that day emailing and calling people to find work. The other four will be spent on personal projects and/or family time.
• Working out is an amazing re-synchronizer. I will work out for 30 minutes five days a week.
• Sleep is good for circadian rhythms. I will get to bed by 10pm.
• I will blog every week. (Promise!)

So, to recap: your staff job is Ringo, I can use wikipedia and I may be going insane, but I'm having the time of my life. :) Any other freelancers out there? What’s your secret? How do you set your rhythm?
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6 Nov 2011

Vacations Don’t Scare Me
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When you’re a freelancer, is there anything more terrifying than taking a vacation?

I just got back from a Walt Disney World Vacation with my family. And while the destination alone may send shivers down your spine, as a freelancer I found myself really nervous about the prospect of spending a week making no money. I had even turned down a job to go. That put a pit in my stomach that was still there as the plane was taking off.

But then I spent a lot of the week dealing with a very different kind of fear.

My son Ben is nine. And he can sometimes be a bit anxious. Especially when it comes to a machine that promises to hurtle him god-knows-where at breakneck speeds. And I can relate. When I was his age, I didn’t like rollercoasters very much either. Until I actually rode them. Then suddenly I would remember that it was fun and I wasn’t going to die and then I’d want to go again and again.

“You always love it afterwards,” I told him. “You’ll see.”

His fears were given a boost early in the trip, with a ride on a roller coaster that we designed together at Epcot’s Innoventions Pavillion. After you design it, putting all the twists and loops and curves you like in, you get into a simulator and “ride” your creation. The problem: there’s a stop button. So, if you’re too freaked out by your monster coaster, you can put an end to your misery with the push of a button.

Well, ten seconds into our “ride”, Ben hit that stop button, leaving us in upside-down limbo for what seemed like an eternity (and was probably more like two seconds) while the machine reset. His anger and shame was matched only by the creeping fear of the rest of the coasters – very real ones without stop buttons this time – that lay in our future. And on the last day there was the ultimate in freak-outs: The Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror – an elevator that drops you 13 stories in freefall.

“You can’t give up,” I said. “You gotta face the fear and beat it.”

We rode Big Thunder Mountain. He’d been on this before, so it was easier. Space Mountain was a bit scarier. But he made it through. Expedition Everest was truly frightening. Even for me. But, again, he came out smiling. And wanting to go gain. Rock n’ Roller Coaster’s 0-60 in 3 seconds was somehow easy after that.

Then came the Tower. Of TERROR. It is really scary dropping from 13 stories up. But again, he loved it.

“We have to do that again,” he said on the way out.

And as I sat there waiting for him and his brother to ride the ride again, (because my grown-up brain can only take so much scrambling), I realized that I’m teaching him something important in the future world – a world where everyone could indeed be a freelancer:

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

And then my phone rang. It was another job. They needed me to write some scripts. No I didn’t have to come in. Just send ideas, then scripts.

See? Everything works out.
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