(Photo: Linda Evangelista gets out of bed (sorta) for new Prada campaign)

Is it over yet?

Seriously, it’s April now. We have passed the vernal equinox and still the corporate coffers for freelance writing run dry. Have we not seen several consecutive days of equity markets not entirely sucking? Is not every municipal, provincial, state, territorial and federal government in the western hemisphere announcing massive infrastructure spending to spur things on? I would like the trickle-down effect to trickle just a little more quickly please.

Flashback to October 2008. The financial services crisis had me hopping for months. All kinds of notes, messages, missives and scripts needed to be written and revised to placate stakeholders at every level. As corporate budgets were hacked, slashed and burned, the beancounters finally made their way to my little line item. As a freelancer, my modus operandi is to get to the end of my list of projects, clear things off my desk as quickly as possible to make room for more. Of course, it never worked that way, the list of work always seemed to grow faster than what I could cross off. This time however, I made it to the end of my list. All client work ground to a halt. I sent in a final few invoices at the end of October, applied for a new usurious credit card and flew to New York.

Having no work was initially kind of fun. Sort of like being on holiday. I went to the gym. I slept late. I wrote my novel in the afternoons and went out drinking at night. I felt like a real writer. I trusted in the universe.

One morning in mid-November, I realized there was no actual point to getting out of bed. No clients were anxiously waiting for my literary pearls. No journalists needed handling. No one would care or even know if I wrote another 10 pages of my book or not. I thought of a scene from the television show Californication where writer Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is asked by his agent what he plans to do that day. “I’ll start with some dry toast, half a grapefruit,” Hank muses. “Then get down to work, bang out some pages, maybe 10 pages. Go for a run.” They look at each other and laugh. Modesty prevents me from reciting what Moody declared he would actually do, but it ended with going back to sleep.

So I went back to sleep. Around noon my phone rang. I reluctantly reached out to the bedside Blackberry and looked at the number on the screen. It was a woman I barely knew. I had helped her with some pro bono work months ago. The last thing I needed at that point was a pro bono client. I was feeling pro bono myself. A few minutes later the message light started to blink. I looked at the Blackberry again. She had sent an e-mail. Never one to bother with social niceties, she got straight to the point. I have a new client, we need to write their website. Could you do it for $5k?

I set the Blackberry down gently on the pillow beside me and thought about this. Ten minutes previously I had been lying there with no work, no income and nothing to do. Now I had $5,000 on the horizon and a job to do. A lot had changed and I had not even moved in the meantime. Dare I move  now? Maybe if I lie still another couple thou will appear…. But I could no longer stay still. I threw off the duvet and stood up. Linda Evangelista famously said she would not get out of bed for less than $10,000. Apparently I will do it for five.

But that was November. This is April. It’s not funny anymore.

Come on clients, ring those phones. Baby needs a new pair of sandals.