How I Earn a Living (part II)

An update on where I’m at, one year later.

In September last year I decided to go all in on my freelance life. Again.

I had been working freelance for seven years (running workshops, an online shop, selling my designs and taking commissions), when due to several personal and logistical factors, I decided that I needed to step away and get a ‘proper’ job.

Only I couldn’t. No one would have me.

With a CV that spans marketing, wig care and wine amongst many other things, no amount of ‘tailoring my cv to the job’ seemed to make me look appealing. I had done both too much and not enough.

I started off applying for social media and marketing roles, then admin roles, and finally supermarket roles stacking shelves.

Nothing, not even a whisper of a response from anyone.

Fortunately a friend managed to shoe-horn me into doing some admin work, whilst I also helped Jon on a local community scheme. These helped me keep afloat financially for a while.

I wrote about it, and my freelance background, in detail here.

Finally after a year and a half of pinging off all the different version of my cv, from social media marketing to shelf stacker, I landed an interview for one of my dream companies, and was short listed to the final two, out of four hundred candidates.

And I didn’t get it.

So, I had a big cry, spent a week walking up on the moors wondering why the hell no one wanted to employ me, and arrived back at the conclusion that I work best when I’m my own boss.

And this is what has happened since that decision a year ago:

• I wrote the workshop that has been brewing away in me for years: Tell the Story of your Home. I was so certain of everything I needed to write for it, that I sold out the first workshop before I had even started writing it.

  When it came to actually sitting down and doing it, it came tumbling out of me like I’d opened up the back doors of an overpacked van. I now truly understand the meaning and physical experience of pouring your soul into something.

  The online workshop has sold globally and I receive daily messages from folk telling me how it has not only changed their approach to their homes, but to every aspect of their life.

  I also offer 1-1 consultations and will be re-launching the guided online workshop very soon. I find our relationships with the spaces we inhabit fascinating and can spend hours wandering down the stories, personality and clues to our inner lives they hold.

  

• I achieved a lifelong creative milestone off the back of writing Tell the Story of Your Home (I’ll share more about that another day).

• I fully committed to sharing my writing here on Substack. I share once or twice a week, with a couple of free essays per month. In an ideal world there would be no paywall. But this now forms part of my income and I work hard to make sure I write pieces that are truthful, of value and relevant to the themes you are here for.

  Every single subscription (currently 2.8K free and 140 paid) is a sign of trust. I do not take it for granted in the slightest. In a world full of subscriptions and overflowing inboxes, it feels like a tiny miracle to be one of yours. Thank you.

• I stopped drinking. There was so much I wanted to do, so many plans I wanted to put into action that I needed to make a shift. Drinking was draining every part of my mind, body and soul, keeping me in the car park at the bottom of the hill. When what I needed to be doing was scaling the hill.

  It was perpetuating my anxiety, insecurity and lethargy. These demons still occasionally rear their head, but they no longer last as long and I have new systems in place which don’t inflame the problem. I wrote about this here.

• I moved away from digital illustration and returned to paper and ink. I originally began illustrating digitally when I became busier with commissions - it was easier to tweak and adjust for clients this way.

  But eventually I became so used to this facility to change an entire design without visible repercussions, that I grew afraid of the permanence of paper and ink. Luckily for me, my youngest son smashed my iPad and then I spilled tea on it. I had no other choice but to get my inks out again.

  I am now creating and selling original pencil and inks pieces. Considering how I see AI changing our creative landscape, this feels timely and right (I could still really do with an iPad though).

  My autumn collection of fruits on vintage paper will be completed and ready for sale by the end of the month and I will be sharing first news here via my substack newsletter.

  

• I found a studio. After my entire freelance life using corners of our home to run my business in all its forms, I recently took on a space in an old mill in the heart of Hebden Bridge. I began by sharing the studio and will soon be taking on the whole space. It is a financial stretch and risk, but one I am excited and ready to take.

  It also means I can now host in-person workshops from the space, the first one taking place on November 15th - Tell the Story of Your Table. It will be a cosy, festive morning, and there are two places still available.

• I embraced the reality that I am a creative/business octopus: Drawing and painting, workshop devising and hosting, essay writing here, still life photography, video creation for Youtube, social media consulting for independent businesses. And hopefully one day, when time allows, returning to my podcast On the Irregular.

• I receive a small income stream through sharing affiliate links on social media. My Instagram following has grown, and with it, more interest from brands asking me to promote their products. I am extremely selective and only share what I have used and truly enjoyed/found valuable.

  When I share this, and someone chooses to use the code I share, I earn a tiny fee (sometimes I share product info purely in exchange for the product, because I think it’s really, really good and am delighted to share the love).

• I work a couple of Saturdays a month in a local vintage boutique, Lucy and the Caterpillar. This fulfils my love of vintage (my mum was a vintage trader and so was I for several years) and also brings me out of the house/studio to interact with humans in real life. Jon has mentioned a few times how I always come home looking energised when I’ve spent the day in the shop. And it’s true, I feel it.

• Open to suggestions. The nature of what I do means that I am always interested in new ideas and avenues. My partner Jon and I are even considering working together again in the new year, through photography (Jon is a sound recordist, music technician, videographer and photographer).

  Freelance life is an ever evolving game of pivoting and adapting.

It’s a huge juggle. The work/income balance is wobbly at best. And every month is a financial gamble.

I’m not here to tell you that I went all in and now run a six figure business (yet).

But, following my own advice of doing what I can with what I have, after an 18 month deviation, I am back doing the job (or rather, seven/eight/nine/ten jobs) I know how to do best.

It also allows me flexibility in parenting duties. This in turn limits me at times with work, but as work/life/childcare juggles go, we’re managing it and I feel very lucky to be there at drop off and pick up every day.

Through a combination of circumstance, perseverance and love, I’m still going, and I’m earning a living.

I do not subscribe to the idea that if you just put in enough graft, you’ll be fine. As we all know, life, the economy, the white supremacist patriarchy and the world are more complicated than that. I am not naive. Things ‘working out’ is down to a combination of many different factors.

But for now, personally, these factors are aligned in a relatively harmonious way.

You, reading this, are a huge part of it. Thank you. My income does not come from an imaginary source that I can rely on mindlessly. It comes from you, trusting me, investing in me, supporting my small creative business in every small or big way.

November will be the eighth anniversary of running my business (me, I am the business). The number eight is our house number, I have always loved the curves of its shape and it is also the symbol for infinity.

I will celebrate by eating an entire watermelon, doing my accounts, and hosting a workshop in my new studio. And by raising a vintage coupe of kombucha to you all.

Next update on How I Earn a Living: October 2026.

Love

Java x