Home Office / Fishing

Bet you don’t have a clue how I’m tying fishing into a post about working from home, huh? Well this post is all about my theory of successful freelancing, and it’s surprisingly just like fishing.

I would say that about fifty percent of my career at the moment involves pitching ideas to various online and print publications. I don’t have a journalism background, so I’ve been working hard to build relationships with editors both in Ireland and in the U.S. and the U.K. Some pieces I’m asked to write, but most of them came from me sending story ideas to editors and having them get picked up.

So here’s the fishing analogy part. I was never a big fan of fishing, even growing up on a lake, but I like the imagery because it’s exactly how I picture the freelancing side of my career. When you’re fishing, you toss a line in, sometimes many lines, and you wait for a fish to take the bait. You might have to throw in ten worms to get one bite, but you keep casting and waiting until you catch something.

Freelancing? Just the same thing. You send out lots of story ideas and wait for them to get picked up. Sometimes you wait quite a while to hear anything back, and some ideas get turned down, but some get scooped up and you’re off and writing! It can be a little tiring, but that’s where I think the fishing analogy is particularly helpful.

Sometimes the fishing analogy gets a bit old, kind of like I’m sure actual fishing gets a bit old when you’re only landing tiny sunfish instead of big bass. But that’s when you have to rely on another fishy friend – Nemo. Just keep swimming!