I've had the following idea

Life In my ongoing effort to do something, I've had the following idea:

Researcher/Curator at large

Researching and writing didactic/explanatory/educational texts for places that can’t afford to have someone in a full time post doing same.

Examples:

Art galleries without time to write explanatory labels.
Film festivals requiring publicity text.
Theatres needing material for programmes.

Upside:

Never tied down.
Flexible.
Horrendously interesting.
Plays to my strength of having a good working knowledge of a range of random curiousities.
Requires lots of what I like to do most, reading/watching/listening, writing and thinking.
Meet loads of new people.
Project-by-project basis so goal orientated, something I thrive on.

Downside:

Never tied down.
Freelance – tricky accountancy/tax issues.
Never permanent, project based, no job security.
Difficult to quantify price to charge without a track record.
May not even exist as a profession.
How do I broach the subject?

2 comments:

Billy said...

Sounds like a freelance copywriter to me. Looking at your downsides, the accountancy/tax issues are worth confronting anyway, they're a fact of life as a freelancer so you might as well get your head round them now, a useful skill to have.

'Never permanent...no job security', true, it's probably something you'll have to develop alongside other less desirable, more stable work.

'How do I broach the subject?... no track record' - find some worthy subjects to do free project work for and build a portfolio.

Stuart Ian Burns said...

Thanks for putting a name to it.

This requires some more thought.