Freeloader

I'm now in my third week of fending for myself as a work-shy freelancer, and I'll be honest with you: I've not been terribly busy in the traditional sense of the words. That's not to say I'm not keeping busy, because I have been: I've written what I can only describe as a shit-load of letters to various publishers, and I've actually, 100 percent, honest-to-god finished work on my book. Yes, THAT book. The one I first mentioned on here about, oh, I don't know THREE OR FOUR years ago.

Admittedly I had thought it was finished a long time ago and it was just a case of me pulling my finger out and doing something with it, but then I let a chap from yoga read it whose opinions I trust greatly (he's an actor, don't you know, so I reasoned that he reads stuff for a living and thus has a keen sense of what's good and what's not), and who made no qualms about telling me that if he thought it was rubbish he'd tell me so.

Anyway, long story short, and fortunately for my fragile little ego, he actually really liked it (I swear to god he used the phrase "potential to be a proper little indie hit," which led to me needing a bit of a sit down), although he did have a few little comments and suggestions that he thought might strengthen the narrative a bit. And to be honest, those comments just reaffirmed some niggling doubts I'd had about it. That being the case, the last week has pretty much been dedicated to sorting all that out, as well as going back through the whole thing one last time so that 33 year-old me can tighten up the bits that 29 year-old me glossed over back in the day. So, essentially what I'm saying is that - YAY! - the whole thing is ready to go now. FOR REAL. My main intention is to pop it up on the Kindle store for the world to download to all manner of digital devices, but, y'know, I *may* have sent it off to a couple of independent presses too - SO KEEP YOUR BLOODY FINGERS CROSSED OR I'LL HAVE TO POP ROUND AND CUT 'EM OFF.

Basically, then, freelancing has been a very enjoyable experience so far (although that might change when I actually have to do some proper work). What I like is that I'm pretty much free to do as I please. I popped to Richmond last week, spent an hour in Starbucks writing on my iPad like one of those insufferably pretentious tits who insists on writing in public, and then because the weather was so lovely I ended up doing some topless sunbathing on the green.

Self-portrait of a freelancer in repose.

There was another photo of my vest draped across my legs, but as everyone on Twitter said it looked like I had my underpants round my ankles I'm loathe to post it here.

It's not all sunning oneself in public spaces, though: Friday afternoons are now exclusively dedicated to going to the cinema. Week one was Captain America (good blockbustery fun), while last week was Super 8 (which I loved; the fat kid in it might go down in history as this generation's Chunk from the Goonies); this week is Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and next week is Cowboys and Aliens. Good times.

On the downside, when I'm not galavanting around the countryside I am spending a considerable amount of time just sitting at my desk. And bearing in mind that I'm no longer getting a lengthy lunchtime stroll and my commute pretty much consists of walking down 12 stairs, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm at risk of developing deep-vein thrombosis. I might have to instigate mandatory midday runs on those days when I'm not indulging in, as one of my yoga teachers dubbed it, 'job-seekers yoga.' I'll tell you something though, it is nice getting to have a bit of a cheeky lie-in every morning.