Something in the air...

It's not just the New Year. Well, I don't think it is. But the energy around me has certainly changed. It started on Jan 2nd when an author whose book I spend the whole Christmas period editing posted a wonderful piece in praise of my skills on the publisher's website. It was the first time in my life that I had received some recognition for my skills and I was chuffed to bits. From this has come a shift in my self-esteem, a feeling that not only am I mature but my skills are, too, and now I could take them anywhere and do anything.

When I was made redundant in 1994, from being a national magazine editor (yes, it was a fairly small publication but I had a staff and a budget and was frequently called upon to appear on radio and TV chat shows as an 'emotional problems expert') I was suddenly a label-less nothing. An 'ex'. The phone stopped ringing and I felt as if the carpet had been pulled from under my feet. It was a huge confidence-sapper and my injured feelings were made worse when I didn't get paid for the first job I did as a freelancer. Made redundant in March, I was contacted by a Swedish magazine who hired me to put together a fiction special for them. I did all the work and the cheque never arrived and when I contacted the NUJ's solicitor to ask what I could do, I was told that pursuing it would cost more than the £2,000 I was owed.

Since then, my work fortunes have gone up and down. I got an agent and started writing and selling children's books. Then I stupidly decided I wanted to write for adults, ditched the agent and got another one and haven't published a book since. Mea culpa. Last year a publisher went down owing me £1000 that I could ill afford to lose, considering that in 1994 I was earning £40,000 pa and last year I barely managed £13,500.

So why do I now sense a curious optimism in the air? I can't put my finger on it but I do feel it has something to do with rediscovering my self-worth and feeling that I am good at what I do, and maybe at last the outside world is recognising it, too. Perhaps now's the time to burn the 'ex' label and come out of hiding, where I have been licking my wounds for rather too long. Maybe it's also time to shake off the feeling that I am 'too old' to start afresh or build up a business. I work in a business where I rarely meet clients face to face, anyway, so nobody has to judge me by the number of wrinkles they can see. So... this year, I can be anyone and anything. Whoopee! The phoenix riseth.