by Maria McCarthy | 5 Jan, 2016 | Books, Editing, Freelance working, Work, Work and wellbeing, Writing and wellbeing
Nearly seven years ago, my husband came home from work one day and said, ‘I don’t think I can work under her for much longer,’ meaning his line manager. Nine months prior to this, we had taken on a mortgage on the basis of his salary. Some nine months after this moment, we agreed that he should resign from the job, after several months off work with anxiety and depression. His supervisor had been micro-managing him, finding fault at every opportunity. The last straw was an appraisal, filled with negative feedback, which he was then asked to write up.
Work-based counselling, talk of mediation – any benefits were cancelled out when, on a phased return to work, the first thing she asked of him was to complete the appraisal process. The very thing that his counsellor said should not be raised at this time, as it was the trigger for his illness. We realised that there would be no positive changes as long as he worked under this manager. The only way was out.
So, for some five years plus, my husband has been working freelance, pursuing the work he loves – commissioning and editing books. (The paid employment had not been so interesting, editing examination questions.) The work is often speculative, and there is no income while book projects are in development; they may or may not be taken up by publishers. In short, some of the work does not pay at all. And outlets for the kind of books that he commissions are in decline, with some of the big players pulling out of that area of publishing (Science, Technical and Medical). When he does get a book accepted, or does a piece of editorial work, it often takes several months of chasing up invoices to receive the money.
He has no sick pay, no holiday pay as a freelancer, even on some of the long-term contracts. He has worked through sickness, and if we have taken a holiday, it has been in the knowledge that there would be no money coming in that week. One ’employer’ ended his contract the same day as he sent notice of termination, with no financial recompense; he had worked for this publisher for eighteen months. Legally, the contract should have been on a direct employment basis, as regular work of the same kind for the same employer. He should have received the same rights as an employee, but who would argue this point when the work could easily go to another freelancer? We had discussed approaching the publisher about this, to put my husband’s work on a more permanent footing. Then came the termination notice. He saw a solicitor about pay in lieu of notice – the contract gave two months. The employer said that he was giving this notice, but had no work for my husband during this time, and payment was only due for work actually carried out. The solicitor thought my husband had a case, but when he approached the employer with this information, asking for two months’ pay, the scoundrel threatened him with bad-mouthing his work publicly.
As for myself, I have worked in a very stressful environment and found it hard to stop the speeding waltzer that was my working life. It felt more dangerous to jump off than to cling on tight and carry on. I was brought to a halt by ill health. That was sixteen years ago, and despite periods of extreme poverty (as a single parent on sickness and disability benefits), and relative poverty (still on benefits, married to a freelancer, growing older, and with a mortgage outstanding), I would not go back to that life, employed and relatively well off financially, impoverished in health and leisure time.
Were we right, my husband and I, to decide that he should resign from that job? From sick and holiday pay, from the free lunches (no such thing as…) in the staff dining room, a perk of that job? Hell, yes! He now chooses his work, his hours, his commute is from the living room to his study, in the cellar. If we want to go off to the seaside on a summer’s day, he can decide to do that. He is free to pursue his music, to potter in his shed, to spend time with our granddaughter. The lunches might not be so good, but he can eat them in his armchair, in my company.
Every so often, we have ‘the conversation’ about whether he should apply for jobs in London, which would bring in twice his freelance income. The money seems attractive. The commute, about three hours per day, the unknown nature of management, the fact that he reaches sixty this month, and deserves to be slowing down … it’s a no-brainer.
Wellbeing versus a reasonable income – it shouldn’t be a choice. And low income, money worries, can affect your wellbeing. My closest friends and family regularly listen to me talk about money, the lack of it, particularly when unexpected expenses come up. We recently had a leaky roof. Rain was dripping through the bedroom ceiling onto the bed. We were bailed out by a loan from a friend to pay a roofer, spared some of the cost by using a scaffolding platform owned by another friend. We often wonder if we can carry on living in our house, whether we should sell it and rent another property. One friend reminded me that she had heard me say this before, a couple of years previously, and yet we were still there.
We begin 2016 overdrawn, like many people. In 2015, we borrowed off Peter to pay Paul, so that we could keep up with the mortgage. It’s something I learned from working alongside a debt advice service – meet your housing costs before anything else. Holidays were dropped, as were meals out, takeaways, concert tickets, gym memberships. It’s felt grim sometimes, but we are better off than some.
Hopping Down In Kent. Freelancer Bob Carling, on guitar. Area 51 Photography
On New Year’s Day, we went for a walk, ending up at a pub. ‘Let’s pretend we are rich people, ‘ I said, and we had lunch at the pub, toasted the new year. And remembered the amazing things we had achieved in the last year: publishing eleven books with Cultured Llama, my husband producing Hopping Down in Kent, a community-based folk opera from scratch, in less than three months. And we were thankful for our families, friends, and the freedom of the freelance life.
Bob Carling is a freelance commissioning editor, editorial consultant, publisher, science journalist, and typographical designer. He is also Managing Editor of Cultured Llama Publishing. See his website here.
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by Maria McCarthy | 24 Dec, 2015 | Chronic illness, Planning and writing commitments, Poetry, Resolutions, The Tom-Gallon Trust Award, Wise Words, Writing, Writing and wellbeing
Three months ago, overwhelmed by many things, I resolved to take a break from public readings. I had got into a habit of saying yes to every invitation to read, perform and organise literary events, and felt obliged to go along and support others in their artistic endeavours. I had become jaded with it all, and while some invitations to read were beautifully hosted, the last straw was when I was invited to read at an outdoor event. I had kept the date free, which was on a bank holiday weekend. Given my health problems, a ten to twenty minute spot in the afternoon meant that I had to keep the whole day free, resting before and afterwards.
A few days before, I checked with the person who had invited me to read – the organising committee had changed the time of the reading to much later in the afternoon, without telling me, and two reading spots had become one. He then said I could bring my tent along in the morning, set it up, and sit there all afternoon alongside my books. I made it clear that I had been invited to do this reading and expected tent, table, chair and PA system to be made available to me, and that I would only be there for the reading. I was grumpy throughout the afternoon, and though I did deliver a reading (alongside another grumpy poet who had been similarly treated), I didn’t enjoy it and wondered why I had turned up at all.
Filling up journals is the way to go
So I stopped readings altogether, and also held back on submitting my writing to magazines and e-zines. After winning the Tom-Gallon Trust Award in the summer, I hadn’t been able to place a thing. Rejection after humbling rejection arrived. The high of publication and awards is short-lived, and only leaves me craving more, so I reminded myself of why I began writing. As a way of dealing with a life-changing and devastating illness. So I have gone back to writing as nurturing, sharing my words mostly with my journal, only attending writing events that add to my own wellbeing.
I am learning to not feel guilty about declining or ignoring invitations to others’ literary events. Facebook is a demon for this – I find it easier to ignore a notification telling me I have 15 event invitations rather than to pick through them, responding with apologies and explanations.
After a while comes the temptation to start it all again – in fact, I have had new ideas for adding more into my literary and organising life. This is old stuff for me: over-commitment, getting excited by new projects without regard to the consequences to my health. I have to remind myself that the break from it all is doing me good, whilst not being an absolutist. I am the child of an alcoholic – we tend to have an all or nothing approach. I have made a small submission for publication this month, and shall wait to see if it is accepted. I have also agreed to review a new poetry book, which is something I do rarely, and I am looking forward to doing that.
Although I have enough material now for a second collection of poetry, I am holding back on planning publication, and working instead on a collaboration with an artist. We have no funding for this, nor any goals or end in mind; we are just exchanging work-in-progress by snail mail and seeing what happens.
If you are interested in writing and wellbeing and live in the Canterbury area, there are poetry workshops with Vicky Field and journalling sessions with Canterbury laureate John Siddique starting in January with Wise Words. Read their latest newsletter here. Many events are free.
Read my article: Low energy high creativity – discovering writing through chronic illness, originally published in Writing in Education, 62, Spring 2014.
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by Maria McCarthy | 1 Dec, 2015 | Advent, Christmas, Family and forgiveness, Uncategorized
He hasn’t even started his Christmas shopping. He sighs deeply at the task ahead. I’d show some sympathy, except that I have taken care of the presents; he only has to choose one for me.
We’re having a reduced Christmas this year. Fewer names on the gift list, spending less on those that remain. We (mostly) gave up sending cards a few years ago, sending emails and a Christmas missive instead, giving news of the year gone by. This was supposed to save us (me) time and energy. I have energy problems already, and the writing and sending of cards was a further drain on my limited resources. What has happened instead is the Christmas missive has become a major production. We both have a perfectionist streak – my words have to be witty and well-edited by him; we have to choose just the right photos to add in, chosen from the thousands we’re now cursed and blessed with, in the days of digital; he has to make the layout as perfect as possible. This year, we are wondering whether to just email a nice photo with links to our respective websites. But which photo?
Pre-Christmas Tension (PCT) is the name I have given to the phenomenon, and I think that women are particularly prone to the condition.
In my childhood, my mum went into debt every year to give a good Christmas to her five children. Gifts were bought from Ali’s Bazaar – a chap who sold toys and all other sorts of goodies from the back of an estate car, on easy terms, instalments paid throughout the year. Then there was the food, tons of it, and the trauma of Christmas dinner. The magic of the feast was performed while Dad gaily went to the pub with his mates. I recall Mum serving everyone else, then finally sitting down in front of her plate, and sobbing at the tragedy of lumps in the gravy. Meanwhile, my whiskey-sozzled father nodded in a doze over his dinner.
When I grew up, and had a family of my own, there was the annual decision of who we were going to upset that year – my parents or his. Until someone suggested that we could do as we pleased: stay in our home with our own children, upsetting both sides of the family. By that time, my mum had given up on choosing presents. ‘Oh, you know what they want,’ she said, meaning my children, husband and myself. ‘You buy them and I’ll give you the money.’ Her PCT was no doubt reduced, while adding to mine.
Like my mum, I tried to give my daughters a good Christmas, and got thoroughly exhausted in the process. Though the rewards were sweet – the squeals of delight on Christmas morning. And they both still love Christmas, even in their thirties, when they are now prone to experiencing PCT for themselves.
The lessons I have learned about Christmas are:
Please yourself – don’t do things out of duty
Perfection is never achieved – don’t cry into the lumpy gravy
Keep your expectations modest, then you won’t be disappointed
Don’t place expectations on your grown-up children – they have their own lives, their own, newer Christmas traditions, which might not include you
It’s OK to opt out – of gatherings, jollity, or out of Christmas altogether
Give yourself a rest – in the PCT season and during the festivities. Last year, I went to a yoga and meditation morning at the beginning of December – the best gift I could give myself
I was raised Catholic, and though I am lapsed, I love singing carols. My favourite is In The Bleak Midwinter, from a poem by Christina Rossetti, and one of the things I like about Christmas is light in the darkest days of the year. Also, a chance to remember those we only hear from once a year, like Elsie, who was a neighbour, and sat with my two-year-old daughter on a snowy winter’s day over 30 years ago when I went into hospital to give birth to my second daughter.
Perhaps I will send this as my Christmas letter, or maybe an email with a nice photo, and a link to this post. Meanwhile, it’s my turn for the odd dates in our shared, everlasting Advent calendar, so I shall slot the first reindeer in his stable. Tip – I don’t get Christmas Eve, but there are more reindeers on the odd dates of Advent.
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by Maria McCarthy | 31 Oct, 2015 | Horror, Medway Towns, Short stories
When I was a child, we celebrated Halloween at home. We didn’t dress up, but we did bob for apples in a washing-up bowl, or attempt to take a bite out of apples strung from the beam in the living room, hands clasped behind our backs.
Trick or treat didn’t arrive in England until the ’90s, by my recollection, when I had children of my own. We’d carve a pumpkin, and stand it in the window to attract passing ghouls. I once got cross with a boy who knocked twice at our front door, begging ‘Trick or treat.’ ‘You’ve had your sweets,’ I said. ‘That was my twin brother,’ he replied. ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘heard that one before.’ I was just about to shut the door when a child identical to him arrived at the bottom of the steps leading to my house. Shamefaced, I offered the second twin a dip in the treats bag.
Maria reads The Man in Black at Horrorshow
Seven years ago this month, we moved to a village. Expecting the usual trail of spookily-dressed children, we bought some sweets and lit the tealight candle in our pumpkin. Knocks came there none. Year 2, the same. Year 3 and beyond, we no longer buy sweets for Halloween. We are at the end of the village, just before a stretch of the A2 with few houses, only orchards shedding their autumn colours and fields of sheep. At our end of the village, there are few children. There are mostly older people who have lived in their houses for upwards of 30 years. A ‘young’ neighbour, 50-something, like me, describes it as ‘Death Row.’
In spite of the lack of trick or treaters, we’ve carved a pumpkin every year – a new experience for my husband, Bob, who I have known for a little less than 9 years. But this year, the weeks have passed without thinking pumpkin, without (as I often do too early) choosing a candidate for our Jack o’ Lantern. We are having a pumpkinless Halloween. In any case, Bob will be out gigging with his band on mischief night, while I stay home with the cat. Who isn’t even black.
To make up for this, I am sharing a story, ‘The Man in Black’. I wrote the first version of this 15 years ago and revisited it for an event called Horrorshow, held at The Barge, Gillingham, a couple of years ago. My Medway readers will recognise the setting, in and around Rochester. Versions of this story have won and been shortlisted for prizes; this is the first time it has appeared in print.
Happy Halloween, one and all. May your pumpkins glow brightly in the dark of the night.
Read The Man in Black. Beware, those with a nervous disposition…
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by Maria McCarthy | 7 Oct, 2015 | Charity, Chronic illness, Writing and wellbeing
A man goes to see his parish priest in rural Ireland during the ‘hungry years’ of the 1930s or 40s. The man has too many children; he cannot feed them all. He travels to work in England and sends money back home, and still there is not enough money. He asks the priest if there is anything the church can do to help. The man’s eldest child comes home from school a few days later to find that some of her siblings have been sent to an orphanage, several miles away.
An extreme example of help, of charity, gone badly wrong.
I have not ever been in such extreme need, but there have been times when money has been short, I have been (and am) too sick to work, and things have seemed grim. The state has provided, through welfare benefits. I have been able to keep my home and to feed my children at times when I feared I would lose everything. The generosity of others has also been both a lifesaver in emergencies, and has added some colour to a very black and white existence.
When funds are low, it can be difficult to keep hold of your dignity. And pride can get in the way of accepting offers of help. How that help is offered, in a way that allows a person to accept or reject offers, and so that it does not appear patronising or pitying, is very important. Here are a few good examples from my own experience.
I have a friend who has offered me loans over the years. I have often declined, sometimes accepted. In a recent emergency, I asked if the offer still holds, and she happily sent a cheque with a cheery note saying that there was no rush to pay it back. She has also given me money in the past, a small amount to pay an unexpected bill, for example. It has never affected our friendship. I have paid back loans, or gratefully accepted funds given.
Christmas past – Biscuit inspects the presents
Some years ago, a friend took me with her on a day trip to France. It was close to Christmas, and she knew that I had very little money to buy presents for my children. We stopped at a service station on the way home, and she turned to me with an idea for a gift that my children would love, and would make a big difference to our household. ‘I have a mad money fund,’ she said. ‘It’s for money I don’t really need, but it’s for splurging on treats. I’d like to give you enough to buy a Freeview box.’ She would give me the money on condition that I didn’t tell my children where it came from; the gift would be from me. My children may be reading this now, and this will be the first time I have made them aware of this act of kindness. It was done in a way that preserved my dignity, and literally it added a little colour to a pretty basic existence at that time. And my children, big as they were at the time, squealed with delight when they opened the gift.
I have friends who invite me to lunch and lightly say it’s their treat. People who will buy a drink knowing that I cannot buy one in return. They know that funds are low, or that I just need cheering up.
I am writing this today because some people performed what they saw as an act of love, an act of kindness. It was done without asking, arrived unannounced, and although this was not their intention, it has offended my dignity. It feels like an act of charity, pity even, not an act of love. Love is not something you do at people, it has to be with their consent. I still love those people, but I do feel that my wishes have not been considered. Life has been difficult recently, things feel out of control. People in my position need to feel that they have some control over what happens in their lives, to be given choices.
Going back to man who went to the parish priest at the beginning of this post. That man was my grandfather. His eldest child was my mother. Things done in the name of charity can be wonderful, can give people an element of control over their own destinies, can help people get back on their feet during hard times. Or they can be like what happened to my granddad, to my mother, to her brothers and sisters who were sent away.
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