Being a freelance journalist is not easy. Aside from the competition (that is getting worse as layoffs from major websites are becoming a common trend), we have to deal with editors who often ghost you and expect you to pitch them stories that have to make them “jump from their chairs” or “change their lives”. We are often just reporting on something that is interesting and cannot always change the world — though many of us would love to.

We are not spiders to make you jump from your chair. Nor we are personal life coaches to make your life better. Maybe we can accomplish both things, but that’s really not something to demand from us.

Expectations are high, though not always we can (or are even interested) in meeting such expectations — we just want to do our jobs.

But once we manage to convince the editor that our stories are worth publishing and we finally publish it (after sometimes lengthy edits and some demands that are just too much for what we are being paid to do) comes that terrible moment of waiting (or expecting) for the payment.

Full article at The Writing Cooperative’s website. Date of publication: 27/07/2019.