The Day I Valued Myself (kaching)

When I'm not bumping off people in my books I'm writing freelance articles for both 'old' media (paper magazines, remember them?) and 'new' (Yahoo, HuffPost et al). I've been a journalist for so many years I would seriously age myself if I even whispered the number, but take it from me. A LOT.

And for the most part it's been a breeze. I've earned a steady income, always had a swag of stories under my belt and could charge a decent rate. So much so, I struggled to take time off to write my fiction. It was a lovely conundrum. At my peak I had 25 freelance articles lined up.

It was a beautiful thing. Busy, but beautiful.

Then the internet—which had made it such a beautiful, busy thing—turned against me and suddenly everyone was a writer, everyone had a blog and nobody wanted to pay anybody a decent rate for anything.

As a consequence, all of the old magazines were closing down, the freelance market was flooded with writers, good and bad, and earning a quid became hard yakka.

C'est la vie, right? Suck it up.

Well, things reached a new low the other day when a new editor reached out to me and offered me some work, for less than half of what I usually get paid. A lot less. But that wasn't the low. I mean all power to the woman. She's starting a new magazine and has no advertisers lined up yet. Can't blame her for having a crack.

Oh no, dear readers, the low came when I began to seriously contemplate doing it! After decades exhaustively building my portfolio, earning experience as an editor of several national magazines and a bureau chief in three cities including New York and London, I was considering selling myself short.

For a few hours there I thought:

"Maybe I should just accept that lowly wage. What if nothing else comes in? What if this is the story of my life now? Maybe I should just get over myself and start earning less."

Then I gave myself a shake, remembered how well my fiction is doing (did I really need the pittance she was offering?) and decided I was worth so much more than that. If I accepted that ridiculously low fee, it would be a very slippery slope to working for absolutely nothing. And why should I do that? I don't need to build my portfolio. I don't need the exposure. Don't even really need the money, not to get by, anyway.

But it goes deeper than that. It goes to basic fairness.

Think about it. Imagine going in and saying to your hairdresser/builder/plumber/dentist, "I'm only going to pay you half what you usually charge. Cool? Now, about that tint... "

It's not fair. It's not right. Enough was enough. I decided then that I'd rather NOT work as a freelancer anymore than give my power away for nothing.

So, I emailed the editor back, politely declined her offer and wished her all the best with her new venture.

Then exactly an hour later—I kid you not, people, ONE HOUR LATER—another editor I had never met emailed to offer me work on her publication. But this editor wanted to pay me MORE than I usually get paid. Was I up for it?

Yah-huh!!

It wasn't just that it was more money. It was what I should be earning after 30 years in this business, 15 of them as a freelancer. (Damn did I say those numbers aloud?)

There's a moral here, guys, in case you didn't catch it. It's a pretty simple one, and one I hope to remember in all areas of my life:

Believe in yourself, belief in your true worth, and the rest will follow 

(although I can't guarantee it'll follow that quickly! One hour. Extraordinary.)

Happy reading—and, hopefully, earning—everyone.

xo Christina

Roxy rears her head again!

It starts with a woman frantically banging her tiny fists against the car window, spraying sweat and desperation all over the impenetrable glass. It ends with Roxy Parker solving not only this suspicious death but the murder of a whimsical groupie whose body is found washed up in a creek on the hinterland property of an aging rock star ...

Yep, I've officially begun the SIXTH Ghostwriter Mystery adventure and I'm in imaginary heaven again. Is there anything more fabulous to a writer than this early, dreamy process? You have the bare bones, the skeleton, the start (and end) as I do, and you have to fill in the blanks.

Starting a new novel is always exhilarating, energising and slightly terrifying. There's a clean slate, a million possibilities and an empty road ahead. With Roxy books, they always fill in very quickly. Well, almost always. I occasionally hit a road bump, the proverbial writers block, but it rarely lasts long and it only takes a quick glance at a previous book (find the voice, remember the inspiration!) to get me over the speed bumps.

Okay enough of the crappy road metaphores. You get the picture. And soon you will get the book, but first I have to get cracking. This means, dear readers, that I may be out of touch for a while.

I'll let you know how I'm going along the way, but please be patient with me. Once I'm ensconced in Roxy's world, I often forget to come up for air (let alone write a blog, eat lunch, pick up the kids ...) but the end result is usually worth it. At least it is to me. (My hungry kids may have other opinions on that.)

In the meantime, happy reading everyone and thanks for all your support over this long and fabulous process. And please, never hesitate to get in touch. I ALWAYS have time to hear from readers, especially happy ones!

xo Christina