As with every major life decision that you share with other people, there will be the welcome opinions about how you should go about it, and whether it’s a good decision to begin with. I think it’s always a good idea to bring up your plans to other people because you never know what you’ll learn about yourself, or about them. And either way it’s usually interesting. But one of the effects of this is the inevitable naysayer. Those who believe, for whatever reason, that whatever you’re about to embark upon will fail for innumerable reasons. And no matter how confident you are, their opinions make you question your decision.

In my case – going from a decade of solid full-time work for large corporations to the life of a freelance designe – there are many things to consider. And it’s not a decision one arrives at overnight, if at all. In fact, there are so many people who would never consider working for themselves that there is a long-held belief that there is more security in working for someone else, than working for yourself. I am here to tell you that it is potentially more risky to work for someone else than it is to work for yourself. Beyond any notion of having more control of your schedule and project destiny, if your income comes from diverse sources, you are more secure working for yourself than if you work for someone else. If you have a single job working for a large company, and that company restructures, or gets bought out, or a recession causes them to cut back, you can lose your job. And there you are with no source of income. If you have multiple smaller jobs for multiple people and one doesn’t work out, you have all of the others.

I’m not saying it’s easy – there’s no falling back on others or blaming someone/something when things go wrong. It’s just you and the quality of your work, and your ability to communicate effectively that keep you afloat. But to me, that’s the *reason* to work for myself. I *like* being invested in what I’m working on. I *like* knowing where it’s going and how it will affect things. I *like* that the buck stops with me. And, I like that I can live wherever I want because my work is location independent….

And out of kindness many people still tell me how risky it is – how if I live somewhere with higher unemployment because it’s more affordable I better have a back-up plan, and how freelancing without face time is a pipe dream. And yes, it’s risky, but not any more risky than staying where I am and not feeling satisfied with my work. And, yes, living somewhere that doesn’t have tremendous job opportunities will make it more difficult to find a job there if that is important, but if I had to find a job working for someone else, why couldn’t I relocate? And, yes, “face time” can be important, but as we move forward, there are better and better ways of creating that connection with people from afar, and it becomes less and less important for us to be in the same room together. Most of the people I’ve done work for I’ve never met.

And while it’s not that important to me to help those who don’t understand, it is important to me to not let their thinking make me doubt myself or my goals. Just because not everyone sees the path to get there, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I started a blog called “Outbox Online” in the year 2000 almost immediately after moving to San Francisco from back East. My plan was never to move to San Francisco, but when the opportunity came up to have a job here, I jumped at the chance & drove across the country with my houseplants in the back seat. Having just left the UK, and with friends there and all over the east coast of the States, I needed a way to keep in touch, and this new “blog” thing seemed like it might be just the thing.

Since I was starting a career as a designer, I used my then-blog as a playground for new ideas. I changed the design and layout sometimes as often as once a week, and pretty soon other people were asking me to design layouts for them. Then I met Catie. Catie had a greeting card business, and she wanted an online storefront, and she wanted me to design and code it for her. I had never done anything beyond html with a little CSS and javascript, but I jumped into the project and taught myself how to make a shopping cart. Thankfully, there are wonderful (and cheap) outsourcing solutions for that now, as my biggest lesson was that the kind of work involved in creating a shopping cart from scratch wasn’t really my cup of tea.

Catie was my first official (wonderful) paid client, and since then I’ve taken on more and more projects, and am working towards doing freelance design fulltime. I still work on Catie’s site, and am thankful to call her a great friend.

Transitioning from the regularity of a well-paid fulltime gig, to the uncertainty and irregularity of a freelance career is a huge undertaking. One that requires lots of planning and preparation, courage, organization, and smarts. This blog will be about that transition (and beyond). Beyond doing various web design & development projects, I plan to create and market print, ceramic and multimedia art items, and so it will also be about balancing my creativity, and creating a working life.

I’m married to *the* Graeme McMillan. We live in Portland, OR with our cat, Luna & two papillon pups, Gus & Ernie.