This Spring, I'll be leaving my role as Operations Director at Macrobert Arts Centre, and taking a new step into freelance life. It's the realisation of a long-held aspiration to work more flexibility and independently, and to be able to dedicate real time to the issues and projects that I care most about. It's an opportunity to work with more amazing people and projects and to explore some new adventures, as well as creating a different kind of lifestyle - with plenty of space for more freedom and fun.
I am already learning a lot - about the sense of exposure writing 'I' instead of 'we', about the technicalities of tender applications, about how to price your time. About the ratio of applications to successes, and about embracing the ability to say no to things you could do, but don't want to. And about finance, and tax, and VAT. It's varied, and challenging, and scary. And really, really exciting.
I'm enormously fortunate to be surrounded by women who are blazing this kind of trail, and whose openness about the ups and downs of freelance life have been a real inspiration on this journey. Stella Duffy brings her passion and energy to the glorious range of projects she leads, my former colleague Lindsey at Yellow Bird Digital blogs about building a business based on authenticity, kindness, fairness and respect, and Sandy Thomson of Poorboy blazes through Twitter - championing others, sharing knowledge, and calling out nonsense and injustice wherever she sees it. I'll do my best to follow their lead.
So, new year - new start. Here's to 2020, and to new adventures...
(Image: Highland Warrior, Loch Leven, Balquhidder).