Posts with the freelance tag

Barris Beat

Home is where the work is

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Alex Barris – my father and mentor – had a sign over his desk to inspire him to write.

The sign always hung in my father’s office, right over the spot where he worked. That happened to be just above his typewriter (in a time before computers) where Dad pumped out many millions of words in a life-long writing career. But Dad had installed this sign over his work space for those days at his office in the basement of our house when maybe the spirit to actually put fingers on keys occasionally eluded him or when he periodically felt unmotivated.

“There’s only one way to become a writer,” the sign read, “by applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”

My father, Alex Barris, wrote probably a thousand radio, television and movie scripts, hundreds of columns for newspapers and periodicals, scores of screenplays and at least half a dozen books at that typewriter in his basement office. And I frankly doubt that he ever needed encouragement, coaxing or cajoling to put the seat of his pants on the seat of his chair. (more…)

Barris Beat

Precarious or preferred?

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
1930 Lewis Hine photograph depicting "skywalkers," steelworkers atop Empire State Building, is often used to symbolize "precarious work."
1930 Lewis Hine photograph – depicting “skywalkers,” steelworkers atop Empire State Building – is often used to symbolize “precarious work.”

We hadn’t seen each other in awhile. We stopped to catch up. My friend told me it had been a tough summer. His father had passed. He’d had to put a favourite pet down. So, his work as an artist had suffered. We’re about the same age and we talked about whether the idea of stopping work or even retirement had entered his thinking. He pointed out, while it might be appropriate and healthy to slow down or even retire, that it wasn’t feasible.

“I can’t just decide to stop working,” he said. “Working artists can’t afford to do that.”

We talked a while about what retirement might look like for him. He sensed that he might do more work of his own choosing, as opposed to the work that customers needed or wanted done. But ultimately we came back to the kind of work life he experiences.

“Freelance work never stops,” he said. (more…)