sarahcmcooper

I live in the UK, and things here are not super - but not the worst either. Electricity and gas prices are sky high, and our government is far too incompetent to provide the level of support the country needs to tackle the cost of living crisis we are experiencing. They created a mini budget which completely tanked the £ worldwide, and has put us in a really unsure position. Food prices are rises, people can't get mortgages... I don't know where it ends. There is talk of potential scheduled blackouts over winter this year. But day to day at least we are safe. I live in the very north of the UK and daily life here hasn't changed much. It's cold, we are tough and hardy people who will get on with it. So it's nothing compared to what the Ukrainians are going through.

This is a fantastic topic! For me, I only started concentrating on freelancing in March this year. Although I have years of writing experience behind me. So here are my goals for the next six months: 1. Get to Level One Seller (3 days to go and I should be there) 2. Get to Level Two Seller (fingers crossed!) 3. Earn a five figure sum for freelancing total for the year. 4. Get 5,000 followers on Twitter (currently at 1100) 5. Get 10,000 followers on Tiktok (currently at 4500) 6. Make £500 on Amazon KDP (a marginal amount really, but still a goal for me) That's it! Or at least that's all I can think of.

Tapadh leat! (Thank you in Scots Gaelic)

I know English fluently - first language. And I also speak a little Scots Gaelic, Scots language, Shetland dialect. I can speak conversational French, and while I'm definitely far from fluent in German, I can understand enough to get by!

What a story @zeus777! That must have been quite the experience, I'm not sure I would have liked to be so stuck in the middle like that. But I'm sure a part of me would have loved the drama too! Thanks for sharing.

Oh I was just kidding, I'm the same as you, I hate making phone calls. Part of the reason I love being a writing freelancer is that there are very little phone calls and video calls required. It's right up my street! I love that saying, you're completely right!

Oh yeah for sure! Anyone who is capable of showing they have excellent organisational skills is a good hire. I had to have so many conversations about why it was appropriate to not tell all the details. But no, he seemed to want to share. Oh gee, I love that. A plane ticket! Fair enough if they were going to fund the ticket, but if not then no dice. I'm lucky to be more particular too. I get a lot of homework requests and those are always immediately denied. Go earn your own degree. Oh wow, someone paid you to do that? That's so cool. Maybe I need to set up a Fiverr gig "I will make phone calls for you", wonder how many people would bite! Now this is incredible. I'd love to do that! Poor guy though, at least he was a good sport and followed through. Do you think they maybe thought that the pictures would come out looking different? I don't get why you'd pay all that money... for that. You've done some very cool things! I love the first experience of a business too! Clearly you had an eye for it. I hope to have some fun stories to tell like that in a few years time. I do have some great stories about journalism, but not much else.

I thought this was a question that should get some funny answers! I'm looking for the whackiest job you've ever had, or the weirdest client you've dealt with. Maybe the oddest request? For me, I used to help people create CVs and resumes, and I had one guy who was the chairman of his local VLARPing group. VLARP stands for Vampire Live Action Role Playing. I understand being the chairman of an organisation is a positive to put on your CV, but I had lengthy discussions over the fact that it could put future employers off because of the type of hobby (I've worked in recruitment, I know how quickly people can go off a resume or a CV). The best part was, one of the women I used to work with in recruitment contacted me because she was an interviewing for a job and got him as a candidate. She told me that during the interview when he said 'role playing' she immediately assumed he meant that they did interview techniques and roleplayed as part of that (it was her only experience of roleplaying before then) and then he went into a lengthy 15 minute discussion about the Vampire Society they had, and what it was all set up as. She couldn't stop laughing while she was on the phone. He gave her their website, and we went on and the website was VERY sexually oriented... I still wonder if he ever got a job, and where.

Oooh I really like the sound of Stranded Deep! I might play that next. Recently I've been playing Days Gone, and on my list to play are Red Dead Redemption II, and Elden Ring. Desperate to try Elden Ring but I know if I start playing I probably won't stop.

This hair looks absolutely incredible! The wildest I went was black with white and pink thin streaks through - it was lovely though. I wish I could go back to it but I have really fine hair and dye makes it really brittle!

Scotland!