Plan B From Utter Desperation

The eminently sensible man who is my father always used to ask me when I was trying to get acting work if I had a Plan B. Of course I didn’t. Plan Bs were for people whose Plan As weren’t going to work. My Plan A was to become a famous actor and that was always going to happen. If I wasn’t in rehab by the time I was 30, then things had gone terribly wrong.

My Plan A failed. Don’t tell my father, though. He doesn’t know I’m in Spain; he thinks I’m in Hollywood. I told him I had a little plastic surgery and changed my name to Ewan McGregor.

Actually, as my acting career looked ever less likely to succeed, I did develop a Plan B: to become a rich and successful novelist. My father didn’t smile much at that, either. An actor having writing as a Plan B is like jumping out of a plane, finding your parachute won’t open, and only having a Wal-Mart carrier bag as a back-up.

Freelance writers should have a Plan B. That’s not a Plan Z; you know, that crappy job you take to support yourself while building your fantastic writing career that often ends up being your career. I’ve had plenty of those, believe me.

A proper Plan B involves identifying an alternative career that you could move into if freelance writing fails to deliver. It may be something you previously trained in but never pursued. It may mean you have to go off and train up in something new. Preferably, it should be something you might find vaguely interesting so that the chasm of disappointment between your Plan A and your Plan B is not so deep that you fall in and can never climb out.

Of course, in today’s economic climate, there aren’t many people who have no need of a Plan B. A totally safe job is a rarity. Freelance writers and others of their artistic ilk are not alone in requiring an exit strategy.

BUT … the downside of a Plan B for a freelance writer is that you can give up too soon. It’s a tough profession and it takes a lot of time and effort (and usually but not always skill) to really succeed. We’re talking years rather than months. Having a Plan B, it can be tempting to sidle off and set it in motion when times are tough, and – initially at least – they will be.

The closest I ever came to a Plan B was teaching. It was a monumental decision for me to embark on a regular, full-time career. In my mind, it signalled the end of my artistic hopes.

Good God, what was I thinking? I knew I’d hate it; I can’t stand schoolchildren.

I quickly got my HGV licences and started driving artics (big rigs) around the country. But I was an agency driver, hauling for whoever paid me, and that meant it was another Plan Z. I could drop it any time. Hello again, Plan A.

What I do now came about almost by accident – a who-you-know not what-you-know situation. An email to an old friend, and one that, unbeknown to me, was perfectly timed.

I am now in the sort of location I envisaged all those years ago: living in the sun by the beach. It’s not my original Plan A, where A stands for Acting or Author. I’m not rich and famous and I’m not in Hollywood, but neither am I in rehab. It’s not worked out too badly.

The point is this: It would never have happened if I’d had a workable Plan B twenty years ago. My reluctance to embrace a Plan B, while acting or writing, kept me free just long enough to re-encounter the person who set me on my current path.

If freelance writing is your Plan A, having a Plan B is important. Just remember that Plan A needs more than a dipped-in toe to work. You need to jump right in and then swim so far out that you leave Plan B out of sight on the shore. You’ll be scared, the sharks will circle, you’ll struggle to stay afloat, you’ll curse your stupidity for not staying in a safe place, but the longer you’re out there, the more likely it is that your ship will steam by.