Working like a Dog!

So it's the party season and that time of year when everyone is looking forward to the days when they don't have to go into the office and the holidays are looming.

Except of course if you're a freelancer. As a freelancer holidays can sometimes be forced upon us.

I did what looks like my last piece of work until next year on Friday. A days filming down in Brighton. Uneventful enough within itself, and yet it was filled with an impending sense of doom that it will be over three weeks before I do any paid work again.

It's early this year. Normally my last day at work before Christmas is sometimes in the week leading up to the 22nd or so, but this year my work schedule has brought an early bath and now the days are stretching out in front of me with the prospect of nothing much to do except Christmas shopping, house work, and planning for our production of "Green Forms" in January.

I can hear some of you sighing and saying what a delicious prospect. Almost a month of Christmas holidays! And yet of course it's not. For the freelancer work doesn't stop just because you're not out there on a job. You have to focus your efforts into getting more work. I have always had a maxim taught to me by a tutor at drama school that on each and every day you should do one thing that might lead to work and then get on with living your life. Otherwise you die as a person. And yet of course if you don't have any work, do you have a life?

I been busy rereading the play "Green Forms" this week by the gorgeous Alan Bennett, and in between laughing out loud I have been posing on this very question. It's at the core of the play's story. Two ladies whose lives are entirely enhanced by the time they spend together in an office. Their work, even though they do as much as they can to avoid doing any, enhances their sense of purpose, and their life.

I find this absolutely simple to understand. When I'm not working I enjoy the first day off. It's great to potter around our home, catch up on things on TV, send some e-mails, and enjoy the peace and quiet. It's still good to do this on the second day although there will start a nagging itch for something to do.

The third day will see me start to wilt visibly. By now I'll have convinced myself that I'll never work again. I will be checking my bank account in trying to work out how I'll scrape by on what's in there, and I will be resisting the temptation, but only just, telephone or e-mail my agent every half hour.

The worst thing about not having any work at this time of year is that it can taint your enjoyment of the festive season. I have known some Christmases in the past which have been endured with the prospect of an entirely work free January. Of course something turns up, something always does, but it's the knowledge of that work that provides the therapy not actually doing it.

It's an oft held belief that the best part of any job is the time between the phone call telling you you've got it and the day that you actually have to start it. Everyone I'm sure knows the story of the psychologist conducting the experiment on various dogs.

He had a large white empty room filled with a pile of bones. First into the room was the mathematician's dog. This dog arranged all the bones into a perfectly balanced algebraic equation. Next into the room was the architect's dog. This dog arranged all the bones into a perfectly pleasing and aesthetically charming structure.

Last into the room came the actor's dog.

He ate all the bones, fucked the other two dogs and asked for the afternoon off!

I'm sure that work will come in 2012. Hopefully it will be a nice blend of fulfilling work, and well paid work. They don't always go together.

Indeed my first project of the New Year will be our play at the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick. I'm enjoying hugely the planning of it. I managed to get a dream cast, and some fabulous creative people to work alongside me in creating a production. It's for a brilliant cause. What more could I want?

A fee?