Brexit, the most important negotiations for the United Kingdom in a generation, and freelancing have nothing in common, right? Wrong! There are many similarities that freelancers will have noticed whilst watching Britain’s exit from the European Union, but there are also many competencies that freelancers could teach the negotiators on both sides. Here are my top 5 negotiating skills that politicians could learn from freelancers to make the Brexit negotiations just a little less frustrating.

Freelance Advice. It's everywhere. Blogs, sites, books, people. Everyone is offering their 2 cents when it comes to freelance advice. Can you remember the moment you thought ‘I know, I think I’ll become a freelancer’?. I’d imagine a feeling of liberation coursed through your entire body. Then there is the moment that feeling of excitement turns to reality. Now is the time to start planning.

Do you consider yourself to be a creative or business person? Can you be both? The relationship between art and business has always been tenuous - many artists see what they do as an endeavour of the spirit rather than a means for capital gain and as a result, expressions such as ‘sell out’ are all too often chucked around.

The idea of spending money on a mentor, particularly when starting out or freelancing part-time may seem like the last thing on your shopping list but it may just be the one investment that saves you the most money in your career.

The idea of not setting an alarm in the morning and working in my dressing gown all day really aided in my decision to become a freelancer. But when my workload went from eight to nine to ten hour days and I was dragged from pillar to post by new clients wanting to meet in person before working with me, I soon realised that freelancing wasn’t going to be such a breeze. And there’s plenty of other misconceptions to being a freelancer, here are a few you may have encountered:

Most of my friends think I wake up at noon, tinker on the laptop for an hour before sauntering down to my local cafe for a Skinny Cappuccino. They are of the mind that the most stressful part of my day is when a splash of Almond milk finds its way onto my copy of Stylist magazine. When I tell them I clocked in over 80 hours this week and haven’t had a weekend since last year, I am met with a raised eyebrow.

What is the difference between an Editorial Shoot and Commercial Shoot? We get asked this question a lot and, although many of you may have heard the term or even shot in one or both formats, there is still plenty of confusion around the terminology, format, and outcome. Here's the lowdown.

In the era of #MeToo, we are all becoming more aware and empathetic of sexual harassment in the workplace. A recently published personal anecdote detailed the horrific story of one female freelance journalist who experienced being sexually harassed by a famous man while attempting to interview him at his flat. The incident made her realise that “most (women) do not take legal action,” and she puts this down to “cost and lack of evidence” as well as the “he said, she said” aspect that accompanies cases that “often take place behind closed doors.”