What Movie Reminds You of Your Freelance Business?

Sparkplugging is starting a new tradition called ‘Spark an Idea Thursday’.  Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers.  We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog!  If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

When I prepared to write this post, I had a hard time picking just one movie to use. There are so many choices, and for a writer, actually being “assigned” to write an analogy is like the ice cream truck stopping at your house, the driver coming to the door, and finding out that Drumsticks are on a 100% off special today. OK, maybe not that great, but still pretty cool.

I started out thinking I’d use Jerry McGuire. After all, the main characters in that movie really followed their beliefs. Tom Cruise believed in doing business a different way, Renee Zellwiger believed in Jerry’s vision, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. believed in himself. But, it felt too obvious after spawning the phrase “Show me the money!” (Also, “You complete me” pretty much makes me gag.)

Then I thought, well, what about my favorite movie, Lady Jane? It’s all about how these two young people use their unwanted power for benevolent purposes. Sounds good until you consider a) I’m probably the only person around here whose seen it (rent it, seriously) and b) um, it’s not got a very happy ending (keep a box of tissues nearby).

I also considered:

• The Goonies (“Goonies never say die!”)
• The Princess Bride (OK, I can make some pretty good arguments for this one, including using words when you don’t know what they mean.)
• The Wizard of Oz (I’m sure there’s something to be said about how freelancing can take your life from black and white to Technicolor.)

But, in the end, I decided to go with the Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock/Dennis Hopper “classic” movie, Speed. Because it pretty accurately reflects my last two weeks in freelancing.  Ready for a big, fat analogy?

OK, so I’m admiting a lot here, but this is sort of what my last two weeks have looked like:
You step on a bus thinking it’s going to be an ordinary day. The next thing you know, some crazy person has hijacked the bus without even being on board.
-or-
You sit down to work on a nice little project you’ve been assigned, only to find out that the client—who lives across country but has your cell phone number—is totally freaking nuts.

The hijacker rigs the bus to blow up if you go below highway speeds.
-or-
Everything Crazy Client needs from you is marked “Urgent!” and you feel like you just can’t let him down. After all, you have a reputation to uphold, and you kind of feel for him.

The bus ends up driving in big circles on an airport tarmac while everyone else finds a way to safely jump ship.
-or-
The client asks for endless revisions, you feel like you’ll never get through it, and anyone who hears you complain says you should “just dump” the client.

I think there was something about the bus crashing into a subway and Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves making out in the rubble.
-or-
Since I’m still in the thick of this thing, it’s hard to see how the happy ending part is going to come about, although I suspect the “rubble” thing might be accurate.

So, if you had to compare your freelance business with a movie, which one would it be? Leave us a comment, or write about it on your own blog…Really, we’re dying of curiosity. Don’t leave us hanging.