The hardest word

Yikes. I've just turned down some potentially highly lucrative work in January on the basis that it was in London and I don't want to be always working in London rather than doing stuff here. So now I'm getting the wibbles about whether I should have done it - will I starve? Will it be the last work anyone ever offers me ever? Will I use the time constructively or just end up watching daytime TV? Did I, basically, do completely the wrong thing and make a terrible mistake that I'll regret for ever and ever and possibly even longer?
Every freelance reading this will, no doubt, be nodding along in understanding but for those of you who are still wage slaves, I'll explain: contrary to popular belief, being freelance isn't all about pottering in the garden and tapping out interesting articles about your hobbies, in between flitting from highly-paid part-time contract to highly-paid part-time contract. Well, OK, sometimes it is, but generally most freelances that I've met say yes to any work they're offered (within reason of course - clearly, it doesn't do to get out of bed for less than £100 a day).
This makes things quite difficult because of course most people go freelance because they want more spare time to relax/pursue other projects/work within, say, a 75-mile radius of where they live, but there's always this nagging feeling that if you say no to any work then that's it, you'll starve and die and really bad stuff will happen to your cat.
It didn't help that this is work for RIBA Journal who are good payers, too (don't worry Taxloss and Sundried, I told them to ring you instead).
But the fact remains that if I'd taken the shifts I'd have been in London for pretty much the whole of January and even though I am too skint to buy the lovely pair of fluffy boots that I've been watching on Ebay for the past week, I have to spend some time looking for work in Bristol. I mean, I want to start house-hunting, and I want to start that book I'm always talking about writing, and I want to sleep in my own bed at night and stuff.
I did apply to the chief sub of the local paper yesterday though so I am very proud that I achieved something in between knitting hats and watching Buffy re-runs. I did it all flash by email with PDFs of some of the stuff I've worked on before (it took my ages to get my Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition, the free software I got with Windows XP, to make the PDFs, and a lot of swearing, but I managed it in the end and I'm quite proud of that too) and an email about how great I am. But she'll probably just email back and say the usual guff about using people with newspaper experience.
Now, I know I'm always wittering on on other people's blogs about how you should think positive and not assume that the worst is going to happen, but I have had problems before with persuading people that I'm good at my job because I've mostly worked on trade mags and people who work in other areas of publishing seem to have quite a low opinion of trade mags in general. They all seem to think they're jokes, like the guest publication slot on Have I Got News For You.
Granted, some of them may not be the height of publishing quality, but some of them are very good and it annoys me when people don't give me a chance because of that - not least because I am actually very good at my job and I am certain that anyone who hired me for a shift would want me back again. I've been a chief sub and I know how hard it is to find good people and what a joy it is when you actually find a freelance who's reliable and talented.
Plus, I don't see how there's any difference between subbing hard news or human interest features for a magazine or for a newspaper. So I don't understand why people turn me down because I don't have newspaper experience - but then I've never worked on a paper so maybe there is some subtle difference that I don't see.
Anyway the point of all this is not just to whinge (hey, it's my blog, so suck it up, readers!) but to ask your opinion. If the woman from the paper does say no, should I basically say the above to her? Not in so many words, obviously, but should I just say, 'look, I'm not just blowing my own trumpet, I'm really good, everyone who hires me always wants me back again (which is true), I've been a chief sub myself so I know how many people are out there making a living from freelancing because they're basically too crap to get a full time job, but I'm not one of them, so give me a chance and you won't regret it'?
If you were hiring, would that make you think, what an arrogant woman, or would it make you think, OK, maybe I will ring her referees and ask them about her instead of just dismissing her straight away?
For me, it would be the former, but I generally like people who speak their minds.