If you are good at finding work then you should
start your own company - from the sound of it,
you're already halfway there (spotty pay for
continuous work, is pretty much like startup
phase is it not?).
Have a good look at your employment documents
and see what you may be barred from, in the area
of taking the potential clients you contact for your
own business rather than your employer. It seems
to me that if you find these contacts for yourself
and you develop that relationship on your own time
and facilities, that you owe the present employer
nothing. But employers always demand that you
sign over things to which they are not really entitled,
because they wrote the paper.
However, you would have to step up your game.
You can't just tell them you "know some stuff".
You will have to provide a value proposition
backed by some credibility-demonstrating
work product, papers & patents, "creative
writing"
and so on. If you depend on the
customer (including your employer at present)
to recognize and fairly reward value on their own
you will have plenty of company in the "circular
waiting room for resumes" (i.e. waste basket).
Now if you can "sell yourself" as a contractor to
a company, you will find it simple to do the same
for an employee position (perhaps even a better
one, because you must demonstrate broader
skills and deliver an impression that you are
worth more than one hand on a keyboard and
one on a mouse, doing just what you're told).