#IWSG Starting full-time writing

 

 

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For my entire writing career, I have worked a full-time day job alongside my almost full-time writing job.

That ends Dec 30^th, 2020.

 I’ve taken an early retirement buyout from the day job and will be working full-time as a writer starting Jan 2, 2021 (yeah, need a few days to recover 😉).

Now this doesn’t mean I’m retiring retiring…more like a graduation to full time writer (and since the day job was at a college—graduation is fitting).

I am very motivated and love telling stories. I’m also extremely lazy. LOL. This means I need a schedule in place to reach my goals. Here’s what I have so far:

·         1) Work five days a week, 40 hours. The days off can fluctuate, but they need to be there to keep me working during those 40 hours.

·         2) First month, keep a spreadsheet of time in, time out, lunch, and results for the day. I haven’t had to clock in for probably 20 years—so this will be odd. BUT again, building the habit of a regular workday.

·         3) See above—make sure to LEAVE the desk for lunch time.

·        4)  Building my daily word count to what I want to be hitting regularly. Each week in January the daily goals increase. Obviously, if I have a project in editing, the word count will differ.

·         5) Daily walks and stretching. Getting outside in the yard for part of lunch.

·         6) Focus on setting up my office and the rest of the house in such a way that it keeps me working.

·         7) Naps if needed. This was suggested on another group and I like it.

·        8)  Find other creative outlets.  At a writing conference last year there was a great panel on writer burn out. One of the things brought up was that when your “creative outlet” aka writing, becomes your primary job, it loses  ability to relax you. The former stress reliever is now a stressor. You’re still being creative—obviously—but the psychological assist it can give is reduced. Soooo, cooking, coloring, who knows maybe knitting, will come into my life.

·        9)  Holidays are mostly days off. I reserve the right to work during part of a holiday if I’m on a deadline.

·        10) Spreadsheet the heck out of my book release plan.

·         11) Social media and marketing will be broken up so each of the five days has a portion of it assigned to them.

That’s what I have so far—any of you full-time, self-employed folks have additional things that work?

Happy Insecure Writing Day!!