Getting Back on Track After Being Sick…

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For the past few years I’ve found myself getting a nasty sinus cold around the first week of April—two years ago after a long day of exploring a cherry blossom park in Joetsu, Japan, and last year when I was preparing the pre-orders for MFA Thesis Novel.  And this year, the same thing happened again.

I’d been getting a bit of a sore throat in the mornings and at night for a week or so, but it never lasted long.  Last Wednesday, though, I found myself with a bad runny nose that got worse throughout the day, and after crashing hard that night, I woke up the next day too tired to do much of anything.

I write about this in detail not because I want to share a play-by-play of being sick (because not only is that gross, but it’s unnecessary storytelling-wise), but to emphasize that sickesses come up unexpectedly, often at bad times when we have other things going on, creating real repercussions for how we deal with them.  Charging forward with your regular routine even when you’re sick is rarely if ever a good choice: not only will you not be at your best and likely make mistakes, Continue reading »

Here’s What I Got Done in 2022

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So I’ll admit, I’m a little behind on the blogging game: after taking some time off from writing and creative work for Christmas and New Years, I returned to But I Also Have a Day Job last week to write about my New Years Resolutions.

Thinking about the coming year also got me reflecting on the previous year and what I’ve been getting done (I made a similar post for what I got done in 2021 too).  In a lot of ways, 2022 was my biggest year ever as a writer, both in terms of accomplishments, and making positive life changes.  However, it’s easy for me to forget that when I’m busy or having a stressful time, which is why in this post I decided to list out my accomplishments for 2022.

In total, that list came out to 8 different accomplishments—and as much as I love Top Ten Lists in the David Letterman sense, it didn’t seem right to force two more in just for the sake of aesthetics.  It also didn’t feel right to put these accomplishments in order of importance, so instead I’ve listed them out chronologically to form a mini-story of what my creative work year looked like.

So without further ado, here’s what I got done in 2022… Continue reading »

2023 New Year’s Resolutions!!

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Happy (late) New Year, all.  I spent most of December working through a pretty big miasma of, well, stuff.

Biggest of this was finishing the Second Draft of my Secret New Novel, though I also kept busy with some bigger editing jobs, personal projects, and a whole load of Christmas shopping.

All of that combined to burn me out in a pretty big way—I just barely got all of my gifts wrapped in time for Christmas, enjoyed some fun celebrations and holiday gatherings, then spent the last week of 2022 taking it slow, which I very badly needed.

What does taking it slow mean? In my case it meant sleeping in, taking some alone time, and enjoying time with family and friends, in between some light personal and work projects and some much-needed cleaning and organizing.  It wasn’t quite a vacation, since I still did some work, and I even picked up a last minute editing job that a client needed for an early January deadline, even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t be taking on new jobs Continue reading »

December 2022 Novel Update: The Second Draft Home Stretch

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One of the reasons I like posting updates on my Secret New Novel progress is that it keeps me accountable for my own promises. If I make a promise to myself on this blog where people can see it, it makes me take that promise more seriously, so I’m more likely to follow through with it.

That’s what happened last month when I promised to finish my second draft revisions by New Years (or preferably Christmas!) so I can start 2023 off with a fresh mindset on the third draft.

Despite my best efforts, the past few weeks have been really busy, but I’ve been maintaining a steady pace of working on my Secret New Novel draft four mornings a week, with ZERO days missed in December. That’s a new personal monthly best, and I think having the firm end-of-the-year deadline has really helped me get there.

Two other things have also really helped my writing progress this month. One is of course that for Continue reading »

Should You Shift Your Sleep Schedule with Daylight Savings Time?

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Yesterday was Daylight Savings Time, where everyone in the US turns back their clocks an hour and reverts to Standard Time. While recent bills passed by both the Senate and numerous states suggest it’s likely that our years of changing the clocks are numbered, the tradition is here to stay for at least a while longer. Meanwhile, changing the clocks has gotten me thinking about my sleep schedule, and what sleep habits are best for me as a creative person who makes his own work schedule.

Quick rewind: I spend kind of a lot of time talking about sleep on this blog.  One of my most popular posts chronicles what happened when I went to work on two hours of sleep (Spoilers: It sucked), and more recently I’ve realized that spending the time it takes to get enough sleep is a great investment if it means I can use my remaining time productively.

More importantly, when I consider what kind of daily schedule I want to keep, first and foremost is the idea of when I’d like to be getting up and when I’d like to be going to bed Continue reading »

Reflections on Six Years of Blogging

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Hard to believe that I started working on the But I Also Have a Day Job blog six (!) years ago this week.  At this time in 2016 I was testing designs and playing with WordPress formatting while I drafted the very first posts on Day Job Basics, and from there, it was off to the races.

This blog represented a really big step for me: back in 2016, I’d finished grad school, was trying to sell one novel and finish another, and made a major life change by moving out of Nebraska, where I’d gone to grad school and stayed an extra year working in the Agriculture department.

I knew I had to start taking my writing more seriously and figuring out my next steps, and the But I Also Have a Day Job blog was a HUGE step in clarifying the direction I wanted to take my creative work and my life in general.  Before this blog, I didn’t have much of an online presence at all, had very little published work, and it felt like I was just barely starting out.

Fast forward to six years later, and I’m…pretty satisfied with how how far I’ve come.  I haven’t done as much as I’ve liked, but I’m overall Continue reading »

I Finished My Secret New Novel Rough Draft!!!!!!

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The title says it all—last Wednesday at approximately 12:45pm Eastern Daylight time, I, Ian M. Rogers, finished the rough draft of the Secret New Novel I started 20 months ago.

The moment was surprisingly anticlimactic—as in, I wrote THE END, typed out a few notes for later, then turned off the computer and ate lunch.  Writing that last line felt really, REALLY good, but at the same time, in the words of Princess Leia, it’s not over yet, and I’ve got a lot of revising to do.

In the grand scheme, though, the moment was pretty significant.  For me, getting the damned thing down on the computer is the hardest part, and takes the most mental energy.  It’s often when I feel the most intimidated, procrastinate the most, and in general feel the most stress about the writing process Continue reading »

I Made a Kick-Ass New Website!!! (and Here’s Why!)

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(I mean, a kick-ass new website besides this one, of course ;-)

ianmrogersauthor.com has been online for a few weeks, first in a “Coming Soon!” capacity, but more recently in more substantial form as I added pages and links.  I’m really happy with how it’s come out, people seem to like it, and I can always go back and makes changes later.

I wanted the new author website to have a cleaner, sleeker feel than But I Also Have a Day Job (which I intentionally designed to look like a blog from the late 2000s) and be easier to navigate, ESPECIALLY on a phone.  The plan is to keep the new website as a separate entity from BIAHADJ (which I assure you isn’t going anywhere!) as a way of highlighting both MFA Thesis Novel and my editing work (which I’m doing more of now!).

When people who don’t know me look me up, I’d like the new website to make a better first impression and be a bit cleaner around the edges while still retaining my intentional overuse of words like “awesome” and “totally.”

I also wrote a short humor piece especially for the website: Imaginary Hate Mail I’ve Received About MFA Thesis Novel.  I wanted a fun, absurd piece that was a spin-off of the novel Continue reading »

April 2022 Novel Update: My Writing Hiatus is Almost Over…

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As many of you know, it has NOT been a good few months for writing…

When I last checked in on my novel progress back in November, I was facing an avalanche of pressures at my university teaching job in Japan, not to mention a busy few weeks working with Vine Leaves Press getting MFA Thesis Novel ready for publication.  For all of November to December I felt overworked, exhausted, and in a disconnected state of mind.

Then in January and February I spent a LOT of time prepping for my big move from Japan back to the States—mailing boxes home, cleaning out my apartment, and doing a whole lot of packing…which then turned into a whole lot of unpacking, plus dealing with jet lag and social readjustment when I got back to New Hampshire.

March and April, meanwhile, were REALLY big months for MFA Thesis Novel as I set up the pre-order and prepared for the novel launch.  This was a HUGE project Continue reading »

MFA Thesis Novel Launch Party Recap!

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MFA Thesis Novel was released last Tuesday (wooooooooo!), though for me, the real release day felt like last Saturday, when I held the novel launch party at Main Street BookEnds in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire.

This was a BIG day for me—as in, I wanted it to be as big as I could make it.  It was also my second time doing a reading at BookEnds (the first was back in 2019 when I released Eikaiwa Bums), and because this reading was for an actual novel, I wanted it to be even better.

 

Preparing

I did a fair amount of promotion for the event beforehand: besides getting it up on the BookEnds website, I put up flyers around town, mentioned it in some blog posts, sent out a message on my email list, made a Facebook event, sent it to the town email newsletter, and Continue reading »

The MFA Thesis Novel Pre-Order is Done!!!

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MFA Thesis Novel launches TOMORROW (!!!) and I spent most of last week shipping out copies from the Special Pre-Order period.  I was no stranger to bulk mailings from the Art Swap days, but this was my first time tackling a mailing this big.

After the pre-order period I crunched some numbers and realized that with all the pre-orders, copies I’d need for future events, and probable future webstore purchases, it made sense to order 250 books and get an extra 10% bulk discount on top of the regular discount.

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Does Getting Enough Sleep Every Night Help You Stay Focused?

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Yes, yes it does.

I’ve been back from Japan for nearly two months now (!), and I’ve been getting adjusted to my Self-Directed Work Schedule, where instead of having a Day Job, I plan my own time and work on my own projects at my own pace.  As of now, my main focus has been preparing for the release of MFA Thesis Novel, working on my freelance editing jobs with different clients, and getting back into a writing groove with my new novel, which has been unfortunately stalled for the past few months (. . .).

One of my big worries about not having the structure of a Day Job to guide me through the week was that working from home without external motivation would cause me to get distracted, start feeling like my work wasn’t taking me anywhere, or even get depressed.
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