The Freelance Life vs the Employee Life Part I: The Benefits

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Since coming back to the US last year after three-plus years of living abroad, I noticed a lot of things had changed.  And one of those things was the people around me.

More specifically, I noticed a lot of my friends complaining about their jobs.  They talk about problems with their bosses, suffering through boring meetings, dealing with checked-out coworkers, and even worrying about layoffs.  My friends who work for big companies in particular talk about things like salary negotiations and jumping ship to make more money at a different company.  They also talk about retirement like it’s the end of a long, harrowing journey where their work will finally be over.

These are all things I don’t deal with in my own work, so I often feel left out of these conversations with little to add.

That’s why I wanted to write this post about what makes a Freelance Life different from a Regular Employee Life.  I’m less interested in technical details like taxes, getting paid, and how freelance workers get jobs, and more in the mental experiences that separate regular employees from freelance creative workers like me Continue reading »

How to Get the Most Out of a Creative Work Break

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I’m at an odd point in my work routine, and thought I’d reflect on why.

On Wednesday, March 1st, I finished Draft 3 of my Secret New Novel, which I started in January and have been working on four days a week (give or take) ever since.  This development came after finishing Draft 1 in August and Draft 2 in December, which means I’ve been working continuously on this novel for almost a full year.

I want to let Draft 3 sit a bit before diving back in, so part of my work plan for March involves pausing active novel revisions so I can type up the revisions I’ve already made on to the computer, which I estimate to be a 30-35 hour job.  Most of the heavy revisions were in the opening chapters (which thus take longer to retype), and now that those are over with, I’ve settled into a routine of typing out two chapters a day with the goal of finishing by March 17th.

However, typing is different from revising: I like to do it at the end of the workday while listening to music, and it requires a LOT less mental energy than sitting down to actively edit a draft.  This means that while I still have a big typing project to work on (in addition to all the other things on my backlog list!), the type of work I’m doing has changed significantly Continue reading »

Can Commuting Help You De-Stress?

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One of my all-time favorite blog posts is about how much I hate commuting—both because of the cost of the gas and the time spent on the road that basically counts as unpaid worktime.  I felt this most painfully back in 2011, when I was working an office job and driving 46 miles per day round trip.  When I did the math, I found this was costing me $33.50 in gas per week, which came out to 84 cents per hour, or 7% of my total paycheck.  Yikes!

There was also the matter of time: because I was going in early to beat rush hour, my 8 hour workday turned into a 9.5 hour day total, adding an extra 7.5 hours per week that I could have spent on other things.  Double yikes!

Though I’ve also spent time commuting by train and bike, the experience made me think more about where my time and money were going, and how much more efficient it would be if I didn’t have to spend so much of both on commuting.

Though I wrote this post back in 2016, in the post-pandemic age, I and a lot of other people work from home and don’t have to commute at all.  This has given me a lot more time during my workweek while also drastically lowering how much I spend on gas, which should mean Continue reading »

February 2023 Novel Update: Making a Plan, Getting It Done…

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It’s been a while since I updated you on my Secret New Novel progress, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hard at work.

Back in December I reached a crucial point with my novel: I finished the Second Draft that I started back in August.  The Second Draft solved a LOT of the problems that were plaguing the First Draft, which was really rough and full of holes.  The Second Draft, in contrast, eliminated some unnecessary scenes, fleshed out a lot of vague ideas, and ironed out some major issues that made the rough First Draft, well, rough.

After finishing the Second Draft I took a two-week break for Christmas and New Years, which I also spent getting caught up on miscellaneous projects, tasks, and cleaning.  This was also important because it gave me some space away from the novel and helped me come back to it in January with a fresh perspective.

And that fresh perspective was incredibly helpful. Continue reading »

Doing More With Video as a Creative Person

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I think a lot about some advice I got from the Youtuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst during our Day Job interview: Everyone in a creative field should be using Youtube, because whatever you’re doing, it can only help you build your platform.

There’s a lot of truth to this.  On one level, people watch a lot of YouTube—like, billions of people watching billions of videos racking up zillions of views.  The YouTube algorithm also drives viewers to keep watching, to check out new YouTubers, and to watch videos related to what they’ve already seen.  So, not only is YouTube a HUGE outlet for sharing your work, but it can also help you reach people in new ways that can potentially be fun and natural.

Plus, YouTube advertising is like, an enormous industry that helps creators earn real, folding money, if that’s the direction you’re headed in.

On my end, though, I want to be a writer, not a YouTuber, so a big part of me doesn’t want to get wrapped up in the process of prepping, filming, editing, and hyping videos all the time, since I’m already busy enough as it is.

This begs a really important question: Is there a way for creative people to do more with internet video without it becoming their main focus? Continue reading »

Working Out of the House Can Improve Your Mood

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I’m writing this from a coffee shop in my town where I sometimes go to do work in the afternoons. For the price of a small (or sometimes large) drink, I can grab a table, set up my laptop, and work on editing, emails, miscellaneous tasks, or even this blog, like I’m doing right now.  Sometimes it’s crowded, but usually it’s not, so I can work in a relatively quiet atmosphere.

But an ideal workspace for me is about more than just quiet: sometimes I like being around other people, and I need to change up my surroundings to freshen my outlook.

I wrote about this in an earlier post about working in family restaurants in Japan, but for me, spending so much time working from home at the same desk in the same surroundings day after day can start to feel repetitious: I love my workspace, but sometimes I want to get out and work somewhere new. 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 »

To Work or Not to Work: The Eternal Weekend Question

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I’m writing this post on Saturday (yeah, I tend to schedule these posts in advance, EPIC SHOCK), where I woke up at my usual time, made breakfast, wrote out a to-do list, and sat down to finish a lot of things I didn’t quite have time for this week, including drafting this post.

Now, just to be clear, I don’t normally work a standard day on the weekend.  Usually I use my weekends for seeing friends, reading, doing physical chores, and in general, relaxing and de-stressing from my creative and editing work to put me in a refreshed state of mind for the week.

The problem is, though, that some weeks things get really busy, and taking an entire two days off for a weekend can be incredibly refreshing…but also leave me scrambling with a SUPER busy week where I’m rushing to not only finish the usual things I have to do, but all the things I wanted to do the previous week but didn’t.

And that SUCKS Continue reading »

A Short Reminder About What It Means to Prioritize Your Creative Work

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Sometimes I get stressed, worried, confused, or preoccupied with things that aren’t my creative work.  Or, I waste a lot of time that I could be using for creative work doing….things that aren’t creative work.

That’s because I often forget that doing creative work means prioritizing creative work over other things.

To be clear, I’m not talking about essential functions like food, sleep, or staying healthy.  I’m also not talking about maintaining relationships with friends, family, or significant others, which can bring us fulfillment in very important ways.

No, I’m talking about other things. Things that matter less than your creative work.

One trap I often fall into is thinking about things I’d like to have because because the people around me have them.  Or, I think too much about the life I’m “supposed” to have, rather than Continue reading »

Creative Communities Are REALLY Important

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A lot of creative people harbor this myth of the artist who works alone (usually in an attic or secret studio someplace), slaving away at their life’s masterwork in secret.  “This will be my Great American Novel when it’s finished!” they might cry, or “I’ll show my paintings to the public when they’re ready!”

Here’s the thing, though: while a lot of artists definitely work alone (hell, I wrote an entire novel about this idea), rarely do they work in isolation.

That’s because, for a lot of creative people, while the actual creation process takes place alone (the writing, the painting, the composing, etc.), they still have communities of other creative people they can engage with 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 »

Feeling Overwhelmed? Make an Emergency To-Do List!

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When I was in middle school, every once in a while I found myself home on a weekend with too many things to do: I had homework to finish, a school project to start, chores to do, my own projects to organize, and probably a phone call or two to make and a letter to mail.  I used to worry about getting all of these things done and would tackle them haphazardly, doing whichever one seemed most urgent, or that I felt like doing at a given moment.

Then I discovered To-Do lists, and everything changed.

Instead of dashing around throughout the day, I’d take a scrap of paper about 5½ inches by 4¼ inches (my family used to tear used pieces of paper into quarters, then use the blank side as notepads) and write down all the things I wanted to do that day, in the approximate order I wanted to do them in.  I felt relieved getting all of those tasks out of my head so I didn’t have to think about them anymore, but more importantly, having the list in hand gave me a tangible plan for making my way through the maze of a day when I had so many varied things to do.

Now I’m an adult who also has a lot of varied things to do: some writing-related, some business-related, some housework-related, and some random things Continue reading »