How to Take Time Off On Your Own Terms

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One of the best perks about working in Japan was the incredible number of paid national holidays I had: 16 per year to be exact, and they were pretty evenly spaced so that almost every month had one.  Combine that with school vacations and slow periods when classes were out of session, and I had a pretty sweet yearly calendar with a lot of paid time off.

Now fast forward a year: I’m back in the States, where I divide my time between finishing my Secret New Novel and doing freelance editing work to keep the bills paid.  Much of my editing is flexible (as in, I can work on it when I want to), but I also do scheduled video calls with clients where we talk through issues they’re having.  Some weeks, all of this work combined can make for a pretty tight schedule.

This begs a really, really important question: How is someone working a schedule like mine supposed to take time off? Continue reading »

5 Advantages of a Flexible Work Schedule

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A few weeks ago I shared my Awesome Work-From-Home Freelance Writer/Editor schedule and talked about how I structure my workdays in a way that makes sense to me.  Writing in the morning, handling email and admin around midday, and working on editing and marketing in the afternoon has helped me create a really useful workflow that makes me feel comfortable during my workday and get more done.

There are a ton of other advantages to being self-employed, of course: not having to deal with horrible bosses, navigate toxic coworker relationships, deal with pointless Day Job shit, or fight the pressure to care about your company when you really don’t.  Avoiding these downsides is pretty awesome, and it’s helping me feel better about my creative work/paid work balance.

One HUGE advantage, though, is that when you work for yourself, you have a flexible schedule.  That means you can schedule your own work when you want to, as long as it gets done Continue reading »

My Awesome Work-From-Home Writer/Editor Schedule

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Over the years I’ve held a lot of different Day Jobs, all of which required me to be there during set hours.  As a result, I’ve had to schedule my writing and creative work for whatever time I had left over.

This led to some interesting workarounds over the years: for example, I went from working mostly after dinner when I worked in an office to working mostly in the afternoons when I taught in Japan, as well as sneaking in whatever creative work I could during my free periods.

You might remember, though, that before I moved to Japan I spent about three months without working any Day Job at all, and during that time I had free reign over my time as I revised MFA Thesis Novel and edited a writing anthology.  During this time I set my own schedule of working on the novel in the morning when I felt fresh, taking a long break, then doing whatever other email or editing work I had to throughout the late afternoon and evening Continue reading »

How I Handle Bad Writing Days

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Some days are better than others.  Others, though, straight-up suck.

Since May I’ve been on a spurt of working on my Secret New Novel four mornings a week. That’s four days when I get up, eat breakfast, and then dive into the novel until around lunchtime.  On the one hand, this has helped me get a LOT of words down on the page, but it also causes issues on days when I’m Just. Not. Feeling. It.

I wrote about this a few years back in a post about what I do when I don’t feel like working, but I want to reflect on this problem again because I’ve been spending far more hours a week in the creative realm than I was previously.  Because I’m setting myself up to spend more time writing per week, it’s more likely that a Bad Day will fall on a writing day and interfere with my creative process more than it would interfere with, say, my ability to schedule bill payments or or do a repetitive Day Job task.

These problems arise on days when I’m feeling some degree of depressed, but also on days when I haven’t slept well, I’m worried about something, or Continue reading »

Playing Catch-Up All the Time is REALLY Stressful

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In my trusty Schedule Book, I not only keep a column of To-Do list items I plan to finish in the next 1-3 weeks, I also keep a list of tasks that aren’t quite as high priority.  These tend to be things like miscellaneous writing projects, plans to add to my website or organize my writing life, and things I’d like to research for the future.  I also tend to keep personal projects on there: organize these folders, paint that room, email this person I haven’t talked to in far too long, etc.

Sorting out long-term tasks in separate lists is similar to the Bullet Journal system, where people keep a master list of things they want to accomplish, then use that list to narrow down their goals for the week that they feel they can easily get done.  (You might be using a similar system to sort through your long- and short-term goals already, but if you’re not, I definitely recommend trying one!)

My problem, though, is that because I’m busy, I don’t get to the Long-Term list as often as I’d like—there’s stuff on there from years ago I’d still really like to get to, plus stuff from six months ago I wish I’d been able to make time for much sooner.

Sometimes I look at my Long-Term To-Do List and feel disappointed, stressed, or like my system isn’t working Continue reading »

May 2022 Novel Update: Outlining —–> Drafting

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It’s been a really good month for novel drafting.  But first, a quick rewind….

Since January 2021 I’ve been working on a Secret New Novel Draft that I’ve wanted to start for literally years.  I knew this novel was going to be big—and for a while, I thought it might be too big.  As in, I wasn’t sure if I could do it.

As such, I tried taking time to research and plan the novel first…which didn’t go well, since my research wasn’t focused and much of the story seemed to exist in a murky haze.  I needed to write the story so I’d know what to research, but I also needed to research to write the story.  Augh!!!

So, I decided to jump right into a rough draft and see where it took me with the seat-of-your pants method of writing.  (Writers who do this are commonly called Pantsers, a name I find somewhat ridiculous…)  This allowed me to move forward, and helped me get quite a ways into the draft. Continue reading »

Freeing Up Your Mental Space is REALLY Important for Creativity

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Sometimes I get burned out or depressed—and when that happens, it’s a whole lot harder to work on a creative project.

I talked about this at length last fall, when a towering workload at my Japanese university job combined with a ninety-minute commute and having to check the final formatting on MFA Thesis Novel left me feeling overwhelmed, constantly pushing myself to the limit, and crashing hard on the weekends when I wanted to work on my secret new novel project.

All told, I felt overwhelmed and too damned busy.

I’ve written about the double downsides of being busy before: the first one’s obvious, but the second one’s something we often forget:
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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 »

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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Guest Post: Is Paid Work Legit and Unpaid Creative Work a Hobby?

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Ian here—Martha Engber is a writer and personal trainer whose books include Winter Light from Vine Leaves Press (2021 IPPY Gold Medal Winner in Young Adult Fiction), The Wind Thief, and Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up.  Martha and I met during the 2021 Vine Leaves Press online reading for the SMOL Small Press fair, and here she explains how her revelations during the COVID pandemic helped her balance her paid work with her largely unpaid creative work.

In December 2019 I was helping my sister babysit her new granddaughter in Houston, Texas when I received an email acceptance to publish my novel, Winter Light.

I allowed myself a full day of inner quiet to fully enjoy the achievement. At the same time, I’d already had two books published and understood that the moment I signed a contract, I’d spend the next eight months working hard to set up marketing for the book.

Once I signed the contract, the panic set in. I say panic because at the time I was working 45 high-energy hours a week as a fitness instructor and personal trainer at a corporation in Silicon Valley. Continue reading »

Reverse Culture Shock and Thoughts on Being Back in the US

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In case you didn’t know, reverse culture shock is definitely a thing.

I’ve been back in New Hampshire for just over a week after being delayed by a winter storm that swept through the Northeast the day of my flight.  Fortunately the good folks at Japan Airlines cancelled the flight two days in advance and put me on a new one leaving two days later, so I had plenty of time to assemble a backup plan.

Even more fortunate was that when I promptly emailed my contact at my company to let them know what happened, they let me stay in my company-leased apartment rent-free (!) for an extra two days.  (Moral of the story: Stay on good terms with the people in your company who can help you!)
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