My Biggest Weakness Explained (And Why You Should Know Yours!)

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If you’d asked me two years ago to name the biggest factor stopping me from getting my creative work done, I would have hands-down said overuse of social media: I used to spend WAY too much time on Facebook (ugh…) and scrolling through Twitter hoping for that gambler’s jackpot payout of finding something awesome that keeps us all hooked.

Now I use social media a lot less and usually only pull it up at set times of the day, so that doesn’t feel like a problem anymore.

Then if you’d asked me last year about my biggest weakness I would have said lethargic time wasting: sleeping too much, getting distracted between tasks, and taking long breaks when I didn’t really need them.  I stopped doing these things in part Continue reading »

May Novel Update: Draft 4 Complete!!!

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Amazing how quickly the tables can turn.

My April novel update consisted mostly of a depressed lament about how little I’d gotten done not only in the past month, but the past year—it took me almost nine months to completely finish the third draft of this novel after I went back to full-time Day Job work, and the fourth draft was progressing just as slowly.

Now, though, things are different: two weeks ago I made the final edits to the fourth draft, after working on it every weekday since I left my Day Job.  That means it only took 16 working days (chunks of two and a half to four hours from late morning to early afternoon) to finish the last 275 pages Continue reading »

Money Leads to Freedom

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(TLDR Version: Money gives you the freedom to make the changes you want in life.)

I haven’t been to any kind of Day Job in over a month…and it feels AWESOME.  Instead I’ve been editing the fourth draft of my novel, studying Japanese, working on this blog, finishing a handful of other writing projects, and taking on a few editing projects, which combined total more than a full-time job while paying decidedly less than full-time money.  I’m able to do this chiefly for two reasons:

  1. I saved up a bunch of money (six months worth of living wages, to be exact) before I left my Day Job
  2. I have more income lined up for mid-summer when I leave for my teaching job in Japan

Both the income safety net and the upcoming job make it possible Continue reading »

New Daily Day Job-Free Work Schedule!

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I haven’t been to work in two weeks…and it feels awesome.

For those of you who missed the news, last month I got accepted for an English teaching job in Japan and quit my Secret Office Day Job—partly to focus more on creative work and partly because some sketchy shit was going on there.  This means that for the next few months my time is my own, and I’ve got to use it wisely if I want to make any real writing progress.

I left work on a Wednesday, which felt a bit disorienting—I went from spending 47+ hours of my week working, commuting, and eating lunch in the company break room to having a three-month chasm of free time ahead of me…and I won’t lie, it felt a bit overwhelming.

For the first two days I was kind of all over the place—I slept late, watched a bunch of Netflix, got a haircut, took a long walk, and Continue reading »

To-Do List Advice: One Really Big Thing is Better Than Ten Little Things

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I had a friend in college who used to get really stressed out.  He was pretty much a nervous wreck most days because he was always dashing between these huge projects (mostly art projects, but also stuff for his other classes) that required him to work in different studios across campus.  Sometimes he forgot to eat, went for days without sleeping, and more than once found himself in trouble because he forgot to turn in his registration paperwork.

I remember one time when he was on the verge of what may have been a panic attack, he said, in a moment of pristine clarity, something I’ve never been able to forget:

“I’d rather have one HUGE project to work on than ten smaller projects, even if the ten smaller projects together took less time to finish than the big project.”
Continue reading »

April Novel Update: Slow Going…

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Just a quick update this month, because I’ve got a lot of things to do.

Last month I dove back into actual revisions on the fourth draft of my novel, though as usual, progress has been slow.  As of today I’ve revised 40 pages, or about 12% of the manuscript, which is much, much less than I wanted to have done by now.

For the actual revision process I’ve gone back to setting aside entire nights (from 8:00 to 11:00pm) for novel work instead of grabbing an hour here and an hour there, since I work best when I can devote larger chunks of time to writing.  Unfortunately, though, a variety of things (i.e., excuses) have kept me Continue reading »

Day Job Quandary: Is It Better to Be Bored or Busy?

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I go back and forth on this all the time.

I’ve had workdays where I had thousands upon thousands of things that needed doing, To-Do lists a mile long, people asking me every two minutes to do more things, and a string of deadlines that I absolutely had to get done no matter what.  And it sucked.

But then I’ve had jobs where there wasn’t nearly enough to do (or nothing of any real importance to do) so that I had to stretch out what little work I actually had over hours and hours as I faced near-interminable boredom and a fury of clock-watching that made me feel like I’d be stuck there forever with no escape.  And that sucked too.

This begs the question: Is it better to have a Day Job where you feel busy and overwhelmed, or one where you feel bored and underused? Continue reading »

I Worked as an Online Test-Grader for a Year and It SUCKED

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If you’ve been following this blog for longer than a year then you know that waaaaaaay back when I started in the fall of 2016 I was working at my part-time Secret Work-From-Home Day Job, which served as my main source of income while I edited the second and third drafts of my novel.

At the time I didn’t talk much about my Secret Work-From-Home Day Job on the grounds that revealing too much about my job or my employer could cause some confidentiality issues, or that I’d be found by company Google searches and they’d discover my decidedly noncomformist workplace philosophies.  In retrospect, though, the secrecy was probably unnecessary since not actually naming my employer or discussing actual work stuff kept me safe Continue reading »

Financial Update: I Saved Enough to Live On For 6 Months!

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The title says it all.

Since I started my Secret Office Day Job last June I’ve been saving a lot—the exact amount ranges between 10 and 40% of each month’s income (well, 40% was only once…) depending on my expenses, how many side gigs I have, or how much overtime I’ve worked.

(Luckily I keep a budget each month to track how much I make and where it’s going—and if you click on no other link in this post, check out my piece on the basics of budgeting, because it’s that important!)

My savings routine works like this: at the beginning of every month I track my previous month’s income, pay all my bills, and see how much I have left.  I keep $2,000 bucks in my checking account to cover unforeseen expenses (car trouble, computer explodes, bills I’ve forgotten Continue reading »

Why Sacrifices Are Necessary (and Hard….)

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Warning: Stream of consciousness ramble ahead.

I think a lot about how I spend my time, and how much of that time I should be spending on creative work or other things that move me closer to my goals. I used to think of this as a simple equation: the more time I devoted to creative work, the more I’d get done…though this led to more than a few cases of terrible burnout that weren’t productive at all (which sucks, btw).

That led me to alter my thinking: maybe taking plenty of breaks was the way to go, because if I stayed as rested and stress-free as possible then my mind would be clearer to focus on my writing and other tasks that required focus. I went through a period when I set aside every Saturday as a No Exceptions Day of Rest, and another Continue reading »

India Trip Reflections #1: Never Forget What a Break and Time Away Can Do

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At the beginning of this month I flew to India for ten days to attend a friend’s wedding and take a much-needed vacation.  It was my first trip abroad in two years, and I spent the time meeting new people, exploring rural Indian villages, experiencing farm life, and trying awesome new dishes made from amazing vegetables and the freshest butter and yogurt I’ve ever had.

Now I’m back, and I feel awesome.

I was pretty stressed out before I left because of too much Secret Office Day Job-related overtime and having a shit ton of things to do in general, but I guess I hadn’t realized Continue reading »

Guest Post – Life vs. Writing: A Balancing Act

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Angela D’Onofrio is a writer and artist whose series of novels takes place in the fictitious town of Aviario, Connecticut and contains elements of the fantastic (I reviewed one of her Aviario novels, In the Cards, a few weeks back). I met her through a local writer’s group, where I was struck by her dedication to promoting her projects and keeping an active role in her many, many creative communities.  Check out more of her work here, or follow her on Twitter at @AngDonofrio.

 

Hello, fellow writers with day jobs!  Ian approached me a little while ago and asked if I’d like to write a guest post for his blog.  “Sure,” I said, “but let’s do it after National Novel Writing Month, when I’ll be done writing my fingers off…”

Which brings us to the topic of this post: Life vs. Writing. For the past four years, I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo: a challenge to authors to write the first 50,000 words of a novel draft in a month.  As much as I’d love to be able to tell you that I pummeled my keyboard into submission…alas, Continue reading »