natalieburg

October 3, 2014October 2, 2014Self-Employment

Is my Fitbit step count supposed to go into the negatives? Tackling the biggest freelancing quandary.

It is the most common complaint of the freelancer: being cooped up in the house, lots to do, nowhere to go, no human contact in the near future and the seven steps between the desk and the kitchen are the only bits of exercise expected for the day.

Sigh. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder sometimes if I’ve picked the wrong career. No matter how much I love the outcome, is it worth it if this my everyday? When all of my friends started getting Fitbits a few months ago, I couldn’t even entertain the thought, because who needs to confirm that the number of steps I take each day doesn’t always make it into the double digits? Does Fitbit automatically call an ambulance if your vital signs are too much like those of a comatose person? On the other hand, can it detect pending bedsores or deep vein thrombosis? Am I seriously a person who worries about these things?

Freelancers worry about these things.

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014General Life Whatnot Self-Employment

Is freelancing a real career? Here’s 1,423 square feet and a half acre of “yes.”

We are buying a house today. My freelance writer self and independent musician husband have an appointment to close at 10am, after which we will move into our adorable 1938, 4-bedroom Cape Cod with detached two-car garage and a half-acre of land.

When I quit my job, back in 2010, I was working for a board, and therefore had to go around to ten different people, all of them at least 20 years my senior, to tell them I was not only leaving my position as their director, but I was doing so to work for myself, as a writer. They were all very kind and supportive, and, I could also tell, quietly concerned. I was trading a secure, public sector job with great benefits for what appeared to be essentially a non-job – in a terrible economy. They all liked me and wanted me to succeed, but I could see that they couldn’t visualize how “freelance writer” and “success” had any potential to overlap. When my then-fiancé followed suit the next year, leaving his high school teaching job after eight years, we only seemed crazier.

September 15, 2014General Life Whatnot Uncategorized

Pulling back and stepping back up

I just checked my book sales for the first time in two months. This is the first time I’ve logged into my own website in nearly three. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably forgotten that you follow me on Twitter. If you’ve worked with me at all for the last few months, you might have noticed that instead of being prompt, responsive and committed to meeting my own high standards, I’ve been juuuuuuust squeaking by.

Sorry, world. It was unavoidable. Something has been sucking the life out of me in a greedy quest to feed its own existence. It’s a baby. And I am, of course, more than willing to let it do so for the next 19 to 25 years. Though I was fully unprepared for how difficult the first trimester would be (the fatigue! the evil, stifling blanket of fatigue!), everything that I am and all that I believe preclude me from blaming my need to temporarily recede from reality on a pregnancy. Oh no. If only that was the only thing.