Posted on:General Life Whatnot Self-Employment

Something Right

Bad decisions seem to travel in packs. Staying up too late to read. Turning off the alarm and sleeping in. Starting work late. Not responding to emails promptly. Ugh. I’m blaming it on the time change. So at least I can trace the inciting bad decision back to Benjamin Franklin. Thanks, Benji.

Eventually the cycle will stop and my ratio of poor decisions to logical ones will start tipping in the right direction. I think. I hope. But here’s something to think about until then:

During the guest lecture Mike and I recently gave at Western Michigan University, I skipped out for a minute to use the bathroom while Mike was speaking. He was giving the students an overview of his cover gigs, and I could hear him play a bit of Drake’s song, “Hold On, We’re Going Home” from the hallway.

As I walked back in he was saying, “You might have noticed I changed the last line of the chorus from ‘I know exactly who you could be’ because, I mean, come on, Drake. Who are you to tell a woman who she should be?”

So I did that right. I married that guy. I can probably manage to replicate that kind of decision making this week. (There’s 1.5 more days to this week left. I can do it.)

Read more

Posted on:Self-Employment Writing

Irrational Job Envy: A freelancer’s dilemma

Seventeen.

That’s how many jobs I racked up in my journey to full-time freelancing. At least, that’s how many I can remember at the moment. From the age of 16 to 28, I was nearly constantly in a cycle of becoming dissatisfied with a job, looking for a new one, interviewing, getting hired, loving the new job, doing the best I could there, realizing it wasn’t quite right, becoming dissatisfied with it, etc., etc.

Read more

Posted on:General Life Whatnot Self-Employment Writing

Not on my list; also, editing aspirations

There are exactly four things on my 2014 Goals list. I’m not going to share them, (because why would anyone else care about my goals for myself?), but in the process of making it as concise as possible, I went through an interesting exercise. Though ruthless editing is a part of everyday life as a writer, it felt very different to be editing myself, or, at least, my aspirations for myself over the next year.
When editing a story, every single world needs to be there for a reason. If a story can survive the loss of any extra anything, it’s cut. Applying that process to life goals was helpful in a way that I’m hoping will make the entire next year more efficient and clear. Here are a few of my first draft goals that I cut and the reasons I let them go:

Read more