So my May resolutions fell apart for a variety of reasons, and as I venture into a VERY BUSY June, I want to manage my time better than I have before. So without further ado, I present June:
Continue reading “June 2017 Resolutions: Healthy Habits”
Category: 2017
Is My Writing a Hobby or a Job?
As someone who writes and defines themselves as a “writer,” I see a lot of my writing as a job. And I get paid to write blog posts, news articles, and to do copy writing. But what about this novel I’ve spent the last eight months trying to write, or other personal writing projects. Are they part of my “job?”
I’ve read a lot of blogs and twitter posts that if you want to “make it” as a novelist, you must treat it like a job. Set hours that you are going to write, dress up for the occasion in a pencil skirt and blouse, sit at a desk, etc. And I can agree that these things make you feel official and that they will lead, potentially, to some productivity.
But then I think of an Elizabeth Gilbert anecdote about the poet who would be outside, and would hear a poem coming for miles, and she would have to run, faster and faster to her desk to be able to sit down and work on this poem and jot it down as it flowed through her body and if she wasn’t at the right place at the right time then it would float on by, on to the next writer who was ready for it.
Writing is a job for me. It is a “freelance, sit down, have a deadline” job. It is studying mannerisms of speech and googling facts and doing research and it is sometimes hard. Far harder than I ever wanted it to be.
It’s about getting up before work starts for the day to look up newspaper articles that just broke. It’s about sending countless pitch emails to publications to compile a list of rejections. It’s about first time luck prevailing and second guessing and hoping and praying and failing.
Is writing my job? Yes. It’s one of many things I do. My novel, however unattended to, is my job. It is to be worked on and teased out and toiled over and written. And I treat it, now and forever, like a job.
I’ve been writing semi consistently since I was 16. There isn’t lots of my work out there for the world to see, but it’s there in the corners of the internet I’ve been playing in for years. I’ve written plays and blog posts and articles and short stories. And a lot of it, so much of it is fun.
But it’s also work.
Tell me about your relationship to writing in a comment below. Is it a job, or a hobby to you?
Productivity Burst
I have a really “all or nothing” personality. I either need to write thousands of words or none at all, read six books in two days on nothing for months, or go hard at being healthy or eat myself into a cheesecake coma.
The Project Memoir Pattern
I’ve talked a lot about project memoir. A sub-genre of memoir where a person tackles a set of tasks set out by themselves at a time in their life and uses the task they are attempting to accomplish as a way to juxtapose a struggle or set of struggles in their lives. The book produced is often witty and filled with either a furthered genuine understanding of the human spirit, or a cynicism about the particular task they are undertaking.
Resolution Revamp
My best of intentions often go horribly wrong. At the beginning of this month, I made some resolutions, and while we aren’t at the end of the month, I am at a point where I am frustrated with myself. So I want to go over where I went wrong, and figure out how I can fix things:
Book Thoughts: Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert
I love Elizabeth Gilbert. I love her a stupid amount. The critical backlash after the success of Eat, Pray, Love is by far one of the most fascinating things I’ve witnessed when it comes to modern non-fiction, but her work continues to speak to me in the weirdest and most wonderful ways.
Continue reading “Book Thoughts: Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert”
Three Days in La Jolla, California
My new jobs central operation is out of California, so this past week, I spent a few days out on the west coast with my work team. While I won’t detail for you here the work related meetings and training, I do want to write a bit about what we did, and how lovely it was to be by right on the Pacific Ocean.
An Affair With Non-Fiction
I found myself over the last several days on so many planes. I flew to and from California, and because I flew Delta, I had access to a wide array of movies. However, I wanted to get a little reading done, and, remembering my resolutions, knew that the long hours would be a good time to make it happen.
Grow
“Growth” is a really subjective way of introspection. How much you “grow” cannot be measured in the way that some things can. I cannot measure my growth as a person by how much money I make, or weight lost, or anything numerical.
May 2017- Resolutions
I am a “manage what you measure” kind of gal. I think I always have been, and just didn’t know it until that phrase came to me.