Wednesday, June 19, 2019

FRIDAY FEELING: Peace and the Process


As I sat in my new luxurious office chair, munching on my pesto cavatappi from Noodles & Company, I relished in the delight of having a quiet day off. I was working from home and had the house to myself, -- well provided my 25 year old nephew wasn't in his room in the basement still asleep as usual. But even so, it was delightful!

I had become so frustrated with not having more work from my client (I was barely making 10 hours a week). But then a lightbulb went off and I realized that I should take advantage of the extra time to work apply to writing contests or fellowships - something I've put off for nearly 5 years because I was so focused on finding a full-time job. But I've realized maybe I'm not meant to work full-time; health wise, it's becoming harder for me to do the commuting rat race of taking a bus and subway to work; my asthma and other health issues leave me with limited physical energy and I get so much more work completed working from home. So I'm just going to work freelance until I find the perfect full-time communications job. 

Besides, If I can find a great fellowship, that would actually pay me for two weeks or longer to get my memoir or cozy fiction novel completed, that would be MAR-VE-LOUS!

But it's not just applying for a fellowship that I need to work on, I have so many different projects, I don't know which one to tackle first. I started the previous night applying for more freelance projects. There was the pitch letters to business owners for newsletter services; a real estate friend of mine told me that realtors can use this service and I realized other small businesses are willing to pay for it after I met the owner of a coffee and kombucha drink café at a farmers market who was interested in having me do a newsletter for her. So contests, fellowship applications and freelance proposals. Good grief - it's exhausting just thinking about it.

So I chose to begin first on working on my children's book blog, where I review culturally diverse picture books, because, let's be honest. it is so much more fun! It was in need of serious updating as I haven't posted much on social media or a new post this month. However after I finish that, I will get to work on the big girl projects because I'll never get noticed widely as a writer if I don't get a fellowship, that I am confident will ultimately lead to getting published - at some point. 

So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I have every confidence things will turn out magnanimous (I'm channeling my inner Ann of Green Gables). Peace out.