Possible Resurrection
After months of letting this blog languish, I'm cautiously optimistic that I might start posting again. I'm certainly not promising anything but I'm hoping to integrate updates into my schedule.
My downfall really started with my How's This For Motivation? post. Losing a significant pillar of future financing didn't motivate me; it swept my legs out from under me. It's only very recently that I've started to feel any kind of incentive again.
This has been complicated, as always, by my niece. As I've mentioned before, a big chunk of my life is dedicated to helping raise my niece, Maria, who has many severe neurological disabilities. She's had some issues and her other caregivers have had some issues so it's all been a mess. Then again I remind myself that Maria's mom has a "real" job and still managed to show up at work now and then through all of this so that's really not much of an excuse.
I'm grateful to the writer I'm subcontracting to. She has steadily provided work for me every week for a couple of years now and having work appear in my in box certainly has helped me keep writing. It's not enough to live on by any means, but it's been a big help financially and emotionally.
However as I look back on the last year I haven't grown at all. I did the same amount of work December 2008 as I did December 2007, and that's not a good thing. Part of the problem is that I build my work schedule around the workload I receive rather than the workload I should be doing. That leads to stagnation which is death for the self-employed.
So I'm trying to get back to sticking to a schedule. Yes I know I'm not suppose to say I'm "trying" I'm supposed to say I am. However, although I respect the psychological power of those kinds of semantic distinctions, I'm far too much of a smart ass to take them seriously and I mock them mercilessly. But I digress.
That's why I'm posting today. Posting here is work time. As I remind myself, the reason I found this subcontract opportunity was through this blog and it's one of many marketing tools I should be using more. I've done some articles this morning and I should pop out 1-2 more to meet my goal but I just don't feel like it, so instead if I spend some time doing other work-related things I meet my goal, expand my marketing efforts and break out of my rut.
My downfall really started with my How's This For Motivation? post. Losing a significant pillar of future financing didn't motivate me; it swept my legs out from under me. It's only very recently that I've started to feel any kind of incentive again.
This has been complicated, as always, by my niece. As I've mentioned before, a big chunk of my life is dedicated to helping raise my niece, Maria, who has many severe neurological disabilities. She's had some issues and her other caregivers have had some issues so it's all been a mess. Then again I remind myself that Maria's mom has a "real" job and still managed to show up at work now and then through all of this so that's really not much of an excuse.
I'm grateful to the writer I'm subcontracting to. She has steadily provided work for me every week for a couple of years now and having work appear in my in box certainly has helped me keep writing. It's not enough to live on by any means, but it's been a big help financially and emotionally.
However as I look back on the last year I haven't grown at all. I did the same amount of work December 2008 as I did December 2007, and that's not a good thing. Part of the problem is that I build my work schedule around the workload I receive rather than the workload I should be doing. That leads to stagnation which is death for the self-employed.
So I'm trying to get back to sticking to a schedule. Yes I know I'm not suppose to say I'm "trying" I'm supposed to say I am. However, although I respect the psychological power of those kinds of semantic distinctions, I'm far too much of a smart ass to take them seriously and I mock them mercilessly. But I digress.
That's why I'm posting today. Posting here is work time. As I remind myself, the reason I found this subcontract opportunity was through this blog and it's one of many marketing tools I should be using more. I've done some articles this morning and I should pop out 1-2 more to meet my goal but I just don't feel like it, so instead if I spend some time doing other work-related things I meet my goal, expand my marketing efforts and break out of my rut.
posted by Andy @ 1:18 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:40 PM,
Anonymous said…
I feel you, dude. I'm trying to get started as a blogger today and it's rough. I'm a college student and trying to get a REAL job and it's frustrating. I honestly thought I'd make big bucks and I'm seeing what a lot of other writers are taking about: this a long, hard, lonely, and painful road.
But hang in there, bro. You'll make it.
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