Call it "Work.," Change Your Life

When I first began resurrecting my part-time writing & editing career three years ago after being out of the game for more than a decade, I tried to accommodate this plus all the other activities in my life. These activities included a job (first PT, then FT), everything at home and matters that came up with friends and family. Do I need to mention that this tactic failed miserably and that I ended up with a lot of half-finished projects?

Looking back, I think that even though I've made a secondary income via freelancing for most of my adult life, I'd never treated it as work or given it the same serious attention I gave to jobs working for someone else. This was partly due to my own perception and that of everyone in my life that writing isn't "real" work even if it makes money.

In the previous paragraph you could substitute any passion for "writing" - photography, playing in a band, starting & running a foundation or community service, making & marketing handmade items, running an urban mini-farm - and you'd be dealing with the same perceptions. Those perceptions include the ideas that if it's fun, if it doesn't make much money, and if you're working on our own, it's not real work. You can tweak your office space, hold endless family meetings and incessantly experiment with scheduling but if you're not clear in your own mind that your passion is also serious work, all these measures will fail.

Some of my fellow writers haven't liked this idea because "work" is such a serious word. It connotes drudgery. All of us have days when we're just putting in the hours. Those who hold jobs with extremely repetitive tasks or have little self-determination & opportunity for exercising personal judgement might feel like work is all drudgery.

But it doesn't have to be that way merely by definition. Think of "work" as simply doing something useful, either for yourself or others. If you feel called to do a certain activity - you have a strong sense of purpose behind it - then calling it "work" is the first step. This will provide a reference point for making daily decisions that move you forward rather than keep you stuck.

For example, if you've planned to spend four hours this afternoon proofing copy or drafting a grant proposal, and a friend calls (knowing it's your day off from your job) asking you to help her cousin move, you can say, "Sorry, I'm working this afternoon." If you feel a smidgen of guilt even though you don't even know this friend's cousin, you can add, "I'll bring over some beer later."

My own writing life shifted dramatically when I began seeing it as part of a many-sided career that includes the job, freelancing and things for which I don't get paid at all but are part of the purpose I've defined for myself. It's becoming progressively easier to say "no" to activities that feel out of sync. I have fewer problems with prioritizing.

The most noticeable difference, however, is that the various things I do are finally feeding each other rather than fighting each other. I've seen this happen with other people as well; life starts to feel like a patchwork quilt with an actual pattern rather than a bunch of little fabric squares. A few of these people live seamlessly in a happy state where each relationship or project gives & receives energy from everything/everyone else.

I hope to reach that state someday. And I hope to see you there too.