It's my pleasure to hand over my blog today to C. Hope Clark. Mystery readers know her for her Edisto Island Mysteries; writers of all genres know her for her Funds for Writers newsletter. I invited Hope to talk to us about balancing a writing life with the rest of life now that she's where some of us still aspire to be: working full-time as a writer.
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My fulltime job is that of a writer. At my
appearances and signings, many people greet me with a wishful expression, and I
know exactly what they are thinking. I
wish I could stay home and write for a living. One twenty-something
approached me not long ago and blurted, “Honey, you are living the dream. You
are who I want to be.”
Admittedly, I am living the writer’s dream, but it’s one that comes with
responsibilities and coordination. It doesn’t take much for an untended dream
to slide into a nightmare.
My dream, however,
isn’t self-sustaining. It requires maintenance. Every few months, I stop and
analyze my schedule, goals, and purpose, because without attention to them, my
dream takes off on tangents, even splintering into tasks that may or may not
feed the dream, and can ultimately dismantle my days.
I wanted to leave nine-to-five to write, to
pursue a deep personal satisfying quest. However, I made a plan before taking
the leap. While writing fulfilled me, I had sense enough to know that it also
had to take care of financial obligations. So I developed a three-year plan to
pay off debt, save for emergencies, and develop a work ethic of income writing
versus creative writing, then at the end of three years, I took an early
retirement at age 46.
While I wanted to leave earlier, that three-year
plan included qualifying for early retirement which gave me health insurance
and a small pension that would always be there for a roof over my head. A
necessary evil? Maybe. But in that three years, I also tested several writing
avenues, weighing which would bring in the most income, which wouldn’t
interfere with my novel-writing goals, and which would provide me with the best
platform. I had an intense need to define a balance between responsibility and
desire, getting everything I wanted out of my days without sabotaging my well-being.
Errantly, we often think of a balanced life as
being one we have to think less about. A laissez-faire mindset that deters
regimen or structure. In reality, without some definition we lose balance
because there is no weighing in of need and purpose. Our balance goes awry
because we aren’t focused.
I’ve been a fulltime writer for over a decade
now, and I believe it’s worked because I periodically analyze my schedule,
goals, and purpose, beginning with the last.
Purpose
While my main purpose is to write, I learned
early on that an equal purpose is to be financially safe. A writer is not
successful without both. So instead of saying my dream is to write fulltime, I
understand that my dream is maintaining the ability to write fulltime.
Every month I study the time spent on writing
for short-term income (freelancing), writing for long-term income (novels), appearances,
and self-promotion. They must balance to sustain my fulltime passion, and yes,
that means sometimes I write less creative work to bring in dollars in order to
buy me time to delve into my novels. Without dissecting this balance regularly,
the scales quickly tip in the wrong direction. Too much income writing robs me
of my creativity. Too much creative writing robs me of income. My writing is a
career, so it takes leveling both left-brain and right-brain tasks to allow me
to maintain a fulltime dream.
Goals
Novels have multiple deadlines prior to
publication, and so while they do not bring in income, they have needs. A
novelist also plans several books ahead, meaning a multi-year, long-range plan,
and until those novels are published and bringing in income, a certain number
of short-term goals must be met to pay bills. This analysis of long-term and
short-term goals takes place monthly so I do not stray.
Schedule
While goal-tending is great, day-to-day activity
isn’t so precise or easy to monitor. But I left the nine-to-five partly because
of a suffocating regimen, and I do not want to replace one rigid structure with
another. So I go out of my way not to force-feed myself a daily schedule.
Monthly reviews of my work, covering creativity
and entrepreneurialship, are sufficient for me. In the day to day, I allow a more
relaxed environment.
I rise when my clock tells me to, and I go to
sleep when my clock beckons. My work may make for five-hour days, or fifteen,
depending upon my energy and enthusiasm, but my work week is a forty-hour
minimum. The greatness about being a stay-at-home writer is that I can deem
what makes for a satisfying day without worrying about a clock or overseer.
To avoid burn-out, I take breaks to walk the
dogs, tend the chickens, and garden. I can make doctor appointments in the day
without missing work, and I can take a break and visit the zoo with a grandson
in the middle of the afternoon before it gets crowded.
I can work until three AM knowing I can sleep
in. I can stop and cook dinner, watch a mystery on television, then return to
the job because it’s just down the hall. While I give myself Saturday as a day
off, I’ve learned that I love my work so much that I rarely reach the end of
the day without checking for replies from publishers, editors, and readers.
Balance can’t be too loose or too strict, but
it’s critical to feed the passion and the self-sustainability of a writing
career and find that perfect level. Give yourself enough of a structure that
you feel focused, but enough detachment to feel you’re not tied down.
Without a doubt I’m living the dream, and with
the balance I’ve achieved, that dream will take me as long as I wish.
BIO:
C. Hope Clark loves living her writing dream and will continue to the end of
her days. She just released Echoes of Edisto, book three in The Edisto Island
Mysteries, and has many books planned in her long-term goals. www.chopeclark.com
