August 19, 2007—Balancing personal responsibilities: an update

Now that I’ve achieved my first major goal of finishing a draft, I needed to turn my attention to other things I’ve been ignoring, namely earning a living.

I’m going to return to teaching first-year college writing classes part time, and I accepted a couple of classes the other day that will start in a little over two weeks.

I used to do this years ago. One problem was the lousy pay, and that hasn’t changed. Another problem was a sense of frustration with it, but a lot of that had to do with some personal immaturity that I think I’ve outgrown. I expect this to be a lot less stressful and time consuming than I used to make it for myself.

So I’ve arranged at least to keep my mornings open for writing and to earn the minimum I need to pay the bills to survive for a few more months. (Perhaps I can finish the rewrite in that amount of time, but I’m not going to put that pressure on myself yet.)

Additionally, I’ve started getting my house in order to resume freelance writing, which I also used to do. I would like to generate enough work by the end of the semester that after that point I will have options available between the teaching and freelancing, still with the goal of keeping mornings open for writing.

So, considering the work I need to do to prepare for the classes I’m teaching, my hope of generating some freelance work and the general neglect of my home and social life, I’m thinking a two week break between the end of the drafting and the start of the rewriting might be in order.