I haven't blogged in half a year.
I'd like to say that's because I've been overwhelmed with the vast amount of writing and publishing and editing I've been doing, but that would be somewhat untruthful. I have been writing, I have been editing, but I'd have had more than enough time to scribble some words if it weren't for the biggest danger to the early-career creative: A satisfying day job.
When I first decided to forgo the world of stability and employer-provided health insurance and become self-employed as a writer, I wanted a day job that was inherently unfulfilling. I wanted to work a cash register or flip a burger or two, something that would provide a paycheck, but would leave me feeling unproductive at the end of the day unless I'd also written. That's certainly not to disparage those jobs--I've worked them before and hopefully will again--but while I may feel confident that I'd put in a hard day's work, I wouldn't feel especially satisfied. This would keep me hungry, make sure I didn't slip into any kind of career complacency.
What I got instead is a job in the only other field I'm remotely qualified in: rowing. And the problem is that I love it.
So while yes, I do sometimes wish I didn't commute to Petaluma 7 days a week (For someone who labels himself as "working from home," I sure do have a hell of a commute), and it hasn't halted my productivity in writing and freelancing, the job there is inherently rewarding. If I put in a hard day's work at the boathouse, I can see real, tangible results, and I can be proud of that. It's easy to be happy after a good season, and while that theoretically eases the pressure of having to write my way to self-actualization, it also creates this gnawing voice at the back of my mind that says "hey dude, you're not all that hungry right now." And it's right. Last fall, I could put in 6-7 hours at the keyboard before heading up to my day job, but by the end of the spring, I would be putting in only 3-4. It's not nothing, but it has extended my production schedule beyond what I'd hoped. As the spring season picked up, I found my extra hours of procrastination weren't filled with reading or following the publishing industry, but were watching rowing videos and checking race results. It's a feeling I'm well acquainted with: It lowered my GPA every other semester in college. At the crescendo I was traveling every weekend, spending the entire day at the boathouse, and work time not coaching was spent freelancing, which means I was writing very little. The front of my brain was genuinely satisfied, but the back of my brain was shaking its head.
This cognitive dissonance clearly created some kind of guilt that I didn't realize until the season finally ended and I put in my first full 10 hour day at the keyboard in months, and I felt incredible.
So now it's the summer. Now the rowing season is over. Now the manuscript is finished (2 months late, but finished) and the queries are floating in the aether waiting to turn into requests for fulls (ha!). Now I can finally become dissatisfied enough in my daily productivity to put full days back into my actual career.
Take that, insidious happiness!