Search Results for: writing income

I’ve been asked on multiple occasions how to balance writing and family, and I’ve given a number of answers. “One day at a time.” “Prioritize and organize and schedule.” “Hell if I know!”

When you get down to it, the most honest answer I could give based on my life and experiences is, you can’t. Balance is a lie. An illusion that taunts us with its song. It’s freaking Shangri-La.

As a father, balance suggests to me a mystical state of equilibrium where I’m giving my children all of the time and attention they want and need, while at the same time devoting enough time to my writing and career. The trouble is, there’s no such thing as “enough.” There’s always more I could be doing with or for my kids, whether it’s quizzing my son on his multiplication tables or taking my teenage daughter out to start showing her how to drive, or just sitting down to play a three-way brawl on the Wii.

Then there’s the writing. I’ve got three short stories and three novels on my To Write list at this particular moment. Then there are the blog posts, the emails I’m chronically late in responding to, conventions I’d love to attend, anthologies I’d like to contribute to, at least one anthology I’d love to edit, and so much more.

The sad truth is that no matter what I do, I’ll never have enough time to write everything I want to. I’ll never have enough time for my children.

I quit my full-time day job a month and a half ago, and it’s helped some. I’m finding my writing groove and increasing my wordcount. I’ve also been able to do things like walk down to meet my son at the bus stop and pick up my daughter after school. On the other hand, I’m now the one who gets the phone call when something happens at school. I get the text messages when someone misses the bus. When the puppy horks up a big clump of half-digested grass — well, you get the idea. There are more interruptions and less stability and predictability in my day than I had before.

Just now, in the middle of writing this post, my son interrupted me to share some of his thoughts on pigs. It’s frustrating, because writing productivity is all about momentum. And it’s awesome, because I love him, and he has creative, often surreal thoughts about things.

Sometimes I resent the writing for taking time away from my kids. And yes, sometimes I resent my kids for taking time away from my writing. And I feel guilty about all of it.

Writing isn’t unique in this. I watched my coworkers struggling to find good day care for their kids, and I listened to their struggles to balance the need for a career with their role as a parent. But it never seemed quite the same. Maybe because writing still doesn’t feel like a legitimate career. I mean, we all recognize the need to work and support the family, but we don’t tend to recognize writing as real work.

I’m relatively successful as a writer, and it’s my primary source of income to help support my family. It still feels harder to justify spending hours focusing on the writing than it did spending hours sitting in a cubicle. Both take time away from my family and kids, but one is a “real” job. The other feels like a luxury. It feels selfish. This is something I want to do.

The guilt was exponentially worse when I was struggling to break in. When I couldn’t point to advances and royalty checks to justify the time spent in fictional worlds, away from my wife and children.

Part of the quest for healthy balance means getting that guilt under control. As parents, we can’t devote 100% of our time and energy to our children. Sometimes it feels like that’s what we’re supposed to to, but it’s not healthy for anyone. We need time to take care of ourselves, and as they grow up, kids need time to become their own people. It’s okay to take time to focus on writing. And it’s okay to step away from the computer to spend time with my family.

The Quest for Balance has no end point. No Big Boss you can defeat. It’s a daily struggle, and it changes from day to day. Do I have a deadline coming up? Did my son have a rough day at school? Is there a writing project I’m super-passionate about? How long has it been since I got to do something fun with my daughter? Is my email at critical mass? Is my son giving me puppy-dog eyes and asking me to play Mario with him?

How do you balance being a writer with being a parent? You keep trying. You accept that you’re never going to get it perfect. You listen to your kid(s), your editor, your partner(s) if you have them. You listen to yourself. You communicate. Sometimes I have to say no, I can’t play Mario until after dinner. When I talk to my editor and agent about deadlines, I talk about and factor in not only the time I need to write the book, but the time I need to spend with my family.

Balance is a process. Learn to set boundaries. Expect disruption.

In my case, I keep reminding myself that writing is my career, and damn right it’s legitimate. I remind myself that taking time to do something I love isn’t necessarily selfish or awful. I also try to recognize that spending too much time on myself can be neglectful, and I try to monitor that from day to day.

I love my children. I love writing. And it’s okay to love both.

—

Other posts from the Parenting and Writing/Editing Blog Tour.

• Leah Moore: On Being a Creative Parent
• Patrick Samphire: Scenes from an Exhausted Land
• Aliette de Bodard: The Myth of Entire
• Fran Wilde: Parenting(Creating).FailMode
• Joyce Chng: Writing and Mothering: A Burning Path With Nice Morning Glory Flowers

A commenter raised an interesting point when I talked about my October plan last week. (Short version – life has been more stressful than usual, and the new book is requiring a lot more work, so I’m buckling down and trying to finish this draft by November 2.)

I’m paraphrasing the comment, but he basically pointed out that if writing isn’t fun anymore, if it’s adding to my stress instead of helping me to relax, maybe that’s a sign that I should stop. (I’ll note that he said he didn’t want me to stop writing; but he was thinking about my mental/emotional well-being, which I appreciate.)

It’s a valid question. If writing had become nothing but a chore, I’d give serious consideration to quitting after I filled this contract. I’ve left jobs before when it got to the point where I pretty much dreaded going to work each day.

And for me, writing is a job. It’s a job I love, but it’s also a lot of work. There are good days and bad. If I spend my lunch hour stuck on a scene, making little progress and feeling like I’ve utterly lost control of the story, it can ruin my entire day. On the other hand, the days when I feel good about what I’ve written, well, that’s a high like nothing else.

But even on the good days, it’s still work.[1. Sure, a decade ago I would have killed to have this kind of work. That doesn’t change the fact that it eats up a lot of time and energy.] Not just the putting-words-on-paper part. There’s answering emails from fans, fellow writers, my editor, and my agent. There’s conventions and booksignings and other events. There’s poking around online for mention of my books. (You can laugh, but this is how I discovered The Legend of Jig Dragonslayer was going to be available through the Science Fiction Book Club.)

Oh … um … by the way, The Legend of Jig Dragonslayer is available through the Science Fiction Book Club!!!

Now, where was I?[2. If your first thought was Australia, you get five bonus points.]

Thinking about my life as a writer reminds me of something that came up in karate, talking about how some students quit when they decide it’s not fun anymore. That’s certainly a valid choice. But the thing is, whether it’s writing or karate, the path isn’t a smooth, steady climb. Sometimes you stumble. Sometimes you get stuck. There will come a time where if you want to get better, you’re going to have to fall down. You may get hurt. You may swear a lot and kick holes in the drywall.[3. I’ve only done that once, and it was a long time ago.] And at times, it may not much fun.

Sometimes it’s not worth it. Either the climb is too hard, or you just don’t have the energy. That’s okay. Nobody can do everything, and you’ll destroy yourself if you try.

But I love being a writer. I love creating stories. And I want to get better at it. Looking over the past 17 years, this journey has been one of the hardest, bumpiest things I’ve ever done. It has, at times, been incredibly depressing and frustrating. But it’s also been one of the most rewarding journeys, and while it may not always be fun, and it is at times a lot of work, it’s work I choose to do.

The fact that the writing is now a significant portion of our household income certainly doesn’t hurt matters, either.

In a lot of ways, life would be easier and less stressful if I stopped writing. It might even be more fun, as it would free up time and energy for other things.

But I love writing, and I love being a writer. And for me, it’s worth it.

—

Writing numbers and business-type neepery ahead.

I announced the publication of a story in the Magic ex Libris universe called “Chupacabra’s Song” a week ago, and was curious to take a look at sales channels and such. The short story is available for $.99 at the following outlets:

Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords | Google Play

I haven’t done any channel-specific advertising or anything like that. After a week, the sales break down like so:

• Amazon: 250
• B&N: 19
• Smashwords: 9
• iBooks: 8
• Kobo: 6
• Google Play: 3

Here are the percentages, if you prefer to look at it that way:

That’s a total of 295 sales in a week, which isn’t bad at all. Given the different royalty rates, which range from roughly 35% to 50%, I’m guesstimating the story has earned a little over $100 in royalties. Not bad for a reprint, especially considering there will probably be some additional sales trickling in over the coming months and years. I’ve more than earned back the money I invested to prepare and publish the story.

Has it covered the time I invested? That’s a harder question, and depends on how I assign an hourly worth to my time. I’m leaning toward no, because I spent a fair amount of time prepping things, getting the files uploaded to various sites, and so on. But I’m okay with that. I’m happy about getting the story out there for more readers, and as a proof-of-concept, it certainly shows there’s a bit of demand.

Remember, this story was a reprint, so some folks had already seen it. A longer, original piece will likely do significantly better.

My thanks once again to everyone who picked up a copy. Especially those of you who posted a review at Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere. Very much appreciated.

Tune in next week for even more charts and data, as I pull together the 2015 writing income report.

I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that about half of my most-visited blog posts for 2015 were related to the Sad/Rabid Puppies and the Hugo Awards mess. Mostly, I’d just like to see 2016 not be a repeat.

1. Puppies in Their Own Words. The most popular post I did this year was a long write-up of the evolution and goals of the Sad Puppies, sourced to their own blog posts and comments. I pretty much expected this one to end up in the top spot.
2. In Which John C. Wright Completely Loses his Shit over Legend of Korra. Mr. Wright was Very Unhappy that a cartoon that depicted war and murder and torture and suicide dared to betray its audience by suggesting two women were romantically interested in one another. Also, apparently “political correctness” really means “hating everything good and bright and decent and sane in life.” Wow.
3. The Tor Mess. Basically, Theo Beale pounced on something the Tor art director said on Facebook, tried to turn it into a crusade and organized boycott of Tor Books, and ultimately failed to have any impact.
4. Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers). Yes, the original cover pose blog post from January of 2012 is still making the top ten.
5. Rape, Abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. A mid-2014 post about the revelations/discussions of Bradley shielding a child molester and molesting her own daughter and others, and the importance of acknowledging and talking about these things instead of sweeping them under the rug.
6. 10 Hugo Thoughts. More Hugo stuff. This post came out right after the final nominees were announced.
7. 2014 Writing Income. The annual writing income post. Yes, I’ll be doing one for 2015 in the next week or so.
8. Publishing 101. During 2015, John Scalzi signed a multi-book, multi-million dollar book deal. Certain pups tried very hard to paint this as proof of Scalzi’s failure as an author and human being. Rarely has the world seen such desperately twisted logic.
9. Choosing “Sides”. More puppies. This time, I was looking at the Sad Puppies’ efforts to invent an Us vs. Them war in the genre. With the puppies as the heroes, naturally. Sadly, the world isn’t as simplistic as certain folks were trying to make it out to be.
10. One-Star Wars. Apparently, some people were unhappy about Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars novel Aftermath because of a) the writing style, b) the decision that Expanded Universe works were non-canon, and c) Chuck included gay people in Star Wars. I mean, come on. Giant crime-boss slugs with fetishes for barely-clad humanoid females is one thing, but homosexuality? That’s a step too far, sir!
11. Depression. A collection of thoughts about depression.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. I hope you’ve had a great year, and I wish you all an even happier 2016.

First came my very first day as a full-time writer.

Then came the first day of school for the kids, meaning I actually had my first day to myself as a full-time writer.

Today, just over four weeks since I left the day job, was the first day of my 10 hours/week job. I’d been hoping to pick this up both to provide a bit of structure to my week, and to supplement the erratic writing income.

What have I accomplished thus far? Well, I was able to turn around the revisions on Revisionary. I wrote up and submitted a pitch to DAW. And I’m up to 15,000 words on Project Bob.

There has also been a boy who was home sick for a week, followed by me getting sick. Not cool, germs. Not cool!

I remember chatting with folks about the transition. Harry Connolly wrote a guest post about apps for shutting out the internet and helping you focus on writing. A number of other writers mentioned doing the same sort of thing. And I read those posts and listened to those stories and nodded my appreciation, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I sat back all content and smug, knowing I would never need such tools. I’ve spent 15 years disciplining myself to shut out distractions and write during my lunch break…

I assume you know where this is going?

A few days ago, I was sitting down to work on Bob again. I’ve been struggling a lot with this one, and my word count reflects that. I finally forced myself to physically shut all those windows — email, social media, the works.

And damn if over the course of a single hour I didn’t double my wordcount from the previous day.

Lesson learned, thank you.

I’m also rediscovering yet again the importance of momentum. It’s so much easier to keep writing than it is to start writing. And the longer it’s been since you wrote, the harder it is to start up again.

Unfortunately, being at home during the day has led to a number of interruptions. Some are minor. Getting up to let the dogs out and back in is probably a good thing, since it periodically makes me get out of the chair and walk around a little. Constantly answering the phone last week when the entire freaking world decided it was a good time to call Casa Hines? Yeah, I’m letting at least some of those calls go to the answering machine now.

With all that said, it’s only been a month. Every week has been different. I’m hoping that as I start the part-time job, I’ll finally get closer to a stable schedule, and will be able to start strengthening some good habits and routines.

In the meantime, I’m still better-rested and generally happier than I was a month ago. Go me! 🙂

So far, this full-time writer thing has been … weird.

Several people warned me that it would take a while to catch up on sleep, and they weren’t wrong. I’ve been sleeping in a bit and feeling surprisingly tired in the evenings. I’ve even crashed for the occasional nap.

I’ve gotten a bit of writing done, roughly at the same pace I’d been doing before. (I’m up to 11K words on Project Bob.) I’ve also started chipping away at various chores and errands and home maintenance things. Part of my brain is grumbling that I haven’t made more progress on the new book, but I’m trying to cut myself some slack this first week. This is a recovery and transition time.

It’s also the last week before the kids go back to school. Starting next week, I’ll be alone from the time I wake up until mid-afternoon when I head out to pick up my daughter. I suspect that will make a big difference when it comes to being able to focus on writing, or whatever else I need to work on.

Without the structure of the day job, I’m working on putting together my own schedule. I’m hoping my days will look something like this:

• 8 a.m. – Wake up. Grab breakfast.
• 8:30 – 10:30 – 10 hour/week freelance opportunity. (I’m still waiting to see if this works out, but if it does, it would be a nice, small, steady paycheck to supplement the other writing income.)
• 10:30 – Noon – Writing! (Or grocery shopping and other errands, when needed.)
• Noon – 1:00 – Lunch.
• 1:00 – 3:00 – Writing!
• 3:00 – 3:30 – Pick up my daughter.
• 3:30 – 4:30 – Writing!

There could be evening writing work as needed, and weekends as well, but if this works out, it means I’m getting 3-4 hours of writing time every day before stopping to make dinner.

I’m also planning to start exercising again in the evenings. I started with 20 minutes on the exercise bike last night. If I can get back into the habit, it will help the depression, the diabetes, and just get me back into better shape overall.

Other things I need to figure out:

• Making time for socializing and getting out of the house.
• Making sure the housework and such doesn’t devour all of my writing time.
• How much to try to work in the evenings and weekends. (I know I want and need more time to relax with my family than I’d been getting before.)

It all feels a bit surreal right now, and it will be another week before I start to have anything approaching “normal” full-time writer days.

But I already feel more rested and less stressed than I did a week ago. So far, so good!

In another 3.5 weeks, I’ll no longer have a full-time day job. It’s taken a long time to reach this point, and one of the biggest concerns I had was financial. I’m giving up a stable, good-paying job with a regular paycheck. While the writing has paid pretty well for the past few years, the income is neither stable nor regular. One month might see a five-figure royalties check, while the income for the next few months is down in the three-digit range. And there’s no guarantee my books will continue to sell.

So I wanted to make sure we were in good enough financial shape for me to make this leap. Here are the things my wife and I were looking at, starting with the REALLY BIG EXCITING NEWS:

1. Reducing Debt – So I paid off the mortgage yesterday… Walked into the credit union and did a wire transfer, which is one of the adultiest things I’ve done all month. With that transfer, we are officially debt-free. My wife’s student loans are paid off. Both vehicles are paid off. We don’t carry month-to-month debt on the credit cards.

   This is HUGE. We’ve spent years working toward this point. Eliminating the monthly mortgage balances out a good chunk of the lost income from my day job. Not to mention we’ll no longer be accumulating interest that has to be paid off.

   A little while back when I was explaining what a mortgage was to my son, I told him we’d paid off a lot of the house, so we owned most of it, but we didn’t own his room yet. So the bank could still come and take his room away. (He’s ten, and I’m one of those dads.) I’m so thrilled that last night I got to come home and tell him we own his room.

   

2. Building a Cushion – Someone once said if you were going to quit the day job and write, it was a good idea to have at least six months’ income saved up. I’m not quite at that point, but I’ve managed to build up a decent cushion, so when my car dies or the water heater goes up like a rocket or the puppy eats the refrigerator, it won’t immediately screw up our lives.
3. Cutting Back on Spending – I’ll be taking over a lot of the grocery shopping, and I’m going to be trying to trim our household spending wherever I can. I might turn into one of those Extreme Couponers holding up the line while I sort through my double-coupon deals, until impatient shoppers finally bludgeon me to death with their zucchini. I’m also thinking more about what conventions I can afford to go to, and doing what I can to split hotel and transportation costs and such.
4. My Wife Has a Stable, Full-Time Job – This was another huge prerequisite. The primary thing we needed was health insurance and other benefits. Everyone in the family has some sort of chronic health issue, and without insurance, we’d be bankrupt before I could pitch the next book. The ACA opened up some options, but her employer-provided insurance is a much better option. This also means we still have some stable, reliable income for when I’m waiting for Hollywood to write me a million-dollar check for  LIBRIOMANCER VS. GOBLIN PRINCESSES: THE MOVIE.
5. Checking the Budget vs. the Writing Income – Finally, I’ve been looking at our month-to-month budget to get an idea how much we spend each month, and making sure my wife’s job plus my average writing income for the past few years would cover what we need.

My hope is that once I’m writing more, the writing income will increase as well. Sounds logical, right? Well, that shows what you know. PUBLISHING CARES NOTHING FOR YOUR PUNY “LOGIC!” What this means is I’ll need to keep an eye on things and see how it goes over the next year or two. I’m thinking specifically about things like being able to put more money aside for college for the kids, as well as retirement funds for me and Amy.

I may look into other freelance work to help supplement the fiction. I’ll also be able to expand the range of what I’m writing. Who knows … maybe when I finally write Jig the Goblin in 50 SHADES OF BLUE, that will be the big money-maker that puts both kids through college.

There’s a lot to think about, and a fair amount of anxiety. There’s also a lot of excitement, not to mention the celebration of the mortgage-slaying. Huge thanks to my agent, my publisher, and all of my readers for helping me reach a position where this was a realistic financial option for me and my family.

Half of my most-visited posts from the past year were actually written in previous years. I’m not sure what to make of that. Actually, I’m not sure how significant a list like this really is, or how seriously to take it. Particularly as I don’t have any way of filtering out the troll spoor on at least three of these.

Mostly, it’s just interesting to me to see what brought folks to the blog…

1. Rape, Abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
2. Striking a Pose. My second most-visited blog post in 2014 was written in 2012. Hm…
3. 2013 Writing Income.
4. Fiskception & LC on Rape and Self-Defense. In addition to my normal traffic, I had the subject of these two posts sending his not inconsiderable number of followers to the blog, which boosted the numbers.
5. Sexual Harassment Conversations in Comic Form. A comic from 2013.
6. Posing Like a Man. From 2012. The cover poses will never die! No matter how much some people want them to…
7. Facts are Cool. Also from 2012.
8. Who Controls Your Amazon Ebook Price. Another one from 2012. This is starting to get weird.
9. Another Day, Another Mansplainer.