I can hardly believe that before Christmas I was thinking about looking for a “proper job” again.
I’d taken a few months off to write my own book, The Life of Richard Cadbury, and I’d had to “lay off” most of my clients.
Then, when I was back “at work”, my regular clients had all found someone else to do their work.
I don’t blame them. I should have had my own book written within three months. Instead, it took me six (including research). I wouldn’t have hung around either.
So I had a bit of a mad blast to start replacing those clients. Two of them had kept me ticking over, one in Australia and one in Hong Kong. And I’d managed to win the odd job on Upwork as well as sack off People per Hour again – PPH really aren’t for me.
By the middle of February I was back on track, and managing the workload nicely.
Then lockdown happened, the poet was furloughed, and I had to take on a little more work to try and make up for the slight shortfall. And that meant that, once again, my own writing had to take a back seat. And just when I had a workable plan too … (sigh).
Between mid-March and now, the only time off I’d had was the second long weekend at the end of May. But, with one contract coming to an end, I had a mad push last week, and I worked until 9pm on Thursday and 10pm on Friday, just so I could take a weekend off.
Not that we could go anywhere there might be people. Despite lockdown being partially lifted, we are still shielding here until further notice.
The poet is still furloughed until at least the end of June, but I’m hoping I’ve settled into something a bit more workable now. And this week, I even carved out some time to do my own work again … which was fortunate, because then the first galleys for the Richard Cadbury book arrived.
I had a new client contact me about two weeks ago, recommended by a friend, and I had planned to start her work last week. However, I ran out of time and will instead be starting it this week.
My work in progress (WiP) pile is looking a bit like it used to do “in the old days”. But for those who like to see it, here’s my current income octopus:
- Publishing company (Greece)
- Website content producer (Pakistan)
- Publishing Company (England)
- Publishing Company (Hong Kong)
- Upwork (various)
- Editorial (short stories, novels, books, etc)
- Ad hoc editing jobs (referrals, repeat customers, friends & family, etc.)
- Passive income (ALCS, PLR, royalties, etc.) (mostly England)
There’s also an American editing agency that I have yet to do any work for. I simply haven’t had the time to squeeze any in. I’d like to do at least one for them some time soon, especially as I don’t know if I’ll need them or not in the future.
From this point forward, I am desperate to do some of my own writing work. I have a publishing schedule to reboot and I have several works of fiction I really should be moving forward with.
I’m also doing a couple of collaborations with the poet. One is a writer’s workbook, the other is a co-written novel – by D.I. Wordsworth. (Do you see what we did there?) (On several counts!)
It would have been nice to spend more furlough time with the poet. I bet the work will dry up again just as he’s going back to work …
