While I was preparing to wallow in crankiness in North Dakota this week, I received an unexpected shove from a friend with a sixth sense.
From New York, Coach Jennie is giving the shove to her people all over the world to celebrate the spectacular things we do have, rather than lament what we don’t that might be bothering us.
Fine. I’ll take the bait.
1. I’m remembering how lucky I am to be able to make a living writing.
Before starting a part-time job and taking a hiatus from the hustle of solopreneurship, making money writing (and, in turn, being a writer) felt like this awful chore. I was burdening this thing I loved with the need to make ends meet.
After leaving that part-time job and hitting the road without hesitation, I realize how fantastic it is to have the flexibility to decide I’ll just pick up extra writing work to get through the month so I can travel the country with Stefan.
2. Our podcast is a ton of a fun (and people are listening!)
Producing This Is Temporary each week with Stefan has helped us each to ground our unique brands and figure out how we want those to look in the future. It also gives us a chance to see how we can collaborate and support each other’s careers – oh, and talk about things we love, like comedy and sex, and our favorite thing: ourselves.
3. I’m traveling and seeing weird stuff around the country again.
Contrary to the myth that being a road comic is like being on vacation all the time, traveling for work (in any industry) is a grind. The unique feature of traveling as a middling comedian and a struggling writer is that we trek these thousands of miles with, like, 30 bucks in our pocket.
So, rather than do expensive touristy things like crush pennies at museums and eat at Denny’s, we get our entertainment from the sociological anomalies of the towns we end up in.
This weekend, we’re in two of North Dakota’s “boomtowns” – they’ve discovered oil and, more importantly, fracking (pardon my French), in the Great Plains, so guys are rushing out here for work. That means these tiny, dusty towns are quickly expanding to hold and serve new families – and we can see their growing pains. I thought the U.S. was done making new cities, but we’ve found a new frontier out here!
4. I’m working on my next book.
Bah! I’m not supposed to say these things publicly, because it always changes and sometimes even falls totally flat. But, yeah, I’ve got my next collection of essays – stories of writing, life, and love – in the works.
And with it, I’ll be re-publishing the first two collections I published (and subsequently pulled) in 2011 and 2012. New covers, some new pieces – and a new focus for my brand that’s been too tied to what I profess to offer others and not enough to what I want to create. With these three in the works, I’ll have five books available after four years of work – I’m a goddamn author; how did I get so caught up focusing on other stuff?
5. Writer’s Bucket List has a new face (and a new purpose).
In keeping with my brand’s new focus on me, I’ve designated WritersBucketList.com as a time capsule of resources for writers and entrepreneurs, rather than an active blog. This means I get to focus on growing my audience through the very personal stuff at this blog, on Huffington Post, through the podcast, and through social media.
Go there now, and you’ll still find almost four years of articles by me and other writers and bloggers. But I’m no longer pre-occupied with generating content to draw traffic to the site to gain subscribers to . . . Well, that whole cycle of online business that I’ve never taken a liking to.
6. I got an assignment for a magazine that’s really exciting.
I won’t say what or where. It’s a humor piece, and I don’t know if I’m cut out for this… Super stoked (and terrified) to give it a shot!
7. I just hosted a kick-ass workshop.
Here’s something to celebrate! For about two years, I’ve been toiling over how to turn my answers to questions writers have about publishing, et. al., into a viable product or service. I tried and failed to package it in a lot of ways and had all but given up on the idea of writer trainings until this “weekend workshop” hit me like a big obvious ton of bricks.
The weekend workshop format responds to a lot of the issues that keep my audience from buying coaching, courses, affiliate products, and other typical offers from me. It’s cheap, quick, no-frills, and action-oriented. And I can do it from the road and set it up anytime I want, which means it fits perfectly into my perfectly inconsistent lifestyle!
8. I’m missing my family like hell.
That sounds like a complaint – and it is, a little – but it’s something I’m celebrating. I used to be able to move or leave or say goodbye at the drop of a hat and not give my parents and siblings a second thought. I can’t do that anymore, because we’ve strengthened ties and repaired cracks that grew in my adolescence.
And there’s that baby girl at home, and I’ll just die if she grows up and forgets about me! It means I’m stuck with living in Wisconsin until I can afford to fly there a couple times a week from whatever fabulous city I choose. (Or until my niece develops the cognitive awareness required to understand it’s a real person on the other side of FaceTime.)
9. And the family keeps growing!
We were fortunate to pass through Salt Lake City as Stefan’s brother there welcomed his first baby into the world. Stefan got to meet his nephew at eight days old and instantly fall in love like a big goon.
One of my sisters also has a two-month-old girl I’ll finally meet when we return, and we’ve got the wedding of another to look forward to next year. This clan of five twentysomething girls is almost all grown up . . .
10. I’m still writing and publishing like crazy.
Even though I’ve shifted my focus, I’ve been able to continue to build on the foundation of the community and network I’ve grown over four years.
Most notably, the strength of the Writer’s Bucket List community earned me an invite to become a HuffPost blogger, and that platform allows me the opportunity to reach a wider audience as well as write on a wider range of topics that tie into my personal creative writing.
I also continue to write for The Write Life, where I get to share my experiences and lessons learned in writing and self-publishing. And, as you see above, I’m breaking into new markets!
The goal is to shift my focus from instructive to creative writing – get ready to see a lot more of my own dumb stories and less of my dumb ideas about what you should be doing with your life :)
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