Issue 4: Plan of Action
Plan of Action
To my dear friends and readers, thank you for being here on this journey with me. To be transparent with you, I have had a tough last week or so. The end of my former work position is hard to process and I am still going through that.
That being said, if you know me you also know that I am a person who knows how to take a breath and then find the solution to the problem. As my mom says to me, "You have always been a survivor," and that is true. Maybe I should tell Jeff Probst that and he'll give me a million dollars!
All jokes aside, I do have a "POA" as they say in the UK: a Plan of Action. I need an income to pay the bills so that's the first order of business. Here's what my POA looks like for now.
What's next?
My first step is to apply for ~50 technical writing contracts before December 1, and try to land one or two to pay the bills and work at my own pace without a full-time commitment. My brother Nate inspired me to consider actually doing the work that I deeply enjoy and the kind of tasks that give me energy and happiness. I believe I can be a technical writer, and be a novelist. Check out my writing portfolio site I made this weekend!
Which brings me to step two: finish my National Novel Writing Month novel and query the manuscript until I find a literary agent who wants to publish my works. I have the novel I'm working on now and another four manuscripts completed and under my belt. Those four manuscripts need quite a bit of work but they are available. So I do think that I can get my fantasy book or books published in the next couple of years. I will do this no matter where my money for bills comes from.
The backup plan
OK. Of course there's a backup plan because I'm a planner. (so Capricorn of me!) I always loved working in Quality Assurance and Data Quality Assurance despite the frustrations of the duct-tape enterprise software world. The challenges and puzzles in the world of software and data development never cease. So the backup plan would be return to the corporate software world and continue to work on getting my novel published, on the side.
The total dream world
There is one more plan, and that is to pursue an audiobook narrator career. I have some excellent resources given by Travis Baldree, the author of Legends and Lattes and a full-time narrator, when he came to Portland on his book tour and talked about his own work experiences. I have always thought it would be incredible to narrate, and so many people enjoy my voice and have said so for decades. I read many books aloud to my siblings when we were kids together. So I do look forward to putting my all into learning about what it takes to be a narrator for a living.
This is also another independent way to make a living, so that is daunting to me as opposed to trusting my wellbeing to a corporation. Despite that I want to and will try it and put everything I have into it.
One more dream: just get to create and somehow make enough money for everything I need. Whether it's my drawings, writing comics, making artwork, publishing novels, selling mini zines, printing poetry, or making stickers, or even something I cannot see right now, it would be amazing to be able to sustain a living from that. I know that is so tough to do but it's there. I said it. The idea is in the world.
Something I love right now
When I had the pleasure of attending this month's NaNoWriMo kickoff at the local Books-a-Million, I won a bingo game and got a planner called the Happy Planner as a prize! It is literally SO cool, it's a weekly planner that came with a ton of inspirational stickers. It's colorful and bright and has words of encouragement on every page. The days are just open enough that I don't feel bound to plan any one way. It has helped me make positive plans and write down reminders for myself that I need care during this tough time. I am so grateful that I won this little prize and that it turned out to be so helpful and so inspirational!
My world
If you got this far, you know that the POA part of this email is about my world. So check that out ^ :) And thank you so, SO much for reading! <3