I’m trying something new now. I’m setting aside Wednesdays to work on my own projects. On Wednesday I will only write my books. I’ll market my books, and I’ll deal with my blog. It’s not a day for errands (except in emergencies – I realized today I need to get my car inspected a week ago!) and it’s not a day for rest and relaxation. Wednesday is a day for me to work on my career and my creative projects. It’s a day for me to prioritize myself.
It’s not easy to make that choice. Some of you may be thinking, yes, it is. No one else is going to champion your career and people can’t buy books you haven’t written yet. This is true, but there’s a real cultural barrier there. Women of a certain age, especially women who grew up in certain cultures, aren’t encouraged to think of themselves or put themselves first. It’s actively discouraged. And there’s another huge constraint that comes from my working-class background, where the employer always comes first. In my case, as a freelancer, that would be the client.
So, making the decision to take a day and prioritize my own work is actually making my skin crawl. That’s not hyperbole – I’m so uncomfortable right now. I feel like a teenager caught skipping math class.
Here’s the thing. People don’t make these kinds of choices, which go against decades of cultural training, without some kind of trauma or event that forces them to reconsider their behavior. I’m not any different.
I have anxiety. To some extent, it will always be part of my life. It’s not a moral failing or “selfishness,” it’s a series of chemical reactions in my brain that affect my body and my thinking. We can get into the details some other time, or better yet talk to a professional. Anyway, while working from home and ghostwriting has helped with a lot of my anxiety (removing a triggering stimulus), it’s created a new one.
I was spending all of my time on client work. I squeezed in time here and there to work on my own books, but then I would get swamped with client work between changes to the product and life events interfering with my ability to produce and the project would languish.
In 2017, I started 12 different projects, most of which were for specific calls for submissions. I finished one of them, because I couldn’t make the time. My time with my daughter was cut short, because I was always scrambling to get work done, and I had nothing to show for it.
2018 was shaping up to be no better. I did manage to produce, but it was such a battle that my cat took up a position outside my room to guard my writing time. I’m not kidding.
Last week it all came to a head on Tuesday. A friend died, and I didn’t feel I had the right to mourn him because I should be working on client work. Keep in mind, it was 8:30 at night. I was just afraid to fall behind, never mind starting on work for my own projects. I had lost out on NANOWRIMO in November after only three days because I couldn’t justify working on my own projects…
You see where this is going. My clients hadn’t told me not to work on my own work. They’re good people. I had just gotten stuck in this very negative, anxiety-driven cycle that would not allow me to prioritize myself.
Putting a new rule in place will help with that. All of my client projects will have to be planned around Wednesday, which will be a stone monolith that cannot be moved. It will require discipline, but I know I can do that. I’ve managed before.
Both my client work and my personal work will benefit from this change. And I’m putting it in writing, out there in the universe, because it makes me more accountable. All of you have to hold me to this now, okay?
Happy Wednesday!