Presently, For a Living

The big dream for so many writers is to do it full-time, without having to work a "regular" job to pay the bills. I'm no different. Unfortunately, I'm still at the "regular" job stage of my career. I work in a bookshop, which is no longer just a bookshop, with three days a week at the moment.

I get paid minimum wage to process deliveries, work on the till, help out with the magazines with the senior staff member in charge of them is out, price and merchandise books, and generally keep the place clean when I'm in. And that's just the half of it.

There's very little I don't do in the shop, but the standout task for me is recommending new books to people. It tends to happen more often in the children's section than anywhere else in the shop, because I have the most experience of personal reading in that section out of anyone else in the shop - though the staff member in charge of book orders would know the section better than I would from more direct involvement in the stock processing.

No other job in the shop is quiet like getting to recommend a new book series to a teenager who's only figuring out what they like to read, or finding something similar to books someone's read and enjoyed.

Recently, with the big John Green craze, it means getting to recommend The Perks of Being a Wallflower and We Were Liars to readers. For fans of The Hunger Games, I just to Gone, and fans of Divergent to The Mortal Instruments. Figuring out what people would like is a big job - and one that relies on their personal taste as much as my opinion - and it's the thing I don't mind dedicating a little bit of extra time to, especially if it means that someone will have something to look for the next time they come in.

It's not quite a job for a living, not the same way my parents' jobs are for a living, because I'm still lucky enough to be living at home while still in part-time employment. However, it's let me save for a Masters. It's let me replace my old laptop, with one of the hinges shattered to pieces so that it can't close, and get some equipment for the Masters and beyond. It's a job that's let me go to the cinema on a regular basis, and buy books when I feel like it, keep up with magazine subscriptions, go see friends and eat out for dinner every now and then.

It's not a living, not with a mortgage and bills and a car to run, but it is a life I wouldn't have otherwise.

A Clear and Certain Plan

Later this month, I plan on announcing my publishing plans for 2014. I don't normally do that, but then I don't normally have the time to dedicate to writing from the offset.

Last January was an anomaly. I was lucky to get home early almost every night while on teaching placement. This gave me time to make tea in the comfort of my own home, work at my own desk and at my own pace, and free myself from the distractions that arise from the wonderful people I call my friends. (I would want to talk to them all the time - it's just easier to blame them for being so distracting than it is to accept that it's actually just my own fault. This doesn't count as a confession because it's in brackets. Obviously.)

With all of that in mind, I was able to write a book in the evenings, after I had my lessons planned for the next day. That book would become Planning Before Writing. I did not know when I started writing it that I would be able to publish it in March.

This December, I've already begun planning my publishing schedule. There are a couple of things I need to work on doing, still, and a couple of books that - when I announce the schedule - will be untitled, but overall I have a plan of what I'll be doing next year. This is unheard of for me.

What's changed? I'm not in college. I don't have exams to dread in May. I don't have essays due in throughout the year. I don't have teaching placement in January. Unless things change drastically for me, I'm looking at working only three and a half days a week on average - two in the bookshop, the remainder of the time minding my niece.

Effectively, my time is freed up completely at the time of the year when I'm most able to focus: January. It's been a need to develop that for the past few years, and last year I had the added bonus of creating a New Year's Resolution that would keep me writing consistently for a long time.

But let's just be clear on something: I didn't stick to it this year. There are days that I didn't write anything. By the time I'd written a poem every day for two months and blogged every day for that amount of time, too, I just ran out of things to say. Okay, not entirely true. I actually just hit a slump one week, and it took a while to get the ball rolling again. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, there.

What's different this time around is that I'm not just planning on writing every day. I'm not giving myself a big list of options to work from. I'm focusing entirely on one project at a time. It'll make more sense, soon, but effectively I'm giving myself assignments like I'd have in college, and using my time to create whatever book or article it is that I'm supposed to do.

This is my self-made work. It's all things I'm passionate about, things I've been wanting to do for a long time, now, and just never got around to doing. I'm approaching 2014 with a clear plan in mind, and I'm going to make sure that I actually stick to it. It's not just a hobby any more. This is work. This is business.

What 'Work' Means

When applying for a job, the typical CV includes a number of details that effectively break down as a simple introduction to who you are and how you see yourself. Let's look at my CV briefly, leaving out the details like where I live, and the specifics of where I work. Safety first online.

Hi there. My name is Paul Carroll, I'm twenty two, and I'm a recent college graduate. I have six and a half years' experience as a bookseller, I write books and plays, I consider myself quite empathetic towards others, and I took part in Drama while in college. I'm technically a qualified teacher, a detail I include to indicate that I have developed skills in communication, organisation and working with large groups of people in sometimes stressful situations.

Looking at that, it's not a bad introduction. However, if I had this in in the form of a CV, what it looks like is:

Hi there. My name is Paul Carroll, I'm twenty two, and I'm a recent college graduate. I have six and a half years' experience as a bookseller, in a shop where my time is valued at minimum wage. I write books and plays, but I haven't ventured into the world of traditional publishing. As the current understanding of what it means to be published is still changing, you might think I'm either afraid of failure, or that I am a failure. I consider myself quite empathetic towards others, which is my way of saying I'm sensitive to others and their needs; while this is useful when working with the public, as a personality trait it's underestimated. I took part in Drama while in college, something I can point out to show that I had a balanced work-and-social life, but that might also suggest I could bring the theatrics with me. That is not always the case. I'm technically a qualified teacher, a detail I include to indicate that I have developed skills in communication, organisation and working with large groups of people in sometimes stressful situations. My lack of a teaching position might indicate that I never bothered, or no school would hire me. The former makes it look like I changed my mind, which makes me look fickle.

With the added cynicism, my CV doesn't look too great. It indicates that I am undervalued but not willing to take drastic measures to change that. It suggests I chose self-publication for reasons other than the challenge of doing it all myself. It doesn't say much about what it really means to pay attention to how others are feeling, or how Drama helps to develop a sense of belonging to a group about which I was passionate. Furthermore, it doesn't say much about how I feel about the teaching world right now, or my position in it.

On the latter, I'll be brief. Teaching in Ireland is tricky at the moment. There are union problems. There's a new Junior Cycle programme on its way in. At least, that was the plan. These are all adding to the workload and food for thought for teachers, who must still prepare lessons for pupils, grade work, prepare exams, and - when industrial action isn't taking place - arrange meetings and out-of-school trips. It's all quite headache inducing at the moment, and I'm barely four years older than the sixth year students.

I'm not on a sub list for teaching at the moment as a result of a combination of the above paragraph and, more significantly with regards timing and scheduling my life, the time I spend working in the bookshop and minding my niece. The sub list is not a guarantee for work. Few people on it will work every week, fewer of them every day of every week, and fewer still will be lucky enough to find sub work as maternity leave cover. I'm not currently in a position to drop everything with an hour's notice Monday to Friday. Social obligations are less of an issue - friends would understand. It's the days I could be working in the bookshop, or the days I'm minding my niece, that would cause problems.

So, that's that. That's why I'm not currently working as a teacher.

However, even that represents only a limited understanding of what it means to be a teacher. Looking at my CV again, we can see a few key points jumping out: I'm a writer, with speaking practice, trained as a teacher. Those three points actually go together remarkably well.

You see, my college experience has helped shape me into someone who is quite capable of doing something I wouldn't have thought possible fifteen years ago - when I didn't know what it meant to be a published writer, when writing books wasn't even an option because I had never found a book for my age that told a story I really loved. (That came later.) What's changed is that I'm in a position to make my own work as a teacher.

Classrooms are important for group teaching. That said, they're only vital when the group is consistently larger than a dozen - at least on the class list. Nowadays, technology allows for group discussions through video conferencing (and conversing) software. Google Hangouts make talking to a group of people an easy to manage environment. But even with that in mind, the Internet and the advent of digital publishing and the decreased requirement for a "gatekeeper" allows for someone like me to redefine what 'work' means.

I've spoken about this already, but this is what I'm planning in 2014. I'll be back to working barely any hours in the week, still on minimum wage. I'll have plenty of time to myself during the week, time which I can use to revalue myself publicly. Lets face it, I have nothing to lose in trying to work on things I'm actually passionate about - not magazines and newspapers and stationery, not someone's problem with a book they received, or the finer details that arise from working under a brand name, but in a different company altogether.

Work shouldn't have to be about doing things at a pay-rate that belittles the trouble you go to for people, or the effort you put in to make sure everything runs smoothly. Work shouldn't have to involve doing something that doesn't make you happy.

Yes, I'm grateful to have a job. But it's not good work. Retail, especially at Christmas, is difficult. I'm at the end of six days working full time, leaving me exhausted and exasperated, and the closest thing I get to a Christmas bonus is €20 under my name for a Christmas party that hasn't even been arranged yet. This is after restocking and re-merchandising the shop for six days in a row. This is after customer complaints over transactions I wasn't involved in - too often not even from my shop. This is after customers failing to observe the store's opening hours. This is after recommending and/or locating books at least a dozen times a day - most likely more than that. That, for minimum wage.

I'd like to clarify: I understand the company's financial situation. I understand the rush at Christmas. This isn't about the job itself. It's about how much value is placed on the work I do, from where I'm sitting. I know that come January, things will go back to what could loosely be described as normal. I know I'll be back to working just weekends, despite having proved myself as being able to handle more than just the few hours I receive with the responsibility that's placed on me.

Having a job and being valued for your work are two different things. I know what it would take when I control my work to indicate that I am valued. I know the difference between the job I have in the bookshop and the work I'm putting into place for next year. I know what work means to me, and what I ought to be valued at, and I know how it looks from the outside. All I have to do now is make sure it's clear from the point of view of others when I'm working and when I'm not. (Here's a hint: if I'm typing a lot on my laptop, writing a lot on notepad, or looking intently at a screen - sometimes with a tablet and a pen in my hand - then I'm probably working. Even if you hear music blaring at the same time. It's called a 'working environment'.)

The Way Things'll Be

As of tonight, I have no more drama rehearsals until February. The cast will be off to teaching placement in the new year, with another play to put on stage in two weeks, leaving me to tend to my time in my own ways. Thankfully, I'm quite good at doing things that take quite a bit of time!

My overall intention is to kick-start 2014 with a few different things on my website, including a series of articles, and a video series. Both will require some work, and will have their own little hiding place online for me to work with. Overall, there are ten articles to write and ten videos to make, but I can see that growing over time. The latter is a documentary of a project I'm hoping to undertake with some friends - they just don't know the gory details yet!

Essentially, though, it'll keep me busy at work creating these different things, and setting up all the different pieces needed to get it all started. I'm working from a guideline in The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard, and while I don't have such high aspirations of making such an inordinate amount of money, I'm definitely feeling the creative push in the right direction, that coincides nicely with things I've wanted to do for a while and just...didn't.

So, convenient that!

Of course, the articles and the videos are just one piece of the little puzzle. I've a lot of writing to do over the coming weeks, to fit around my hours in work. That's a good thing, though. I find that when I have something to do and somewhere to go, I start to value the time I have not in work that little bit more. I'm hoping to write a chapter or two of my current work in progress before work tomorrow, and hopefully one tonight. However, my main hope was to write something for tonight. I couldn't leave my blog to try fend for itself for another week.

This is all part of my commitment to something bigger, to keeping my creative works more consistent. It's helped, actually, having Burchard's book to work from. The "expert signposts" he includes in each chapter are helping me put to words the different things I need to learn or do or focus upon, and while it does mean I end up writing dozens of pages about different things, it's resulting in the helpful creation of resources to use in the future.

So, I'm basically positioning myself as an "expert", as he would put it, as a Messenger. We'll see how I actually work it all out in the different ways he suggests, but for the time being I'm writing books to work with all of this. I'm also working out a better publishing schedule for myself. It's the one thing I can say about books like this (though I haven't seen many books like this one): even if you don't achieve the same results you see printed in the book, there are results to be gained from doing the work.

And, if you can believe it, it's fun.

I'm genuinely enjoying doing this. I feel focused, I have ideas to work with, I'm getting things done, and I essentially had written permission to do something I enjoy for a living. (Well, we'll see if I "do it for a living", when things start playing out.) But for now, this is the way things'll be, while the drama rehearsals are on hold and I suddenly find myself with two more evenings a week than before, and for a long period of time. This is the sort of change I needed a long time ago, and I don't think it's too late to get started. I don't think it's ever too late to start doing something you love.

Learning From Home

With my graduation drawing that little bit closer, I'm beginning to notice how little I learn these days when compared to life in formal education. And you know what? It sucks. I hate not learning something new every day.

I've remedied this, slightly, by beginning to read the business and marketing books I've got on my shelves. I think I would have hated studying them in college and having to write about what other people did in those fields, and studying general principles of them - as opposed to having a look at literature as a whole, and studying religion both in depth and as a basic concept, and studying child psychology and education - but they're two of my favourite things to read about at home.

The books vary depending on my mood, but most recently I read through two of the books in the Teach Yourself (In a Week) series. One of them I read in a day - something like three chapters before work and four afterwards - instead of spreading it out over the week. More recently, though, I'm reading Brendon Burchard's The Millionaire Messenger.

Now, I'm under no misconceptions that I might become a millionaire in a short period of time. It's not a get-rich-quick book. What it is is a book that's getting me thinking, specifically about my strengths and experience, and in a positive light. I'm on a few chapters in and it's already had me pick up a pen and paper and jot down (in key words) everything I know about a topic, and begin writing a book because of that list. Best of all, though, is that I'm only getting started on the book.

One of things that's been missing since I finished up in college was a sense of direction. With modules, there's always something to aim towards, some assignment that needs doing, or an exam to...anticipate. While I'm glad to be free from the strict and horrible deadlines and stress that arise from such things - especially exams - I do miss having the defined course in front of me, and miss learning what someone else sees as being important.

Hence the learning from home, and reading through entire books on a wide range of topics under particular subjects. Basically, I have a need to learn something that hasn't gone away since my final exams. I'm glad for that, and even happier to have actually gotten back into the habit of reading regularly.

It's not just the business books, mind you. I mean, I'm not testing myself on any of this, but part of what made my course fun was having fiction thrown into the mix. So, I've been reading fiction. My home reading is non-fiction, but my lunches in work and every bus journey I take are devoted to reading. I'm half-way through book 4 in the Mortal Instruments series already, having also read a number of other books too, since September.

If I'm remembering my reading list correctly, since reading City of Bones, I've also read Everyday, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and Numbers, with City of Ashes and City of Glass following them up. Before those, I read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Severed Heads, Broken Hearts, and volume one of Morning Glories.

While it's not a huge amount, it's more than I had time to read in the same amount of time while I was still a student. My hope is to finish up the Mortal Instruments books soon, then give something else a try. If I have a lot of hours in December for the run up to Christmas, I know I'll have plenty of lunch breaks to fill with books.

What I'd love is to actually get myself into a routine of reading a book per week of fiction and of non-fiction, while also writing. However, the way things are working out of late, I haven't had much of a chance to set up a weekly routine. It had been my hope at the end of the summer to have a full schedule lined up for myself, but work hours haven't been regular enough for that. (And, I'll admit, I've been lazy at times.)

Generally speaking, though, I think I'm getting on to a good start in terms of reading, and my new writing project could set me on the path to writing more regularly as well. I've done just enough work on it that abandoning it now is just wasteful, so that's a relief. That said, I'm only 12% into it. Tomorrow night might see me add another chunk to it, but it won't be much. Still, early starts and (almost) daily contributions to the book will see it finished in no one. Just like Planning Before Writing before it, this book can be done in bits and pieces, steadily over a period of time, without me worrying about losing my place.

And here's my question for you: are you reading anything interesting at the moment? Any Young Adult or Business recommendations you can make?

Dear Exhaustion

I have good news, and bad news. I'll start with the bad news: I don't yet have the books I'd hoped to work on edited. I was hoping that, with what little time I had off this week, I might be able to turn some attention to them. Alas, no. You see, between the early starts, the distinct lack of any days off, and the beating of the rain on the roof - and poor me in the attic - I lost a lot of sleep that would have otherwise contributed to my editing energy.

The good news, though, is that while I don't yet have the books edited, I have an idea of what I might do with the series. I think it'll look like a December announcement as to whether or not I'll be going ahead with my book-a-month publication on the series, but for now I have things I can do, a publishing schedule vaguely drawn up, and some ideas related to cover design and overall plot.

So, it's a start.

I think the main reason I want to publish this series is because it's something I can control that I really enjoy. Recently, I had been thinking of some film ideas. You know what they say, everyone has an idea for a movie. I had three. A Slenderman movie, a Krampus movie, and an adaptation of Frankenstein.

Well...

Turns out Marble Hornets has been optioned for a film release on the big screen with the director of Sinister (I think... maybe it was Paranormal Activity or Insidious - whatever, one of the big horror directors I would have liked to work with on my Slenderman movie in my wild dreams) connected to it. So, there goes that idea. The Krampus movie, I'm not even sure what's happening with it. One release date on it, a lot of uncertainty about it... I don't know, I could still do it. I have an idea, and an idea is a very good place to start. As for Frankenstein...

Two movies. Yes, two. One, I, Frankenstein, sees Adam in a kind of action role, with two immortal races battling it out. I think one of them are gargoyles. I'm not sure. It's not a typical Frankenstein adaptation, and it's technically mis-titled if you ask me (or anyone who's read the book and knows that you shouldn't call Adam - AKA Frankenstein's monster - by his creator's name. But then, I'm against the idea that Adam should be considered the monster in the first place!) The other one, though, simply titled Frankenstein, stars James McAvoy as Victor Von Frankenstein, and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, and is therefore a take on the classic films. Not the book.

I don't know what it is about the book, or whether Hollywood just loves the idea of having an Igor, but I haven't heard of an adaptation that follows the same plot as Shelley wrote. Instead there are all of these different paths followed, and the odd decision made to make Victor Frankenstein a Von Frankenstein instead.

Hashtag weird, am I right?*

So, in my heightened state of exhaustion, I managed to see three ideas I had for films get washed away by others who came before me. In a sort of response, I decided to take a couple of completed first drafts and a lot of ideas for follow-ups and connected books, and release them en masse to the world in 2014. I'm aiming for an air of tragi-comedy, dealing with some wit and buffoonery and general craic, while addressing some of the darker elements of ordinary life.

At the very least, it'll keep me busy. And so long as the rain keeps at an acceptable volume, I can write these books in peace without worry of exhaustion creeping in.

*I should probably not do that, right?

Grandiose Ideas

I have a habit of getting an idea in my head, thinking it's entirely possible to do, despite the following facts about my life:

1) I can be called in to work with a day's notice, and because I need to save money, I will agree to go in.
2) I can have anywhere between two and five days' work per week.
3) I have family obligations.
4) I promised myself I would maintain a semblance of a social life.
5) I plan to do too many things at once.

All five are true. It doesn't take much effort to remember them. And yet, recently I've had a few ideas that aren't practical in the slightest, for the above reasons. They include:

1) Writing and posting a 'horror' poem every day in October onto ParagraVerse.
2) Writing and publishing twelve related books in 2014 (two of which are already written, and they aren't the Modern Irish Myth books).
3) Writing (and releasing weekly) a multi-plot story (as in, multiple variations of events) that essentially triples with each addition of a story (meaning by week 4 I would need to release 27 variations of the same chapter).
4) Writing and editing an unplanned book in a month, at a length of 75,000 words.

How many of those things are actually possible? Technically, all of them, but not if I have work and/or family obligations more than three times per week. So, basically, I made the decision, repeatedly, to do the impossible. I actually began the 75K book, before realising how impractical it was to attempt it when I fell behind by 4000 words after three days.

But this keeps happening. I mean, in theory I could do these things. I could still do the 12-books-in-a-year thing, but it would require a lot of work, and a lot of planning (starting now) and they would all be novellas. It's still something I might do, but I need to see how well the two books I'm editing at the moment turn out in the end. If they're no good and require a lot more work after these edits, then I can't write another couple of books before January.

The problem with these big ideas is that I don't actually have many days off, lately. As it is, I won't have a full day to myself until Monday next week. Sure, I'll have half-days and evenings, but that's it. I'll get to go into town to buy my comic books, and I'll get to go out for dinner and go to the cinema, but I'm not going to get do these things whenever I want in any given day. And I certainly don't have a lazy-day ahead of me any time soon.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I like the way things are right now. I just have to keep reminding myself not to start getting my heart set on these massive long-term projects that require me to have more time available than I currently do.

Over the next week, I'll have my editing and planning hats on interchangeably, and by my next day off I'll know what sort of state I'll be in to do my massive 12-book-publication year. At the very least, I'll write some fun stories.

A Wee Holiday

I don't dare to look at the date on the last published post on this blog: I gave myself a wee holiday from the Internet, and forgot to come back. So, here I am, in the cyber flesh, somewhat overworked as the change-over in work continues to baffle me with builders and deliveries and my transfiguration from man to newspaper ink as we put the little pieces of the Sunday Times together.

Evidently, I don't holiday well. Holidaying should imply rest, or at least doing something that isn't work, for a period of time. Instead, I was just away from my laptop, barely tweeting, not telling Facebook the ins-and-outs of my life, not blogging or vlogging or Google Plussing. I haven't done much by way of social media interaction since sometime in August, and I suppose I should apologise for that. Except apologies are over-rated when they don't have an explanation behind them, so here's how things happened.

The week following my last blog post - if I'm remembering when that was, exactly - was all a massive setting-up process for a weekend of Shenanigans and Buffoonery at my house. We had a Family Thing. That's about as much detail as you'll get on that. Needless to say, though, that the prep-work and everything else involved and the fact that I had all of this going on and a complete lack of willingness to talk about it online pretty much left me with nothing to blog about without pulling a random topic out of my...notebook. Let's say notebook. It's more family friendly.

Following the Weekend of Madness, which included some time off work, I ended up with a lot of hours in the bookshop as we went through with a major aspect of our change-over. I was also walking to and from work every day, which meant that from around eight until seven I was out of the house or getting in/out of my uniform. Somehow, I managed to maintain a weak semblance of a social life while doing all of this, going to the cinema a couple of times and having dinner out (the joys of KFC...which I can't see myself wanting to eat for a long, long time now) and actually talking to people.

At one point, I had some fun putting together a list of things I'm actually good at. I have a little portfolio in my room, now, which I want to keep adding to. It felt good to put it together, to make things seem a little bit less crap and a little bit more...possible? I suppose that's how it feels. Like things are possible. The big bad scary world of post-college life is a little less terrifying with a good idea of what I'm actually capable of now sitting in my bedroom.

During my time away from the Internet, I also managed to get myself back reading. I've even made the executive decision to make videos about the books I'm reading, since I don't make videos often enough.

And, of course, I've picked up The Sims 3 again. Something about living vicariously through digital minions is oddly fulfilling. At the moment, I'm playing using a married couple of a fairy and a wizard, just for the fun of it. It does mean that they share different beds (she sleeps in a fairy house outside...) but they're also capable of running a house rather efficiently. She can use her fairy magic to repair broken objects without fear of death, and he can magically upgrade objects without...well, fear of death, again. I lost a Sim in an earlier game to an electric shock. Thankfully, it's just a game...

While I've been contemplating many ideas for stories in my time away from the Internet, I've been keeping the writing to a minimum. It hasn't exactly been fun, not writing, but from this blog post on I'm getting things going again. I'm back from my wee little holiday, and it's time to get to business.

Working 9-5

I've made a decision. From Monday onwards, I'm going to work 9-5. While I have a make a quick trip into the city centre on Monday, too, I'm going to make sure that I get in early enough to get what I need to do done quickly. No browsing, no staying around for lunch.

The reason I want to do this is so: (1) it sets up boundaries for me for when I work, (2) it'll encourage me to do something all the time and (3) it means I know when I can muck about, and when I can't. Since I can't afford a social life next week, it's the perfect time to test my self-imposed life of working 9-5.

I imagine it'll be a case of me being bored out of my mind by Tuesday, but sure what can you do?

Actually, that's probably not entirely true. I'm in the middle of making a wee project a reality. I've got my Options sheet (all typed up and pretty) to give me work. I know how to get myself to do things. I plan on spending a wee bit of time drawing up a list of things I can write about, and a list of other tasks I can do, and I imagine it'll keep me busy for the week.

I may even set myself deadlines for things. Imagine that, me with deadlines and working creative-filled shifts.

I jest, a bit, but I'm actually serious about this. I think I can manage working 9-5. I'll be sure to tweet, too, to make it look like I'm a one-man business. Businesses tweet all the time, right? (That's a rhetorical question. I know they do. The pile of free books I received through Twitter competitions is proof of that. Paulie loves free books.)

I'm thinking, aside from one little thing that I've been working on that only my brothers know about, I'll work on getting some flash fiction written, and sending off a bunch of poetry, and finishing The Blood of Leap and designing a cover for it, and addressing a novel I've been meaning to work on for a while.

You know, nothing too stressful.

The way I see it, I can sit at home playing games online and watching seven series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or I can work from home and actually, maybe, make something of myself in a nerdy writer type of way, and still have time in the evenings to do other things that tickle my fancy. What a way to make a living, right?

Options

You might recall my trouble sleeping the other night. I had some things on my mind. Part of it was to do with work (and my still only working weekends on minimum wage after six years in the place), and part of it was to do with September and its great big Nothingness. There's also a change in the house around then, and that's just one more thing to consider.

So, I re-wrote out my 'solutions' list, neatly, and put it away safely. I've addressed something new and exciting that came up today. And to further address the worries that September brings, I brainstormed my options.

Setting an online timer, I had three minutes to write down as many different things I could do that would affect both my work and September problems at the same time. While there's no direct need to leave the bookshop for most of the options, because most of them aren't instant-return, and don't require complete availability on my part, I did include that.

Don't get me wrong: I don't want to leave the bookshop. I just want to be able to do something more than weekends at such a low wage, and not feel like I need them more than they need me. In six years, the management haven't exactly made me feel as if I'm an essential and valued part of the team, which really sucks. It could just be me, now, at this point in my life, blowing it all out of proportion, but I don't think so. I don't even have keys to the shop, despite it being mentioned two or three times over the past couple of years that I should probably be given a set (which would make arranging hours easier, since I could open and close the shop if need be.)

So, with those niggling doubts over my value to the shop, I have my list. I need to type it up and make it official, but my options are now there in front of me.

I'll break it down for you. A lot of it involves writing in one way or another. One option is crafty. A couple are business-y. One's even a learning thing, just so I'm doing something in September (I was thinking one of those free online courses...in something.)

The value in this exercise is that, while life seems to be at an impasse, I can still make choices to change things. One thing's for certain though: I'll have to start setting an alarm and working every day at regular hours. My motivation has gone way down without structure to the day. Now I have lots of different options I can choose from. I know I'll probably get started on a couple of them sooner rather than later, too, because I can. They don't require me to do much aside from getting myself out of this chair. (Though, inevitably I'll have to return to the chair for the computer parts of these things.)

What I'm saying is, while the post-college blues might be setting in, I have a way out. I have many ways out, in fact, and I think it's about time I followed through on them.

Getting Ready for Launch Day!

Tomorrow, I'm launching my new blog. I have a list of things I need to do before then, including writing the first story for it, but I have a feeling it'll be a fun one to keep up to date. I have a list of story ideas, and I'll be adding to that particular brand of story-ideas as time goes on.

If you remember a poll I did on my website a while back, you might know what sort of stories are in the works. If not, and you're not bothered looking, well...you can wait to find out tomorrow.

Thankfully, most of the prep-work is very basic code and re-organising in Wordpress. It's the same sort of stuff I've done with blogs in the past, and with my website and the Modern Irish Myth site, so it won't take long to actually get it done. And once it's out of the way, I'll have a brand new site up and running.

Literally, it's a case of: adding a subscriber widget, setting up a navigation menu, writing an About page, and grabbing links to social media sites and the like. It's all simple jobs, and it'll have the site up and running and easy to use.

Once I get it started and have a few stories written to keep it going for a few weeks consistently, I can get to work on a couple of other major projects that have been calling for my attention for a while now. With the Big Break coming to an end, I figure it's about time I actually started following through on my plans.

Of course, I won't be giving up things like reading comic books, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, or re-discovering my joy of Pokémon Yellow. That would be ridiculous. But I'll be assigning more time in the day to do "work". (Which, to be honest, is just what I'll have to call it to get people to leave me alone while I do it!)

I have high hopes for the next few months. These are the ones that'll matter, I reckon. These are the ones that will define how I spend my days while not in full-time employment.

Summer Break is Almost Over

Every year for as long as I can remember, I've been in a cycle: in May/June, we were let off school, and in September (and sometimes August...eugh!) we were sent back in. For the months in between, we did whatever we wanted, within reason.

If I hadn't just finished up college, I would be repeating that cycle again this year. That said, summer break is still almost over, and it's time to really get back to work. I might not have assignments or lectures or someone looking at everything I do with a critical eye, but I do have some things that need doing.

See, I decided a long time ago that I wanted to write for a living. If I could find the letter to prove it to my mother, I've wanted this since I was eleven. At least, that's how long it's been in writing. We were asked to write a letter to ourselves ten years from now. I should have opened it last October but I'm not entirely sure where it is. I'm not even sure I could read it, what with the way my handwriting was back then. I still remember what it said, though: I'd wanted to be studying Journalism at DCU. It was the only college I knew the name of, and it was the only thing I could imagine doing.

Somewhere along the line, I came to fancy the idea of being a teacher. This idea was then encouraged unknowingly by many friends and family who, from the time I was sixteen to before I'd submitted by CAO application (for those who aren't aware - essentially a less-than-fun way to pick college courses!), told me I should be a nurse or a teacher, or a bestselling author. (Many were kind enough to say that to me before they'd even read anything I'd written.)

But the letter, written in October 2002 (which feels a life-time ago, now...) I wanted to be a Journalist. I wanted to write words that people would read and make enough money from that to live and be a Grown-Up.

I don't see why, despite having not studied Journalism at third level, and despite having studied to be a teacher, I should give up on that idea. After all, how many of us really live up to our childhood dreams?

With that in mind, something that I hadn't given much thought to over the years, I've made up a list of things I need to do. It's not just little things like write a blog post, though tomorrow's tasks are kind of step-by-step things towards setting up my new poetry and prose blog. After that, though, I have a lot of work that needs doing in different areas, all towards making my childhood dream come true: to write and get paid for it.

I think I'm used to the idea of getting back to work in September that this rush of motivation so late in the day doesn't feel strange to me. As it is, once I'm done writing this I'm planning on doing some work. I think it's about time, three years after setting up my website, to give it a bit of a re-design. I'm still keeping the same look, but I want to have it laid out differently. A lot's changed in three years, and I think it's about time to reflect those changes online.

Summer break was fun while it lasted.

Worker, Chef, Writer, Trainer

If today had a theme, it would be Time. My ability to keep track of it was tested, both in work and at home, and while I failed miserably in the shop, I managed to not kill everyone at home.

See, as part of the changes happening in the shop, we have to return a lot of old stock. I was left to the kids' section today, with a twenty page list and a pile of empty boxes. My four-hour shift usually drags by, and while I did check the time on a couple of occasions, I failed to truly keep track of things. Five minutes after my shift had ended, I was still plucking books from the shelves.

Oops?

Thankfully, I had access to a clock later in the day when, by circumstance, I was left to put the dinner in the oven. Lots of different types of chicken (you know, thighs, wings, drumsticks), any of which could have killed us if not cooked properly.

But I'm a good boy. I put the food in the oven at the right time, and everything turned out nicely.

Today also marked the beginning of two things: the work on my poetry and prose blog, and a nostalgic game-playing experience.

I began the blog-work by putting together the banner and getting the blog a name. I've opted to use Wordpress. While Blogger is good, I find it's a lot more difficult for other people using it to find posts. Wordpress at least lets people use tags that actually work within Wordpress.com to find posts with that tag. (Yes, I know, Blogger tags are for Google's benefit...)

I have a list of things I need to do to finalise the work before the launch (I'm hoping Friday, with a flash story), and I'm going to draw up a list of different projects to keep me going on the site. Fun, right?

As for the nostalgia... well, someone mentioned Pokémon on Facebook earlier, and now I'm playing Pokémon Yellow online. It was the second - and last - Pokémon game I owned. I could have picked a more modern one - even just more recent than Yellow - but I couldn't resist the idea of having my own little Pikachu following my character around on screen.

It brings back fun memories of playing the game as a child. I still have the Gameboy I played it on, though I couldn't tell you where the games have all disappeared to. It's a pity, really. We probably gave them to a cousin, or something.

Still, I have my Pokémon game to play, now, I have a new blog to work on, I have a lot of work to do in the shop, and I didn't give the family food poisoning on account of my ability to look at a clock. I call that a good day.

Day 3: Brain Stew Has Been Served

Today's writing was hindered by my need for an income; I worked from nine in the morning until six in the evening. It wasn't actually that bad. A little bit boring. The only thing I disliked about it was having to get up early, and then having to walk home. By the time I was finished my dinner, most of the day was already over. That doesn't lend itself well to writing.

In fact, by the time I was half-way home, I had a headache. I blame the heat. That headache didn't go away fully, to which I can attribute some degree to exhaustion. Or something. Words are now refusing to work for me, after writing 2,200 of them for today's writing session. Brain Stew or not, I worked away on the book.

I focused entirely on one chapter, bringing me up to the 'half-way' point, in terms of chapters. Whether it's half-way through the word count, I won't actually know until I'm closer to the end of the book. That word count by the way... over 11,000.

Can I just say now, deciding to write 2,000 words per day was probably one of my better ideas. Just as it is with New Year's Resolutions, the specificity of writing goals is crucial to actually achieving them. Having an overall goal in mind is even greater, too. While I could have told myself to write 60,000 words in a month, that was giving me permission to relax on some days.

But here's the thing: relaxing doesn't usually bode well for me. Also, that implies the writing is work. Yes, it might take some effort to actually sit down at my desk for a few hours, concentrating on the story, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. Writing has always been enjoyable for me. Taking a day off from it doesn't do me any good. It's like asking me to stop drinking tea. It's too much a part of my day, too important an aspect of my life, to simply give up.

Even with a melted brain and exhaustion setting in, I can't not write something.

There's also the case that I've been wanting to write a lot every day, for a long time. I'd wanted to do it in June, too, but I allowed myself to get lazy. That was the biggest problem I began to face in May, during the exam season, because I wouldn't let myself write without studying, and I was so sick of studying that I couldn't focus on it a lot of the time. The end result was that I did no work. By June, that had made me adverse to working. I eased myself back into it by writing on my blog every day, and writing poems every day, but this is the real test of my ability.

It comes down to one piece of advice I've heard over and over again: to become a truly great writer, you have to write every day. It's not enough to just read about writing. It's not enough to just think about it. You have to write every day, and you it's even better if you write a certain amount every day. Some write ten pages. Others just one. I'm aiming for 2,000 words per day as a minimum, and I hope that one of these days - maybe Friday - I can double it.

Writing every day despite Brain Stew is one of the most important things to take away from NaNoWriMo. Reaching towards a defined goal is up there, too. It's only day three of Camp NaNoWriMo, but I think I'm getting into the swing of things, now. Tomorrow, it's FUFDay. I'm not sure how that'll work in Camp-style, but we'll see. Maybe I'll do something ridiculous like announce the release date for this book and really pile the pressure on.

Unexpectedly Exhausted - Have Some Tea!

In work, I half-complained about being tired and hungry. By the time I arrived home, I was exhausted. I went to bed with a glass of water, hoping to feel better by dinner time. Two hours later: nope. I might have even felt worse. I'm light-headed, and really not in a position to use words. With that in mind, and needing to post something tonight, have some tea!

*cue Instagramafied pictures*

This first image takes me back to college. While it's not been a long time since I was in the building (I was there on Wednesday), it's been a month since I was there because I had to be (as opposed to just showing up to get my results a day earlier than if they'd been sent in the post.) Despite the No Food or Drink in the lecture room rules, I still brought a cup of tea in like this every day. It wasn't environmentally friendly, I'll admit, but a flash would have been too obvious.

Kermit the Frog makes a regular appearance. Who can say no to that face? I can't. Hence why I bought the mug in the first place in the Disney Store. Corporate greed aside, I love that place, and when The Muppets had been in the cinema, I couldn't help but grab the mug. I only wish I had the four other cups in the set, featuring Fozzie Bear, Animal, Miss Piggy and Gonzo the Great. They do have just aren't the same.

The Disney debut in my collection was actually Dopey. I remember as a child staying in my cousin's house over night. I must have only been three or four. She didn't have much that would have been suitable for myself and my twin brother, but she did have Disney films (on VHS!). She stuck on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and when I saw the Dopey mug on the opening day of the Disney Store (back when the Queen visited Ireland, I believe), I couldn't help myself.

This one time, when I was Tower Records, I saw a flask. A Star Wars flask. My childhood screamed at me. My need for a flask screamed at me. I bought it immediately. Isn't it cool?

This final cup - though I think it's actually without tea at the time of the photograph - was actually a present from a friend on my birthday. I don't normally like things that have my name all over them, but I do enjoy this cup. It's all about how great people named Paul are, so what's not to love?

That's about all the tea Instagram has seen from me. So far. I still have at least half a dozen cups that haven't made it online yet, but that'll all change some day. In the meantime, I'm going to take things easy and hope the feeling of being light-headed goes away soon. And, you know, I'll have a cup of tea.

More FUF?

My Face Up to Fear Day (i.e. FUFDay) has the potential be a weekly affair. But the real question is, will it?

Last week, I had seven ideas for things I could do. I ended up doing two of them, and one other item that wasn't on the list. This week, I have the potential to do up to eight different things. Eight. That's one more!

This includes, of course, a repetition of a YouTube overload. However, I don't plan on doing that five-videos -in-a-day sort of thing again any time soon. Too much work, too little else done. Plus, I don't think my eyes enjoyed it every much. I do, however, have a number of other related videos that could over time, become a new playlist of poetry on my channel. And that's always fun, right?

There still remains, on the list, a few items I haven't even once addressed. One of these is simply to write a short story, to submit to a competition. The real "facing up to fear" aspect of it is the submission of the story. I've been avoiding competitions for a long time, partly for fear of rejection, partly because of the entrance fee. (I canny help being without money a lot of the time...and then I buy comic books.) However, I'm really going to give it a shot, and hope that I can produce something that's up to the standard's expected. Fingers crossed, right?

There are other things I can do more set-up for, as well, though they're more boring now than they have the potential to be, based on their success, and as with a couple of the challenges faced last week, they'll remain unspoken of until such time that they actually result in something happening. Or something. (I've got three this week that are like that, so, you know, don't expect to hear much about those for a while.)

Even now, I can see the potential for the continuance of FUFDay. It can get a great many things done.

However, it can also reduce me to only doing important things on a weekly basis, and that's not ideal. I think, maybe, once I get into the habit of doing two or three things per week that scare the content out of me, I'll double the FUFDay antics. Then double it again. And they I'll have a four-day working week set up for myself in which I make sure I'm always producing and publishing something, and hoping people find some value in that.

And hey, I think I can be okay with working for four days of the week on things I love doing and that I'm just too damned scared in a weird sort of way to not do anything about. FUF fo' life?

Ideally

Worked sucked today. I mean, there was nothing different about it, except that it was unusually hot out. I just didn't want to be there. It's not the first time that's happened, mind you. Every time, it makes me think about what I'd prefer to be doing.

I think you know where this is going: I'd prefer to be writing for at least the money I'm on in the shop. I think the key words there being "at least". I'm not exactly earning a huge amount each week in that shop, even when I work the bank holiday. It's definitely not enough to move out of my parents' house on.

This is where I spend a lot of time planning, how to actually follow through on my dream to write for a living. Being a novelist isn't exactly the gold-mine that a lot of people think it is (and by that, I mean if you have a traditional publishing deal!). So, I'm focusing on a couple of different areas:

- Freelancing. I've been putting it off. Fear of rejection, etc. etc. You know, the usual crap that stops people doing things they actually want to do. However, if I get past that fear and get into freelancing and receive anything close to what I did for my Writing Magazine article (publishing back in the October issue), four articles per month would be worth more to me than my job right now.

- Publishing. It's a ball that's been rolling for a while, but it's really picking up this summer. However, as with all things writing, there's going to be a fair amount of uncertainty around it for a long time. I won't have an average earnings report (for myself) until about six months of publishing a higher volume of titles. All I know is, I need to sell a fair few books each month to match my income from the bookshop.

- Fiverr. I'm tempted to get really serious about a couple of ideas there. I know I can do a couple of things quickly enough that charging $5 for them won't kill me. If I did it for even a little while moderately successfully, I'll be earning a happy little income.

- Submissions. Less certain than anything else so far. I mean poety. I mean short stories. I mean novels. And editors are looking for the best of the best. It's not that I don't think I've written anything worth publishing. The problem, as is the problem for every capable writer, is in finding the editor who wants to publish what you've submitted.

- Advertising. I'm starting a couple of new blogs in the coming months, which will be ad-supported. At the same time, I'll be picking up on my YouTube channel (which now has ads enabled). It's an uncertain earner, but it could - in the long run - provide some sort of financial help.

The only other options I can see right now are getting into affiliate sales more seriously than ever before, or finding a new job. The latter's been on my mind for a long time, now. Almost six years in the same shop, working only weekends, wasn't so bad when I wasn't actually qualified for anything. While I don't plan on teaching for at least a year, I have to consider how to put my degree to use in other ways.

What it all comes down to, though, is making the job I have less...sucky. I think the fact that I'm dependent on the money and there's not much of it - or much responsibility in the job - is bringing me down. If I wasn't tied to this one place as my only source of income, I don't think it would bother me so much. And if I actually  took the chance to get into the sun while it was here, that wouldn't hurt, either.

Timetabling

From June onwards, I'll be on my own timetable for weekdays. This will last for the foreseeable future, and for the first time ever. I won't have college in September (I hope), and I don't currently have a full-time job in place. Those sort of things just aren't that common.

The implications of this are both positive and negative.

For a start, my travel expenses per week are driven down significantly. Rather than spend about €25 on travel to and from college per week (a massive chunk of my wages), I can work from the comfort of my own home. I also won't have to worry about paying for lunch when I run out of time to make one in the morning...because I'll be eating in all the time. That's up to €20 saved per week.

However, despite saving money, I'm not exactly in a position to do much else with my life; I'm still only working weekends, so I can't afford to travel, or to move out. I also don't get to see people as often as I'd like (and I like people, especially my friends). And I have to set my own work.

This is where my timetable comes in. Knowing there are only so many days I can work on one project before it becomes tiresome, I've devised a way to write about several different things throughout the week. A mix of poetry, script writing, novelling, flash fiction, articles, blog writing, video making and general adminstration work sees me working full-time on writing.

It also sees me putting off the insanity of being without a structure in my life.

However, it does also call for me to have to use my time as if I were working a regular job. Specifically:

- I need to earn money from writing
- I need to have holidays from writing
- I need to work with people in some way

I'm already working on the last one, and I'm technically earning something from writing (though not enough to be currently in a position of paying myself an hourly wage for the amount of work that actually went into the books I have published, thus far), but actually having holidays is difficult. I'd need to plan projects towards similar deadlines. I'd need some sort of money to actually go somewhere (and somewhere affordable... the student lifestyle continues even after the degree has been earned!).

It's not impossible, I know, but it will take some work.

I've set myself deadlines and tasks per month (books to have completed, projects to launch that currently only exist anonymously, submissions) so I'm not going completely without direction. I have a whole folder full of tasks that need to be done, books to be written, and a step-by-step guide to getting them done.

I don't want my time to go to waste. I know how easy it is to sit by and do nothing. But I also know how possible it is to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. Two years ago, I found myself in the position of needing to write about 25,000 words in five days in July (Camp NaNoWriMo anybody); finishing that early, I applied for, and was hired, for a writing position on The Phantom Zone (a site that unfortunately not been written on in over a year, when I stopped writing when it appeared no one else was regularly posting); at the same time, I began putting my website together.

It had been a busy five days, but it made the time feel worthwhile. That's what I want to get out of life. Sure, I could sit around all day and watch RoosterTeeth videos or tweet about the varying quantities of tea in my cup, but I wouldn't feel like I was actually accomplishing anything. (Don't get me wrong: when summer hits, I imagine I'll be spending a fair amount of time listening to the RoosterTeeth podcasts while doing things like cover design, or taking a break from work, but I don't want that to be the only thing I accomplish in a day.) Similarly, I won't be repeating what I did last summer: watching videos with the aim of achieving something from what they taught, only to never put it into practice.

I need to fill my day with activities, and I need to be flexible (but professional) about how I do it. Essentially, I'll be working a seven-day week, though I'll be setting my own hours for five of those. And I need to. Not just to actually get the books written that I've been wanting to write for years and months, now, but to actually feel like I'm doing something with my time.

If history has taught me anything, I grow restless during time off when I feel like I should be doing something. Here's the reality of the situation: I won't have a research paper to write, or teaching practice to prepare for, or a deadline to finish the really serious, time-consuming work of longer books and projects, all of which are usually dictated by the coming of September. September will just be the month after August, not the month I'm working to another timetable again.

Until such time that I find full-time work, I have to make it for myself.

Incidentally, while I have many, many projects to do for the next few months, I'd like to blog every day in June (and possibly July...and August...and September... getting the picture? Every day. Forever.), but I'm wondering: what would you like to read? I'm open to suggestions (though I'm hoping not to repeat the Sexy Sea Anemones post that resulted from an extremely open call for blog post ideas a few years ago!). Leave a comment below (or on whatever social media site you found this post through - if I posted the link).

In Conclusion

I think I've made it quite clear of late: college is coming to an end. We've officially had our final lecture, our final night out before exams, our final review form for lecturers and modules... The book of college is coming to an end, with one more chapter to go: the exams. The Dreaded Exams.

I will never be able to speak of them kindly. That's just a fact of the matter. I can't wait until they're over and done with, and I can get on with figuring out the next steps in my life. I have a lot to write, a lot to learn about life. I was lucky last night for a friend to tell me about how she used to live, before giving it all up to come to college. She's older than I am and still has a couple of years to go, and here I am terrified about life.

It didn't take much of her story for it to dawn on me that just because we all make different choices in life doesn't mean we're any worse off for it inherently. I chose to come to college, and to avoid going directly into teaching. I have my reasons, a lot of which have to do with personal growth, and I know the only way to really "find myself" is to live some semblance of a life. I need to figure out what works for me and what doesn't, how to make life more than just bearable tasks between unsatisfactory breaks.

The book of college is coming to an end, and following it is a new book. It doesn't have a name yet, it's not written, it's not pre-determined. For some, it's the book of teaching, others of traveling, others of further education. I don't believe any of them are any better than another. Yes, some will lead to better career prospects or monetary earning or life experiences, but that doesn't mean they're better.

Books and chapters are an easy way for me to understand this, to see the world broken up into little life stories. But these are books that have no set-length. The conclusion can sneak up on you suddenly, and you have to pick up a new book or lay lifeless in the ether. Even then, there's a story being told, and it gets harder and harder to pick up a new book and start with its first chapters to see how you really like it.

I've thought about a few different books, almost afraid to wait and see if one of them really exists or if I'll just be avoiding the books that are there, waiting for the reading and the living that make them worth continuing.

That's my vague way of saying I'm worried that my plans that don't look like plans to some people might fall through. I'll quit with this little philosophy of the stories of life with that. We all have choices. I know what some of mine are. I know I can't afford a Masters course, so that's out of the question. All the publishing and writing aspirations are the uncertain ones, but I'll just have to take the advice of some friends as they trekked across Europe: power through. Eventually, they reached the destinations that made the journeys worth it.

The Write Life

Fun considerations for the future - trying to figure out how much I'd need to earn to do things like a Masters Degree, and move out of my parents' house - have led me to thinking through exactly how to make money in a much more interesting way than scraping by on ten hours per week in a shop. I don't think I have to really say it, but I'd earn more on the Dole than I will be earning in the shop come June, when I am no longer technically a student. The only way the ten hours per week would be beneficial would be if I were also making money in other ways, during the five days off per week I will have.

Hence: the Write Life. While it is also the name of my Paper.li paper, it's a consideraton for the future. How many books, for example, would I have to sell per month to pay for rent? How many articles would I have to have published to cover travel and heating and Internet access for a year? How many avenues in writing and publishing do I have to take to make a sustainable income? How much more do I have to push myself to earn a holiday?

Let's be clear: I don't technically write for money. I publish for money. The one time I did actually write for money, I was writing about the experience of publishing my book, and writing for a magazine I adore. It's hard to avoid that while trying to stick to the idea of writing for love and publishing for money, because technically I was writing for money in a publication I love. Nobody ever said what to do when it comes to that situation.

The way things stand, I'm nowhere near earning enough to move out. Yes, I have some sales on Amazon, but I don't yet have a sustainable income. I don't yet know what things will be like when after I've received the first payment, how long it will take before I earn enough to make a second. That's a real consideration, not just for me but for other writers who publish digitally (or otherwise): how long until the next payment from books, and will it be enough to live on?

The odds are, unless I publish a book I love, that others love and/or find useful, I won't be at the point of earning enough from royalties per month to actually pay for anything. I have ideas, don't get me wrong. I have a whole publication plan, deciding to write books that interest me, not just something I think will sell, because I have to love the idea for it to be worth reading by other people. I don't think it would be written well enough if I wasn't in love with it.

Taking some rough estimates into account:

Rent can cost 800 euro per month, depending on where I live. That's for a single bedroom place. It's also way too much. Living by myself isn't a viable option. Why? Because unless I found work for eight articles at at least 100 euro per piece, I wouldn't have enough for rent. Not good. That, or sell 2400 ebooks at 99 US cent per month. That's even less likely, I think. Not so much because the figure is so high, but because that's a per-month basis of sales. Even if I did get to a point of selling that many copies in a single month, it's extremely unlikely that it would happen again in the following months.

Food, for one, could be up to 80 euro per week (if I cooked everything myself and didn't just use cheap frozen items), though I would have to buy in bulk and use as much of everything as possible, and freeze. That's possible. Earning the money, possible. The bookshop covers that. Otherwise, it's another 240 books per week, at 99 cent, which on a four-week-per-month basis brings us to up 3360 books.

Can you see the problem, if I rely on 99 cent ebooks? Even if I had a dozen titles released at that price, I'd need to sell a few hundred of each on average, per month, to make my way in the world.

The other option? Publish more expensive books. I have thought of this. A lot. Before I released Balor Reborn, I drew up a pricing scale, on how I would price books of different lengths. I already know what prices I'll be setting on books in the future, right up until September, and have an estimated earning per book at a 2.99 price. A rough estimate would reduce the amount of books I need to sell per month (before electrical, Internet, heating, etc.) down to just over 600. Much better, right? Still difficult, but much better.

Can I see it happening? I don't know. Publishing is difficult to sustain as a business. Earning month from writing is extremely difficult to do. That's why I want to at least have an idea of how well I'm doing, based on financial need. None of this yet includes the other necessary bills that need to be paid, or maintaining a social life. It also doesn't take into account: (a) what I will write, (b) when I will find the time to write as much as I need to, (c) how long it will take to reach this point, or (d) saving for the future.

Considering (a): I know I want to write about writing. That's not only sold books, it's also interesting. It's teaching, which I love doing, and it helps me to focus on my craft and the industry around it. The benefits are outstanding. The difficulty? Competition. Which exists everywhere. I'll also be writing my Modern Irish Myth books. Much harder to sell, I know, unless/until they become popular. Beyond that, I've got further projects planned, some fiction, some non-fiction, that will cover a range of different topics. This isn't even so much as to reach a different audience as to keep me motivated and interested in what I'm doing. The topics in each of my non-fiction books also provide something I could possibly write about for other publications, which I have to keep in mind.

That's when I have to tackle (b): the time has to be made. I can't just sit around in June watching YouTube videos or playing computer games, as much as I'd like to. If I have five days off per week, and I manage to write even 5000 words per day, I'll be on my way towards writing an awful lot by September (which is necessary, considering everything I have planned up to that point.) 5000 seems a lot to some people, but I've written more on several occasions. I'll also need to do research for various projects, so it's unreasonable to think I can produce twice as much per day. I wouldn't get the research done to actually publish certain things.

As for how long it will take, I can't tell. Success sometimes just happens to people. Okay, so obviously it will require a lot of work, but it's possible that I won't even realise it's happened until it does, because I'll be busy trying to get as much work done as possible. If I get to a point where I'm earning a lot by December this year - a lot to be considered enough in that month to pay for bills on a single-month basis - then I'd be delighted. The real test is how sustainable that income is. I know it will be difficult, but if I suddenly earn a lot less by March next year, then I know I'm not at the point where writing would allow me to move out.

And as for the future? I need at least 6000 euro to pay for a Masters Degree. Nevermind the costs that go around it. The actual course will cost that amount. Fun, right? Saving for the future will be the most difficult part of this. Chronically all of this is part of how I hope to keep myself focused on it, though. I don't want to forget, by December, that I need to be selling X amount of books, and consistently for the next three months after, to actually do something more with my life.

This has all been very money-centred, so far. That's not right. So, here's my plan: between June and September, I want to release the next four books in the Modern Irish Myth series. One per month. I only planned publication as far as September, but if it's all possible I'll be continuing at that pace until the series is complete. In July, I want to release a non-fiction book, and another in September, though on radically different topics. More on them when I get through my exams and can plan the time I need to get everything in order. I'm not about to announce something that becomes impossible. As it is, four books in as many months will be difficult.

I'm also planning a web-series. As in, one on camera. Still not sure what it will look like, exactly, but it's in the planning stages. I'll be working on that during the summer, but I don't know when the shooting or airing of it will happen. That's all in the future, and it will require picking up some video-production skills, and becoming a better actor. Yeah... I give myself a lot to do. I'll also need to keep things like costumes, set, marketing and publicity in mind, so there's a lot to consider. I'm not even announcing what it'll be about until later (like when I have an episode or two produced and ready to go!). This is partially because I'm paranoid about someone maybe stealing the idea. Yay?

The idea in all of this is to keep writing, keep trying to make writing my source of income, and making sure I still enjoy it. That's what really matters, in all of this, that I still enjoy writing this time next year. I think about this sort of stuff every single day, never really putting figures on it and only ever telling one person about it, but here it all is. This is what I want to do with my life, and with the projects I'm planning on undertaking from June onwars, it's all going to get extremely intersting. I'll be busy, almost non-stop, but if I pull it off, won't it be worth it?

Besides, even if I only ever end up making a bit of pocket-money per month from writing, at least I can feel like I'm achieving something with it, while still having fun. How many people get to do something they love, and have loved since they were young, for a living? For how many people is it even possible? If I manage to even just make something per month, at least I'll know I can reach somebody with my words.