Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

…and I’m still celebrating progress

Here’s the thing – I’ve been prioritising my work for the past couple of months to get the business side up and running to try and make money to pay the bills.

I’ve got the website up, the Substack up, and I’ve got plans for the YouTube channel which I’ve shifted into March. I’m writing two-three articles a week for the business. I’m currently coaching and mentoring 8 people, the majority for free and the rest at a discount as loss leads to build testimonials. I’m exploring become a Trustee for a charity. I’m out networking and attending events to build my knowledge for future articles and content. I’m doing proposals for contracts and meeting with people about prospective work.

Does it sound like a lot? It is a lot. It is a full-time job. A job which is not paying the bills yet even if it is contributing in a small way to offset business expenses.

Which means writing on fiction, fanfiction, and personal non-fiction has been mostly limited to hours after the business activities, and during the weekends.

The beginning of February wasn’t so bad. The Muse was back from her vacation, and I was able to progress my Promise series, finish up Ace in the Hole, edited the first chapter of Another Dimension, and progress the Aftershocks series. I managed to get everything done that I wanted for Evil Author Day and International Fandom day.

There is always a bit of a lull after the high of an accomplishment which I expected last Sunday. A huge sigh that everything is posted and people are enjoying what you’ve done.

And then we come to the past week.

It’s half-term here in the UK and my sister invited me to join her family for an outing, a chance to be Auntie Rachel. It was a half-day out of my diary. I figured I could accommodate it as I only had virtual coaching and networking until this weekend when I had friends visiting.

Boy, did it knock me out for the rest of the week. Too much walking flared my fibromyalgia. I had to rebalance my work to get anything urgent and important done. Even with the rebalancing I was exhausted at the end of the day and not really writing in a fluid way on the next Promise story.  

Add in losing most of Friday to preparing the house for visitors, and yesterday to time with friends, and it feels like I’ve barely had any time to write this week. That’s not a place I want to be in.

I’ve changed up my career to focus on my writing. Yes, I need to have an income coming in from business activity until such time as the writing is self-sustaining, but writing is the goal and the focus. The issue is that the business is not self-sustaining either at this point and requires time and energy. Add in time with friends and family, the good stuff life is made up from and it’s just a lot to juggle – as always.

So, I think this next period is going to be about doing what I always try to do: find a balance.

I need to prioritise earning money, and I want to spend time with family and friends, but I need to do that in a way that doesn’t short-change my ability to write what I want.

Something to think about more seriously in this last week of February as I start to think about my monthly planning session.

In the meantime, I am focusing on the positive though. There are a lot of writing projects I’m working on – I’ve been plotting in the spaces where I’m too tired to write, and I’m excited about what’s next.

On the bonus side, Evil Author Day and International Fandom day did bring a lot of traffic to the website, and there are now over 1500 subscribers here! While it may feel like a small number to others, it’s a great milestone that I’m very proud of achieving and it’s definitely worth a celebration.

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