Despite those successes, writing does not pay my bills, at least not with any consistency or reliability. At the end of the day, I still heavily rely on employment opportunities related to my previous profession as a software engineer to make ends meet.
With that reality in mind, I've found myself carefully considering the best way to move my writing career forward, while maintaining the ability to financially support myself in the likely event that the revenue generated by my written works continues to prove insufficient on its own.
Historically, my approach has been to commit for a time to an all-consuming, high-paying, full-time IT job, or a series of short-term contracts, accumulating enough money to support myself through the likely duration of one or more creative projects.
The big advantage to this approach has been that it allowed me to completely focus on particular tasks. When working an IT job, I was able to put everything I had into it and achieve impressive results. Similarly, when expressing myself creatively in-between IT jobs, I was able to give those projects my full attention and intensity.
Over the years, I've found that the down side to this methodology is that it tends to lead to some extreme and ultimately-unhealthy behavior on my part, particularly when working in the IT field. For many years, I was the guy who would spend 60-80 hours a week writing code and tackling complex technical problems, nearly completely immersing myself in my work duties to the point where other aspects of my life suffered.
In the early days of my IT career, this focus and determination had a lot to do with simply wanting to do a good job, opening potential opportunities for advancement within the organizations where I worked, but as years went by, my motivations changed a bit. At a certain point, my immersion became more of a way to prevent myself from becoming distracted, or spending the money I was accumulating so that I could more-quickly accomplish my IT-related goals and return to a more creative existence. As a result, there are spans of time in my life, some lasting for years, where I recall little more than constantly working on major technology projects, and not much else.
I wouldn't say that I regret those choices but I have become more aware of them as I've aged, and I've certainly developed a desire and practical need to avoid such situations moving forward in an effort to lead a more balanced, consistently-fulfilling, and healthy life.
As such, I've decided to try something I've never attempted before, and actively work on a writing project while holding a more traditional, 40-hour-per-week job. As one might expect, some changes and compromises have been required on both fronts to that end but I find myself optimistic that I'll be able to find a way to make this new scenario viable long-term.
The good news for fans of my creative output is that I won't be forcing myself to completely put those efforts on hold for a time as I have in the past. Consequently, things like this blog will likely continue to be updated on a far-more-frequent basis than would have been possible using my old methodology.
Of course, there's no way of predicting whether or not this new scenario will prove more or less effective than what I've done in the past but I'm eager to give it a try. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to comparing the new results with those from my prior efforts.
Another technique I'm keen to attempt with this next writing project is to expand my marketing strategy based on what I learned from promoting "309." As such, expect to hear and see a lot more from me about my next book well in advance of its release.
In summary, buckle up! Things are about to get interesting.
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