Some dates! I'm going to be a guest on Mark Bazer's Interview Show Friday, January 4. And the next Funny Ha-Ha, the comedy storytelling show I produce/host, is Friday, March 8. Both at the very famous and wonderful Hideout.
My work resolution list for 2019 is pretty short and straightforward this year. The main one is to try to get my parenting project Evil Witches further along the line of becoming something people may actually pay for. It's been exciting, scary, confounding to figure out exactly what to do with it. Some people advise I think way big and consider it a startup, a large community, perhaps even an actual destination (like a retreat.) One friend I trust a lot says not to overthink it, that newsletters are actually a sustainable model if you're an experienced writer/editor with a voice and information to give people. The hardest part is knowing how much of my time to give to it and how to prioritize that, since time spent on this passion project means time taken away from paid work, or drumming up paid work. However I'm pursuing some business mentorship paths which I hope will give me direction and accountability. Either way I hope that the whole venture grows into a larger beast by the spring.
In that vein I'd also like to use my time a bit more judiciously--if I'm drumming up new paid work, to start first with places where I already have leads rather than cold calls. If I'm doing paid work, figuring out how to get paid appropriately per project if I can, or determined how much time a project deserves rather than just pouring my time into it.
Finally--this is a big, serious, deep one--I want to make chicken stock this year. I've never done it before. It's always seemed dumb to me to cook something but not eat it, but I want to cook for myself more like I'm a person I love in '19 and not like a person who barely deserves warm food. Year of Claire!
Now I want to look back at what I said I wanted to accomplish last year:
"To take action about selling a certain idea of mine."
How did I do? I believe what I intended to do with this idea was sell a book, coaching session or course on marketing yourself as a freelancer. I'm not sure (it doesn't pay to be vague.) I did some work getting this off the ground but ultimately decided that really, I dread teaching more than anything else due to my weird extrovert/introvert combo and that it would take too much time setting it up to do it right at this time. So, I tried, but decided for now it's not where my interests truly lie.
"To be featured in my dream pub this year."
How did I do? Nailed it. 😎
"To work harder at marketing myself and thus getting back above $50K this year"
How did I do? I found the time requirement I set to hustle a certain hours a week a little unrealistic given that sometimes paid work just overtakes marketing work. But I can say I definitely worked harder at hustling, even when I already had work lined up, and increased my pay quite a bit so I'd say I did it.
Not to work anymore for my two lowest paying clients of 2017.
How did I do? One of these was a yes (it helped that my contact there moved on.) The other one I got pulled back into and got burned when I realized that the client was paying less and less yet demanding more. Typically my reaction to this in the past has just been to grit my teeth and get through it but in December I hit such a wall that I did something I've never done before--I quit, before the assignment was completed. So I will probably never work for them again due to that move but the day I quit I found out I'd sold a pitch to a major publication and also gave a big corporate client exactly what they wanted with my first gig for them so in addition to feeling good that I will recoup the money, it was reassuring to think that perhaps I am not total garbage.
To try to get more work this year writing longer feature profiles and to branch into more corporate work.
How did I do? See above re: corporate work, and I also pubbed this and these and also this, so, good job Zulkey.
To make time to contemplate what my next profile-rising or intensive project will be.
How did I do? See 2019's big resolution.
To read more.
How did I do? I quit keeping up with Goodreads so I can't quantify this but I know for sure I read a lot more books this year. I actually credit my children with this: thanks to them, I go to the library more, and having a book I have to return means I have to read it. Also, having a 3 and 6 year old is much more conducive to sitting and reading than having a 2 and 5 year old. Finally, I realized that I don't have to choose between reading in bed and my beloved habit of falling asleep in front of the TV. I can read a chapter, turn on "Veep" or "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and drift off after 9 minutes. I can have it all!
Work outside my house more
How did I do? Meh. I can do better, I say as I write from my bed. It's always good to have something to work on.