Getting Centered

I used to think my life was a straight line. Now I go for round because it's easier to find the center.


One of the toughest things about working a day job at home is keeping a balance between what you want to do and what you have to do. Personally, I want nothing more than to follow my nose through bags of unfinished creative projects. Abandon me on a desert island with nothing but leftover yarn and a pen. Heaven!


The next best thing is a job I can dispatch quickly and get to the real stuff of life.


But my translation agencies have been silent lately and my reliable, rhythm-setting work has turned into The Invisible Day Job. Instead, my To-Do list is growing: get books published, create websites, write articles--oh, and by the way, how about bringing in some money?


Do I panic? No way. I decide instead to sit down and crochet, sort things out like a ruminating cow.


Back at the computer, I join a critique group for Young Adult authors--that is, people who write books for the YA market. I decide to change agents and print out the query requirements for an agency in New York. I locate pages of options for publishing through an established eBook publisher. I join LinkedIn and start networking with people in the field (not an easy task for me). I make more lists and write more e-mails and move myself forward just a few more inches on the track.


And now it's time to crochet again.


It's 104° in the shade but already I'm picturing the Christmas markets and turning out yard after yard of lush, colorful, beautiful cotton scarves. I'm perched on my chair in the center of a lovely mandala, hooking away, watching the color streams flow and tumble around my chair into piles of gold on the floor.


Okay, a little over the top. But working with my hands always helps me zero in on that one essential monkey in the brain, the one that just won't sit still. Today, the question was where to start when there are a million things to do.


The answer? In the middle.


A round-about post today, but sometimes that's the shape of life.

Jumping Over Houses

Day-jobbers are creative and make money, but almost never at the same time.


I wonder sometimes how many of us there are around the globe. We trot off in the morning to wait tables, input data, even manage departments, then scuttle home in the evening to play guitar, paint frescoes, and write novels.


Sometimes the order is reversed, for those night-jobbers among us, and sometimes, like me, there's no schedule at all because we've opted to stay home and smush it all together in the hopes of one day, FINALLY, earning a living at being creative.


I should have gotten a real job long ago, but I just couldn't keep my hands out of the paint pot and I never figured out how to make money at being a poverty-stricken artist.


These days, I'm hard at work writing the great American novel and then weaving, crocheting, and beading instead of sleeping. When I must, I pound away at my steadiest day job, which for the last 12 years has been translating German texts into English. Most lately, I'm looking for new and inventive ways of using my writing to support the whole shebang.


My dream is to get off the day-job merry-go-round and live exclusively from doing what I love. I think I'm not alone in this, and that's what this blog is about.


Three years ago, I was a blossoming creativity coach and weaver, building two home businesses at the same time, straight out of my passions. Inside the house, my desk was smoking. I published a monthly newsletter on creative process, coached artistic clients, and wrote articles and books for the Internet.


Outside the house, I put the finishing touches on my first atelier--the weaving shed, I called it--and what a beauty it was! I dove into designing a line of handwovens and fiddling with piles of yarn. While I was still supporting myself with my day job, it looked like this was finally my moment to break out.


And then, suddenly, it was time to leave.


The following three years were a series of relocations and starting-overs. Although I amazed myself by managing to write a book during that time, the food on my table came from my day job. Now, in a new country and three years older, I'm back at it. The dream of publishing novels and making beautiful things never goes away--because, after all, this is what I love.


All the tools are here, collected throughout my life and shoved under the bed for safekeeping. The steps are here, too, though not necessarily in the right order yet. It only has to be done.


At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that the task before me is rather like jumping over a house. And every day, I wonder how in the world I'm going to do it.


It'll be different this time. Less coaching and more writing. Less punditing and more exploring. Among other things, these last three years have taught me how much I don't know.


One goal (next to spiffing up this blog a little) is to create an Artful Day-Jobber website packed with all sorts of goodies related to being creative and having a day job. Helpful tips for doing both, and maybe some ideas on how to survive while staying true to yourself. At the limit, I hope it will be support and encouragement for day-jobbers of all shapes and sizes.


So make yourself at home and come back often. Let me know what you're doing and what your dream looks like so I can make this information as useful as possible.


On a personal level, I'm hoping that my own blog will remind me that I actually do have a sense of humor, even if it tends to go south just when I need it the most. If I have to jump over a house, I'd like to be smiling as I clear the roof.