Write...Full Time?

I began "seriously" freelancing about two years ago, in January 2006. At the time, I was simply looking to make a few extra dollars to put towards my wedding. Before that, I'd written "on and off" when someone I knew specifically asked me for help...over a 4 year span of time, this "on and off" writing probably netted about $2000 for my bank account - not exactly riches, but money I would not have had otherwise. Did writing for wedding money work out? Yes, big time. Writing also put a huge chunk of change towards the down payment on our house. And it helps to equalize my income in comparison towards my husband since I took a pretty big pay cut when I left the healthcare industry for the airline industry, putting us on unequal footing, which I found (and still find) to be unacceptable.

Throughout the past two years, I've toyed with the idea, more than once, of writing full-time. On an hour-by-hour basis, I have the ability to make more in an hour's worth of writing than in an hour at my full-time (salaried, not hourly) job - whether before or after pay cut. And more people than I can count have asked me why I haven't yet done that.

So this evening, I thought I'd write a bit on why I'm not yet ready to write for a living.

1. Stability - I'm a pretty big freak about stability. It took a lot of convincing on my husband's part to leave my well-paying but frustrating and unrewarding job in healthcare and go to AA for so much less compensation, even though AA has always been my dream company to work for. The instability of not having the income level I'd enjoyed since my very first post-college job just drove me insane. Freelance writers face a lot of instability - where the next project will come from, slow-downs that occur seasonally, clients who never pay up, etc.

2. Stir-craziness - When I was laid off about four years ago, I had enough money from severance and stock pay-outs and savings to not have to go back to work for at least six months, assuming I lived somewhat frugally...and so I spent the first three months be-bopping around the country to see my parents and friends and at-the-time boyfriend and helping another friend move to Texas and whatnot. But then, when I got back to my home and realized that I didn't have a whole lot to fill my time (although I got a TON of genealogy research done during that period!) I went stir-crazy. True, I didn't need to go back to work quite yet (and truthfully, didn't want to, until I figured out exactly what it was I wanted to do), but I had to go back to work to keep from losing my mind. Sit in my house all day? No thank you, very much! I'm afraid that if I was home all day every day writing, I'd gnaw off my foot.

3. Debt - Right now, it's awfully damn helpful to have a fulltime AND a freelance income, so that I can help our household get to a point where all non-mortgage debt (education, medical, credit cards, etc.) is paid off. I hate owing anything to anybody, and so this is an imperative for me. We've been living on a strict budget for two years now, and while we've paid off a tremendous amount of money, we still have a ways to go.

Having said all of that, it's still one of my goals to someday spend my days doing nothing but writing. So...what would turn the tables for me and enable me to decide to do it full time?

1. Debt - With the amount remaining to be paid off, it looks like it'll take us about another two years to finish paying everything off. Credit card and medical debt is already pretty low, but the dang school loans (um, law school wasn't cheap, even though I only went for a year!) are still fairly high. If I could spend these next two years, alongside my husband of course!, paying off the remainder of our debt, I'd feel more comfortable in deciding to write full-time.

2. Income - Looking at household budgeting and what money we would need each month for our individual needs as well as household expenses, I would feel comfortable leaving my full-time job and writing full-time if I could line up enough steady freelancing gigs (blogging, content, whatever) to guarantee a monthly income of no less than $2500 after taxes. Since freelancers are subject to self-employment taxes on top of "regular" income taxes, that would mean gross billings of about $3500 per month. I've actually achieved that level about 3 different times over the past two years, but my monthly average is typically only 1/3 of that...I do know, however, that if I wrote full-time, I could probably achieve that easily...but I want the "guarantee" of knowing that the gigs I already have would equal that, and anything "extra" would be purely extra: i.e. magazine articles, one-off projects, Pampered Chef, speech and debate judging, AdSense, etc.

3. Routine - In order to survive as a work-at-home writer, I would need a routine that got me out of the house at least several days per week. I go stir crazy otherwise. Whether that's the women's group at my church or a book club or coffee clache or whatever...I would need a definite routine to get out and have contact with others. That's one of the things I value most about working outside of the home currently...human contact. I'd be a sucky hermit.

4. Kiddos - Although I have no problem with the idea of daycare, I do like the idea of one or the other of us being at home with kiddos throughout their first few years of life. Right now, wouldn't be a problem - we work opposing shifts. But that may not always be the case and so if I wrote from home, it would be more easily accomplished. That's a theoretical at this point, however. Who knows when kiddos will decide to show up - we're open to just about anytime except the weekends of Daytona or the races at Pocono or TMS, hahahaha! But joking aside, this isn't something to plan/count on because it's not like we can plan when our family might grow...that's in God's hands, not ours. But when and if munchkins show up, it would be a definite incentive to write full-time from home!

So there you have it...it'll be interesting to see what the next few years will bring and if I ever make the full-time leap from my comfortable corporate cube to the wonderful world of writing.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Tiffany