There are many perks to the various jobs I do, including (but not limited to): Getting to work from home, getting to work in my pajamas, sometimes getting to do great things for charity as part of my job, having a fair amount of creative freedom, and sometimes getting free stuff.

Yeah, I said it. Sometimes I get free stuff. And that’s definitely a perk, I’m not going to lie.

Free stuff is tricky, of course, if you have concerns about maintaining integrity, which I do. There are bloggers who make poor decisions in the face of free stuff, and I never want to be among them. (Side note: Go read Susan Getgood’s excellent recap of the recent FTC guideline changes for bloggers, if you haven’t. Go. Now. I’ll wait.)

I’ve had a lot of fun with the various free things I’ve been lucky enough to receive, right up until I was selected to be a Frigidaire Super Influencer.
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When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and be an actress. There was nothing I loved better than being on stage, no feeling headier than transforming into someone else and performing.

Now’s the part where I’m supposed to tell you that then I turned six (or ten or eighteen) and grew up and realized that was dumb, but that’s not how it went, for me. I actually got a degree in theater performance in college, and it wasn’t until my senior year that I realized I was just not cut out for a life in performance. For one thing, although there’s certainly nothing wrong with the way I look, when surrounded by so many truly stunning actresses, I came to realize that even if I was the better performer, I would be passed over for someone more attractive most of the time. For another, the life of an actor isn’t terribly conducive to what I’d consider “family life.” And so… I found other dreams. More specifically, I started working on the eternal juggle of personal vs. career goals.
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Literally. Dammit.

Over a dozen years ago, I came down with an inner ear infection at work. At the time, I was working at a giant IBM site, and when I was struck with a sudden intense dizziness in the ladies’ bathroom, one of my colleagues called our on-site paramedics. I was terribly embarrassed by the whole thing; they started checking me for things like signs of a stroke, and I was in my early 20s. It turned out to be an inner ear thing, though, which pretty much just disturbs equilibrium and is annoying.

I’d totally forgotten about that until yesterday, when the same thing happened again. Fortunately, now I work at home, alone, with no one to ask me if I can stick out my tongue straight except the dog, and come to think of it, she doesn’t talk no matter how dizzy I get.
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About four years ago I decided it was time to make a go of freelancing full-time, and I have worked hard since then to make my dream a reality. In just about every respect—if I do say so myself, heh—I think mine is a success story. At this point I enjoy a steady income, fulfilling work, a flexible schedule, and the satisfaction of knowing I made it all happen.

Which is why I am really struggling right now.

I am a product of public schools. I believe in public schools; not just because they’re the route I took, but because I think the principles behind them are good ones and that there are laws in place which should, theoretically, make them a viable path to success for everyone. My children attend public school. But I am currently somewhere I never expected to be: I am considering homeschooling.
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The wonderful thing about the Internet and all of the so-called “new media” we’re enjoying as a result of it is that it’s easier than ever to make your living as a writer—there’s plenty of places willing to pay for quality work, and if you’re ambitious and savvy enough, you can even create your own site(s) to generate revenue.

The terrible thing about the Internet and all of the so-called “new media” we’re enjoying as a result of it is that either there’s more theft of others’ work than there used to be or people just lack a basic understanding of what constitutes improper or illegal use of words belonging to someone else. Maybe a combination of those two things, actually.

And what this means for a lot of writers who work online is that we have to be vigilant about possible content theft. What it means for me is that I feel angry about having to spend time on stopping people from stealing my work, and it makes me very grumpy.
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To further confuse this metaphor, I’ve included a handy photo of a pothole, even though I really did mean a slothole. Which is, of course, an imaginary thing.

Some of the very best advice I’ve ever received on writing for a living without losing your ever-lovin’ mind has come to me by way of my dear friend Joshilyn Jackson. Joshilyn—in addition to being one of my favorite people—is a NY Times bestselling novelist, so when she talks about the writerly life and how to succeed in this business, I listen. She knows whereof she speaks, is my point. And my favorite piece of advice from her, bar none, is this admonition: Don’t be slotty.

I was reminded of this because of a recent post on her blog where she mentioned it, but really the best summation comes from this post of hers which is now several years old. She says:
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I spend an inordinate part of my day reading and answering emails. On that rare occasion (oh, modern connectivity, what a blessing and a curse you are) when I’m away from email for a good-ish chunk of time—say, 12 or even 24 hours—I return to a deluge of messages. Like, several hundred.

This is not because I’m so popular. It’s because some people are just email-happy. I mean, I’m not even counting the stuff that lands in my Spam filter (on the order of 300+ messages per day, in case you’re wondering), but I do get plenty of “let me tell you about our great new product” or “have you checked out this new site yet” sorts of emails. Also, I appear to be permanently stuck on a mailing list for press events in New York City, try as I may to get myself removed. But that’s another topic entirely.

No, the point I want to make today is that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach someone when you’re hoping they’ll respond to you with some advice. And I always thought this stuff was common sense, but given the number of emails I receive which seem to overlook some basic principles, I figured it was time to share.
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This weekend the kids and I took a day to lounge around in our pajamas and do little more than eat and watch television. It was divine. I hadn’t realized how badly we’d all needed it, until we did it. And even though it meant some things didn’t get done and I had some scrambling to do to catch up, I’d do it again. Because sometimes we just need to stop and breathe and just be.

I think that no matter your profession—whether you work out of the home, from home, or not at all—it is in the nature of child-raising that just when you’ve pretty much gotten things figured out, something changes. Grooves were meant to be interrupted, and children have a way of transforming weekly or even daily. So although it’s true that just about everyone runs into work/life balance issue, I think as parents we’re much more prone to “chasing a shifting target” sorts of issues.

I know I am, anyway.
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A few days ago, this was going to be a post about what a hypocrite I am. I was—still am, really—ready to hang my head and confess what an awful thing I’d done.

I’ve written here how many times about setting rates and valuing your work? About how your time is valuable and you deserve to be paid well for it? And I do think that most freelancers who cannot make a living struggle not necessarily because their work is poor, but because they have difficulty valuing their time appropriately. It’s an issue about which I’m really passionate, quite frankly.

And yet, last week I engaged the services of another freelancer and then blanched at the cost. Not because the cost wasn’t fair, mind you, but just because I was feeling overwhelmed. And she offered to let me pay less, and so I did. And then I felt extremely crappy about it.
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After agonizing over our Houdini dog disaster a month ago, I continued looking for a dog for our family, but started thinking it just might not happen. And then we found Licorice.

(It’s okay if you just started cooing at the screen and talking to that little face in babytalk. I do it to her all the time.)

You would think—after all the time it took for us to get to this point—that I would’ve realized exactly what I was getting myself into with a new pet. And I did. Mostly. But even though Licorice is three, the fact that she’s new to our home and a relatively recent rescue means that in many ways, she’s a puppy. And having a puppy is not all that different from having a baby, it turns out.

So let’s check in on how my typical day has changed.
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