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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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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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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I bought an elliptical machine this weekend. I did it the way any (cheap) good American does—I found it on Craigslist and then drove over and handed cash to a couple who’s made peace with the fact that they’re simply not going to use it. My husband and I have vowed to Do Better but let’s fact it, good habits are hard to form, and in this arena, we are experts at bad habits.

Hey, we work hard. We both work full time and also try to be as present as possible for the kids and make sure that the house stays relatively clean and that we have home-cooked meals to eat. We get up at 6:00 and by the time the kids are in bed at 8:30ish, all we want to do is sit on the couch for a little while before we head to bed, ourselves.

This is the area where my life is most out of balance. I’ve known it for years. Can I finally change, now?
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I love my children. I love my children. Ilovemychildrenanddon’treallywanttokillthem.

Ahem.

So the thing about my home office is that I used to share it with my husband. When we first moved into this house a few years ago, we packed the room to the gills with our stuff—his desk on that wall, mine on this one, and bookshelves and boxes galore everywhere else. I enjoyed sharing with him (I am rather fond of the guy, after all, and he makes an ideal officemate because he’s quiet and tidy but also fun to be around), but we really didn’t have enough space. And so this summer, we rearranged some other things in the house and my husband moved his office upstairs.

The good news is that now he has enough room for all of his stuff, and I have enough room for all of my stuff.

The bad news is that all of the new-found extra space in my office is rapidly being filled up with child detritus.
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I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but sometimes I’m not quite as on top of things as I ought to be. I know! I was shocked, too. (Just pretend to be shocked. For fun.) And so, yes, six months have passed since I told you about my decision to incorporate my business, and it didn’t all get finalized until last month. My accountant and I discussed it, and I gave him some money, and he told me to call him after tax season. I maybe didn’t get back to him right away, and then I got back to him and he didn’t get back to me right away, and, well, you know how this sort of thing goes, I’m sure. But it’s done now.

I have officially formed a Limited Liability Corporation, and I have a shiny new EIN to show for it. In fact, I have an entire folder of… ummm… unintelligible legal jargon and paperwork that certifies that it’s all official and I own a business in the eyes of the law and the IRS.

And for all of the reasons I discussed in my prior post, this is a Very Good Thing. Or it will be. But right now I feel like I’m on sort of a steep learning curve.
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… of the yeeeeeeeaaaar….

I’m feeling a little giddy. School starts this week.

I’ve had a great summer with the kids. I love having them home. I love all of the adventures we’ve had—camping, swimming, outings, lazy days at home, visits to relatives, various craft projects, endless Wii tournaments, and the ever-constant chant of “Mom, we’re hungry.” (And every single time, they were surprised when I responded, “Well, then, have a snack.” As if maybe I’d hidden all the food since the last time they’d eaten.)

I repeat: Summer has been a blast.

But it’s time for everyone to get the hell out of my office. Seriously.
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Unless you’re a fellow career blogger—meaning you write one or more blogs for business, rather than just writing a personal blog on which you never generate any income—if I told you how many pitch emails I receive every day, you would think I’m exaggerating. But I’m not. Right now I write for eight different sites, and as a result I am pitched constantly. I would estimate that I receive about a hundred pitch emails every single day. Really.

And although most of the pitches are poorly written and even more poorly targeted, I don’t mind. This is how I sometimes find out about stuff I want to know. What I mind is poorly-written pitches, or thoughtless pitches, but the pitch itself is rarely the issue.

Recently, a kiwi changed how I think about the pitch process.
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Sometimes I feel like if talking about balance was the same thing as actually achieving it, I would be the world’s most balanced person, by now. Pity it doesn’t work that way. But I definitely appreciated Nancy Nally’s honesty about the catch-22 of taking time off as a freelancer, in her recent piece at Salon. She sums it up succinctly:

The entire process of essentially working double-time before and after my time off is so exhausting and stressful that most of the time, it completely offsets any benefit I might get from the time off itself.

(It’s really nice to know that I’m not the only person who wonders if time off is even worth it, given this conundrum.)

Nally goes on to talk about how she does find some respite, though.
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