A Semi-Successful Freelance Writer’s Month In Review: August
A look at how one person is making freelance writing work alongside mental health issues.
I think it’s important to have realistic and honest representations of the various experiences people have in the work sphere.
And when it comes to freelance writers, all I seem to see are those of extremely motivated, extremely successful, extremely ‘balanced,’ and probably well-meaning, individuals whose idea of chill is taking a ‘light work’ weekend and never seem to burn out let alone take real time off.
They also don’t seem to have mental health issues (or at least they don’t mention it), which is great for them, but I personally can’t relate to that.
So I’m sharing my experience over the last month, covering everything from work and goals to reading and creativity, to health.
And, I don’t know about you, but August has been a weird month for me. It started on a bit of a low note, so I scaled back my work a bit.
That was a good decision, and I’m still glad I did, but it meant that I should do more work over the rest of the month to even things out. I’m at a good place, financially, but I don’t want to fall behind. And since I was starting to feel better, it seemed to work out pretty well.
Then I got sick, and I’m not sure why, but that really knocked me off my game. The last week of the month was a bit rough. I had a couple of assignments that were supposed to be easy turn into bigger or more complicated stories.
I had a couple of people reach out and ask if I wanted to write for them, but nothing came of those, and I have never related to a Roxane Gay tweet more:
Anyway, here’s a breakdown of my month:
Work
Total Completed Assignments: 38
I also published five stories a week (20 total) here on Medium, which pulled in a whopping $26 and change. And that’s cool, but it’s really not why I’m doing this. So the time-per-article versus pay thing doesn’t factor in here like it might if I were relying on it as a part of my regular income.
I completed about $4,400 worth of work this month (excluding Medium), with about $5,200 landing in my bank account, thanks to various delays in payment that come with freelancing.
And, for more context, my assignments ranged from 300 to 2,000 words, with a pretty heavy reliance on the quick/easy/recurring variety (which I cannot recommend more for freelancers with mental health issues or other disabilities.)
Health
Bad mental health days: 7
Sick days: 2 (weekend)
All in all, not a bad month. I usually get about five bad days a month, but after July I wasn’t expecting a great improvement. I’ll settle for this, and am *extremely* ready for September. (Seriously, I set my desktop photo to a September calendar and created my bullet journal spread like five days ago.)
Is it just me, or do you only seem to get sick on the weekends, too? I’m really, really tired of this. Luckily my dog, Bowie, is very understanding.
Creative
I finally started writing my WIP after spending the first couple of weeks (plus a week in July) on worldbuilding.
It was necessary to a point, of course — but I realized that I was using it as a way to avoid writing so that I wouldn’t know if my work was going to suck. So I created the document my story would live in. And a couple of days after that, I got to work.
I was excited to be getting started, and it was insanely fun to do. Then work got a bit out of hand and my health went a bit sideways, which meant my energy was diverted away. And suddenly it felt like this important, vital goal I had just slipped away.
Giving real time to my creative work is a relatively new concept for me — I was in survival mode for so long that the idea that I could do things I loved alongside the work didn’t occur to me until quite recently. Still, I know it’s important and that I will get back to it.
But I’m going to have to do some serious reconfiguring to get to that place where my creative (read: unpaid) work is more of a priority from day to day.
Reading
I managed to get through a few books this month, which is a lot for me since my depression and anxiety leave me tired, unable to focus or unwilling to get up, walk across the room and grab a book. Here are the books I read this month, in order of general enjoyment (to be fair, it was a pretty close call):
Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
Stardust, Neil Gaiman
Goals
I had a few primary goals this month:
- Keep up with this publication (check! I published one article every single weekday)
- Start my novel (check, but I’m still not super happy with my progress)
- Read an average of one book per week (which I nearly accomplished — and technically I had enough time to get that done, but other factors got in the way and I’m ok with that)
Looking forward
And next month, I hope to accomplish the following:
- Read four books (last month, I made the mistake of picking those books beforehand, now I’m going to try letting myself pick them as I go — which I ended up going by the third book in August anyway; I’ve also finally decided that audiobooks count, and it’s made my life so much better/easier)
- Write 250 words of my novel every day that I do freelance work (because flexibility is key, so I’m not going to tell myself that I need to work on it even when I don’t work on other things — days off should be just that; also, tiny goals are more likely to work and I need that kind of easy win right now)
- Update my tracking worksheet every workday/use my bullet journal (I created a new system in my bullet journal which looks great, but I want to see how useful it is — and since the only real way to know is to try it out, I’ve added an alarm to my phone at the end of the day so I won’t forget)
What are your goals for September?
Devon Delfino is an independent journalist and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She writes about everything from money and the relationship between language and culture, to identity and mental health. Her work has appeared in publications such as The L.A. Times, the Establishment, Teen Vogue, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and more. Her essay, “There and Back, Again,” was a finalist in the 2018 Parks and Points Fall Essay Contest, and she’s currently working on an epic fantasy novel. At this moment, her dog, Bowie, is likely begging for more attention. And she’s probably giving in. Follow her on Twitter: @devondelfino and Instagram: @authordevondelfino
