First Missed Paycheck
And the whirlwind of realizations reality brings
Quitting my job on July 6th was the execution of a dream 3 years coming. I had long since become disillusioned with my employer, and the stress my job’s uncertainty brought was wreaking havoc on my blood pressure (unfortunately, the effects still linger). But the slow unraveling of my work life into my dream job of writing full time has been magical, until today.
At first, I barely noticed. For the last two years, I have worked on writing and revising my novel, Jasper Hatchworth, at home outside of work hours. I had plenty of nights and weekends working late in the silence of a sleeping house, so the Tuesday after I quit felt more like a spontaneous Saturday where my family went off, leaving me home alone. Wednesday, I got lunch with a friend and spoke to him for a few hours about what it was like to quit and pursue my dream (he had been laid off from the same place several months before). It wasn’t until Thursday that the realization fully set in. This isn’t a long weekend; it’s my new life! And that Friday, I still got my full paycheck for the two weeks prior. Everything was great.
The following week I started getting my bearings under me. I developed a plan for moving forward with the next steps in my publishing journey, and I did some research into business costs and distribution basics. Most importantly, I knocked out many of the character development edits I needed for several subplots within the novel. Again, by the end of the week, everything was great.
However, this week, things started to shift. Moving on to general prose clean-up on part one of my novel slowed my progress significantly. I thought I would finish all of part one by today, but I only managed to finish half. I also started working at night again. When I first left my job, I stopped working at night because my night job had become my day job. But with a self-imposed deadline quickly approaching (I am very deadline-oriented), I worked all day and several hours at night all week long to try and finish on time.
But worst of all, the reality that I had quit my job came into full view today when I didn’t get another paycheck. No longer could I rely on someone else feeding my bank account for the labor I worked. I now have to produce my own income, and there are no revenue channels in place yet. My book isn’t even going to come out until next year. Reality’s at the door, and it’s time to wake up.
Of course, my wife and I planned for this. During the years before I quit, we squirreled away as much savings as we could. If spent modestly, the savings can last for several years. And of course, I have gotten the psychological boost of seeing that savings at its full value every time I check my investment account.
BUT today I had to withdraw from it for the first time. That psychological boost just turned into a hit. I suddenly felt as if the savings wouldn’t be enough. I am still over half a year away from publishing, and I am going to draw down on that account every month until then.
What was I thinking? I don’t take risks; I build systems to keep risk out of my life. I plan for the worst but rarely have to execute those plans. How can I cause my family the chaos this gamble will surely produce? I can’t do this. I CAN’T DO THIS!
My wife saw me spiralling before dinner and did what any good partner would. She hugged me, looked me in the eye, and said, “I’m not worried. I trust you.”
She trusts me.
I wanted to sabotage my writing career before it even started because that’s how you protect yourself when you are afraid. But my wife trusts me more than I trust myself, and I have a plan. Not to mention I have years before I have to pack it in if my gamble fails. I don’t need to worry; I need to trust myself the way my wife trusts me. I need to trust that everything I have done to get to this point was worth the investment I put in, because if it wasn’t, why did I work so hard to make this happen?
I might fail, but at least I will have tried. And that whirlwind of realizations was all brought on by my first missed paycheck.
Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again next month.
What I’m Reading Now
Kindle - Except the Dying by Maureen Jennings
Physical #1 - Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
Physical #2 - Maus by Art Spiegelman
Physical #3 - The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain
What I Read Last
Physical - Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Physical - The Deception of the Black Rose by K. G. Ryder
Kindle - Becoming Lilith “The One” by MZ Pak
Physical - Long Bright River by Liz Moore
WIP State
Draft 3 is coming along. All the notes from alpha readers have been addressed, and I am currently working through general prose cleanup. There are now 29 Chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue. The prologue and 6 chapters have been polished to the next stage, leaving 23 chapters and the epilogue remaining.
This upcoming week, I am submitting requests to editors for developmental edits.
Parting Thoughts
Writers need people to read their work. For the longest time, I never shared my work with anyone, including my wife. I wrote several novels that only I will ever read because I wasn’t concerned with publishing them. I knew someday I wanted to publish, but I was content writing only for myself. I didn’t understand the perfectionist trap because who would I polish my novels for? This was a mistake.
Now that I am moving away from writing only for myself, I wish I had shared those novels with my wife when I wrote them. I wish I had gone through the endless editing then and learned all I could instead of playing catch-up now. Those novels still weren’t fantastic and probably shouldn’t be published, but all that experience I could have had never happened.
If you are writing anything creative, have someone else read your work with a critical eye, even if you don’t plan on publishing it. You’ll thank me later.
—Andrew H. Palmer