Delay the deadlines!!

It's Friday and it has been a busy week!! I have had three deadlines, met two and just got my third delayed...woohoo!! This means that I can work on my novel.

I try to balance freelance work, with my own work, making time for both everyday, but this week has been a super busy freelance one and I am so grateful to be busy that I have happily dedicated myself to my assignments!! Let's face it, things are crappy out there right now and as my Dad would say...Catch as Catch can!! The truly great thing about my schedule is that I can make it. If I have contract work it takes priority until it's done and when I am finished I can work on my own projects. Not having to go into an office allows me to work at a bunch of things at once in the comfort of my own home, on my own time. That means that quitting time may be 5:00pm, 6:00pm or 10:00pm. I work weekends, because I like to...and sometimes for no reason whatsoever I get up really early and spend a whole day playing hooky, going out for lunch and generally mooching about. These are the advantages of being self employed. As for the disadvantages, they are obvious...no regular paycheck and no idea when the next job will come.

Funnily enough I am someone who really likes a schedule, but writing has forced me to expand my definition of that and learn to be more flexible in my approach to the work. So, I try to write everyday and I try to achieve goals that I set up for myself, whether it be word counts or hours spent at the desk, but I allow myself to work with the demands of the rest of my life as well. This means that if I am auditioning until 2:00pm then my 3-4 hours of writing start after that, or if I am naming, then again my writing starts when the naming is done. Some days are all about naming, some days are all about writing, and other days I juggle both. I used to be so rigid, that if I couldn't write at the exact time that I had planned to...then I would wait to try again the next day. Well, I soon learned that this is ridiculous and now I write when I can as often as I can, for as long as I can.

And as for juggling and multi tasking between auditions, freelance and my own projects...I love it! No more "Jack of all trades, master of none" for me...now I am Jack of all trades, master of more than one!