I Has A Schedule!

[insert cat photo here]

Tuesday night I made a schedule. I also wrote down goals (about 10) for November and numbered them 1-5. Work and money related goals, anyway. And a graph/ chart thingy to color in as I earn money, to try and make it seem a bit more real/ do-able.

Dunno how much it's going to help. Maybe if I manage to fill most of it in *this* month, it'll be easier *next* month? Right now it looks like a big empty grid with two lonely little squares filled in down in one corner.

Meanwhile, I was off the schedule (time-wise) by the end of the day I wrote it. So I've mostly tossed the times. Plan out my day from 5:30AM until 7PM? ick. Doomed to FAIL.

So now it says wake up and blog at 5:30 (kinda fail there, too, but close enough...), then I added a NAP, then after that my "work" day starts.

It's still a *long* list of stuff, and I'm really bad at feeling good about it, or like I got anything done. Which is silly, b/c I've done *at least* 3 things on the list every day.

They just aren't the ones that make me money right now, so they don't feel like I'm getting anything done. Maybe I need to make another chart/ grid- with my daily goals on it in a list, with a box for each every day, and put star stickers on them when I meet each goal (say, green star for "tried", red, blue, silver for 25, 50, 75% of goal, and gold star for anything I actually get *all the way* done) like a kindergarten class or little kid's chore chart.

I even have the stickers already...

Actually, I'm going to do that. I'll tape it up next to my bed above the "goals/ schedule/ income chart" already up there. Er, or rather, where the headboard would be, if I had one...

Hey, it's a good spot, and tough to miss or avoid.

Question/ Wondering

Do I keep writing (not enough) articles at TB, even though they take a long time, pay crap, and are totally dis-interesting?

Or do I put on my big-girl pants and come up with my own topics to sell on Constant Content?

I'd have to (obviously) keep writing the penny a word articles until I am making enough sales to pay the bills (something I'm not even doing on TB), but putting up *one* article a day there could eventually kill the need for 7-10 articles at TB.

Which sounds pretty darned good to me.

Problems are:

• I'm not confident that I'll make it past ed. review at CC
• I don't have any idea what to write
• I don't know if I could keep coming up with subjects
• I'm scawed!

Um, ok, so fear is, I'm told, a bad reason not to do something.

Still, the bar is set *really* low at TB. What if I'm not good enough? What if I get banned on my first try? What if I manage to write on the only subjects *ever* with no interest in them *at all*?

Of course, the best way to get over all that stupid fear and what-if-ing is to just write the dratted things already. Just write something and send it in, right? That's what writers do. That's what anyone who wants to buy food and pay rent and get the oil changed does. It's what *I* need to do.

If I could write *one* article a day for CC and get it accepted, I'd be better off than I am now. If 1/3rd of the articles that I wrote and posted were sold, I'd be better off than I am now. If I wrote, submitted, and had accepted *3* articles a day? If 1/3rd of *those* sold in the first month? I'd be able to pay the rent, buy food, *and* get the oil changed, plus at least one other bill- all in the *same* month.

3 TB articles a day? I'd be lucky if I could manage just the food...

It makes so much sense to write for c-c... Why am I not doing it?

Brain Getting Into NaNo Mode

I'm going to Win this year, you know. For the last year or so I'd closed off ideas. actually, most of the last couple years. I'd get ideas, and have no idea how to write them, or get an idea only to find out someone else had just sold the *exact same thing* to the only place that buys that kinda story...

So I closed the ideas off, stopped playing the "what-if" game, and any stray ideas that made it over the wall were ignored until they gave up and went away.

Not this week. Over the weekend, actually, I realised that I need *at least* an idea before NaN0 starts, and that means not just letting them in, but cultivating them so I can see which is strong enough. Right now I have two strong contenders, and each (maybe) could continue into a series.

Not bad "work" for a weekend and a (very) little bit of "what if"-ing.

Of course, to kill any sense of momentum, I also did no "real" work. I joined Twitter, though. Also not work. Not tweeting yet, not sure I want to. Interestingly, wil wheaton and Neil Gaiman tweet more than *any* of the internet marketing types I follow. I don't know if that means they have more to say, less to do, or are trying to avoid larger piles of work, but it's keeping me amused.

Now, though, I need to go do some slimy internet writing so I earn enough to pay the rent, so I can live inside with electricity and internet and a stove in November.

Money and Choices

It's a good thing I've got a lot of goals. If I didn't I'd be stuck with no idea what to do in February.

After playing with the numbers some more (or a lot more, actually) I'd have to stay in Haiti more than 6 months before breaking even with going to Mexico.

So that means Haiti is out of the running (unless a huge random pile of money shows up next week...).

Hiking is also not looking so good. Insurance for a trip that takes place in the US would run me a couple thousand dollars, plus food, plus transport, plus housing between the beginning of February and whenever I started hiking. I'd pretty much never get it under $1k a month right now, average.

If I didn't have to get equipment (and I had insurance) it'd be a different story, but as it stands hiking is out for now.

So, Mexico.

Need to get to work so I can afford even that. If I can get my passport renewal in the mail by the end of November I'll save a pile of money. So that's my first goal. Then start adding in equipment. And tickets. And all the other fun stuff.

Then, at the beginning of February, I go. I think.

Which will give me about 3 months there before I need to be making enough to support myself (again) *and* pay my student loans. Which aren't quite as bad as I expected them to be.

It's really easy to figure out what to do when you start with 3 choices and can only afford one.

Ack, It's Wednesday, and Decision Time, Too!

I'm starting to think I need some kinda calendar or something, that beeps or throws stuff at me on set days of the week.

So... I'm trying to do a bunch of different things right now. I'm trying to get myself earning enough money to pay the bills. I'm trying to set up some kind of ongoing residual income stuff. I'm working on my budget (sad and seriously underfunded though it may be). I'm trying to make myself set up a website that I see a real need for, and that I've been planning and half-assing for *months* now.

But I'm also trying to do and work on and decide some other stuff, too.

I need to figure out what I'm doing for NaNo. I need to work on getting an idea ready, to the point I can finish this year.

Also, I've got a possible opportunity to do something really cool next year. It's got some serious up-front costs, though. To take this "job", I'd have to get all that stuff up there that I'm trying to do for and with money done. Like, now, so I can go.

Basically, a group I've been following has a pretty big volunteer set up going in Haiti. I've been interested in what they're doing since I first heard about them. But between getting down there and the extra equipment I'd need, it's something like $3000 before I even get there. And because they work *full* days doing demolition and rebuilding, I wouldn't be able to even *pretend* to supplement my income with crappy cheap article writing. It just takes too long. I'd have time to do something like work on a website (if I could upload at the end, so I didn't need the wifi the whole time I was working), or work (slowly) on fiction work.

No way to even pretend to put in full days writing web content for other people.

Of course, the while-you're-there expenses are pretty low, too...

I have three or four other possibilities.

There are a good dozen things I want to do, but most get cut off by monthly costs.

I've already decided that to work, the options have to all last (ideally) at least 4 months, cost less than $1000 per month, and not involve sitting on my butt in front of a computer all day.

The first option is, probably, the one with the lowest up-front cost. The trip to Mexico, followed by points south. Plenty of time to work with this option, and plenty to see as well.

The second might not even fit into the budget, I need to price stuff out more- Hiking the AT (with or without my fuzzy half brother). This is the *only* life-goal interest in the US that *might* fit my budget. Insurance (or not having insurance) could push the cost too high, though. Very easily. Also, pretty much no chance to do internet *or* writering stuff while hiking. Even the lightest of computers is heavier than what I want to carry for 2300 miles.

Third option I'm looking at (that would battle with even *applying* for the Haiti trip) is Thailand. It's expensive to get there, visa fees are high, but once over there prices are pretty solidly low, there's a large network of people doing "internet stuff" (and probably "writer stuff," too) to hook up with for in-person motivation and competition. Again, good work time availability, but also plenty of distractions.

Thailand is honestly sitting in a pretty distant last place right now. Depending on what my price research turns up (and if I can find insurance that'll cover an otherwise uninsured american hiking in the US) the AT hiking might be out, too.

So really, the choice (so far, I think) is between volunteering in Haiti (if I apply and get accepted) and starting a tour of the Spanish speaking (non-island) Americas.

I dunno....

Writing

This is kinda embarrassing, so I'm just gonna type it.

I wrote and turned in my first (cheap) article in about a month last night.

Which is crazy. I've accepted dozens, but when I actually have to write them, I freak out and stop. I just stop.

I won't say I "can't" do it, because I obviously have before. I just go totally blank, clueless, and the words dry up. I can think them. I can write most of the thing out in my head. Getting it into the computer, though?

Ha.

But I did one, and it made the second a bit easier. Now hopefully I can write more today without having to fight over it with myself.

I still think Santa should bring me a non-dysfunctional brain for winter holiday. Or, you know, a big pile of money.

Or both.

Ok, going to try another (short, easy, crappy) article. 'Cause, you know, I'm kinda fond of this whole living inside, eating thing. And eventually Dad's going to stop loaning me rent and food money.

Actually Working!

I spent part of the weekend actually working! I'm not proud of myself, because I still didn't get even halfway through my list of stuff that *absolutely needed to get done*, but I got closer, so that's good.

Then I was so tired from that work that yesterday I did absolutely *nothing*. All day. Ok, around 5pm I picked up an article that I'm planning to write today. Otherwise? Nothing.

So today I'm "working" again. It's not work that'll earn me anything this month. It probably won't even earn me anything next month. Hopefully, though, it'll earn me something, someday. It's probably the most boring thing I've ever done, including the stuff I did at Walmart. Seriously dull.

But I can listen to music or podcasts while I do it, and if it works out I should eventually make between $200 and $800 a month off it. Just have to finish setting it up.

Have done nothing yet on the local tourist site. Need to get that done and start posting articles all over about it so I can get magic google juice. I'd like to have it done and ranking at least a little by New Years.

Other money stuff... Dunno. I've got the productivity plug-in on my browser now, dunno if I said that already. I get 2 hours of internet goof-off time between 8am and 10pm. Each time i find myself spending too much time on a site that doesn't get me anything useful (like work), I add it to the block list. There's not much left for me to enjoy at this point.

I keep finding new ones, though, so... yeah.

Off to write dull articles for slave wages....

If You Won The Lottery

Not that I have- that would be a sign Santa loves me. At this point I'm starting to think that 6 year old was right and Santa's a fake...

The point is, I like to make a list of what I'd do, or *think* I'd do if I ever won some huge pile of money.

Not how I'd go get it, or setting up trusts or anything like that. But what I'd actually *do*.

I think it gives a pretty good idea of what people want from life.

So, if I ever won the lottery I'd (in approximate order):

• Pay off everyone and everything that I owe
• give my parents a chunk of money
• set money aside for my sister to pay out as she works, or to pay for school, but without giving her direct access
• book tickets to NYC and Europe
• renew my passport (if needed)
• see Apocalyptica in concert
• go to Florida or California and ride roller coasters every day for a week
• invest almost everything so I'd not have to worry again
• hike the Appalachian Trail (with or without a borrowed dog)
• blog
• spend a year travelling and donating money all over the world
• keep doing the internet thing
• open a hostel
• backpack around the world for as long as I want
• write books
• live in NY, SF, London, LA

Obviously that's a "huge pile of money" winning lotto- the "dream" amount. With $200k I'd pay off my debts, then hike the AT and backpack, while building an online business/ writing. $10k and I'd just start with backpacking and the business/ writing. $100 or less makes no real difference to my life- I'd buy more soda or extra gas.

But it shows me what interests me, what I want to do with my life. If I could pay off everything I owe in one swell foop, I'd be all over that. It's a long range goal. If I could donate piles of money to causes, groups, even people that I think need it, I'd do that. Another long range goal.

Some of them I can do *now*, tho- blogging, building a business that can eventually earn enough to let me do those more expensive goals, working on a book, preparing to, saving for, and taking off on a long term backpacking or hiking trip. A lot of my goals aren't expensive.

If I were more of a stay in one place kinda girl, I'm sure there'd be smexy cars and houses and pool boys and whatnot on that list. I'm sure eventually I'd get at least one of them. Heck, my dream car is less than $100k US with every possible upgrade. (drool, drool, lust...) But that's not something I think about in a daily kinda way.

If I don't plan to settle anywhere in the next 5 years, why would I need a house? If I'm globe hopping, why would I need a car? If I don't have a house, why on earth would I need a pool boy?

Sure, at some point I'll probably want a better place to keep my accumulated stuff (not that there's really that much of it) other than Dad's garage, Mom's shed, or a rented storage unit. Some day I might not have those options. For now, though, and in my goofy bills-paid dream world, that time hasn't come yet.

So what I seem to want in life are experiences, do-goodering, freedom from debt... And the sexy car. Other than the *huge piles* of donated cash, most of the rest of it seems pretty achievable.

What does your Dream/ Lottery/ Life list look like?