Confession: I No Longer Want to be a Full-Time Writer

Writing is hard as hell! It’s so fucking hard that I had to curse. It's so fucking hard that I have forgone all dreams of getting rich and quitting my day job.  In fact, I'll happily keep a day job for the time being.

They say it's not about the destination, it’s the journey. The journey has taught me that writing is hard.  Its not a get rich quick endeavor and you have to love it.

I love writing, but for right now I'm happy to keep it as part-time gig.
I just said finishing Coal: The First Book in the Everleaf Series was hard and I don't want to do it for a living, but finishing COAL also given me a huge surge of confidence.  I've learned how to be consistent, wake up early, and market myself.  Most of all, I've developed the fortitude to look failure in the eye and face it knowing that it won't kill me or define me.  I have learned to fail forward.  

So today I start a new job and the confidence I've gained from finishing COAL has empowered me to look for another job.
I've been at the same job for close to twelve years.  Twelve years!  I was uninterested in looking for another job, but I haven't had a pay increase for a while and I decided I needed to leave.  Voices in the back of my head caused me to doubt if I could do anything other than what I was doing, but I thought about how hard it was to finish my book (the hours I've put in, the effort, and the criticism I had to willingly endure) and I realized I could do anything.

I also have to confession that I love my job.  I was lukewarm about it when I was first started, but after twelve years, I like having a good working knowledge of  something.  Within five years at this new job I should be able to call myself a master .
I don't want to write full time, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop.  I'm still a writer.  I still have a check list of books I have to publish or the characters in my head will drive me crazy. Coal is still mad at me for taking so long to finish his story.

Marketing Aside:  Coal: The First Book of the Everleaf Series should be in July.  Book Two will be finished a year after that (if all things go well).