There’s something to be said for doing something full time as opposed to having to do it part time. There’s this ability to focus, to not have to worry about everything else, to not have to place an important project on the back burner because of “work.” For the past month or so I’ve been able to sit down just about every day and just write. Just write, not deal with things I don’t care about, not worry about late payments (okay, not true on that one, people still owe me money!).

I’m still doing other things, but they aren’t my main focus anymore, they are my part time, on-the-side thing now and it feels great. There have been days when I sit down and think, “man, I am starting late, I’m not going to get anything done,” then in a few hours I realize that I’ve just written over 2,000 words. It’s kind of crazy to think of what I can accomplish in just a few short hours when everything is fresh in my mind and I’m on a roll.

Being a part time writer, for a lack of better word, sucks. This awful feeling of dread everyday knowing exactly what I want to be doing, but that I couldn’t do it, instead I had to wait to do it after I’ve already spent at least eight hours in front of my computer. It’s hard for most people to imagine not being able to write on the side, but try going to your day job, then coming home and doing a variation of your day job for another few hours while your mind feels like it is overheating.

In the past month I’ve been able to write just about 30,000 words, which if I round is just about the 130 page mark. That’s a lot of writing. A part of me wishes that I had done this a whole hell of a lot sooner, but at the same time I’m okay with this happening now. I’m incredibly close to being done with my second novel at this point (done as in done writing, not done reading, re-reading, editing, re-editing, etc.) which is incredible considering when I was toiling with the idea of quitting everything and just writing for myself instead I was nowhere close to being done.

I guess the moral of this story is; people will often say that it’s tough to drop everything and do what you want to do. It is. It is very, very tough. I’m nowhere near done and I know that things will inevitably be shitty at some point, maybe even in the near future, but who cares? I’d rather have things be crappy while doing something that I care about than be frustrated every night by doing something that I don’t care about.

Money is important, but sometimes there is more to life, right?