My Long Term Career Plan
I had an interview this weekend (two actually) for gigs I’d really enjoy. One is high-paying and high-profile and one would make my mommyblogging heart happy…and still pay some. They are both just as important to me for completely different reasons.
And both fit into my master plan.
You see, while I’m currently working many hours a week (up to 60-ish some weeks) doing actual honest-to-goodness writing work, that can’t last. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love everything I do, but eventually after my resume looks great and my portfolio site is good (www.jennydecki.com if you haven’t seen the writing portfolio freelancing site yet) I can cherry pick my gigs.
There are two kinds of jobs I ultimately want to have:
- The ones that build my traffic and the sense of community I feel with moms on the Internet. You beautiful women (and a couple guys) that remind me I’m not alone in my home office and I’m not the only one that has toddlers drawing on my walls with crayons, chalk, lipstick, nail polish, and mascara. That means the world to me, and I always want to have one or two projects I do that directly connect to that community. One of my interviews this weekend was for just such a gig.
- The jobs that pay well and don’t take a lot of time. The paycheck gigs. For now my main paycheck gig is Walmart.com and Hanes – but those are both through the same editor and that means it’s really one gig. If something happened to that gig I’d be outta luck. The blogging brings in money, but not corporate money. I’m all about making sure I have a plan b. Preferably at the same time I’m rockin’ plan a. My other interview this weekend was for this kind of gig.
After these two jobs are either given to me or not (My fingers are so crossed and I considered sacrificing a chicken … okay, I thought about tossing some chicken strips in the microwave for the kids for lunch tomorrow and calling it a sacrifice to ensure my success.) I will then start to look at everything I’m doing and make sure some of my earlier jobs are things I still want to keep holding on to.
Because over at Shake the Salt, Christy has put together this too good to pass up calendar for starting to teach the kids, you know, stuff. Important stuff like letters and numbers and whatnot.
I want to start doing things like that with the kids for an hour or two a day. Make them smart and stuff. I want to watch them learn and see the bright little spark in their eyes when they get something for the first time.
At Home Preschool seems like a perfect way to do that, because my dumb bunny bootie would be trying to read them some Fitzgerald and junk then being all existential and trying to explain how Gatsby saw the light at the end of Daisy’s dock as a beacon that could be one big “do over” for his crappy life of excess and nothing to show for it but an empty pit in his soul.
Yeah, I’m trying to use someone else’s lesson plan so I don’t make my kids goth by the time they’re five.
In keeping with that, my writing needs to be a careful balance between writing for pay and writing for less pay and more exposure in a community that I want to be part of.
You know, have my cake and eat it too. I’m that kind of girl.
Oh, and if you get Glamour magazine, I’m in the October issue with a quote about women and body snarkiness. I have to buy a copy tomorrow – when I do I’ll scan in the page with the quote. You will laugh like an idiot at what I got quoted for in Glamour.
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