Free to Write For Me

It is now Year 43 of my working life. And for the first time, I’m not being paid for my writing or editing skills.

As of Oct. 1, my services as director of communications for my counseling organization ended, a victim of corporate budget cuts. Mind you, I’m still a counselor, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

But this ends something for me. I was a newspaper reporter or editor over 29 years for four papers in California, Connecticut and North Carolina. I followed that with eight years of communications and marketing work for two employers.

Then, when I became a clinical mental health counselor in 2019, my employer gave me that secondary role as director of communications. It was a part of an apparently passing trend to take advantage of skillsets accumulated in life and allow people to handle multiple tasks.

In any event, I am left with no paid writing, editing or marketing duties. No newsletters to write. No deadlines to meet. No social media to post.

And yet I’m smiling. Well, you can’t see it, but trust me, I am.

From a practical standpoint, it means I will see more clients to replace the lost income from the communications role. I’m down with that because I love the work I do. Assisting people to find balance in their lives, one hour at a time, also helps me learn about me. Personal growth is a benefit you can’t put a cost on.

As for writing, well, perhaps there’s some karma going on here, too.

Getting my first novel through the publication process, I recognize that this is where my writing focus should lie, on fiction (and this blog, I guess). Indeed, since Unwrapping, my first novel, went into the publishing prep phase, I’ve been weaving a follow-up tale, and that book is coming along nicely.

I’m grateful that my full-time job still pays the bills. I understand fiction is not going to bring wealth. And here’s another piece of karma. I get to live by something I’ve preached for years: We write for ourselves.

Through the years, though I worked to write for myself and used creativity as much as possible, my writing had been for others, paid for by others. No longer.

This new time of life? It’s a pretty cool place to be.