Taking a break from the reunion

We're in the middle of our annual reunion with The Boys. Saturday we headed north to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, which was a lot of fun. All of us except Eric dressed up. I was especially pleased with my barbarian queen costume. On Monday, we did a boat tour on the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, which was cool. Well, hot. It was 90* and there was no sun shelter on the top deck, but the breeze was nice when we started moving, so that helped a lot. Tuesday we went to the Shedd Aquarium, followed by China Town for a late lunch at a Dim Sum place we found the last time we were there. Today the daughter went home and the rest of us are tired! Everyone else goes home on Saturday, and I expect the rest of our time will be pretty low key.

Yesterday, I read an article about building an author platform, and part of what resonated with me was to stop treating writing as a side hustle. Here's what I'm committed to doing to transition from the day job to writing.

- Work six days a week on writing, branding, and marketing, for a total of 20 hours a week to start. I'll increase my time as I decrease the day job hours. (I've already got next week on the calendar. I don't know how I'll do with irregular hours right away. My day job schedule varies a good bit. I'll just have to do the best I can until I can do the full 9-5 at home.) The plan for my days off at the Day Job is to write in the morning and edit, market, and brand in the afternoon.

- Draft 2 short stories per month between now and Christmas. These won't be book ready, but shorts are faster to edit and polish for the market, and that will get me 11 short stories finished.

- Schedule my work time on the calendar.

- Walk three days a week to start with to increase my fitness and brain circulation.

- Send out my first newsletter by July 29. It will likely be sooner. I have a draft started, but since I jumped the gun and started an e-mail list without thinking the procedure through, I want to make sure I have it right. That's not going to happen with a house full of company.

- Send out one newsletter per month minimum.

Advice, opinions, observations, questions, and 2 cents' worth are always appreciated. Learning curves keep your brain young. Right??

I don't have a time frame for when I'll be leaving the day job. I've wanted to leave for a while but felt like I was there for a reason. Whatever it was, it must be done because now my desire is to leave without tanking the shop. We've been open 15 months, and it's still precarious. I run the day to day operations on my own (scheduling, inventory, customer complaints, etc), and I need to think it through and talk it over with my boss, and then we need to find and train my replacement. It won't be fast, but it will be. That's fine. By doing both and transitioning I'll be able to build the discipline to make a real go at it this time. Eric is fully supportive. In fact, Sunday I got called in to work, and he asked if I was going to put in notice. He's good with however this plays out. 

I hope y'all are having a good week. See you on the flip side.