Weekly Word Count – August 1st through 7th, 2011

Okay this week's total 4264 words. Probably not as high as I would've liked, but okay considering the circumstances. The first thing to understand is that I lost my job on Monday so I was a bit busy wrapping up my work life at the company I’ve worked at for the last 10 years: Packing up my desk, turning in my laptop, processing paperwork, and saying goodbye to friends and co-workers who have been such a big part of my life for so long. It is hard to process when it happens to you, even if in your heart you believe that this is a good thing.

Courtesy of Ian Aberle via Flickr

Luckily, I have some freelance work lined up and about half of those words written this week were devoted to working on a client project. The rest of the words were for the blogs and a little on updating my LinkedIn profile.

Losing your job is never a good thing but it does force you to make changes, and to be honest I was unhappy there for a very long time. I've always had this dream in the back of my head of making my own living as a freelance writer, and maybe this is the opportunity to do just that. I've been slowly preparing for this day for some time, buying equipment, software, office supplies, and trying to line up clients for possible future business, but it is difficult to work on any freelance projects when you have a full-time job. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I'm optimistic this change will be for the better.

For anyone who has the dream of having enough time to write that novel, that book or that screenplay, I now have it and I plan on exploiting it to the fullest.

This afternoon I have been reorganizing my office and beginning to assemble the research material for my next book: Creative Thinking for Creative Writers. I plan on beginning a draft or an outline by the end of the week. I have to fight through the nervousness and the temptation to spend all my time looking for a new full-time position because I know that this is not what I want, but I need to be realistic, and make sure that secondary parachute is packed and ready to go just in case of emergency.

So if you know of anyone who needs a good freelance writer with lots of technical and business experience, please let me know and stay tuned for more details about the journey. Thank you.