Member-only story
Work–Life Balance for Writers: Inking a Successful Process
The Big Lessons
- Work until you have enough money. Then go do the things you really want to do.
That’s how I managed until the end of college. I learned it from my dad. Sound familiar?
Actually all five of us siblings operated that way when we lived in Montclair, New Jersey. As both the oldest and a girl, I had the simplest program, babysitting for the neighbors and twice spending an entire summer as live-in babysitter for an extended family operating a girls’ camp.
My financial needs: enough to buy some nice notebooks and pens for each school year, an occasional chocolate bar, until in the last two years of high school I saved up what we all figured I’d need for “spending money” at college … $800, an enormous sum when made up at 50 cents an hour for labor!
What astounding results my first brother gained from working for a boss, though … He bought Christmas gifts for all of us from the stores, something almost unimaginable to me. (I made gifts from yarn, paper, you name it. Not exactly well loved by anyone besides my mother.) Thus, Lesson Two:
2. You can upgrade your standards if you take a more complicated job and work regular hours.
