Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

How do you support your writing habit? Are you fortunate enough to be able to make a living writing full-time? Or do you rely on some sort of “day job” to pay the bills and write when you are able to fit it into a busy life?

I’ve done both of the above. Right now I’m fortunate enough to have the time to write full-time — and squeeze out a living while I’m waiting for the writing to pay off better.

At times, as have most writers, I’ve done a variety of full-time and part-time jobs. Once I applied (three times all together, actually) for a job working for a health insurance data company. Although I went through the application process, and even got an interview two of the three times, I wasn’t told until the third time I applied that they really were looking for people ALREADY trained or experienced in medical coding.

That was a decent job with good pay and benefits. I wish I’d had some sort of medical coding training courses to get the job. I also wish they’d made it clear that I needed that sort of training the two times I did get interviewed.

Ah, well. Life goes on.

So what are you doing for a “day job”? Or are you able to write full-time and make it work? Leave a comment and tell us about your adventures in supporting your writing habit.

I have to confess that I’ve spent most of my writing life in a sort of tension between “wannabe” and “gottabe.” I’ve always told myself I want to be successful as a novelist. But most of my writing life has been taken up with writing I’ve had to do in order to pay the bills.

I urge you, if it is at all possible, establish your writing priorities and focus as much as possible on those types of writing. Sacrifice whatever you can whenever you can to stick to the writing you love, and if you stray from that, reestablish those priorities just as soon as you are able.

I say all that because my wife and I have just gone through a bit of reevaluation concerning priorities — and we’ve decided now is the best time to put aside a lot of the “stuff” I’ve been struggling to do online and get back to the novel writing priorities I’ve let fall by the road of this life’s journey.

Mustering the meager resources we have and what little faith/courage I have rattling around in my heart, I am going to dust off an idea I’ve had for a few years and write a series of adventure/fantasy novels. In fact, I spent yesterday rummaging around old notebooks to locate the stuff I’ve already started and polished up a shiny new spiral notebook to start a plotting/planning/journal for the task.

I’ve spent too many decades, yes decades, of my life telling myself I really didn’t have time or energy to work on those novels I sort of just assumed would write themselves. But, working on the premise that some hard thinking and hard writing on novels and ideas dear to my heart might just be the best anti aging product for an Old Guy’s brain — I’m getting down to business, setting aside a lot of the online time wasters, and doing what I’ve wanted to do all along.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I wrote a recent article here about insurance, especially health insurance for freelancers, and even invited comments from anyone who’s found a good, reasonably cheap resource for such insurance.

We’ve recently, in my household, begun looking at the many ins and outs and options of Medicare. Yes, the years are rushing by and my wife, not ME, is approaching Medicare age in the next six months or so. What we’ve learned already is this: It’s much easier to find simple, cheap life insurance rates than to find anything resembling easy, SIMPLE answers to health insurance for Medicare clients.

I always had this vague idea that Medicare would resolve all our problems regarding health insurance, health care, etc. Somehow during all the recent furor over health care reform, I and I’m sure many others had the idea that Medicare was sort of a “home free” solution to the whole mess.

Boy, was I wrong. As best we can tell, Medicare — just basic, no-frills Medicare — is roughly equivalent to the most mediocre high-deductible 80/20 health insurance plan offered by private companies. The secret to good Medicare coverage, as far as well can tell, is in the Medicare “advantage” or “supplemental” policies you combine Medicare with. And that’s where all the choices get incredibly confusing.

Anyway, just a note for any of you who haven’t looked into it, be warned that Medicare is neither a great panacea, nor easy to wade through. Start sorting through your options early if you can.