Between the time I moved to DC in February 2004 and October 2008, my finances were a mess. Suffice it to say that when I left my husband, a great deal of credit card debt ended up as my responsibility because I had been the primary earner in my marriage.
Freelance editing kept me afloat; in the early days, after the Chapter 13 bankruptcy payment was taken from my day job’s paycheck, I had less than $500 per pay period. So, I had to make the most of the time I had available for editing.
I quickly found that trying to sit for hours on end didn’t work. I’d start missing things, which then resulted in wasted effort, or I’d step away to load the dishwasher and then get distracted by other household duties. So I bought a timer, and started alternating. Fifteen minutes on editing, then five minutes off. The time grew as my focus grew. I’ve pretty much maxxed out now at fifty minutes per hour writing or editing, then ten minutes on laundry, recycling, cleaning, or Facebook’s Farm Town (okay, I cheat a little on the last one).
Don’t think you’re a loser or a bad person if you can’t sit down and write for hours on end. I will admit, when the creative juices are really flowing, sometimes I get exasperated when my fifty minutes is up. I don’t want to stop for ten minutes! I want to keep going. But every time that I follow my own rule and take a break, I find that I come back all the more focused and productive.
