Why Tuesday is my favorite day of the week

Today is Tuesday, which to me is my favorite day of the weekend, although I love weekends too, because it's payday. Since starting my part time copywriting job last June, which I go to three days a week, I've welcomed the change of going from chasing down checks that may or may not arrive on time to doing that but also getting paid every single week for the work I've done the week prior. I'd bet money (ha!) that having a steady paycheck has contributed greatly to my mental health, because I know that as long as I show up to work, I'll have that check, and can better plan when I will pay rent and bills.

From what I can tell so far this year, my book royalties will be the biggest source of my gross income, with my copywriting job the second, but the big difference is my royalties arrive four times a year and are utterly unpredictable. They've ranged from the very low thousands to over $17,000 and I have no way of predicting quarter to quarter what they will be, so I can't rely on them. That being said, I should receive my royalty statement for Q1 2017 next week and I already have a list of what I will pay for with it, including some to my retirement fund, some to debt, some to key purchases and some investing back into my biggest literary moneymaker, the Best Women's Erotica of the Year series.

This year, as I've become fanatical about bookkeeping and started truly analyzing the cost of each dollar I earn, I've realized how wasteful I was of both my time and money in my younger days. Projects like interviews for Gothamist, some of which I am still inordinately proud of, didn't pay. Others, like In The Flesh Reading Series, sometimes broke even and sometimes didn't. A wiser person would have parlayed that reading series into a book deal and/or a sponsorship. I didn't, which contributed to its demise when I felt like I was taking advantage of myself. I sometimes wonder, what could I have done with all that creative organizing energy that would have been sustainable in the long term? I don't think of it in a regretful way but more in a how can I apply this to my work life now? way.

This month I've been busy with promoting my latest Cleis Press anthology, On Fire: Erotic Romance Stories, finalizing the table of contents for the self-published rerelease of Sex and Candy and some freelance writing, and starting next week/month, I will be planning the first of many online courses I plan to teach, organized around my consulting and teaching site, EroticaWriting101. All of those projects and whatever happens after them are part of my strategy to stay relevant in the job market. I'll also be making a copywriting portfolio page and learning more about SEO and Amazon keywords. It's a lot to juggle, but I feel good about taking a proactive stance. I'm writing an essay about how I'm paying off a large amount of debt and while I'm not proud of having the debt I'm excited that I can see the light at the end of that damning tunnel and eager to get started on projects that have the potential to yield income for many years to come. Still, as long as they will have me, I'm grateful for my job, which is teaching me a whole new world and style of writing and outlook on the world, and giving me that Tuesday morning payday to look forward to. I am ready to make new mistakes (because I'm sure I will), but at least I won't be sitting around waiting for things like I did in my twenties and thirties, when I never asked for a better job title or advocated for a raise or anything else that would advance my earning potential. Now I realize that I have the power to at least try new endeavors, measure their success and go from there.