New essay on bingo, debt, finances, freelancing and anxiety

I'm very happy that my essay on why spending $2,000 playing bingo was totally worth it is up now at The Goods in their Best Money I Ever Spent series. It covers my pretty much nonstop anxiety, debt, personal finance, freelance and how bingo plays a role in all of those.



Firstly, I love The Goods and read it every day. Their reporting is super smart and interesting. Secondly, this series has been wonderful, whether it's about a US work visa, the TSA or a rose gold trash can or a vibrator. It's a delight because we all spend money, but we do so differently. I also wrote for The Goods earlier this year about bookstore crawls and Independent Bookstore Day.

I'm also honored that my essay got a custom illustration! Click here to see it. I think that's a career first. Yes, I know: Anyone who plays bingo will easily see that the numbers allocated under B-I-N-G-O are not all accurate to the game. But that's okay. If it gets people to read it, I'm all for it (I didn't see the illustration until the article when live this morning).

I love lube, and want to know your sex column topic wish list

For my sex column this week, I worked in a Bon Jovi reference like the good Jersey girl I am, gushed about lube and talked to some of my favorite sex toy bloggers. It's not an "edgy" out there topic, as is meant to be my focus, but one that is truly about the sex "toy" I use most often and something that I wish I'd known about earlier in life, so I hope you'll check it out.

I've been enjoying überlube since discovering it via Unbound Box but I welcome your lube suggestions, especially because my bottle is running out!



And now for the shameless part of this post...I'd love it if you'd share the column with others (especially anyone who might have a good topic for a future column). I truly hope to be writing 52 columns for Philadelphia City Paper in 2015, but for that to happen, people have to read it, and let them know. It's not the most fun position to be in to constantly have to tack on "and could you please Tweet and like this?" I feel like both a broken record and that annoying person always looking for validation, like when I was little and would ask, "I'm sorry, do you still like me?"

BUT, and of course there's a but, that's the reality of the modern writing world. This column literally fell into my lap one morning via email while I was at CatalystCon, and it's been a thrill, coming in conjunction with writing my very first book, to have a steady weekly change to spout off about sex. Like anything other writing opportunity, it's precarious; as I know from previous experience, one week you can be in, and one week you can be out. It's part of the joy of what I do as a freelancer that every day is different, but also what makes me often envious of my friends with full-time steady jobs and paychecks who don't have to rely on their significant other for health insurance. So I will keep on being that maybe slightly annoying pest, but with the goal of getting to explore as many topics as I and you can think of. I asked for sex column ideas on Twitter yesterday and got some great ones. Have an idea for me? Email me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "City Paper" in the subject line. And if you already have, I am making my way through my column topics, even making a week by week list for next year. Speaking of which, the sex writing fairies were extra kind to me this year because I'll be starting another sex column in January, this one online only with a different audience in mind and different tone, so I'll have even more juicy aspects of getting it on to cover.

The life of a professional juggler

No, I'm not this kind of professional juggler. I'm far too uncoordinated for that. But as I close in on three years of being a full-time freelancer after getting laid off from my magazine job in October 2011, I realize more and more that what I do is juggle. Every day is different. While the bulk of my income comes from freelance writing and book royalties, on any given day I might be listing my upcoming events on sites like Fetlife and SheWrites and Eventful (and yes, sending the updates to my webmaster is at the top of my list!). I might be mailing bookmarks to Unbound Box or She Bop, or sending books to Amazon reviewers. I might be researching where to send my books for review or updating a virtual book tour. I might be reading a market I plan to pitch, immersing myself in their language. I might be reading a book I have to review.

I should be writing, and on good days, I do. On good days, I don't berate myself for all the opportunities I didn't take advantage of, or worry about the future and how I will support more than just myself, or wonder what will happen after I turn the piece in. I just write, rather than make a note on my to do list. I know that writing is only part of it; there's so much more that goes into working for yourself full-time and to be honest, sometimes it's exhausting. It's incredibly stressful to not know if the books you've poured your time and energy into will bomb at the bookstores or take off, and to have your income rely on that. It's worth it, because I can get up at 6 a.m. and dig right in, and leave at 4:45 to go volunteer at my local community restaurant. I can take walks during the day or sit outside for a little while and so often, when I actually do those things, I come back refreshed, with new twists and turns to the pieces that have been percolating in my head. I can go into New York for a doctor's appointment and pitch from my phone. I have this incredible amount of freedom with my time, but there are days when I wish I had a boss, a real boss, not a fake one like me.

I know good things are in the air. I know that as busy and hectic as September will be, it is worth it, because I will get to meet people who care about erotica, I will get to encourage people to send their writing out into the world, I will get to visit stores and see how they display my books. I know it's an honor that those stores exist, because most bookstores don't have a dedicated erotica section, or sometimes even any erotica at all.

Right now I think the biggest requirement of my job (aka, my life) is to be hopeful. To remind myself not to give up before I start, to not freak out over the little ups and downs, to be grateful for all that I do have and know that I get the chance each day to create new stories and ideas, to know that even promoting events can be creative and fun. In the fall I will be looking into new paths, because as 40 looms (I know 40 isn't ancient, and I know it's over a year away, but in my head, it looms), I won't be able to travel like a madwoman, nor will I want to. This is the life I dreamed about for so long when I worked at jobs that paid the bills but didn't do much more, and now that I have it, I have to keep pushing myself to not just ask the hard question of What am I going to do with it? but to truly go full force and do all the creative work this time setup allows.

So for now, there is a lot of juggling, and soul searching, and always looking to the next event or story or article or interview or book. I will be taking two little trips soon, and those are also good for me, the kind of trips where I'm not tripping all over myself to spread the word, but can simply enjoy quiet and nature and family and hospitality. I forget sometimes that "freelancing" shouldn't mean working 24/7 and if it does, then I'm doing it wrong. This year is all about working smarter, figuring out where I keep falling intro traps and how to fix them. I am doing my best, and come September, will be ready to hit the road and become a professional traveler for a month, and what I'll be juggling is cramming my stuff into as few bags as possible.

Money, Guilt, Freelancing and Feminism

All of those topics are wrapped into my new DAME essay, "I Feel Guilty for Not Being the Breadwinner." Freelancing is key here, because a) I never know exactly how much I will earn in a given week/month/year ahead of time and b) don't know when I will receive payment for what I've earned. This makes it very challenging to budget and plan. So it's not so much that I don't make enough money to pay my bills (at least, while the erotica book market is in my favor), it's that that money doesn't always arrive in a timely fashion. I've had weird things lately where places that usually pay me one way suddenly paid in another way, or checks sent to old addresses, or delays, and all of it makes me feel guilty and uncertain. Read more at DAME, where I've got another one coming up related to sex.

I'm judging Bustle.com by its content, shockingly enough

I picked a bad week to be on a social media break, between #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen on Twitter and now the internet issue of the day around the new website Bustle. What's interesting is that while almost every piece I've read has reacted to Bustle founder Bryan Goldberg's post on PandoDaily, I haven't seen many commenting on the actual site itself. I'm not saying his post doesn't have problems, but for me, I've been genuinely enjoying the site. They were where I first read read about the UK Twitter harassment issues. I've been reading for the past two weeks and am a fan, especially of their books coverage (and of that, I really like their book suggestions for the week's headline smakers), which is why I pitched them last week and am working on my first story for them. So, focusing on that and making it the best it can be, along with generally hustling my freelance ass off.