Thinking About Side Gigs

My Plans for the Near Future

It occurred to me that putting all your eggs in one basket is the proverbial warning we should pay more attention to. Does this mean having two husbands at the same time? No, not that. Perhaps, as I have money on the brain right now, or at least more of it, it would mean more side gigs.

I grew up in a family that honored careers for the men. The women could get married and have families. I remember my father bringing up the fact that my mother only went to two years of college as proof that women weren’t much good at more than being mothers. I never heard him compliment her about any one thing. When I was an administrative manager, my father referred to me as a gal Friday.

Right. Well, he is dead now, and I’d like to stop hearing about the horseshit he used to spread thickly on our lives. So, let’s talk about side gigs. Again, growing up, side gigs were not anything to be proud of or anything that could support a family. For women, what was available was Avon, Mary Kay, and Tupperware parties. I suppose the popularity of drawing upon the kindness of friends has not died, but I never really had all that many friends, and the best thing we enjoyed was getting drunk or doing drugs.

Hindsight is 20/20, and in my life I can see that so much of what I did was centered around writing. This certainly included reading too. I remember reading Homer in high school just because it was there. Thrilling story, by the way. I always liked the part when Circe turned Homer’s crew into pigs. As I get older, re-reading all those books is just about as good as reading them the first time. I am so forgetful these days.

So, side gigs for writers seeing as how we can all call ourselves that here at Medium. Self-publishing is what I’m looking at these days. I will bypass editors (unless I can get my husband to do it), become a graphic designer and come up with a kick-ass cover for each book, become a narrator and do that part too for the audible books and finally get my author’s website up and running.

I’ve had a side gig going for many years now as a psychic. Or, more accurately, as a channel.

The Last Word

Hello.

Ha, you made me laugh.

Well, you were the one who said you were a channel. I thought I’d pop in and say hello.

Hi, yourself. We haven’t done this in a while.

No, you have been ill. We thought we’d give you an opportunity to heal, as it were.

What do you mean, “as it were”?

Healing takes time, especially the older the individual is. You have noticed in the past week that you are able to put your socks on even more easily than before you were sick. You are able to stay up longer hours and are taking an interest in your former activities.

Yeah, unfortunately I tanked on NaNoWriMo. Though I still have two days to write before the end of November. I put a good 23,200 words into my third book. I want to finish it off at 30,000 words which is another two or three chapters. I need to go back to the second book and finish that one off with an additional 17,000 words. Then, re-writes on all three books and then think about either turning it over to Dennis to see if he is willing to spend the time editing them or think about hiring an editor to do the job, which I’m thinking would cost a good $3,000 or so which we don’t have. I also need to get up to speed with Canva, or Publisher or re-learn Illustrator to produce some covers. Then, I need to publish the books at KDP and see what happens. I need to drum up some interest in those FaceBook groups I joined and get my author’s website up and running. Anyone who has subscribed to my articles here at Medium will be on the list of folks I approach with book deals and announcements. By the way, if you want to get on that email list please subscribe here or email me at [email protected]. I suppose I am feeling better. I’ve got a lot to do.

Oh, on a less fun note, I need to do our family accounting for 2022. I’m figuring it will take me a couple of months. That means I need the laptop set up next to me with another cordless keyboard to compare Quickbooks 2021 on the laptop with Quickbooks 2022 on the PC. I forget how I classify things from one year to the next. This is the year I have spent money on myself towards publishing books. Can I count those things?

Yes, we would say you might create a publishing classification for yourself. If your accountant wishes to take those expenditures and you use what you earned as a Medium writer this year to offset that would be up to her.

But does $48 as income from Medium even come close? I don’t think it counts as more than a hobby.

Well, is this why you were thinking about side gigs? Perhaps you should concentrate on income-producing side gigs.

Why are you raining on my parade?

That’s what you pay us for, though the IRS would never, I guarantee, in a million years count that toward a business expenditure.

Well, I don’t pay you, so there.

You do understand what I mean, though.

Yes, I do. Hey, is anybody going to be remotely interested in this piece?

Time will tell.

In explanation, The Last Word is a short conversation between my guide, Seth, and myself that generally has something to do with whatever I am writing about. I’ve started a list of those articles I write where it appears. I hope you enjoy it. I enjoy having Seth and others in Spirit show up occasionally in my pieces. It’s how I channel.

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