I had the idea a few days ago to do blogposts and add pages to them every day of the week writing journal entries. Because I really like journaling, I don't really wanna have a bunch of sentimental notebooks that I have to worry about the physical location of, so journaling online seems like the best alternative. I used to kind of do this privately on my google docs, but I also don't want my google docs to become cluttered with personal stuff, I prefer using it just for story writing. So posting stuff like this on here sounds fun!

I have multiple things to talk about, so I'm going to briefly list them here that way I remember to touch on all of them: work, writing & self-publishing, personal life.

First is work because I called in last night because I didn't feel like going lol. I really dislike my job. I've gotten to a point where the actual tasks I do are really easy and my spot is pretty secure. But it is a night shift job and the working conditions are not the best. I work in a shipping/automated sorting facility so it's super loud and dirty and dusty and not super safe because we ship tons of different things and boxes leaking mystery liquid or even boxes of dry ice busing open are a near-daily occurrence. The only reason I still work there is that it's the only place I have a reliable ride because my roommates also work there and I don't have a car to drive myself to a different job. But my other roommate is thinking about selling her car soon so if she does I've already offered to buy it and I know it runs well because I've ridden in it multiple times and I have more than enough in my savings to just buy it outright. And if she ends up not selling it then I'm looking at getting my credit in order so I can buy a car and make monthly payments on it, because I kinda don't wanna buy a used car. 

Ultimately my goal is to no longer work where I currently am by may. Mid-May at the ideal latest. Whether I achieve that by finding a new in-person job or I've become successful in self-publishing, I don't mind really either way, but I would prefer it to be because I'm successful in self-publishing. 

That brings me to the next topic of writing and whatnot. Like a week ago I made a blog about my goals in writing and converting and all that. And I sat there and did...none of it. Honestly, because it all seemed so mindless and tedious, and my irl job is already so mindless and tedious that I wasn't excited to carry over that mindset into my free time. I wanted to do it because cross-posting my stuff onto other platforms seemed like a potential way to create more of an audience that I can later promote my original works too. But I think by just sticking on AFF and writing a couple of drabbles here and there, I will still be able to grow an audience who are down to read/purchase my original stories. And if I ever get bored and just wanna zone out and do some tedious cross-posting and conversions, that option is always available. 

I will say, something I've realized about why I'm still on fanfic sites and not 100% focusing on self-publishing yet is because of the instant gratification of posting fanfic as well as the social aspect of aff and being able to post blogs and feed posts and comment on stories and readers comment on my stories. But I think a way to help me transition is by using Twitter more. Because that's where all self-published authors go to talk about stuff and connect and be social online. So if you wanna follow my author Twitter, here it is https://twitter.com/a_n_hedge and already I noticed that having it helped me get through writing that little romance short story collection. Because I don't have personal friends or ppl irl to talk to about writing stuff, so just shouting into the void about what I'm doing and how I'm feeling really helps me not feel so stuck and in my head about these kinds of things. 

With self-publishing and turning that into my career, I've been really scared to put time into it because I've afraid of failing. But I'm slowly coming around. I've studied it and followed self-publishing communities for....almost three years now. Wow. And The end of December I started finding a bit of success publishing my fanfics as original stuff and now I've posted a couple of original things on there. And every month this year so far I've made $25 a month from it. So I just have to times that by 100 and I can do it full time haha. 

Really though, my irl job I make about $400 a week, around 530-550 before taxes. So If I made $2000 a month before taxes from self-publishing, it would be almost the same and I would feel confident quitting and doing writing full time. Because right now specifically, my bills are like...$500 a month. And any extra money I spend on things I want or throw it in savings. And I know for a fact a lot of people make WAAAAYYYYY more than 2k a month self-publishing romance...some people make like 20k or 100k a month lol. So I feel confident so long as I actually write and publish stuff and improve my books and how I market them, I can make minimum 2k a month lol. 

I think a doable goal would be to make myself self-publish one romance story a week. Whether that's a 10k or 20k story, or even a 50k novel if I'm really on some crackhead lol is up to how I'm feeling. Longer stories do better but I feel like 10/15k novellas do alright as well. And in the beginning, it's really about just writing and posting and learning what you're doing wrong and fixing it and what you're doing right and keeping on doing that. So, after I finish this blog I'm going to do a bunch of 15-minute writing sprints. I have this 20 chapter romance beat sheet thing that is a pretty good outline of what to have in your story, so I was thinking of doing 20 15 minute writing sprints, a writing sprint for each beat. That would take about 5 hours, and if I spent five hours a day writing, I would have a pretty long book by the end of each week and I would get into the mindset of it being a job because 5 hours a day is a part-time job. 

I have 2 story ideas already in mind. And I've been thinking about retrying the band series thing but with novellas/however long the stories I end up writing in a weekend up being. I have ideas for the first two (a super basic cheesy wish fulfillment where the main character is the fan but she meets him on the beach when she's on vacation, and you'll see why this is wish fulfillment by the end of this blogpost lolol. and then an idea where the rockstar is a "foreigner" and he needs to marry someone for a green card so it's an arranged marriage type of deal u know.) and I'm sure after writing them and having time naturally pass I'll come up with ideas for the next two. 

Now let's talk about my personal life. Girl! I've been watching tarot card videos...the pick a card videos you know. They're like 1-2hours long and there are like 4/5 piles of cards and you pick one and that is the reading you get. And man, these videos have me convinced I'm about to meet my soulmate soon and be in a relationship by June.

I'm actually going on vacation to Florida at the end of April for my cousin/roommate's birthday...and these tarot readings have me manifesting meeting my soulmate on the beach and that's it's gonna be my celeb crush. I'm delusional but it's fun and ain't hurting nobody lol.

I was in a really...disappointing relationship from June 2019-November 2020 and I got ghosted for three weeks and then unofficially dumped/completely cut off on Dec 29th. So I was grieving over that relationship in January and February and even in October-dec of last year cause things were falling apart...it's a whole mess and would take forever to explain so I'm not even gonna get into it. But basically, I've finally let that energy go and now I'm getting excited about romance again and actually enjoying cute romance stories and movies and having fun watching/reading it instead of getting triggered by it. So I'm hopeful that I'll find a good guy who is actually interested in me and cares for me and will respect me and all that fun stuff, but I'm not gonna rush finding him at all. I'm just going to focus on myself and completing my goals and fulfilling my own wishes and let him find me whenever it's meant to happen. Then I can use what I learned from that trainwreck of a relationship and do better and understand what's going on and what acceptable and what's not for next time. 

And the vacation is also why I wanna be able to quit my current job in May. Because I would feel like the baddest of es if I left for vacation and just never came back to that job haha. The thing is though, Amazon doesn't pay out for basically two months. For example, any money I made in the month of March I'll get paid out for around May 28th. I guess because Amazon has to process sooo many orders from soo many countries that it takes a long time to get it all together. But even what I made this month from it was only $25. But, if I end up making 2k+, even 1k+ will signs that it will grow even more the next month, then I will feel confident in quitting my job in May. Because my savings versus my bills would allow me to go without money coming in for a month or two, maybe three or four if I really stretched it, even after buying a car. 

But ultimately my goal is really to work for myself and be able to travel the world and have enough money to do so. With all the pandemic stuff starting to calm as first world countries are vaccinating large percents of their population, it seems like things are going to slowly lift up and go back to a new normal this summer which is really exciting and relieving. So hopefully by the time I'm working for myself, all of the lockdown stuff will be lifted and I can be like a bird and fly wherever my heart desires haha. 

Something else I kinda wanna do is TikTok. I really like learning dances and have fun dancing and stuff, so I was thinking of starting to just become a basic and learn TikTok dances and even trends and start posting on there. And then I can also use that platform to promote my little romance stories, or even use it to create an online store, like dropshipping or something, IDK. Or if I really become a baddie I can become an influencer and get sponsorships 😎. But honestly learning dances and recording it is pretty time-consuming. So I might have to start off slow with that stuff. I've already posted a goofy video of me like a month ago but even doing that took like an hour or two because I had to learn the dance and then film it, and refilm it, and create the audio. And it looks super goofy and not like professional at all lol. But if I start doing it more I'll probably learn some tricks and tips and figure out how to be more efficient and effective. And since it's video-based it'll make me start taking my appearance more seriously and make me want to put effort into getting ready and looking nice. Because since we've been in a lockdown and I work in a dirty dusty place AND I got dumped...I've been neglecting my looks a lot. But I like getting ready and putting on makeup and wearing cute clothes, so if doing TikTok motivates me to do that more, just that alone is worth it lowkey. 

I just gotta make more money so I feel less bad about buying cute clothes 😈 which reminds me that I still have to buy bikinis and summer clothes for my trip. I have 0 swimsuits right now and barely any cute spring/summer clothes...but I mean I can't walk around nakey so it will be money well spent 👍 I'll probably do writing from noonish to 5ish and then finally decide on what bikinis I want and maybe start looking at maybe buying some outfits before I leave for work (at like...9pm, I think that's when we're leaving today.) Sounds like a plan. 

I'll make a new page of this blog tomorrow and do a journal, so I guess you can subscribe to this post if you want an update when that happens. Thanks for reading my personal thoughts & feelings and I hope you have a nice day/night :)