One of the most valuable things I’ve learned as a passionate, creative person is to nurture the areas of life that overlap and inform one another. Nowhere is this more evident than in my choice of employment.
I work for Brave Writer, a homeschool writing company that supports parents as they teach their kids to write. We do that through products that develop the parent as coach, literature-rich language arts materials, online classes, and so much more. In 2019, The Brave Learner: Finding the Everyday Magic in Homeschool, Learning, and Life, by Brave Writer creator and writing coach extraordinaire Julie Bogart, will be released. I’ve worn many hats on the Brave Writer team and most recently, my role has been to design and organize the book launch’s community-marketing initiative.
Overlap:
- I’m a writer who works for a writing company.
- I’m a hesitant memoirist who works for a company that nurtures original writing voice and that we, “live honestly, write bravely.”
- I’m a homeschooling parent who works for a homeschooling company that offers me flexible hours and the ability to work from a remote location.
- I’m a woman discovering my feminine strength who works for a woman-owned-and-run company.
- I am sometimes an insecure parent needing support who works for a company that has made supporting parents their mission.
- I’m a writer who will someday soon launch her own books whose job it is to help launch someone else’s first.
- I’m a passionate, creative thinker who thrives in an environment that thinks outside the box and seeks out alternative ways to accomplish necessary tasks.
Another one of my favorite life lessons is that it all counts. All of these endeavors serve and inform one another. Nothing is wasted. No part of it distracts from the whole.
When writers decide to “keep their day jobs,” it most often out of necessity. Writing takes a long time to pay the bills on its own. That doesn’t mean the hours devoted to employment aren’t serving your writing life.
Look for overlap. You’ll be more balanced, efficient, and whole in the long run.
