The next 20 years

Tuesday:

The end of the year seems a good time to think about this stuff, particularly as we are settled in a new place and expecting to be here for many years - something we've had uncertainty about for the past several years now.

So, what am I going to do with myself for the next 20 years? I am 45 now, so I still have a good 20 years before "retirement" from whatever I'm doing (and I don't intend to just nail myself into a coffin after that, but I might feel less guilty about not working). Obviously being a good wife and mother are and will always be important, but I have plenty of hours in the day to do something that gives me a sense of accomplishment and maybe earns a bit of money.

I have a couple of barriers to full time work, firstly I only intend to work during school hours, and secondly I have quite serious RSI issues that mean I can only do desk work for around three hours a day. I have tried five hours a day part-time computer work and the pain was coming back in a major way. With plenty of breaks and stretches I can comfortably do about three hours a day at a desk, plus I suppose other work not at a desk - but all the kinds of work I like are at a desk. For a while, when I had to leave my full time job due to the RSI pain 15 years ago, I thought about other types of work away from a desk and I even started a landscaping course. I was quite fun but working outside in all weather isn't really me. You many have noticed I like my home comforts! I am smart and shy, being alone at a desk suits me.

Playing computer games (and iPhone) of course also counts towards time I can spend at a desk, I have to be very careful. This weekend when we played quite a lot I could feel the burning and stiffness start in my shoulders and right hand.

Work I have done successfully since then, apart from raising two children, is writing and editing. As I said, five hours a day part time was too much, and I think it would be very hard to find an employer who would hire someone for less hours than that, so that leaves my freelance editing business. I managed to get enough work to fill my limited hours, and it was quite interesting work I think I was good at, but it didn't pay very well and often at the end of the month I would wonder if it was worth doing. I think I would have to charge quite a bit more to make it worthwhile financially, and that is tricky because the clients I want - fiction authors - often don't have a lot of money to spend on editing. Only the boring government work pays well, and that requires more hours than I can give.

What I really want to do, what I've always wanted to do my whole life, is be an author. Over the past couple of years I did finally write the first draft of an entire novel, which I am very proud of. But it still needs a lot of work before offering it to a publisher and in 2015 I barely looked at it. A lot has gone on this year in my life and I've used that as an excuse. Can I justify being an "author" at home and not earning any money if I'm not actually writing? Obviously I need to get writing again! How long do I give myself to do this before I put it to one side and find other work? 2016 to make significant progress, get it polished and offered to publishers?

I think that is the answer for now. In 2016 I will write and polish and really try to make a go of being an author. A couple of hours a day at home or in a café or library.

Human Nutrition

more Tuesday:

I've been wondering for a while what I am going to do next in life. I am busy writing my novel and want to continue with that, but it is not really a good way to earn an income even if I do manage to sell it to a publisher after a lot of editing and polishing (and I'm only a third of the way through after nearly five months). Freelance editing fiction is great in terms of flexibility, but barely makes enough money to be worthwhile. Editing for the government pays a lot better, but my RSI doesn't let me do even normal part-time of about five hours a day - and it would be very difficult to find a job that offers less hours than that.

I've thought about going back to Uni (again). My undergraduate degree is in Linguistics and I did a Grad Cert in Editing in 2009. I considered more Linguistics, but where would that lead? So now I'm thinking about ... Bachelor of Human Nutrition.

It is what interests me at the moment, after all. It's a science degree, with Chemistry, Biology and Anatomy as well as more specifically nutritional subjects. I haven't done science since High School!

I still don't really know where it would lead. Food science, writing for health magazines, some kind of research. I need something only partly dependant on desk work so my RSI wouldn't be a problem. It means three more years where I'm not earning income, keeping the burden of that squarely on my husband's shoulders. Or six years part time. Part time uni plus part time work as a check-out chick or something that wasn't at a desk? Can I continue writing while I study or would that be too much typing? I haven't worked it all out yet. But I love studying, and learning, and the whole atmosphere of uni.

I called my mum this afternoon, I haven't spoken to her for a few days. She still isn't feeling at all well (she had an undiagnosed kidney infection, now on antibiotics) and is going back to the doctor tomorrow. She lives four hours away so I can't just drop in, but we'll go and see her this weekend. My brother lives with her but he's no help, he just makes her life more difficult. I suppose at least he could call someone in an emergency. She was lying down the whole time she was talking to me and didn't sound good at all. Worrying.