A Thank You, An Apology And A Question

August 10, 2011

One year and one week ago, I wrote my first post here at GetPaidToWriteOnline.com.

I honestly don’t know where the time has gone.

I remember being at my parents, having dinner about 13 or 14 months ago, checking Twitter on my phone and happening to see a tweet by Sharon explaining that she was looking for a new blogger.

I dropped her an e-mail, we discussed a few things and a few weeks later I was publishing my first post.

54 posts later and I can honestly say that my weekly post here is one of my regular pieces of work that I look forward to most.

I’ve met a massive amount of people while being here and feel extremely honoured that this blog continues to get a substantial number of visitors each week coming back to read the posts that I put up (and Sharon’s, Dana’s and every guest writer’s, of course!).

So first of all, I’d like to say a huge thank you to both Sharon for allowing me to continue writing here after what has been a fantastic 12 months and to each and every one of you for reading my posts and taking the time to comment.

Honestly, thank you.

Now it’s time for the apology.

As many of you will be aware from my previous posts, a while ago I decided not to go freelance full time. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for years, but when it came to the point in my life where I had the opportunity to do so, I realised that it wasn’t going to be the best move at this moment in time and I opted for a consultancy role that was too good to pass up on, on a part time basis, solely so it allowed me to freelance still.

However, as some of you will have noticed, aside from my weekly posts, my presence in the freelance writing community has been diminishing over the past few months, to the point where I haven’t even responded to comments on my own posts.

The reason behind this is that — and this is actually a little difficult to say — I think I had taken too much on.

My initial plan was to leave my office job, spend three days on the consultancy role and two days freelancing.

It hasn’t worked out exactly as planned, though. I’ve ended up staying on for two days a week in my office job for a few months and my consultancy role involves more travelling than I first anticipated. This isn’t a bad thing as I love travelling, but by adding three or four hours onto the end of my day, it’s three or four hours that I would have otherwise been freelancing.

I think the perfect analogy of what’s been happening is to think of the various aspects of my working life as spinning plates. I’ve managed to keep them all spinning relatively well for a few years now, but in recent months some of the plates have been neglected, such as the freelance writing community interaction, which is something I miss dearly.

And it’s for this reason why firstly, I apologise and secondly, I’ve started to reschedule my working life so it’s a lot more manageable.

I’ve had a few relationships with freelance writing clients that have come to a natural end in recent weeks and I haven’t replaced them and I’m trying to focus a lot more on the projects I really enjoy working on — such as writing this weekly blog post — as simply put, I’d much rather be working on projects I find personally attractive rather than financially attractive.

The thank you, the apology and now for the question.

I know it may only seem like a small aspect to some of you, but I really have missed being involved in the freelance writing community. I’ve started to go back and respond to comments from recent weeks, but it’s not the same as being actively involved and getting the feeling that you’re truly a part of a community.

Therefore, the question I want to ask is just a short one, but one I really want to know the answer to.

How are you?