Thanks to all who weighed in (on blog and off) about grad school. It’s kind of a moot point since I’m not in a position to go for a fellowship right now (because I still need to make money) and I wouldn’t go to grad school if I had to pay for it. But it’s a maybe someday kind of thing. Hearing that I may not need that degree to do what I want was encouraging. I know that if my book sells that this will go a long way to building my career, which is one reason I want to write it. I want to get to the next stage in my life as a writer and I feel like having a book is the next stage. I’m not thinking much beyond this proposal (because I want to revel in the experience of having one out) but I am thinking about what I can be doing to support that proposal (and my interest in adoption) and help me grow into other projects if that book doesn’t sell.

Here’s some stuff in my head right now:

1. Brett’s doing the taxes and I made more than I thought last year. Although I was technically full-time freelance, I was really working part-time and I made a very nice income for a part-time worker. That made me feel much better about things. What hurt us was that when I went full-time in 2007, I wasn’t making enough at all and we ran through the cushion we’d built to support us while I got things up and running. Then when clients paid out late in 2008, we had no cushion and went into debt and I didn’t make enough to pay ourselves and pay back that debt so Brett had to go to work. But I was short by much less than I thought — we are not as bad off as I feared.
2. I had coffee with Alicia who had encouragement and good advice about doing workshops. She knows whereof she speaks since she gave me my first workshop gig. I left our meeting more excited!
3. In my continuing critique of the past year, I realized that all of my jobs came via networking. ALL OF THEM. None came from marketing/cold calling/warm calling. So I’m going to work on developing my connections and let word-of-mouth bring me work. In other words, I’m going to fret less and trust more (having Brett at work to pay the regular bills gives me the freedom to do this). And with the cushion that is Brett, I won’t take work that I don’t want this year.
4. Some of last year’s mistakes were necessary so that I could figure out what I was doing, like joining too many networking groups because I bought into the “it’s a numbers game” message even though I don’t like networking. I’m good at relationships and I’ve done better by focusing on relationships and easing up on the glad-handing strangers. Lesson learned. Of course I had to spend a lot of money and time to find it out and because I’d invested so much money and time, it took me longer than it should. (I kept trying to make it work, going to lunches and brunches and coffees and spending a lot of money on business cards that I gave away and that only got me on other people’s pitch lists.)

I have not, by any stretch, closed shop. I’m still here slugging away but having Brett bring home a paycheck is giving me room to put to work what I learned in the past year.

I am very grateful to Brett. (I should probably tell him that.)

Now that 2008 is over, I will say cautiously that it was a good year, even the terrible last quarter. Because sometimes a person has to fall flat on her face to look back and see what was tripping her up.

I am feeling very hopeful.

(Seriously — having that number there in black and white and knowing that I earned it on my own, flying free has gone a long way to making me feel better about it all.)