Comments on: alas, problogger, we hardly knew ye

By: MoneyEnergy

MoneyEnergy — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:15:17 +0000

All the best to you for making hard decisions. Way to go with being there for your family. As FFB said too, at least you’ve got choices. For me, right now, that’s part of what being financially free will be all about. May not make some decisions easier, though. I’ve enjoyed reading your creative and insightful posts.

By: FFB

FFB — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:56:26 +0000

Welcome back to the 9-5 life. It’s funny, I try to get some blog stuff done at home and it just doesn’t happen. Maybe a few emails get addressed. I’ve finally made a couple of dollars at it so I can better justify it to my wife but I still can’t have her take care of the kids and the housework because I happened to make a couple of bucks blogging. Lunch for me is blogging time.

9-5 is such a myth. Who’s productive all of that time? I’m more like a few good hours of productivity than 7 full hours (one for lunch). And weekends aren’t really for fun, they’re for doing errands! Ok, now I’m depressing myself!

It sounds like you’re in a position that gives you a lot of career choices. That’s a lot better than many have with their jobs. You’re back to work but it will help your goal of getting out of work for good down the line. Until we find a better way then that’s how it goes.

By: vh

vh — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:58:22 +0000

I worked as a freelance writer off & on while my son was growing up, and also wrote my dissertation after he was born. This was a kid who could be wakened from a deep sleep by the sound of a pen running across a page.

Really, before he went to school the ONLY way to get any work done was to farm him out to babysitters for a few hours a day. Fortunately my husband earned enough to make that possible. We had two grandmotherly types in the neighborhood who were wonderful child caretakers, and they would watch him for four or five hours a day. Between them and Sesame Street, I managed to sustain my little business. But it wasn’t easy.

By: Dividend Growth Investor

Dividend Growth Investor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:44:31 +0000

As far as being a pro-blogger with small kids, I think that what you experienced over the past couple of weeks is something similar to people who have their own business at home. Basically, in order to be productive, you should have a designated office room in your house, where you shouldn’t be disturbed during your normal “work” hours- let’s say 9 – 5. Even though you are working on your own pro-blogging business, you should still treat it seriously as if it were your job. Otherwise, you won;’t succeed problogging. Just ask many of the stay at home day-traders why they failed. This is one of the reasons why, not the market timing issues.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:52:18 +0000

Steve, I hear ya on the kids and work thing. It’s terribly difficult to work from home with little ones. You’re constantly aware of how much effort they are and how tired your wife is from lack of sleep, recovery, etc.

It’s so refreshing to “go back to work” so you can relax a little and still feel good about it because you’re contributing to your family’s well-being.

Best of luck to you. I think you’ll beat that 2017 goal by a lot.

By: Curmudgeon

Curmudgeon — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:47:50 +0000

Steve, at one point in my life I wanted to take a year or two off to see if I could make a go of it as a fiction writer. Due to my wife’s career ups and downs I wasn’t able to, and I gradually came to realize that working and all that came with it gave me valuable story ideas and insights about people that I never could have derived from sitting at home and exercising my imagination. There is a great deal of raw material out there that you can’t get any other way. So I continue to work for The Man (albeit from my home office), and immerse myself in my fictional worlds on the weekends.

And my year is 2013, but then I’m older than you.

By: Four Pillars

Four Pillars — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:04:26 +0000

Repeat until cuckoo�

Lol – I think I’m past that point.

Mike

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:42:44 +0000

@LODPI: Sure, I’ll be a PTBlogger or something like that.

The investment bank would be a control position related to real-estate write downs: retroactively figuring out where lending agents goofed. Fun stuff, annoying everyone. What I ended up doing in the contract position is a revision of the financial close process: mucj closer to my previous experience.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:39:15 +0000

Thanks, Mrs. Micah: I will endeavor to exceed expectations (see, my corporate days aren’t entirely behind me!).

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:38:07 +0000

@jabster: I like half-pro-blogger, but I’m not even that. If I’m making $500 per day consulting and $10 blogging, I’m no problogger in any sense of the word. But at the same time, that $10 is much more fun (if not easier) to generate, so what’s the better use of my time… had to say.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:36:26 +0000

@Hunter: Don’t worry – I have a plan to be back at full-time blogging by 2017!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:35:46 +0000

@David Carter: I am banking 100% of my blogging income and approximately 1/3rd of my consulting income. We are frugal folks… we always think that living within our means is a smart way to live but making more is even better…

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:34:20 +0000

@Four Pillars: Mike, you’re completely right. If my job paid pennies I’d go for it. I’m in velvet chains, and that was exactly my point: my work is easy enough and pays enough that I feel like an idiot for refusing to go after it. Staying at home is tough. Bubelah is a trooper. One kid is a handful, two are a logistical nightmare. Our second is fairly well-natured but even the best-natured kids, when you take two, will overlap… one is calm and the other is fussy. The second calms down and the first fusses. Repeat until cuckoo…

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:31:38 +0000

@Emiliy: You loved “That’s nice.” ? Just kidding, I know want you meant. It’s yours, steal it, I release it.

Yeah, your story describes it. I can’t get work done with my kids around because I find it hard to put work in front of them. And you have to – work pays the bills, provides for the family and maybe (for other people) provides and adult sense of satisfaction. But I can’t do it, so like your friend I probably need to keep staying out and about. It’s tough, though.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:27:27 +0000

@Writer’s Coin: Yeah, actually, being at work gives me more career-related stuff to write about. I don’t write a parenting blog, so a lot of the parenting-type observations that might have made good blog posts over the last month weren’t relevant to brip blap. I do find that inspiration is the trickiest thing about writing. I can write for a long, long time after I get some inspiration.

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