It has been a long time since I just gave a blog on a life update. The last few have been book reviews. And hopefully another one is coming soon. But I have some life updates that I want to share with you all, and I’m really excited to get to those stages, when they come. For now, I’ll keep chugging along. But I am planning for the future.
Planning for a New Career
So, as many of you know, the dream is to be a writer; an author. And, as many of you know, that is not a job you can just dive head first into and expect to succeed right out of the gate. It takes time, and is not even a guarantee that I can become successful enough to rely only on book sales. What about my blogging? I do love it, but I’ve been at this for 3 years now and it is hard to find new content to blog about, other than my book reviews. Now, having a blog that focuses on book reviews is not a bad thing. But is that all I want to blog about? I’ll probably stick to it, because I do enjoy it, and it could help me push book sales later. But what else?
Introducing the New Idea
So, career is a definite stretch. I’m not sure how well it will do, but it might do the job of helping bring in a little extra money. Once I move into the house, and my office, I will be starting my YouTube channel. I thought about doing BookTube, and maybe it will be something I will try at some point. But the way I want to start is by making body double videos. For those of you who don’t know what those are, they are videos where you do a task for a set amount of time and others do tasks “with you” while watching. For example, I have a body double video playing right now that is a 2 hour work/study. It’s just instrumental music, and the person doing their tasks. No talking, or anything like that. I believe it’s meant to be a motivator. You put on a video of someone working from home and you do your work from home. There are also some that I have done where you read.
Why Body Doubling
These videos do seem the easiest to make, because there doesn’t appear to be a lot of editing involved. And as a beginner, that may be extremely helpful. I do have a friend who has done video editing in the past, and she has agreed to help me out in the beginning. The second reason I am wanting to do these kinds of videos is because they will be the least disruptive. My fiance has two daughters, and one is special needs. She won’t necessarily understand if I’m videoing all over the house. Plus, I don’t want to interrupt their lives because I’m filming. This is something I can do in my office and easily edit out any noise that the family might be making while I’m filming because I’m just putting music to it. Simple. And I just do the filming in my office, so no one has to worry about having to avoid the camera, or photo bombing my videos. Not that I would care about that second one.
My Selfish Reason
I do have a selfish reason for wanting to do these videos. It’s to motivate me. Let’s say I make a body double video where I invite you to work with me for 2 hours, like the one I have going on right now. That means, for 2 hours I am going to be productive and working on either my blog, editing past videos or my novel. But, I’ll be working. Which means I’ll be more motivated to work on my things. And, YouTube partners with Google Ads, which I have partnered with on this blog. This means my adsense will grow a little bit faster. So, I should get a bit of money more often than just blogging.
Planning Takes Effort
Again, this is no get rich quick scheme. I often hear YouTubers talk about their jobs outside of YouTube. Some are able to be full time content creators and make enough with the help of sponsors. And that’s incredible. Do I think that will be me? Probably not. But it will be an extra income to help out my soon to be husband, and hopefully allow me to be a stay at home mom one day. His daughters are old enough that they do not need a stay at home mom. But we want children of our own as well, so that’s where the stay at home mom comes in to play. I’m sure Teddy and Marshall would love to have me around more, but I don’t need to be a stay at home mom for them. Then I would just be a stay at home wife, which I wouldn’t mind either. It would give me more opportunities to work on the things I want to work on like my blog, my books, and fan fiction. And eventually my videos. And my fiance is extremely supportive of that dream.
When Does it Begin
Depending how quickly I can get a camera, I could start creating videos as early as October of this year. I am very excited by that prospect. Then, other than two weeks in November, I will have time to grow my channel. I’ll have somewhat of an idea of how well that’s going by the end of the year and that will help me determine what next year will look like with my job at the hotel. Do I need to stay full time, or can I drop down to part time? Or, is it growing enough that if I put more time into it, it can help with a more consistent income that I can quit my job at the hotel? Only time will tell. I know it will also be determined on how quickly I can get a camera and start filming.
Why Wait for a Camera for Planning
Some of you are probably yelling at me to just start by using my phone. My work, while filming, might involve my phone. I might have to do some social media stuff that is easier to do on the phone than on the laptop. Right now, the goal is that I am on the trajectory to at least get a proper computer setup by the end of the year, instead of just my laptop. I often see YouTubers have a laptop and then a computer set up as well, to maximise how much work they can get done. Or, maybe it’s just easier on one than the other. The laptop is great if I want to take my writing to a coffee shop, for example. But when working from home, having a computer would probably be preferable. Bigger screen.
But Wait, There’s More
Yes, there is more planning than just my writing and YouTube. The big one, obviously, is wedding planning. Which is going great. I have my dress. The bridemaids get their dresses next month. The venue is locked down. We have a photographer. Our invitations arrived and now we just need to finalise the guest list. And instead of a social, we are doing a BBQ fundraiser. And those tickets have also arrived and we are slowly selling them. That date is also planned. We have a meet and greet BBQ planned for the bridal party, so they all meet before the rehearsal date. I’ve asked my Grandpa to walk me down the aisle, and he said he would be happy to. There is still a lot of work to do, but it’s coming together and I have my wonderful fiance to thank for that.
Putting Planning Into Action
There is a lot to do to make this all happen this year. Not just the wedding planning, but getting started on my future in YouTube and writing. Now, there is only so much I can personally do at this moment to move things ahead. Yes, I can continue doing the things that I need to, for the wedding. But what about the work aspect of it? Well, broken record here. I need to become more consistent with my blogging again. Which means no more procrastinating. In fact, I need to start scheduling writing hours in the week. This will be when I work on fan fiction, the second draft of my book, and/or blogs. So, I’m going to make a goal. I have to, starting next week because this one is almost over, write a minimum of 2 blogs a week. I’ll also add that I need to spend at least 14-15 hours a week writing. That should help me get back in the zone. After all, anything can happen, if I try.
