How to be a freelance writer after you've quit your full-time job in the Great Resignation

click to enlarge

Cookies might take on new importance after one joins the Great Resignation.

The start of my perfect post-career, fully freelanced day:

1. Wake up at 6:30 am, because your kids and husband still have to be out the door by 7:45 and they are loud, and the dog needs out, and also you love elaborate breakfasts.
2. Actually get up at 6:54. Make elaborate breakfast (fast).
3. When the house is empty, have tea, do a crossword and soak in the quiet.
4. Decide it's too quiet and start talking through crossword clues with the dog.
5. Hear your alarm going off for your first meeting. Brush hair and put on daytime sweatpants.
6. Work.
7. Think about Oreos. Decide you can run to the store, because you are the decider now.
8. Run into an acquaintance at the store and explain that you are at the store buying Oreos in your daytime sweatpants because you quit your full-time job in December. It wasn't a bad job, you loved the students you advised, it was just time, you know? And you've got health stuff and family stuff, and also not-wanting-to-let-a-single-institution-dictate-so-much-of-your-life stuff. And also it's the far edge of Year Two of the pandemic and it seemed like, why not take a leap? And it turns out to be OK, because you've hit the point in your life where you have pretty decent skills and people willing to pay you pretty decently to do them from home, which is a pretty big privilege. No, not working full time. It's lots of little jobs. Freelancing. You do still have to leave the house three mornings a week to teach a class, but that's not today. Wait, is it Wednesday? Thursday? OK, good. (This is way more information than your acquaintance needed to know, but whatever. You are the decider.)
9. Work (while eating Oreos).
10. Take a walk with a friend, which is the best part of your working-from-home social life pandemic social life social life.
11. Add some of your former students on Facebook, because even if you're not their adviser you can still be, like, their weird aunt who talks about writing and posts too many dog pictures.
12. Work.
13. Wordle 223 3/6
    🟨🟩⬜🟨⬜
    🟨🟩🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
14. Work.
15. Start a load of laundry. Isn't it nice that you can do laundry whenever now? (You won't fold it till Sunday.)
16. Pick up your husband on his lunch break for a romantic stroll through Target. Drop him back off and feel overwhelmingly grateful because he supported you when you decided to quit your job without really knowing what would come next, and because he set up your cool new computer monitors, and because he has insurance benefits.
17. Feel incandescent rage over the fact that America ties health care to employment.
18. Work.
19. Tweet about working.
20. Type "I won't be at my desk tomorrow afternoon and I don't have email on my phone," and soak in how good it feels to say that.
21. Take an afternoon break to do yoga (and eat Oreos) while watching PBS watching Joe Millionaire. Provide running commentary for the dog.
22. Work.
23. Walk through the house like a robot shouting BEEP BOOP BEEP BOOP because no one is here to think it's weird. (Well, the dog is here, but she thinks you're awesome.)
24. Work.
25. Pick up the kids. Share the Oreos. (Great mom!)
26. Play "Exploding Kittens" with the kids. Beat them. Gloat. (BEST mom!)
27. Work.
28. Work a little more, then stop working. You don't need to check your email or Teams or Slack or anything. Work doesn't control you. It doesn't define you. Even if you love it, it's only part of you.
29. Fill your evening with whatever you want. Hang out with your grandma. Cook an elaborate dinner. Beat the kids in some more card games. Recap the entire episode of Joe Millionaire to your husband. Call a friend. Take another walk. Write something no one will pay you for. Volunteer. Read. Rest. You decide.
30. Good workday.

(If you're super bummed I didn't actually tell you how to be a freelance writer — well, I'm a rookie anyway, what do I know? "The Writers' Co-op" podcast is a much better place to start. For more about reenvisioning creative and office work, read "Out of Office" by Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel. Also, support unions!) ♦

Tara Roberts is a writer and educator who lives in Moscow with her husband, sons and poodle. Her work has appeared in The Belladonna Comedy, Moss, Hippocampus and a variety of regional publications. Follow her on Twitter @tarabethidaho.