Here, There & Everywhere

Many full-time employees traverse the same path each day...to their offices and back, Monday to Friday, 9-5. Those who work from home may merely commute from bedroom to computer. Such routines can be either comforting or monotonous.

A Gainfully Unemployed’s week is will o’ the wisp, depending on which way the freelance winds blow. And how much discipline we have to focus on career vs. social events. I’ve started highlighting the success journal I keep so I can see at a glance where my time is going. Because my goal is to have at least 5 outgoing things every day...whether they are auditions, query letters/submissions, etc.

Some weeks, I mostly work at home. Others send me hither and yon. This past week had me traveling to:
--Greektown for a cable TV show shoot
--Humboldt Park for a print looksee
--Lakeview to see The Best Church of God. It’s an all-new each week parody church service where parishioners believe in the literal word of the Bible as set down in the original English. Check it out, here.). I’m doing the weekly Missalette and a weekly promotional piece posted in the church (theater) vestibule.
--Right after that, off to St. Charles after picking up a fellow actress for a small industrial. It took us an hour and a half each way (on the return in pouring rain) to do a two hour shoot at a coffee shop. She was the barista, I was the customer.
--The Loop (for my non-local readers, that means the area of downtown circled by our elevated train, called the “L”) for an hour and a half interview for a part time job.
--On a different day, again to the Loop for a committee meeting.
--Ravenswood for a focus group gathering.

Add in other events including lunches in Lincoln Park and River North, an appointment in Streeterville, an evening in Ukranian Village, dinner with a visiting author friend in Evanston...and you can see that a lot of this week was spent coming and going.

So I had to fit in various projects with upcoming deadlines, including writing and revising the BCOG pieces, a quick VO job, a concert press release, a flier for a committee open house, auditions I wanted to or was asked to submit, a family issue, my next contribution on the English medieval period to a group blog about historical romance (seducedbyhistory.blogspot.com).

Though I chose to make time to work on a non-fiction project, I didn’t add pages to any new fiction manuscripts or revise two that I’ve been meaning to (one for a friend who’s critiquing it and the other for an agent who said she’d look at one of my early medieval romances if I turned it into historical fiction). Or another non-fiction project with a co-author, with whom I’m meeting again soon. Or more self-marketing. I did catch up with several author and other friends...

Do you feel you have control over your schedule? What's a good balance of work, errands/chores, social activities and personal downtime?