Recently, my life as a freelancer was turned upside down. Granted I had slightly over nine months to plan for this lifestyle change, but nothing quite prepares you for how your life will change when you have a child. If you’re a freelance writer, organizing your work schedule around the needs of a baby and keeping ahead of deadlines is a surprisingly challenging experience. While I’m sure I’ll have to update my strategy as my daughter grows (she’s only 3 months old and isn’t yet mobile) here are four helpful tips for transitioning your freelance career when you’ve just had a baby:

1. Take advantage of any help you can get from your partner.

Understandably, not everyone has a partner who can devote their weekend or evening to watching the baby so that work can be done. If you do have such a person in your life; take advantage of it. Nobody is an island. Freelancing for a living is a full-time job. So is taking care of a baby. Four hours of completely uninterrupted work in the evening, and some extra time on the weekend, can make a huge difference in your overall productivity.

2. Look into a childcare exchange with another freelancer or another mother who wants some time off.

There are many mothers who want part-time childcare and are unable to find it for a reasonable rate. Find another mother in a similar situation and offer to trade childcare. As I already mentioned, a few uninterrupted hours can make or break your project.

3. Work around the baby’s sleep schedule.

This may seem obvious, but it often isn’t. It is not uncommon to fall behind on housework and laundry when you first have a baby. This is even truer when you have both a baby and a full-time job. Resist the urge to clean or do other household chores when you have a deadline coming up. Even though you’re at home, you’re on the clock. Schedule specific times for any housekeeping/cooking and stick to them. Otherwise, try to get through as much work as possible while the baby is sleeping.

4. Accept that it will take time to adjust to your new schedule, and that’s okay!

Go easy on yourself. Your life just changed in a very real way. There are many advantages to working from home when you have young children. That said, it’s not as straightforward as working set hours with no interruption. Enjoy your baby and slowly increase the amount of work you take on until you find the perfect balance for your life.

As a full-time writer/blogger, I spend most of my day working on a computer. Although I frequently hear reasons why I should work primarily on my desktop computer, I have to confess that I’m more likely to spend time on my laptop than at my desktop. This isn’t to say that I don’t use my desktop computer since it definitely has its benefits. It’s just to say that I think it’s worth it for full-time writers to invest in high-quality laptops since they can be so important to the work that we do.

Benefits of Laptops for Full-Time Writer

Some of the core reasons that I’m on my laptop more than my desktop are:

• Portability. Obviously a main benefit of the laptop is that you can take it anywhere. Since I work from home, I get stuck in the apartment a lot if I’m limited to my desktop. Conversely, I can throw the laptop into a laptop sleeve and head to the park or the coffee shop if I need to be around some life to work. And, of course, with a few of the right laptop accessories, I can easily work from anywhere in the world with my laptop which is definitely ideal.
• Comfort. I find it a lot more comfortable to work on my laptop than at my desktop. I do have a good desktop chair and the right setup for my keyboard and all that but frankly I don’t feel comfy sitting at a desk all day. I like to be able to curl up, move closer to a window, get under the blanket on my bed, etc. A desktop doesn’t provide that comfort.

One core reason that these suggestions are so important is because entrepreneurs are making the money when other people aren’t. A couple of years ago, I wrote a very basic article on things you need to do if you’re looking for a job. The article has gained hundreds of comments from unemployed people who are desperately struggling to find work. While I can sympathize with their plight, I have to confess that there is a part of me that wants to suggest to these people that they try to find creative ways to launch their own businesses rather than waiting for someone to hire them.

In the recession, nearly all of the people I know who are managing to do decently for themselves financially are people who are going out there and making their own jobs. I know people who have gotten laid off and used that opportunity to launch photography businesses, grow their writing careers and work in foreign countries. I realize that not being able to find a traditional job in your field is terrible but going out and making those opportunities for yourself is a creative and productive approach to the problem.

Freelancers who are struggling to make ends meet with traditional writing jobs can take their already-independent way of working and really make it work for them. The suggestions in Michelle’s article are a great start for that. And of course getting creative and launching a fresh new idea of your own would be even better.

And even freelancers who aren’t struggling may want to consider making this type of business move. It keeps your work fresh. It stops you from stagnating. It allows you to explore your limits, push your boundaries and challenge yourself in the work that you are doing. You don’t have a boss to promote you so you really and truly have to promote from within!

Michelle’s article

The book is the story of a woman who chose to have children later in life. She suffered some serious complications from the process and underwent some difficult times with her physical health as a result. That’s sort of what the tale is about.

However, what it’s really about is how this affected her writing. How motherhood affected her writing. How, as a writer, you are the mother to your creations and when you become a mother to a living being it greatly affects your ability to mother your creative works into being.

Author Susan Johnson has some poignant insights into what being a writer means and these are sprinkled all throughout the book. A few examples taken from her text:

“I believe now that I wrote myself into life. Before I learnt how to do it I lived as if blind, forever raging against the dark. Learning how to write illuminated life itself for me, letting me see fully for the first time its shape and dimensions. Before I learnt to write I did not know who I was.”

“I was forced to acknowledge all over again that writing is not life, or even truth, but merely fragments of both, imperfect reflections. There will always be moments and emotions which refuse to be caught, dark undertows which will never break the surface. Life will always exceed the writer’s inadequate grasp, no matter how radiant the genius.”

“All the while I have been writing, my story has been uncurling. Like your own, my story is still being told, and I am living the telling as I write it, breathing, trusting in the dark. I am writing backwards but I am living forwards, blind to my own end.”

Writers seem to have mixed feelings about this product. On the one hand, we love books and the idea of using them in home design isn’t new to many of us. Plus there’s a link between the growth that you get from books and the growing of a live plant. However, some writers hold books so dear that they don’t want to see them altered or defaced in this way.

I’m an altered book fan myself. I think books are great but I don’t think that they’re sacred. In fact, I think that writing in them and altering them and turning them into pots are all terrific ideas.

What do you think?

This is the kind of life that my friends say that they envy. They always say that if they could work from home like I do then they would never get out of their pajamas.

Usually, I disagree with them. I think there are a lot of good reasons for freelance writers to get up, out of bed, showered and dressed at the start of each day. Some of the reasons that I do that include:

• I feel better about myself. Maybe some folks feel comfy and cute in their pj’s. I prefer to wear cute clothes. I feel better about the way that I look if I’ve put on something besides what I slept in.
• I feel better emotionally. The days can really blend into one another too much if you don’t separate them with basic rituals like showering, dressing, changing into pj’s at night. When this happens, I just don’t feel good.
• Getting up marks the start of my work day. I do linger in bed each morning. It’s a luxury I enjoy. I read, I journal, I answer email. But when I actually get up, my day has begun. I’m ready to work. Or sometimes I’m not ready but getting up helps to signal my body and mind that it really is time.
• It’s good to be able to leave the house at the drop of the hat. There are times when you need to get out and interact with the world even if that means just doing your work at the local coffee shop or co-work space. It’s a lot easier to do that when you’re already ready to go.

If I had to think about it, only one of the names on the list would have come to mind. That name is Anne Frank. Her diary is so incredibly famous, as both a piece of writing and as a piece of history. Of course, it wasn’t something that she was famous for during her young lifetime.

Other names on the list became more obvious to me once I thought about them. Sylvia Plath is a good example. She is so widely known now for her poetry. Even people who don’t know a lot of poetry know her name. And yet, during her lifetime, she didn’t make nearly such a mark even though she was a published poet.

And then there are some folks on the list that I hadn’t even heard of before. I’m curious to check out their writing now since I don’t know them yet.

Can you think of any other writers who became famous post-humously?

Inhabitat has a cool post about a small octagonal building that is made entirely of books. The create it, the artist made an octagonal frame, filled it with stacks of books and removed the frame. What’s left is a building that you can enter even though it’s just made from books.

The pictures of it are cool; readers will like them so go ahead and check them out over at the original post.

On the other hand, one of my pet peeves has always been unnecessary quotation marks. People seem to love putting quotation marks around words for absolutely no reason at all. And I just don’t get it. There are two times that you need quotation marks. The first, obviously, is when you are quoting someone. The second is when you’re trying to indicate that what you’re saying isn’t really what you’re saying at all. Although we do this in writing, it’s more commonly seen when we add air quotes to our speech.

For example …

“Where are John and Suzy?” Jen asked. Lesley’s responded with a wink that the on-again, off-again couple had gone in the bedroom to “talk”. In this case, we all know that talking doesn’t mean talking at all.

I like those quotation marks. I like that we can say one thing and mean another and everyone can know what we really mean because we alter our tone of voice or use those quotation marks. So perhaps that’s why it bugs me so much when people just randomly decide to use quote marks for no apparent reason.

However, I have to confess that I’m learning to find the humor in these annoying cases and it’s due in no small part to a blog I recently discovered call The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. Much like the popular FAIL blog, this blog posts pictures of real life notes and signs and then follows them up with a single sentence or two about why the sign is funny. To be honest, I find the notes they add a bit superfluous. However, the pictures crack me up. I love seeing all of the ridiculous ways that people are using quote marks without needing them.

One of the things that I like about typos is that they make me stop in my tracks for a moment. They make me look at what someone was writing, puzzle over what they really meant and actually think for a second about all of the information streaming through my brain. Often, looking at the typo, I see something ironic or funny there. And I’m learning through this blog that I can think of unnecessary quotation marks in the same way - less of a pet peeve and more of a fodder for momentary humor throughout the day.

What do you think - are unnecessary quote marks one of your pet peeves?