I have great news and I’m terrified by it

Now, onto the clickbaity title up top. Some of you MAAAAAAAY have noticed I have not been very active as of late. I can’t get into too many specifics but let’s just say I’ve been very busy at work. It’s been good for me and I’ve learned a ton in the past year but it’s taken me away from a lot of my hobbies and, if I’m perfectly frank, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for about two years straight. I’m drained and I’m finding it difficult to keep writing and that makes me sad. I started realizing that a while ago and thus, I have been forming what I have secretly been calling…

• Start saving up a stack of money to live off of in case of emergency (separate from my retirement funds)
• Start saving up a bigger stack of money to live off of for realsies
• Line up a part-time job with a good friend who understands that I won’t be working more than a certain number of hours a week
• Build up the courage to finally quit my time-consuming full-time job and try to make it as a part-time writer/part-time worker because, seriously, leaving the safety of a decent-employment-on-a-team-you-enjoy-but-don’t-love-and-seriously-it’s-intense-work is very scary

Well, I’ve finally reached the point where I have enough courage (and savings) to do it. I have a part-time job lined up with a friend of mine’s small business that will give me some steady employment to help give me some stability. I have built up about one year’s worth of saving so that if all goes to honey-in-a-handbasket that I will still have food to eat and shelter to live in. To that end, I will be leaving my full-time job on December 15th!

I cannot tell you how exciting and terrifying this is all at once. Part of me is so ready to be done with this job but the other part of me knows I will miss it when it’s gone. It’s been demanding but rewarding and I really do enjoy my team and will miss their camaraderie. However, it’s drained me creatively and as much fun as it’s been to work on projects with my team it’s not what I’m ultimately passionate about and I look forward to being able to spend more time writing again.

Now, I do want to temper expectations a little bit. It’s not like I’m going to have so much free-time that there will be a chapter-a-week or something like that. I know my writing style and I’m not likely to be able to produce at that pace. That said, as I schedule things out and look at things realistically, next year you should be looking at content dropping here once every two to four weeks (depending on what I’m writing of course).

I’m thankful to my previous employers for giving me enough of an opportunity that I could save up enough to take this risk. That said, I’ll be moving to cut as many of my costs as I can going forward to make the little safety fund I’ve saved up for last longer. I want to thank you Patrons even more as I’ve been careful to avoid touching any of the funds you’ve given me. Patreon funds account for a healthy portion of my rainy day funds I’ve saved up so if you’re super excited for what should be an amazing 2020 in terms of my writing, please thank the Patrons. You guys are seriously the best.

In other news, this was announced a while ago but Kamizite, author of PGM, has launched a room in his Discord channel for Deskers. If you’re interested in joining us on Discord I finally am a bit more active over there. Here is the Discord link for those who need it. I’m not active there every day but I have started popping my head in now that Taralynn’s Escape Plan™ has too much steam for anyone to stop (even myself XD).

So, if you’re excited for more content feel free to say so in there. Just like here let’s try to avoid politics and religion and, in the words of the best scholars ever, “Be excellent to each other.”

Am I scared? You bet I am! This is terrifying. Things were safe. I couldn’t fail had I stayed where I was. However, I’m still young. I’m single. I have no dependents. If I can’t take a risk like this NOW, when will I ever be able to take this risk? So, here I am. I will risk failing and having to crawl back to the corporate world. But, while there is severe risk that I might one day have to slink back to the corporate world in failure, I’d rather do that knowing I tried than sitting in my cubicle and wondering what would have happened had I really tried.