Because I’ve just wrapped up all my October invoicing, I can now tell you that I wrote 198 stories of varying lengths last month* (Six for Time, which is a new record since I switched to longer-form Op-Eds for them), in addition to 4 podcasts and a live television appearance. All of that’s just work; there’s also been sick dogs, vet visits, regular gym sessions, trips out of town and more happening. Suddenly, the reasons behind my seemingly-permanent exhaustion last month become worryingly clear.
The funny/not funny at all thing about doing invoicing is that you suddenly realize how horrendously you’re undervalued, if you’re me. I worked out that I am making a stupidly low amount of money from two of my regular outlets, which makes me think that it may be time to start looking for other places to spend my time/effort…
(* It’s actually more; there are at least two stories I’ve written that haven’t appeared either yet or never will, for reasons that I don’t entirely understand. Plus, there are all the blog posts and things I wrote for this site, too, but they don’t really count because they’re not for work; I don’t even want to think about what happens when I add that to the list.)