In January 2015, my husband decided to change jobs and move from the Cayman Islands-my home for my entire life-to Florida. After freaking out a little, I decided the change was a wonderful opportunity for me and my family.

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When my husband accepted a job in February 2015, I decided to use the move as the opportunity to be a full-time writer-a goal already on my radar. My husband agreed! Read about our move.

August marked a year since the kids and I moved to Florida, and I’d like to say I’ve accomplished boat loads, but the truth is, I haven’t. While I still love being a full-time writer, I ran into challenges I hadn’t anticipated.

CHALLENGES

  1. Working from home with a three year old isn’t as easy as I thought. My daughter loved having me all to herself-a bit too much, and working around her schedule became a necessity since she wasn’t open to working with the schedule I planned. Don’t misunderstand. I treasure my time with her and love every minute of it! Okay, you got me. Not every minute, but a lot of it. 😀
  2. School finished at 2:00 and from then on my day was pretty done. My son got home around 2:15 and bam! Snack time, homework, cleaning up, and preparing dinner. Not very conducive to writing and accomplishing tasks.
  3. A small apartment doesn’t mean less work. We moved from a 2800 square foot house to a 1300 square foot apartment. I thought that would mean less time doing house work. NOPE! Working from home, my husband and son thought this meant they didn’t have to do their chores.
  4. Full-time doesn’t mean more time, but learning how to manage your time and people’s perception of your time.
  5. Moving house twice in one year is a major time guzzler. No explanation needed. Lol!
  6. Increased distractions working from home. Playtime with my daughter, housework, TV shows, personal and household tasks are all vying for your attention.
  7. Watching my bank accounts like a hawk because writing is my only income.

Between moving, adjusting to driving on the other side of the road, and working from home with a three year old, finding time to write and accomplish the goals I set proved a bigger challenge than I imagined.

Don’t worry. There’s a happy ending. While I didn’t accomplish all the writing goals I set for myself, I’m happy to say I managed to achieve some stuff in the first year. 😀

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • Wrote the first draft of Deadly Family.
  • Hosting the 2015 Cayman Islands Book Fair. The event was organized from Florida. I flew into Cayman and the event went off without too many hitches, thanks to the amazing people who helped.
  • Writing Persuading Lola. I wanted to create a free product for my existing fans to enjoy and to attract new readers. The book is only available on my website. Grab your FREE copy.
  • Hosted writing workshops in Cayman with the help of Shari Wilson. Sadly, Shari is no longer with us, but she’ll be remembered forever by me and the people she touched with her teaching and poetic words.
  • Updated my author website.
  • Rebranded the covers for my books Deadly Bloodlines and Deadly Race.
  • Updated the CayWriters free resource Jumpstart Your Social Media.

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My days turned around in August when my daughter started PRE-K school and my son middle school. What changed? My days went from no alone time to undisturbed time from 9-12:30am while my daughter is at school and my son school’s time extended so he’s not home until 4:00. The challenges I faced in my first year were priceless lessons I’ll treasure.

WHAT I LEARNED

  • Flexibility with interruptions instead of frustration
  • To adjust my schedule when life happens so there’s still progress, even if it’s not exactly what I planned or hoped.
  • To appreciate all successes no matter how small.
  • Special writing time away from home and my family is a must, even when writing full time.
  • To schedule cleaning time and household tasks on the weekends so they don’t take away from work time.
  • Make sure family members have chores.
  • Monitor my money weekly and make projections on income and expenses. Seeing the money in my account disappear faster than it was being replenished is a great motivator. Lol!

While I’m still finding my ‘work from home’ groove, this past year has been an amazing adventure I’ll never forget.

I love being an entrepreneur with my business CayWriters as well as an authorpeneur, and am happy with the progress I’ve made. I can’t wait for what’s on the horizon for the end of the year and in 2017. Signup for my newsletter to follow my writing journey or find out about book sales, new releases, and more.