Becoming a writer and web publisher

Now that we’re on the topic of goals, I wanted to start writing out some of my personal goals here.   My Aunt S is totally right when she said that it’s important to have long term and short term goals.  Goals are sort of like investments, I think.  We have to diversify our investments just like we need to diversify our goals.  This is the wisest way to come out on top in the end because there’s no guarantee that every goal (or investment) will bring a return.

As my life shifts, I have noticed my focus and desires have shifted along with it.  I’m not different than most people in that I simply want to be happy, comfortable, fulfilled, blah blah blah.  In my early 20’s I was more worried about finding myself rather than finding a great paying job or starting a family or buying a house or whatever.  Now that I’m in my late 20’s, I feel like my head has calmed itself to the point of needing to focus on these “next level” goals that I think will take my life happily into my 30’s.

I have a ton of short term goals like studying Hebrew three times a week or writing back emails within a week of receiving them….

…but are you ready for my biggest goal?

Right now, my goal is to make enough money writing online and managing websites to generate a full time income.  Is this goal really far out there and maybe a little crazy?  No, not really, and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, I love writing.  I love writing about my life.  I love writing about politics and the news and the Middle East.  I love writing creative non-fiction.  I even love writing about how to write.   I simply love writing in all its forms.

Second of all, I love computers.  I love learning code, website design, and problem solving.  I love how computer’s have turned communication into an art form.  The combination of art and technology are incredibly fulfilling to me.

With that being said, a few months ago I started to use a majority of my free time working on this idea of writing for myself.  Naturally, I’m gauging my success by the amount of income I generate each month. I don’t have any specific time frame on my final monetary goal as I’m fully aware that the progress will happen organically and can’t necessarily be rushed, but my numbers so far seem promising.

The amount I’ve chosen as a “livable” income (and my ultimate goal) is $2000 per month.  This is on the low end by American salary standards but a perfectly adequate amount to live off of for a minimalist like me.

I began to focus on writing and web publishing back in July after I finished studying at Ulpan Gordon, in Israel.  Before that I  simply didn’t have time to plan and write so I waited until I could.

A few weeks ago I finally sat down and made a spread sheet of my progress since last July.  I tried not to focus so much on money at first  instead I just wanted to write and design my sites that were just starting to grow.  Regardless, here are the total numbers from my spreadsheet:

July:  $17.47
August: $31.08
September: $103.83
October: $168.56
November: $416.55
December: I’m on track to make nearly $500 this month.

note:  These numbers represent actual deposits or checks received, not pending payments.

Previous to creating my spreadsheet, I was estimating my monthly income as  much higher than what the actual numbers were.  I sat down and poured over the deposits in all of my accounts and I realized that some deposits I was including had nothing to do with my online writing and web publishing.  It was actually a good mistake on my part because I think if I saw the real numbers for the first two months, I might have just given up!

The one thing I notice immediately from those numbers are that they’re consistently improving.   Every month it nearly doubles which, I admit, I don’t believe will be maintained for the month of December.  This is where it starts to get tough.

They say that the first $1000 per month is the hardest milestone.  I’m really proud that I’ve made it this far to say the least.  Even if I don’t get to that $2,000 per month goal, at least I’m doing what I love:  writing and web publishing.  The worse case scenario is that it’s a nice part time income.

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Related posts:

1. The last 24 hours in my 20’s
2. Confession of an Anonymous Web Publisher
3. Sometimes we need tools to help focus: New Year 2009
4. An Unlucky Experience Made Me A Lucky Writer…Again