So it’s been exactly a month since the start of this creative journey. We are firmly in the jaws of summer (38°c outside! No thank you) and though I did fit in a few camping trips, I have been spending most of my days off huddled by the AC, attempting to get this freelance thing off the ground.

How far off the ground? and what do I have to show for it? Let me show you.

Website and Blog creation

The major success of this month has got to be This Website, which I created with the help of a course by Elna Cain: Writer Website in a Weekend.

Long story short: Yes, it was definitely worth it! Did I spend far too long on a course titled “Build a website in a weekend”? oh for sure! I got sidetracked by unimportant things like layouts, colours and pictures, instead of focusing on the real work of writing the actual words. I had the rough outline for the website set up in about a week, then took another two to fine tune, edit and proofread everything. If you have more discipline than me, and take Elna’s advice of “just choose something and move on” then two days is more than reasonable.

Overall, the course was incredibly helpful, and as you can see, it worked. This site is up and running, and through a bit of trial and error, I’ve learned quite a bit about website creation along the way. Having a self-hosted website gives me the freedom to adapt and change this site as my work/needs progress, and though it did take some time to get the hang of everything, this route gives me more options in the future than posting to a hosted platform, like Medium for example.

The website has also given me a place to host This Blog, which I am calling another success of July.

The actual blog content has been incredibly fun to write, and I’ve had a lot of fun sourcing pictures and layouts, and making everything look exactly how I want it to. I reckon I have written more this month than I have this last year, and once I get going with an idea, the words just start flowing. Hours go by before I realize I’ve spent another entire day writing, which is exactly how I want to be spending my time!

I am aware that my current catalogue of posts aren’t exactly what you would call ‘marketable’ yet. I am writing mainly about myself, which limits the audience considerably, my layouts and edits aren’t “optimized for readers” and I am yet to learn what the elusive SEO is all about.

But everyone has to start somewhere, and no matter how amateur these posts might look to me in a year, I can now say that I have officially started, and we can use this point as a marker to gauge how we can get better from here.

Progress or stalemate?

So how do these two big successes, creating a website and publishing a blog, stack up against the big Three Month Plan? Let’s have a look…

Here is my original plan for July, with the tasks I completed highlighted in bold:

Ok, so on the surface of things, it doesn’t look great. Clearly, we’ve hit some stumbling blocks. A few busy weeks at work and a couple of camping trips reduced the hours I spent behind my computer a little, but I can’t blame that entirely for my lack of progress through this list.

Honestly, this month has just flown by, and I barely remembered to look at the list to see what I actually set out to achieve. I knew that starting the blog was my priority, so every time I sat down at the computer, that is where I put my focus. I wasn’t unsuccessful, said blog has been created, but the other avenues I hoped to pursue; portfolio work and job boards, have been rather neglected.

Perhaps I allotted too little time to set up a blog? I did originally plan to create the blog first and then the website in August, so in that regard, I am ahead of schedule… but only on the website front.

One Step Forward, One step Sideways

If you take a wander around this site, (please do, welcome, let me pour you some tea) then you might notice the Portfolio page is still “coming soon”. That is one area where I admit defeat this month: I have yet to complete any portfolio pieces. A flashy home page and cool contact form are all well and good, but if prospective clients cant see examples of my work, there will be no one to use said contact form in the first place.

Speaking of clients; LinkedIn, Medium and Upwork are also incomplete projects at the moment, meaning the idea of a ‘prospective client’ is still just that: an idea. With no platform to promote myself and no work samples to promote, I am still unable to apply for work and start the process of trying to earn that elusive first dollar.

Work Harder

So I didn’t complete everything I wanted to in July. Honestly, only getting one item crossed off is a little underwhelming, but it was a big item, and it was only my first month’s work, so I am cutting myself a little slack.

As the title picture of this post suggests, I do think the output of my time spent behind the computer can improve. It’s not that I’m not putting in the hours, it’s more that my time isn’t being spent on the most productive or fruitful endeavors. The work I have done on this website is substantial and will be useful later down the road, but for the specific task of finding that first writing job, I now need to put my time into the actual work of writing.

Moving Forward with Purpose

The next project to tackle is the portfolio.

Now I have somewhere to publish it, it needs to exist. My three month plan is still in effect, but I have reorganized things for August into categories, to make sure I don’t get solely focused on one thing, like I did this month, and instead keep all avenues progressing equally.

So there have been both successes and failures this month.

Overall, we have made steps in the right direction, even if those steps were a little smaller than originally planned and took a little longer than they perhaps should have.

I am still excited about making this project a reality, and I feel motivated to tackle the next thing on the list, and the thing after that. My writing set up could definitely be improved: I have an ache between my shoulder blades from hunching over my laptop all day in what I assume is an incredibly unergonomic position, but that is not going to be slowing me down any time soon.

So raise a glass, tip your hat, and bring on next month!