Would love to. I appreciate the conversation, Debbie. Good luck building out your ecosystem!

Thank you. I'll look her up. For now, I think I'm going to focus on the manuscript. Once it goes to beta readers as a full, I will start building a school visit program and get my insurance in order and look into adult ed programs that might take a writing course. Then I'll begin revising picture books and advertising my program. (I also need to redo my resume.) If work comes to me from clients I have a relationship with, I'll still take it. Once I have revision notes from Betas, I'll need to research agents while doing edits. It's good to have a plan. Now I just have to carry it out. (I often comment on posts on the blog, so you should be able to follow my journey here and on my website debbievilardi dot com.)

One of my writer friends introduced me to Denise Duffield Thomas...she's an Aussie who wrote the Get Rich, Lucky Bitch book. She has courses and learning opportunities to help women entrepreneurs. I just listened to her books for free on Spotify and her free podcast and hopped on her mailing list, and I've learned so much about my own hang-ups around money.

You bring up such an important point...it really is a balancing act, and I didn't always get it right. I still don't, but it does get easier with mini-successes. I hope you'll stay in touch. I'd love to follow your ecosystem journey. You can do this, Debbie. 🙂

I am curious about your resources. I think some of my issue is in overcoming my own inertia and balancing time. I want to get this book done, but I also want to be earning some money this year. At the same time, I should be doing school visits, but I haven't built a program yet. I'd also love to teach writing instead of just coaching writers as a volunteer. If only time weren't a limited resource. Perhaps something you have will help me figure it out. (I think some of this will happen as soon as my novel is out to agents, but it's been a slow process as I'm learning what it needs and have had life interruptions.)

Thanks, Lisa. Your ecosystem is robust! So glad to be part of it. 🙂

I love that you have a *next thing*! That makes me so excited for you. And you're right...there are as many ways to go with this idea as there are writers who can dream it. And for all of you, I love to network, so do keep in touch about that next component to your ecosystem. I may have your next customer in mind!

I love that you brought up having a day-job component to your ecosystem, Debbie. One with benefits that reduce overall stress in our lives. I was also a teacher before I was a writer. Looking ahead, if I needed to shift my ecosystem because work dried up, I would likely not shift it all the way back to being a third-grade classroom teacher because that would pull my ecosystem into circles and dynamics that don't feed where I want my writing to go. Would I take a job as a phone rep for Delta? Yeah, maybe. If I could get the minimum hours to reach that benefit threshold, I'd leverage it for travel and give myself unabashed permission to work only on writing I wanted to do. And to be clear, my nomadic life may look nothing like those who read this. My kids are grown, and I'm no longer married. Our ecosystems must be fair and respectful to our spouses and families. In fact, we can benefit greatly from having our ecosystem linked to another's.

Volunteering is admirable, and it sounds like it's adjacent to your ecosystem (at least author-adjacent). That's great, but it does amount to unpaid labor. I've done a lot of work as a solo female entrepreneur, uncovering my past money blocks that had me undervaluing what I put out into the world. I think women, especially, are often conditioned to be business professionals who put others first. I'm happy to share the resources that helped me if anyone is interested.

My best advice is to reverse-engineer this process. In your deepest desires, be honest about what a slam-dunk writing life looks like for you, and then work your way backward to build out your ecosystem that feeds it.

Thank you so much for your thoughts!