Whether you make New Year’s resolutions or not, you have intentions every day of your life.

The path through this year, for most people, will be paved with good intentions until mid-January, maybe as far as February. After that it gets more like crazy paving.

No matter what you had planned, the universe happens. And your resolutions, your good intentions, fade into the background.

Why? Because intentions aren’t actions. Because resolve doesn’t carry any weight unless *you* make it so. Because it takes more than willpower to change a habit for the better.

Because it takes a special kind of courage to own yourself.

The year is ending. A new beginning, if you believe in that kind of thing. At the very least, a new morning.

Perhaps you’ve made resolutions, or contemplated your past and your future. Perhaps you’ve thought philosophical thoughts about your place in the universe.

This year, there are 9 laws I plan to live and work by. A mini-manifesto, if you like. Here’s what I believe:

Being a part-time freelance writer at the same time as holding down another job can feel exhausting. Like, falling-asleep-on-your-keyboard exhausting.

But when the alternative is to give up writing and focus on your day job, somehow you find the time and energy for freelance blogging work after all. Being a writer matters to you; you’d write even if nobody was paying.

The big question, then, is can you make freelance writing pay your living?

And the answer is yes, you can — if you do it right.