*sigh*

[ksmith]

An interesting post by an agent tailor-made to burst my little soap bubble dreams.

I dream of the quit-the-day-job deal. I am also a tad security-conscious. I once took one of those on-the-job personality tests--the results were a tie between "entrepreneur" and "security", which is about as conflicted a result as you can get.

To be a full-time writer. The books need to keep selling, and you need to keep writing them. For 20, 30, 40 years or more.

Comments

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

That was my plan when I became an LMT. But I had nagging illness, and never could make the step to more money coming in than coming out. Then the writing dried up--stress, I thought, and applied myself to work.

Then I found out I had a serious medical condition, and boy, it's nice to have kept my insurance despite its cost. Of course, the IT industry crashed around all this, plus 9/11. So although I wasn't making a lot, I was doing better than tech friends who were laid off.

Moral? Plan. And then plan some more. And expect to live simply unless you're really lucky.

Still hoping for a bestseller, of course...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hoping for a bestseller is always good.

Access to reasonably priced group health insurance is the biggest sticking point for me as well. I know too many writers who have made the leap to full-time status, only to find themselves in a financial crisis when they had health issues.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing commercials recently for a company called Assurant, which apparently specializes in health care policies for the self-employed. I know this was a recent name change (from Fortis?), but I wondered if anyone had looked into them.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I haven't checked any of the plans out recently, though this is an issue that often gets discussed on the Novelists Ink email loop, since many of our members are full-time writers.

I know NINC had looked into trying to get group health insurance to offer to their members, but the problem is that it's not a huge buying pool, and the demographics of the group aren't attractive to insurers (who want the majority of policy holders to be relatively young and healthy).

Last time I checked, depending on where you lived, one of the cheaper options for getting group health rates was to see if there were plans available to members of your local chamber of commerce, or through professional associations.

The Authors Guild also offers health plans, but I seem to recall that they've had problems keeping an insurance carrier, and in getting coverage outside major metropolitan areas.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Access to reasonably priced group health insurance is the biggest sticking point for me as well. I know too many writers who have made the leap to full-time status, only to find themselves in a financial crisis when they had health issues.

Honestly, I'd advise people not to do it without insurance. And it's hard to get that through to the very young and healthy. We all think we're immortal at that age. We don't know, until a friend is stricken, about MS, chronic fatigue, etc. And don't realize it often hits in the late 20s.