10 Years at the Blue Garret

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 It’s week thirteen of 2025, truly always the most cursed week, though we at least have gotten past the Ides, and April is in sight. How has the writing been going for you? Authors I’ve spoken with in the last few weeks are in stop-and-start mode, so if that describes where you are, you’re in good company. My best advice is to grab the momentum when you have it, give yourself grace and rest when the creative energy is flagging, and get out into the world and away from all of the doom devices, scrolling and otherwise. Go listen to some trees maybe? Or tune into some right from your device: Here’s a link to listen to a random forest somewhere in the world.

If you’d like the support of other writers in the coming year, please check out Writeability’s new program, the Sustaining Circle, which will meet up for weekly freewrites, calls to action, and craft resources, as well as periodic Q&A events with authors, publicists, and publishers. Writeability leader Katey Schultz is one of the best teachers I know, and I think this community could be sustaining in the fullest way for anyone who wants to wrestle with words and stories in the coming months.

Here at the garret, I’ve been thinking a lot lately of my own story because I just celebrated ten years of full-time freelancing. A few years ago, when my Squarespace renewal came up, I noticed the date when I purchased the Blue Garret domain name and marked it on my calendar. A year ago, I thought I might write a book on how to start and sustain a freelance editing business to mark the occasion of the Blue Garret’s tenth birthday, before realizing I could just go buy myself a bottle of nice champagne and a cake to celebrate—you know, like people do!—rather than assign myself months of work.

I think I’m prouder of building this business than I am of anything I’ve accomplished in my life. I’m tremendously proud of my kids, of course, and the smart, empathetic, creative humans they’ve turned out to be, but they are their own accomplishments—I was just here to assist (and, you know, feed them and stuff). I was proud of my dissertation and earning my PhD too, but by the time I finished, I knew I wasn’t headed for an academic career. Certainly in the mid-aughts and likely even now, if you don’t land a tenure-track job (preferably at an academically selective, research-oriented university), then you are taught to see yourself as a failure in that world.

By the time I’d earned my PhD, I had one child and another on the way, and I spent the next few years caring for them and doing volunteer work of various sorts. One of those volunteer jobs was being the managing editor for a monthly parenting magazine. I realized that I loved the work, and I was good at it. I had a makeshift stand-up desk in a pantry area off the kitchen where I would answer emails and edit articles. The organization offered professional development funds, and I took an editing class. By the time my youngest started preschool, I’d decided I’d try freelancing and I got one client right away—someone I knew through my magazine work who did marketing and strategy in the educational technology field.

And then my marriage imploded in spectacular fashion. When all the debris settled, I found myself living with my two young kids in a large studio apartment, on the top floor of a building owned by a dear friend, and I had to figure out what was next. I got an internship at Chronicle Books and started applying to other jobs that seemed like they could be a good fit. But the salaries for all of these jobs were painfully low, and the pay rate for adjunct college teaching, the one job my PhD program had trained me for, was even lower. After the tumult and angst of the previous years, what I really wanted, and what my kids needed, was for me to find a way to work from home around their schedules.

I decided to give freelancing another try and see what happened if I gave it all my attention. My previous business used my old married name, and my identity under my resumed birth name still felt fresh and unformed—I wasn’t quite sure who that person was yet. So, ten years ago, as I sat on the couch in that little garret apartment with its peaceful blue walls and contemplated the blinking cursor in the blank domain field of my new Squarespace site, I typed in “the blue garret”. It immediately felt right.

I haven’t looked back since. Around the same time, I worked with a writer on a lead magnet book for his small start-up and learned about self-publishing. At the time I was doing more copywriting than editing, and juggling a lot of small projects. I understood right away that all of these self-published books were going to need editors, and that was a niche I wanted to fill. Little by little, I worked my way there, taking classes and finding new clients one by one. It took me almost three years to get to a point where my schedule was full of book editing projects. I celebrated then by hiring my talented friend Arin Fishkin to design a logo for the Blue Garret.

Now I make more than the mid-level publishing salary I would be earning if I’d stayed in traditional publishing, while working far fewer hours and choosing almost everything about my work time and work environment. If I want to take three weeks off around the holidays (and I do!), then I take it. If my kid wants to shift to a school with a non-traditional schedule that works better for her, I can shift my schedule too without having to get approval from a boss who likely doesn’t give a shit about my caregiving responsibilities. During the pandemic, I was able to cut back my hours thanks to PPP loans rather than continue working at full tilt while also supporting my kids through homeschooling. There isn’t one person or entity controlling 100 percent of my income, giving me more job security than most traditional employees.

Of course, there are a few downsides, like serving as my own accountant, tech support staff, business development expert, social media marketer, and website developer. And I always have my eyes on the horizon, particularly with the advent of AI tools that are starting to be able to approximate a few of the services I offer. But I still feel optimistic about the future of the editing business—in the end, authors are human and fellow humans are best equipped to support, teach, and encourage them.

Most importantly, I am happy every day when I sit down at my desk and get to plunge into a world of words, created by authors I’ve worked with for years or authors I’m just getting to know. I will never run out of things to learn or things to teach. I spend my days helping readers find joy, meaning, relaxation, and wisdom, and helping authors express their ideas, tell their stories, and build a body of work they are proud of. As someone who has moved around more than most, the Blue Garret is perhaps the entity that is most truly my home—and it’s one I built myself.

Thank you to all of the friends, family, editing colleagues, and authors who helped me make this a reality. The list would be dozens of people long. I love being a one-person business, but it would be a lonely, impossible job without the other people who make it worth doing.

I hope this story will inspire you to stick with whatever you are building or creating yourself. Ten years is a long time, but everything that I achieved happened very gradually—there were no sudden miracles, no big plot twists. The person sitting on that couch in the peaceful little garret apartment would have been thrilled to know this is where she would end up. You can write the same story for yourself and live it into being, day by day and word by word.

Our Thing of Joy this week is an article about birds using anti-bird spikes to make nests, which is truly one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen. Nature is healing indeed.

Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights—like those birds!