I’m Eric. I teach writing; I’ve taught high school English, and I currently teach English adjunct at a university.

Mostly, I teach English composition and focus on technical writing with students. I write fiction in my spare time.

Adjunct teaching doesn’t pay that much, but I like teaching anyway. I have an MFA in Creative Writing and a Master of Business Administration. I worked full-time in Information Technology at a law firm before I journeyed into education, then I worked full time as an English teacher. Now that I’m only teaching adjunct, I don’t make as much money as I used to. But I still really like it.

Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of trouble finding part-time work that’s willing to work around my adjunct teaching commitments. So, I’ve started to think more and more about working for myself–being my own boss, doing my own thing. I’ve decided to go for it.

I have two terminal degrees and a lot of experience; I should be able to figure out some way to make money for myself. Most of my students aren’t English majors; they’re business, nursing, science, and engineering majors, and I’m always going on and on about the usefulness of learning to write and being prepared to do your own thing when the time comes, so this is me trying to practice what I preach a little. I know it will take time to figure things out, but not starting won’t accomplish anything.

It starts with my website and blog. I’ve had this website for years, but it was originally just a website for my future creative writing “success.” I still write fiction and love it, but I know it likely won’t pay my bills anytime soon. My website is much more useful as a home-base for my own thing, so that’s what I’m turning this site into.

What Am I Doing with This Blog?

I’m blogging about figuring out my own “business,” or my own thing. I’m prepared for this to take a while. I’ll write and post regularly about how getting something going for myself is—well, going.

I’m trying all kinds of different things. Of course, I’m still writing fiction and other creative work–that’s kind of another reason I wanted to do “my own thing” around teaching; I also need the flexibility to write.

I’ve started a YouTube channel. It’s about writing, and I also make videos about how starting my own “business” or “thing” is going. I upload content to my channel a few times a week. So far, YouTube seems like a good opportunity to find my audience.

I’m still figuring out Instagram and other platforms like TikTok and Facebook. It’s hard to focus on everything at once.

I’m probably going to be experimenting with content on this blog and my social media as I go. I’m also thinking about what kinds of services I could offer people: copywriting, technical writing, consulting, etc. We’ll see what happens.