**Special note: Are We Still On For Tonight? Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse is free on Amazon today (4/2/12)**

On any given day, I have at least two careers. My main career (if there can be such a thing) is as a freelance writer. This is the career that has supported my family for over three years—and for a family with only one income, that’s pretty important.

My second career is as a fiction writer, something that I’ve only been doing for about a year and that doesn’t exactly bring in the dough necessary to feed a growing Wolverine, a zombie-race-gonna-be-running Hussy and two cat prodigies.

The interesting thing about these dual careers is that in each one, I have a set of “clients.” In fiction writing, my readers are my clients whereas in freelancing, those who secure my services to write for them are my clients (the end readers are THEIR clients).

Each of my two client groups has made an investment in me—the freelance clients invest their money, reputation and faith. The fiction clients (you guys) invest their money and their emotions by getting drawn into my worlds and my characters.

I can’t tell you how hard this makes it to prioritize everything these two careers require. Because while freelancing clients may pay my mortgage and health insurance, you guys have invested something even more valuable, even if it’s something that doesn’t exactly put food on the table.

When I launched my fiction career, I never anticipated that I would have growing pains as my freelancing business became more popular than ever and my fiction ideas grew. As it stands, I’m really happy with the progress of the fiction side—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t unexpected complications that I’m trying to overcome.

Some of the difficulties I’m having will change how I do business in the future, and it will be interesting to see how that affects the success (or…unsuccess) of my fiction. For example, I was pretty careful to commit to release dates for projects over the past year (failing to meet just one of them so far). I did this because—if you’re like me—you like to put an exciting book release date on your personal calendar and make a whole day of it. But I did this thinking as a reader instead of as an author. Next year, I think I’m just going to release books when I feel like releasing them, with no calendar, no commitment and no obligation. I have a feeling this may adversely affect my sales, but my happiness will be positively affected, and that should probably be my priority anyway.And if you’re a follower of this site, my Facebook, my Twitter or on the Hussy List, you’ll hear about the release, so it won’t be exactly like that tree that fell out in the forest.

Another change I’ll be making is that I’ll be putting all my books in print–either as stand-alone work or collections. I have yet to see any profit in print, but I don’t think one year can really give a person a true handle on what is, and isn’t, possible.

What I’m Working On Now

It’s hectic in the Hussy house right now. I’m ghostwriting a couple of books for clients and trying to finish some of my own. I started the next book in the Dating During the Zombie Apocalypse series, this one following a substitute teacher named Hannah. I’m hoping to release it this year. I’m also working diligently to finish Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 3. There is SO much going on in this book, it’s ridiculous. Finally, I’m doing final edits on Pack Mistress 4. Again, a lot going on in this book–holy hell.

I’m playing around with another serial, but I’m on the fence about whether to do it as a serial or just release it as a stand-alone novel. How have you been enjoying the Pack Mistress serial format? Does it annoy you more than excite you? Would you rather have read nothing and waited a year for me to write it, and then read it all in one week?