In my last blog post, which you can read by clicking this link, I shared that I had sent in a pitch to a small publishing company that publishes gay fiction, Dreamspinner Press, and was waiting for a reply from the company about whether or not they’d be interested in publishing my gay romance novella set in Nicaragua. Well, I got an email back, and…drumroll please…they said yes! Now, I have until August 30th to write a fifteen-thousand-word to fifty-thousand-word novella based on the concept I pitched to them. I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on how it goes, and try to figure out a way to make my experience writing this novella into a list of advice for other writers.

In other exciting career-based news, a blog post that I wrote about being a trans Latino in the gay dating scene was picked up by a queertransmen.org, and will be published on their site within the next few weeks! And I self-published a four-poem excerpt from my upcoming poetry collection–the four poems are collectively titled Fair Youth and can be found on my writing blog.

All in all, it’s been a very productive couple of weeks for me in terms of my writing. However, two weeks ago I started taking some important steps for my own health, which require being off campus for three hours every weeknight. These hours have seriously cut into the time I use for homework, writing, and just relaxing, so I had to drop some hours at my job at Denison Library. I’ll still be working about six hours a week, but that’s opposed to the ten hours I was working, plus whatever hours I picked up from coworkers who weren’t able to make their shifts.

I definitely don’t love that I’ll be losing money for the hours I’m not working at Denison…but I think it’s more important for me to focus on my health and my schoolwork. I’m a student and an employee but I’m a person first and foremost and I have to make sure that I can actually get through the rest of the semester feeling as healthy and happy as possible. Not to mention that I think I’ll be spending enough time at Denison over the summer, since I’ll be interning there and living in Claremont all throughout the summer, until I start RA training in the middle of August.

I think the advice that I’d give to anyone is you’re not an employee first, you’re a human being. I absolutely understand that I am in a privileged position when I can drop a few hours at work, but I think that my #1 piece of advice, whether it’s about life, careers, or writing, is to always remember that your first priority should be your own health, whenever it’s possible for you to prioritize that.