Crossroads

I have a bit of a different blog post today, something a little more personal.
So the last few months I’ve been struggling with a very major decision: should I continue going to university or concentrate on writing?

I have two plans: Plan A is to be a full-time, self-sufficient writer. Plan B is to be a speech language pathologist. But both these plans lead me on very different paths, and I can't decide which one to follow.

Plan B means I will finish my BA in Psychology, and get my Master’s in Speech Language Pathology, leading to a career as a speech language pathologist. This seems a good plan as the career combines my love of teaching, counseling, words, and neuropsychology. Furthermore, there is huge growth coming up in the field, and you make a very nice wage.

The downsides? The requirements to get into the Master’s program are tough. I would need to become a research assistant for a professor, get an honours degree, average A’s in all my classes (including five nasty linguistic courses), shadow both SLPs and audiologists, and get plenty of volunteer hours working in a clinical setting. Couple that with working a regular job in order to, you know, survive, and that leaves pretty much no room to pursue a career as a writer.

Plan A?

Don’t go to school, and work full-time at writing, meaning writing more books, building my platform, and writing even more books.

The up sides are obvious: I would be spending my energy on Plan A, pursuing my dream— and isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Always go after your dream?

The downside is also obvious. My other dream is to own a house one day, be able to provide for a family. Although Jane Unwrapped is being published, Leah and I have to split our income so I really don't know how lucrative writing can be. I don’t know if I will ever be able to make a high enough income from writing in order to have it be a full-time career.

As of right now, I’ve decided to take next semester off to give writing a really good go—who knows, maybe the next book we pitch will be a huge success (Alliance would make a GREAT rom-com movie!) Even if I can just make enough income off of writing and our platforms (the blog/vlog), then I can quit my part-time job and maybe be able to juggle both school and writing.

But still, I can’t help but wish I could see into the future and know which way to go.

Thanks for reading, guys, wishing you a wonderful last two weeks of summer!

P.S. I wasn’t sure what pictures to put in this blog post, so but I felt this bird pretty much sums up how I’m feeling about the issue right now ;)