Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

I've decided I don't want to do a PhD. I want to write about language and linguistics for the general public, and I have a Really Cool Idea that I'll write up as an outline/proposal after I finish my thesis. Then I'll either submit it to a small press or send it to some agents. I could also potentially write it up as a pitch for a blog series at tor.com (which, somehow, strikes me as even more of a long-shot than selling the book proposal). I can do this without a PhD, so I will.

I still, however, want to move to Berlin. Not being a student means I can't just get a student visa, so I need to figure out how to get a work/residence permit. Berlin has an artist visa option, which I think is under the umbrella of Freiberufler (sort of like freelance but not quite, and is different from being self-employed, because, of course, TSCHÖRMANY). The criteria are rather picky. But I have 2 skills (one with certification) that fall under the umbrella: writer and language teacher. I can translate, but I don't have any certification, and Germany really likes people to have certification for their jobs.

What I don't know is whether being there on a Freiberufler permit would allow me to pick up a part-time job at, like, a bookstore or something. Because writing income isn't steady (especially if you haven't got a book contract and all) and I'd really like to have some sort of income so I don't just burn through my savings. There's a line in the details about wanting to work on an Honorarbasis, but I'm not entirely sure what that means. German bureaucracy is legendary for a reason.

There doesn't seem to be a "contact us with questions" email address on the page I'm looking at.

So. Anyway. Here is my current plan with timeline.

May 2019: finish my MA.

summer 2019: finish the novel I started before grad school AND write a proposal/pitch for the nonfiction, then send it out

academic year 2019-20: teach at UGA; continue to work on book(s); save money

May 2020: look for WG-Zimmer, apartments, and condos online; contact sellers/renters

late May 2020: go to Berlin for 10-14 days to view apartments (somehow have proof of financial security to show them because I don't think Schufa works on foreign accounts); hopefully sign a contract; open a bank account.

June-July 2020: pack up my shit & start selling furniture; start getting all the Unterlagen I can together; send boxes of small things over (maybe some books via international flat rate)

August 2020: off to Deutschland

September 2020: appointment with the foreigner office? It takes time to get through bureaucracy. (Though the site says they can give you your Stempel during the appointment...)

October 2020: pop over to Norway for a few days in case I need to keep staying on a tourist visa (it's outside the Schengen area); repeat as needed and with other non-Schengen countries that US citizens don't need visas for

Other things I don't know: whether I can do multiple freiberufliche Tätigkeiten (e.g. be a writer AND a language teacher); whether I can earn income from US sources while in Germany and how that affects taxes.

Also need to think about getting my cat over there (if I still have her).

What things have I /not/ thought about?

Updates: I googled Honorarbasis, and a quick skim of this page sounds like it's akin to contract work/freelancing here, where you are responsible for your own insurance and you have different tax rules to follow. But there seem to be language teacher jobs available on an Honorarbasis, so that could be a possibility.

And this looks fascinating. It's a co-op, and I have no idea how I'd even buy one, but I really like the plan. Coworking space!

Anyone who's been in my house and seen the 4th bedroom/bonus room/Ben's room is probably familiar with the massive clutter on the floor in front of the bookshelves. Today I decided to go through it. I was looking for something (the piece of paper that proves I de-registered with the police in Marburg in 1997, which I may need to take to the police in Berlin in the event Operation: Move to Berlin actually happens). I didn't find it, though I found the paper I wrote for the end of the literature class I took, the Scheine from the classes I took in Marburg, and all of my notes (in German), a bunch of xeroxed things from my classes at JC, all the papers from the non-chemistry classes I took in Marburg, a stack of fanzines, and my notes from The Medieval Mind (fall 1995 I think).

I had trouble reaching that shelf because of all the books stacked in front of it, but also because of the huge plastic bag (with giant hole in the bottom which Claire chewed) full of calendars and assorted other things. So I sorted through that, then went through my shelves and put books away. Some I pulled off because I didn't like them all that much; some I pulled unread. I have a few non-fiction health policy books, and I've attempted to read one of them. It's really damn dry, and I'm never going to get through it. Then I pulled more books and shelved more books, and I have a couple boxes of books I would like to sell. I'll catalog them and list them here so my friends can have first dibs.

Anyway, now it's possible to walk up to my second bookshelf. Nonfiction, Literatyoor, foreign language, and reference are still pretty inaccessible (or require a bit of gymnastic ability), but my genre fiction is reachable. And double-stacked in some places. I really need to scan the bazillion old photos in boxes and albums, and possibly scan the negatives. My old Mini has the scanner drivers and photoshop elements; I have no idea if the MacBook can talk to the scanner. I can boot up the Mini and play with that at some point.

I'm not sure what to do with them after that: list on ebay or sell through Amazon. Does anyone have experience with either of these? I listed some stuff on ebay once, like 5 years ago, but I've never done that on Amazon.

Notes on the beer festival later!

I've been poking around on the net, and a lot of the advice boils down to things like "set up separate business & personal accounts" and "keep track of EVERYTHING" and "in order for the IRS to consider it a business, not a hobby, you have to turn a profit 3 years out of 5."

Will I need to do all that crap when I start making royalty-based sales? I got the payment for Retro Spec, and it was $24 ($23 after paypal fees), which isn't enough to report as income.

Of course, the other main piece of advice is "when in doubt, ask your accountant." I, of course, don't *have* an accountant.

I know some of y'all are freelancers or self-employed; how do you do it?

Let me know how this sounds: too boring? I need to send it in by 3 pm today.

C.D. Covington is a writer, costumer, crocheter, and Teutophile. Her first published short story, “U8: Alexanderplatz (1989),” will appear in RetroSpec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia, in September 2010. She lives in the Triangle and is a member of Broad Universe and the Outer Alliance. She blogs at obligatedtoexaggerate.blogspot.com.

Car-related: I had an oil change done a few weeks ago, and they didn't charge me for synthetic oil, so I assume they used 'regular.' Despite the sticker on my engine that says "only use synthetic oil of this particular variety." Will this affect my car in a negative way? For those of you who don't know, my car is a 2005 Mini Cooper S (about to hit 50k miles).

Other:

Can I write my cell phone off as a work-related expense? It's not required for my job, but I use it as my primary telephone contact number, and I periodically send email from my phone (using my mobile data plan.) I don't know what the applicable tax law is, or if there's some sort of percentage-based guideline.

1. Do I want to sign up over there? I'm not hugely fandom-oriented, so that's not a draw, but I like the idea of watching vs trusted reading lists.

2. Do I want to sign up with OpenID using my blogspot ID, or do I want to wait for an invite code?

3. If I use OpenID, do I want to import everything from here, or do I want to start fresh?

4. The name's kinda ... meh. No 'journal' in it. Get a lot of "WTH? Wazzat mean?"

Hurm.

ETA: Poking around, this post kind of gets at why I want to start over elsewhere. I mean, yeah, I've got my blogspot blog, but you just don't get the chummy things like in LJ. Well, I've got till the end of the month before I have to decide what I want to do...