Well, it's summer and I'm currently looking for work. I've been looking at the job market around here and becoming increasingly ... upset. I attempted to do a position as a temporary employee at a factory. It was one of the worst work experiences of my life. It was a wonderful learning experience: I hate working in a factory. I'm amazed that I lasted a month. It really is one of those jobs where you either enjoy it or hate it from day one.
Now, dear Reader, I know you are curious as to why I'm upset with my local job market. The reason is because there is one type of job that is overwhelmingly present as a temporary position available: factory work. I know just how much I abhorr factory work. There are people that can do it, actually enjoy if not love it, and are quite good at it. My brother is a stellar example of it. God love him for it, but I just can't do it. So, I'm still looking. Nothing's exactly available in the clerical sector except for those temp-perm positions. I could do that, but then I'd need to give up that lovely job in the fall.
Things can change any day, though, so I keep looking. It's odd when not even the grocery store is hiring for help, though. If I'm lucky, I may get that diswasher position at the restaraunt down the street. If I'm really lucky, I may get that tarot reader job that I applied for on-line. Yes, you read that correctly, tarot reader. One of my hobbies is reading tarot. I've been doing it for about ten years now. I've been told that I'm quite good. So, I figure I'll take a swing at doing this tarot reading professionally. It may make a nice little thing to do on the side as school gets back into session. I know that there's a few people that manage to make enough money to support themselves and live in a comfortable life style reading cards. It's a niche market that not too many people fill around here in western NY.
Even as I am trying to muddle my way through the job market, I have been working on my writing. I am editing my fantasy novel. It is slowly progressing. I am still baffled by the fact that I need to add material. It doesn't usually happen that way in something I write. I am usually taking material out when I edit. I have the synopsis drafted out. I need to actually sit down and type it up. I'm rather terrified of doing so, however.
I will confess, I am utterly terrified of sending out my manuscript. My terror, however, is not so much of being rejected but of being a brilliant succcess. It is an unreasonable terror. I know that I can produce additional books in this particular story line. I've got the plot maps for 17 books sitting on my desk at home right now as I am typing this. I'm just afraid that I'll really screw up with having more money and put us into insane debt. I think what I'm going to do is let my husband worry about the money when it comes in. I'll just write. After all, he's better at math then I am. :)
At the same time that I'm working on this fantasy novel, I have other writing projects that I am working on. I have a children's book aimed at the toddler age group that I have half completed. It's a rather cute little story about a catapiller's chrysalis process. The concept has been done to death and yet it still sells. So, I'm going to write it. The kids at the daycare kept asking me to write a children's book after I started drawing pictures for them and telling them stories. I can't ignore it. I also have my neices that I need to write something for.
Another juvinile book that I'm working on is a reprise of a story that I wrote when I was a child. This is being elaborated upon and improved. The basic storyline and character concepts remain the same, however. The interesting thing about this story is that I had it published in a magazine as a girl. I am considering going thru my old material from when I was in junior high and late elementary school (what this particular item dates to) and scrounging up a few more peices to reinvent. This item is still in the intial stages, though.
Finally, I have a magnum opus (perhaps) of my geekery at work. No, not that marvelous theory proving Enstine wrong. I'm still working on the math for that. When I manage it, then I will present it and pick up my Nobel Prize. What I am working on is the factual history of the relgion of Witchcraft (also known as Wicca/Old Religion/the Craft/etc.). Stargazer is helping me out with this, the wonderful doll that she is. Fortunately, she and I are of the same mindset on this particular project. Collaboration is going to be most interesting. I've floated out the idea of sending this down to the wonderful nuns that educated us at college with the note attached "Here's that doctoral thesis you were asking about."
(Once, my relgion instructor asked me what I was reading and I explained that I was doing personal research. I then explained that I had about 5 yrs of research in. She asked me when I was publishing my thesis.)
1 comment:
Andrew here.
Glad to see you're still working on your novel; even better to see that you're continuing on with new projects. As a longtime collaborator/supporter/enabler/victim of a fulltime writer, I have a few suggestions. Please don't take them as mean spirited (or uninformed); I've helped Sonya down this path for almost fifteen years now.
1) Write every day. No really- get your bootie in that chair and write, if at all possible on the computer. Make sure you keep at it, and produce something every day- even if it's garbage.
2) Master the craft of writing. There's an art to turning a beautiful phrase, but it's based on a sound knowledge of the fundamentals. Know them.
3) Learn more about writing, as a business. The internet has a wealth of informed experts available to help. Two sites I recommend (and read voraciously myself) are Evil Editor and Miss Snark (both on Blogspot). They are each professionals in their fields, and they bring wit and humor along with their knowledge. Read their archives; they're treasure troves of information on what to do (and what not to).
4) Expect success, if coming at all, to be a long way off. Know that every book you read on the "New Releases" shelf at your local bookstore was finalized at least two years before it made its way to print. (Yes, even Dan Brown and Steven King's).
5) Most importantly, if you're serious, never stop learning (yes, I'm repeating it- it's that important). By the time you finished your novel, I bet you had learned enough to see things you wanted to change at the beginning. Writing is a constant learning process- your second book should be more polished than your first, and your third even better. Very few writers know enough about writing to get their first experiment published with no (personal) experience. Of course there are exceptions; but exception is the operative word.
Well I hope I haven't demoralized you too much, but if writing is truly your passion, I'm sure I've only inspired you to work that much harder to make your dream come true. Best of luck to you.
That is all.
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