Tough week

Well, it's been a long week, and it's not over yet. Today I found out that a project I am working on with a group needs to be done next week, as opposed to in two weeks from now. So we have to get cracking. I take comfort from the thought that this means I will be done with one of my classes a week early.

I have allowed my focus to slide too much during this week. I could have accomplished more, could have supped more from the moments and minutes of each day. I will do better.

I've written about 500 words today and have about 700 words of the next chapter in Servant of the King done. I have also gotten a solid start on the write-up of my MA project.

I wonder if all writers experience the fluctuations from confidence to despair--sometimes in a matter of minutes? I wonder how long I can make my skin thick so that when I enter three writing contests and don't place in even one of them, I don't give into the feeling that I really ought to just throw in the towel? I wonder why companies who advertise job openings with descriptions that look like they were lifted from my resume don't seem to realize I am the best man for the job?

Is it possible that this absurdity called "Overqualified" is a reality in today's corporate world?

I don't think we're supposed to struggle and scrape every second of every day until I make it as an author. I mean, that's still going to be a ways out, barring a wonderful, welcome miracle. So I fully expect to land a full time job.

I just pray it can be soon so that some of the pressure will be released. Just a bit, please?

And I wonder if our nation is going to regain greatness or if the clear trends in our government and the paternalistic state we are moving toward are signs of a permanent change?

For now, I better apply for some more jobs. And when I kneel in prayer before I go to sleep, I intend to express vocal thanks for the gift of storytelling and the story in Servant of the King in particular. And when I do that, I am sure I will- as happens so often- feel the sweetness of the still, small voice of the Spirit of my Father. I will put images of long rows of mediocre books filling bookstores out of my mind. I will force thoughts of hopelessness out and I will let Charity in.

Scrabbling upward

Back again. I know, two days in a row! Shocking, but a blessing to all those reading.

Only joking.

The last couple of days have been challenging, to say the least. I've been trying to fight the hit on my self-esteem that losing out on this job is dealing me. Brain-wise, I know perfectly well that the job fell through because of budget issues, but that otherwise I had it in the bag. That is comforting, but it doesn't help the old concept that I am supposed to be providing for my family and that I just can't seem to do it.

Doubts and stuff keep resurfacing. Should I have just stuck out the MA in TESOL program? Why didn't we just stay in Alaska and stay afloat up there, particularly since this year's dividend is something in the neighborhood of $3000! Maybe we should have not done the whole QuitandWrite thing and just stayed at the teaching. I mean, there's no doubt that if we had refinanced this house to take out a bunch of the equity, and then re-invested that cash into another property, we would be better off financially.

Arg. Why can't I be like the Last Unicorn and not be able to have regrets?

Then there's my certainty that The Cabin is going to sell, and then do really well. But that's going to take time. And then if it doesn't even happen, clearly I just suck.

Which I don't think is the case.

So now I've signed up to teach two writing classes at BYU's English Language Center. That's a semester-long commitment, so I will put the full-time job search on hold. I've also started prospecting for more freelance work via www.getafreelancer.com. Then there's the work I'm doing for a friend, who runs www.schooltipline.com.

Scrabbling upward. Got to keep afloat and keep the dream alive.

Sometimes (read: often) I find myself thinking that the cosmos (read: God in His Heaven) is telling me that I'm not really ever supposed to get tied up in a regular 8-5 job. If that's the case, and if we're supposed to just continue on our atypical path, that's fine. But we need to have some of these outside the box things come through.

Blech. I'll stop with the moroseness.

I wrote three articles for Helium today. One is for the Marketplace, and if it gets picked up, that's a pretty good paycheck for an article. Incidentally, I'm making upward of $50 each month on Helium, without really doing anything for the last few months. Not a terrible residual.

I'll be picking up The Cabin again probably in another week. I need to get settled in at the ELC again.

Carpe somnium, dudes.

Another day

another lack of dollars.

Feverishly looking for a job. I'm about to start considering the hourly wage stuff that I see all over the place.

The thing is, I don't really want to get trapped into a job, since that's not how to get out of the rat race. But I need to have one of the several time and money investments I've made that are outside the box pay off.

Until then, I'm still after the writing. I will be drumming up freelance work this morning.

Back later.

Well if that doesn't just hang it all...

How dumb. I got a verbal offer on the job I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. The offered salary was good enough to accept. The job was as a creative writer in their marketing area.

Then I got the written offer, and it was the same. I had a start date set; it was to be tomorrow the 3rd.

This afternoon I got a phone call from the head of the creative services department. Due to her just having found out about budgetary restraints and cut-backs, they had to not hire me.

So I was downsized before I even started.

Double crap.

Really.. in all truth.. and not to put too fine a point on it.. (please don't say I'm the only bee in your bonnet) this is a very unpleasant turn of events.

Now I'm thinking George Michael. Because now I really 'got to have faith-a.' Baby.

I've sent out about five queries about The Cabin. One agent already said no. Her loss.

I also sent out a query with my revised version of It's Not Tomato Sauce, my picture book manuscript.

Off to bed. There would be a tear in my beer if I drank the stuff. Beer, not tears that is, since of course I drink tears. Like water.

Still gonna carpe that somnium.

Yikes

Yes, it's been a while. I am excited to report that I will be picking up The Cabin again next week. I've gotten some feedback and have a lot on my mind regarding changes I want to make. So that is an exciting thing, eh?

The other thing I really ought to report is that I have received a verbal offer from the company I interviewed at, which I mentioned in my previous post. Hooray! The job is as a creative writer in the corporate office of a local company in Springville.

There's more. Yes, I know, I shouldn't overload my reader(s?) but a lot has happened. So last week we were watching some Olympics when someone from Freedom Academy called. They said that they had a spot open in Third Grade and that if we wanted Thomas in there, we had to call them back that night. We talked, talked and talked some more. Thomas wasn't too sure he wanted to go, but after some more talk and then some prayer and listening, he decided he was supposed to go. That was pretty great.

So he started going to the Freedom Academy Charter School last Thursday. He's adjusting well and is getting the hang of the whole school thing pretty well. We've all met his teacher and approve of her.

But we're still pretty high strung about it. Having done homeschool for these last few years, and having made probably the most formal plan so far for this school year, sending Thomas to school has been an adjustment for us too.

So that's my report. I'm trying to catch up on my sleep after getting so far behind by staying up and watching the Olympics till all hours. So now I'm going to bed.

Just kidding. Actually, Lily (my only daughter) is in the process of having a little girl princess birthday party. Today is her 4th, so it's quite the hullabaloo around here. Great word. Sincerely, that's a spectacular word.

Exercise+allergies+nap+muscling through=Tuesday

I finally got to bed at a reasonable hour last night, which was Monday, so I was able to get up at 6AM this morning and hit the Rec Center. It felt good, but I ended with a treadmill spring, which just about made me puke and faint.

I got a hold of myself without doing either of the above and made it home. Allergies were having their way with me by this time. A shower, allergy medicine and breakfast later, I felt like passing out. Freaking Benadryl. I actually did take a nap until just after noon. I pulled myself out of my stupor as the kids and Annemarie headed out for a walk down to the duck pond.

Between lunch, breathing deeply and drinking water like crazy, I got myself together and got to work. I did the jobs my client sent me, which took up the rest of the day. That's fine. I also wrote an article for www.helium.com, which I think actually turned out pretty well. It's about the common characteristics of good fantasy movies.

Here it is: http://www.helium.com/items/1001793-about-fantasy-films-moths

And that's pretty much it for the day. Oh, I also searched for job listings on several websites, finally turning one up on Craigslist. It is as an assistant publisher at Greenleaf Publishing Group in Austin. I applied and hope to hear from them soon.

So that's actually it for the day. Now I'm going to bed. I hope to get an earlier start tomorrow by not having to take a nap.

Gonna write a bestseller.

Carpe somnium!

I also hope

Just a quick update

Today was Friday, and it was a good one. I spent my morning and early afternoon sending out job applications to postings in Austin. While I did that, Annemarie read over my second draft of The Mars Betrayal.

She had some great, very useful thoughts and suggestions, so when I got to it, I was able to make some changes.

Anyway, after sending out about four or five job applications for Austin, I had lunch and then went and gave blood. Woohoo. That went fine, as it usually does. I got home and put some water on over the gardens and compost. It is getting close to time to roto-til it all up.

So then I got to work on The Mars Betrayal. I finished it off just before dinner and then sent it off to the editors. One of them got back to me to let me know he got it.

And that's it. We just watched Find Me Guilty. It was pretty good. Vin Diesel really did a good job.

Gotta run, it's late and I have a lot of work to do outside tomorrow.

Reporting on my Thursday

Thankfully, the pain of the last weekend has faded mostly away. I am still getting the occasional spasm, and sneezing still kills, but otherwise, I'm good.

So today was a nice day. I had to stay up a little to get what I needed to done in The Cabin, but that's fine. I can't finish it this week, particularly since I need to get lots of stuff done in The Mars Betrayal in a short period of time.

I started my day, as I planned, by getting to work on The Mars Betrayal. I wrote a new chapter that should take the book in the correct direction. I've ramped up tension and have tried to explore my characters more. In the first version, I know that I allowed the vocabulary constraints to affect the story telling I was trying to do. Not this time. I will tell the story and then work on the vocab. So I spent about 2 and a half hours on this project and stopped at noon to help Annemarie get out of here on time to get the older boys to their Spanish school. Lily, our only girl, went and had a play date at a friend's house, so it was just me and the little guy, Nathaniel. We took a walk, which I really enjoyed, then he got to watch a little Baby Einstein.

While he watched that, I had some lunch and read a little in the Book of Mormon. It's a good book, I tell you. When he was done, Annemarie was back, so we put him down for a nap and I went to get Lily so that Annemarie could read the chapter I did this morning. When I got back, she pointed some things out but mostly approved. Then I took a nap.

I did this nap thing because I haven't been sleeping very well. I think it may be stress related, as well as due to not sleeping at a consistent hour. Anyway, my nap was just over an hour, which was fine, but a little long. I ate a snack of raisins and then took a reading walk in the brisk afternoon. Annemarie had left to pick up the older boys, taking the other two, just as I woke up, so I was on my own.

With my walk done, I read a little more, but then got back to work and wrote an article on www.helium.com. Hey, I'm in second place in a contest that will finalize tomorrow! Isn't that shocking? I'm at 801 articles. I really hope to hit a thousand this year. One a day will get it done. I also rated quite a bit, as I feel like my citizenship on Helium has been sad.

Anyway, I then opened up The Cabin and started to go through it so I could pick up the thread. But it was dinner time.

After the kids were in bed, we watched the first episode of this season's The Office. Then I wrote in The Cabin. I did just over two thousand words in just over an hour! Woohoo! I got rolling, and it felt great. Mike is an enjoyable character to work with. I'm interested in his story.

So I did what I set out to do this morning. Making goals, doing them, and now reporting on them. It's a divine pattern. Now I need to hit the sack. Tomorrow I need to exercise, hit the chiropractor one last time, and then do more on The Mars Betrayal, The Cabin and www.helium.com. Hopefully I will get one of the jobs I've applied for. I would like the one at The Friend, as it's in my chosen field and pays well. But I would take the Testing Supervisor job here at BYU as well.

I need to stop. This is long. If you've made it this far, you are either a true friend or family. That's practically the same thing.

My dream. My bestseller that I WILL write.

carpe somnium

And an addendum...

I forgot to say two things:

I have applied for a few jobs in the last week and a bit. I reapplied to the job at The Friend, as well as applying to a few others. I want that job at The Friend. I just hope they see that I really can do it and would be the best guy for the spot.

And I am going to write a best-seller. I may be in the midst of that right now. But it is a fact. I will be a best-selling novelist.