Everything has been on hold the last few weeks while I transitioned to a new job. Of course, I'm a little down in the dumps, but that's to be expected. First and foremost, I haven't been doing any writing, and that ALWAYS makes me blue (I literally HAVE to write to be happy). Second, change is always a little "rattling."
I haven't been working at the new job long, so I don't know if it's going to work out or not. I LOVE being on day shift. It's weird to be watching my prime time tv shows toward the end of my day rather than at the beginning (I'm used to having a bowl of breakfast cereal while I watch House; now I can have a beer instead, and it's very foreign, lol).
And the job itself is almost as different as night and day from my old job; this job is VERY customer service oriented. At my last job, the whole point was to get people in the door and then get them out as quickly as possible (volume, volume, volume). At this job, it's not only perfectly acceptable to spend two hours helping a customer pick out color-coordinated merchandise, it's actually encouraged. Instead of "hurry, hurry, hurry and don't stop to talk to anyone," it's "engage the customer, make them feel welcome." Again, it's all very foreign.
But I have to wear dress clothes, and I can't stand dress clothes!
The most amusing thing about this new job is some of the people who work there. I've already met some awesome, friendly, helpful associates that are going to be a joy to work with . . . but a few people (a minority, thankfully) are actually snobby. It tickles me. I mean, sure, we work in a preppy store, but really! It's still just retail. It's not like we're working New York's fashion week or designing interiors for mansions . . . it's just retail in a preppy store in small-town middle America. I don't see any valid grounds for snobbery.
So we'll see how it all works out. I've only worked a week so far (two-and-a-half days training, two-and-a-half on the salesfloor). I'm not even sure what my regular schedule is going to be like (during the interview, we discussed 8 to 3; but this week I worked a lot of 10 to 3 shifts). So there's still a lot of uknowns.
Change is good (hopefully).
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Yikes!
It's been a tough week-and-a-half. On Wednesday the 7th, I got paged at work. I answered a floor line, and it was my hubby telling me that our water heater had sprung a leak and there was a quarter inch of water in our utility room. Since I was on the floor, I told him I'd take my break and call him back on my cell. While I was talking to him, I could hear our house phone ringing in the background--that could only be trouble since there's only one reason for someone calling my house at 12:30 in the morning: something was wrong with my mom. And my fears were right: my mom was in the hospital.
She'd had a bronchoscopy earlier in the day to check on her cancer scar tissue (she was diagnosed with lung cancer in April of 2005--by April 2006, the cancer had been reduced to scar tissue and we began the process of just monitoring to make sure the cancer didn't come back). Back when she was first diagnosed, they did a full body scan to see if the cancer had spread--and found that she had several aneurysms in her brain. She underwent surgery to "fix" those, but had to go on Plavix due to strokes (the stints and aneurysm appartuses--apparti--apparently made her prone to blood clots. Anyway, she has to stop the Plavix anytime she has surgery or any procedure that leads to bleeding (and she usually coughs blood for three or four days after the bronchoscopies due to the tube being fed down her throat).
So she had stopped the Plavix and had the brochoscopy. That evening, she lost her vision. In a panic, thinking she was having a stroke, she took her Plavix. And then she started having trouble breathing.
Our thought, of course, was that the loss of vision was due to a stint swelling (one of the aneurysms is close to the optic nerve, and when it swells, it presses on the nerve) and her lungs had filled with blood due to bleeding from the bronchoscopy. And that SEEMED to be confirmed when the docs declared that she had liquid in her lungs (although they later decided it was pneumonia--strange, since she'd had no symptoms before).
Whatever the source of the "liquid", a few days later we found out that her cancer is back, this time in the other lung.
And as if all that wasn't bad enough--a slightly flooded house, buying and installing a new water heater, and recurrence of my mother's cancer--my job took a turn for the worse, too. So now I've got to find a new job on top of everything else.
I could probably still tolerate the job if it weren't for ONE manager. She has no concept of the time it takes to complete a task, and there's no reasoning with her. Here's a sample conversation:
Manager: "Bob. You have 10 hours of freight tonight in your area. After you're done, go help in the freezer, and then zone."
Bob: "Wait. I only have an eight hour shift. And if we're all supposed to stop and zone at 5:30 am, then I only have a six-and-a-half hour shift. Not even time enough for my own freight."
Manager: "Then you'll just have to work faster."
At this point, I should point out that Bob REALLY only has a five-and-a-half hour shift (he loses half an hour due to his two fifteen-minute breaks AND it's going to take him another half hour to clean up his freight--pull back pallets and bale his cardboard). Somehow, Bob is supposed to do ten hours of freight, plus help another department, plus zone, all in five-and-a-half hours.
In my case, I get told I have two hours of freight. I spend fifteen minutes in the nightly meeting, then fifteen minutes hunting down a jack and pulling my freight to the floor. Then I spend another fifteen minutes pulling freight and garment racks up to the processor (which the manager is all aware of). But at the two hour point, she's out there asking why I'm not done (even though she knows I spent forty-five minutes doing other work). But somehow I'm supposed to do all that other stuff in zero minutes with a wave of my magic wand.
And to make matters worse, I started counting my cases as I stocked them: 184. Our time is based on doing one case per minute. If you do the math, you can see that I actually had THREE hours of freight, not two.
The whole point is that I take my work performance seriously, and I come home every night exhausted, with my feet killing me and a general sense of failure. It's not healthy. I used to work in the computer industry as a quality control manager for business software--software that companies used for their financial records and tax submissions--and THAT job wasn't as stressful as this one . . . AND THIS ONE IS RETAIL! How in the hell can making sure green beans and throw pillows are in stock be more stressfull than making sure IRS tax forms and profit-and-loss statements work?
The world's not supposed to work that way. It's obviously time to move on.
Of course, I HATE moving on. My schedule at work right now is PERFECT, and I know I'm not going to be able to have such a perfect schedule anywhere else.
On the up side, I'm encouraged by the quick response to my job search. I decided "enough is enough" on Thursday morning, submitted resumes on Friday, and got my first call-back on Saturday.
Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.
She'd had a bronchoscopy earlier in the day to check on her cancer scar tissue (she was diagnosed with lung cancer in April of 2005--by April 2006, the cancer had been reduced to scar tissue and we began the process of just monitoring to make sure the cancer didn't come back). Back when she was first diagnosed, they did a full body scan to see if the cancer had spread--and found that she had several aneurysms in her brain. She underwent surgery to "fix" those, but had to go on Plavix due to strokes (the stints and aneurysm appartuses--apparti--apparently made her prone to blood clots. Anyway, she has to stop the Plavix anytime she has surgery or any procedure that leads to bleeding (and she usually coughs blood for three or four days after the bronchoscopies due to the tube being fed down her throat).
So she had stopped the Plavix and had the brochoscopy. That evening, she lost her vision. In a panic, thinking she was having a stroke, she took her Plavix. And then she started having trouble breathing.
Our thought, of course, was that the loss of vision was due to a stint swelling (one of the aneurysms is close to the optic nerve, and when it swells, it presses on the nerve) and her lungs had filled with blood due to bleeding from the bronchoscopy. And that SEEMED to be confirmed when the docs declared that she had liquid in her lungs (although they later decided it was pneumonia--strange, since she'd had no symptoms before).
Whatever the source of the "liquid", a few days later we found out that her cancer is back, this time in the other lung.
And as if all that wasn't bad enough--a slightly flooded house, buying and installing a new water heater, and recurrence of my mother's cancer--my job took a turn for the worse, too. So now I've got to find a new job on top of everything else.
I could probably still tolerate the job if it weren't for ONE manager. She has no concept of the time it takes to complete a task, and there's no reasoning with her. Here's a sample conversation:
Manager: "Bob. You have 10 hours of freight tonight in your area. After you're done, go help in the freezer, and then zone."
Bob: "Wait. I only have an eight hour shift. And if we're all supposed to stop and zone at 5:30 am, then I only have a six-and-a-half hour shift. Not even time enough for my own freight."
Manager: "Then you'll just have to work faster."
At this point, I should point out that Bob REALLY only has a five-and-a-half hour shift (he loses half an hour due to his two fifteen-minute breaks AND it's going to take him another half hour to clean up his freight--pull back pallets and bale his cardboard). Somehow, Bob is supposed to do ten hours of freight, plus help another department, plus zone, all in five-and-a-half hours.
In my case, I get told I have two hours of freight. I spend fifteen minutes in the nightly meeting, then fifteen minutes hunting down a jack and pulling my freight to the floor. Then I spend another fifteen minutes pulling freight and garment racks up to the processor (which the manager is all aware of). But at the two hour point, she's out there asking why I'm not done (even though she knows I spent forty-five minutes doing other work). But somehow I'm supposed to do all that other stuff in zero minutes with a wave of my magic wand.
And to make matters worse, I started counting my cases as I stocked them: 184. Our time is based on doing one case per minute. If you do the math, you can see that I actually had THREE hours of freight, not two.
The whole point is that I take my work performance seriously, and I come home every night exhausted, with my feet killing me and a general sense of failure. It's not healthy. I used to work in the computer industry as a quality control manager for business software--software that companies used for their financial records and tax submissions--and THAT job wasn't as stressful as this one . . . AND THIS ONE IS RETAIL! How in the hell can making sure green beans and throw pillows are in stock be more stressfull than making sure IRS tax forms and profit-and-loss statements work?
The world's not supposed to work that way. It's obviously time to move on.
Of course, I HATE moving on. My schedule at work right now is PERFECT, and I know I'm not going to be able to have such a perfect schedule anywhere else.
On the up side, I'm encouraged by the quick response to my job search. I decided "enough is enough" on Thursday morning, submitted resumes on Friday, and got my first call-back on Saturday.
Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Look on the bright side . . .
I guess I should consider today's local headlines a positive thing--the four or five main news stories on the website of our local paper are all about changing the nickname of our local university sports teams. It's certainly better than the top stories being about gangs or murders or both. But I still have to say . . . really?
I've always been behind the nickname change. And I happen to be one of those people that thinks our society has gotten too politically correct. I just don't think that people should be mascots--it doesn't matter if they're Native American tribe names or not. I'm not crazy about the Fighting Irish nickname, either.
AND, there's a little bit of petulance behind my desire to change the nickname, too; namely, the name has stuck around for so long thanks to a rich guy throwing his weight (and cash) around. I think it's wrong that he pretty much bought himself a university. He built a giant hockey rink for the university (a state-run institution) at about the time the nickname debate was really heating up, and he had 3000 logos put inside the arena. Tell me that doesn't sound like a big, "F-U, I've got money and I'll do what I want"); Three thousand logos? Seriously?
And, when the NCAA expressed an opinion about logos, the rich guy said he'd tear the place down before he'd let them remove the logos (the rich guy has since died, so who knows how his estate will handle this thing).
Reminds me of the little guy from the Family Guy series, who's always running around saying, "Wanna fight about it?"
And yeah, I DO want to fight about it. Even if you have no opinion on whether the logos and the nickname are disrespectful, you want to fight about it just to show this Vegas moneyman that he can't buy a state-run university and he can't buy a town. C'mon people! What happened to that frontier spirit? That "we're earthy, hardworking people that cobbled a good life out of a cruel but beautiful land, and we aren't going to take any guff from some rich city folk and kneel down before the almighty buck"?
Sure, hockey's important around here. But so is the country farmer sense of pride, and I can't believe so many locals are kow-towing to some rich guy who didn't even stick around but took off to Vegas.
I understand that the nickname has history. I understand it is important to people (hey, I went to that college--I had the logo on a bumper sticker on my car, too). But it's time to move on to bigger and brighter things. And it's time to show that people in North Dakota can't be bought. And certainly not bought by anyone who left us and moved to Vegas.
I've always been behind the nickname change. And I happen to be one of those people that thinks our society has gotten too politically correct. I just don't think that people should be mascots--it doesn't matter if they're Native American tribe names or not. I'm not crazy about the Fighting Irish nickname, either.
AND, there's a little bit of petulance behind my desire to change the nickname, too; namely, the name has stuck around for so long thanks to a rich guy throwing his weight (and cash) around. I think it's wrong that he pretty much bought himself a university. He built a giant hockey rink for the university (a state-run institution) at about the time the nickname debate was really heating up, and he had 3000 logos put inside the arena. Tell me that doesn't sound like a big, "F-U, I've got money and I'll do what I want"); Three thousand logos? Seriously?
And, when the NCAA expressed an opinion about logos, the rich guy said he'd tear the place down before he'd let them remove the logos (the rich guy has since died, so who knows how his estate will handle this thing).
Reminds me of the little guy from the Family Guy series, who's always running around saying, "Wanna fight about it?"
And yeah, I DO want to fight about it. Even if you have no opinion on whether the logos and the nickname are disrespectful, you want to fight about it just to show this Vegas moneyman that he can't buy a state-run university and he can't buy a town. C'mon people! What happened to that frontier spirit? That "we're earthy, hardworking people that cobbled a good life out of a cruel but beautiful land, and we aren't going to take any guff from some rich city folk and kneel down before the almighty buck"?
Sure, hockey's important around here. But so is the country farmer sense of pride, and I can't believe so many locals are kow-towing to some rich guy who didn't even stick around but took off to Vegas.
I understand that the nickname has history. I understand it is important to people (hey, I went to that college--I had the logo on a bumper sticker on my car, too). But it's time to move on to bigger and brighter things. And it's time to show that people in North Dakota can't be bought. And certainly not bought by anyone who left us and moved to Vegas.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Oh, those bean counters and pencil pushers
We homeschooled our kids for quite some time. One daughter went back to school in eighth grade because she wanted to go to public school for high school (so we figured eighth would be a good transition for her). The other tried to follow the same path, but due to some medical issues, it didn’t work out. She started eighth, went back to homeschooling; started ninth, went back to homeschooling. This year, she should have been in tenth grade. A few months ago, she decided to go back to public school again, but this time in an non-traditional public school rather than the regular high school. Right away, I got a call from a school system bean counter asking us to turn over our homeschool records, including attendance records.
Yeah. How about not? Of course, we ended up arguing about it, and the school employee got quite frustrated and snappish. But I’m not going to do anything that’s not required by law or that might set a precedent that the school system will try to push onto other homeschoolers.
I explained all this to the employee, to no avail.
1) The homeschooling laws do not say that records have to be turned over to the school system;
2) When my other daughter went back to public school, and when this daughter tried public school before, these records weren’t requested--why are they suddenly important?;
3) What’s the point? They aren’t going to give her credit for her homeschool hours (ie, she’s basically starting over as a 9th grader), so since they are treating her academic record as if she never homeschooled, then why do they want the homeschool records?
4) Less than one month after the start of the school year, she turned sixteen-- which is the age that ends compulsory attendance. So for most of the school year, she wasn’t required to attend school, anyway;
When I repeated that we’ve never had to hand over the records before, she said that the homeschool monitor usually takes care of that-- funny, we haven’t had a homeschool monitor in YEARS; so if some monitor has been handing over attendance records for us every year, she’s just been pulling the figures out of the air.
So I refused to hand over the records. The employee said, “Fine. I have to send these records to the state. I’ll note here that you refused to comply.” Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like that old public school chestnut of “marking your permanent record,” LOL. I was never intimidated by that AS a student, and I’m sure not worried about it now.
So I laughed when I received a letter from the school system a few days ago (my husband said, “uh oh, you really pissed them off this time").
The letter demands that we contact them immediately about standardized testing for my daughter, as the law requires that homeschooled children be tested in grade 10. The complication of course, is that the school system has already done testing for this year, so I would likely have to pay out-of-pocket for it.
EXCEPT . . . if you read the notes above . . . my daughter is in public school in NINTH grade this year . . . ROFLMAO! So she won’t need testing until next year.
It does piss me off a little, though, because the homeschool monitor never did contact us about testing. But I just assumed it was because my daughter was over 16 (school is not compulsory and therefore neither is testing). But it’s irrelevant at this point.
So I can’t wait until Tuesday, when I can call the school employee again and point out the error in this new “crisis” that they’ve invented.
I get way too much enjoyment out of pissing people off.
Yeah. How about not? Of course, we ended up arguing about it, and the school employee got quite frustrated and snappish. But I’m not going to do anything that’s not required by law or that might set a precedent that the school system will try to push onto other homeschoolers.
I explained all this to the employee, to no avail.
1) The homeschooling laws do not say that records have to be turned over to the school system;
2) When my other daughter went back to public school, and when this daughter tried public school before, these records weren’t requested--why are they suddenly important?;
3) What’s the point? They aren’t going to give her credit for her homeschool hours (ie, she’s basically starting over as a 9th grader), so since they are treating her academic record as if she never homeschooled, then why do they want the homeschool records?
4) Less than one month after the start of the school year, she turned sixteen-- which is the age that ends compulsory attendance. So for most of the school year, she wasn’t required to attend school, anyway;
When I repeated that we’ve never had to hand over the records before, she said that the homeschool monitor usually takes care of that-- funny, we haven’t had a homeschool monitor in YEARS; so if some monitor has been handing over attendance records for us every year, she’s just been pulling the figures out of the air.
So I refused to hand over the records. The employee said, “Fine. I have to send these records to the state. I’ll note here that you refused to comply.” Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like that old public school chestnut of “marking your permanent record,” LOL. I was never intimidated by that AS a student, and I’m sure not worried about it now.
So I laughed when I received a letter from the school system a few days ago (my husband said, “uh oh, you really pissed them off this time").
The letter demands that we contact them immediately about standardized testing for my daughter, as the law requires that homeschooled children be tested in grade 10. The complication of course, is that the school system has already done testing for this year, so I would likely have to pay out-of-pocket for it.
EXCEPT . . . if you read the notes above . . . my daughter is in public school in NINTH grade this year . . . ROFLMAO! So she won’t need testing until next year.
It does piss me off a little, though, because the homeschool monitor never did contact us about testing. But I just assumed it was because my daughter was over 16 (school is not compulsory and therefore neither is testing). But it’s irrelevant at this point.
So I can’t wait until Tuesday, when I can call the school employee again and point out the error in this new “crisis” that they’ve invented.
I get way too much enjoyment out of pissing people off.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I need to move . . .
So there is a local blog that has a list of other blogs that it is linked to. And they pretty much sum up the area I live in:
Most are dead (because there's so very little to do around here);
Those that are still alive are either
a)about hockey
b)about Christianity
And that pretty much sums this area up. If you don't like hockey and aren't a Christian . . . well, you're not going to have much to talk about with the locals.
I like living here because the country is so damn beautiful (if you've never seen the wind whisper through miles and miles of prairie grass, you're missing out) and the hunting is good (I may not be republican, but I LOVE my guns). But other than that--P.U! You can shop here. You can go to church here (and the two coincide--our stores don't open until noon on Sundays, by law, so that they don't interfere with church). You can go to the local art show put on by schoolchildren-- but other than that, there isn't much.
That's what makes this month and next such a delight for me-- there finally IS stuff going on. This month is the writer's conference (but not in the traditional sense; you won't meet editors from Doubleday here and pitch them your idea); and next month is the local Pow-wow. Little islands of "something to do" to tide me over until deer season in the fall.
Most are dead (because there's so very little to do around here);
Those that are still alive are either
a)about hockey
b)about Christianity
And that pretty much sums this area up. If you don't like hockey and aren't a Christian . . . well, you're not going to have much to talk about with the locals.
I like living here because the country is so damn beautiful (if you've never seen the wind whisper through miles and miles of prairie grass, you're missing out) and the hunting is good (I may not be republican, but I LOVE my guns). But other than that--P.U! You can shop here. You can go to church here (and the two coincide--our stores don't open until noon on Sundays, by law, so that they don't interfere with church). You can go to the local art show put on by schoolchildren-- but other than that, there isn't much.
That's what makes this month and next such a delight for me-- there finally IS stuff going on. This month is the writer's conference (but not in the traditional sense; you won't meet editors from Doubleday here and pitch them your idea); and next month is the local Pow-wow. Little islands of "something to do" to tide me over until deer season in the fall.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Always read the fine print
This is a great example of why you should always read the fine print before signing up for something.
I belong to one of those "point earning" groups that lets you earn points by reading emails and filling out surveys. You can then turn the points in for gift cards to Amazon, Walmart, etc. It's a great program and I've been a member for years.
Lately, however, it seems like they've been getting stingier with the points. All the emails used to be: "read the email, click on the link, get 5 points; sign up for the offer that follows and get (between 250-5000) points." But lately, at least half (if not more) of the emails only offer the points if you sign up for the offer that follows (in other words, you don't get 5 points just for reading the email).
Worse yet, some of the sign-ups are really invasive. For example, I got one for a survey a few days ago. It sounds innocent enough: sign up with this organization that collects opinions, get points for every survey you complete. Sounds good, right? Especially since I love to share my opinion about everything, even when I'm not asked, lol. But then I read the fine print:
"(Company name omitted) is different from other online communities - we measure your behavior as well as your opinions. (Company name omitted) utilizes a piece of software stored on your computer that anonymously transmits aspects of your Internet browsing behavior so we can understand the sites, products and services you interact with. (Company name omitted) will only contact you regarding research -- we will NEVER send you SPAM or pop-up advertising."
So they want more than my opinion. They want to install software on my computer that will track me. But hey, at least they aren't going to send me spam. They'll track my every move and then sell my data to other companies that will send me spam, but at least they won't send me spam.
Needless to say, I didn't sign up. I don't even like toolbars and cookies and stuff because of the tracking potential. I'm certainly not going to volunteer for tracking.
I belong to one of those "point earning" groups that lets you earn points by reading emails and filling out surveys. You can then turn the points in for gift cards to Amazon, Walmart, etc. It's a great program and I've been a member for years.
Lately, however, it seems like they've been getting stingier with the points. All the emails used to be: "read the email, click on the link, get 5 points; sign up for the offer that follows and get (between 250-5000) points." But lately, at least half (if not more) of the emails only offer the points if you sign up for the offer that follows (in other words, you don't get 5 points just for reading the email).
Worse yet, some of the sign-ups are really invasive. For example, I got one for a survey a few days ago. It sounds innocent enough: sign up with this organization that collects opinions, get points for every survey you complete. Sounds good, right? Especially since I love to share my opinion about everything, even when I'm not asked, lol. But then I read the fine print:
"(Company name omitted) is different from other online communities - we measure your behavior as well as your opinions. (Company name omitted) utilizes a piece of software stored on your computer that anonymously transmits aspects of your Internet browsing behavior so we can understand the sites, products and services you interact with. (Company name omitted) will only contact you regarding research -- we will NEVER send you SPAM or pop-up advertising."
So they want more than my opinion. They want to install software on my computer that will track me. But hey, at least they aren't going to send me spam. They'll track my every move and then sell my data to other companies that will send me spam, but at least they won't send me spam.
Needless to say, I didn't sign up. I don't even like toolbars and cookies and stuff because of the tracking potential. I'm certainly not going to volunteer for tracking.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Doing the Happy Dance
I just received word that one of my stories was accepted for publication. It’s a real cause for celebration--not just because every acceptance is cause for celebration, but because of the circumstances leading up to it!
I started writing in 2006. Within a couple of months, I started getting acceptances. I wrote for all of 2006 with amazing results--I received plenty of rejections, but my acceptances-to-rejections ratio was very encouraging. Maybe I really was a writer after all.
But then I wrote a short for a fantasy anthology. They rejected the story as not being quite right for the anthology, but they loved the story and the character. They said that if I ever turned it into a novel, they’d like to see it. So that’s what I did. But something happened in the editing process. I don’t know if it’s just because I hate editing and editing something the size of a novel was too overwhelming or if it was because I had never written a fantasy before (horror is my usual genre). I got writer’s block. Actually, writer’s block isn’t strong enough to describe what I had. Writer’s coma or dead muse are better descriptions. I got halfway through editing and everything froze.
I spent the next year to year-and-a-half drifting. There were some other things going on in my life that weren’t working for me, either. I decided I had to do something to shake things up. So I went out and got myself a job.
After a year and a half of working the job, I decided to see if my muse was ready for resurrection. And it seems to have worked. I started in January. I’ve written two new stories and revised three old ones (only one of the new ones has been sent out--the other is still in revision). Of the four sent out, one has been accepted so far. I feel like I’ve finally gotten my groove back.
Of course, being the doubting Thomas that most writers are, I won’t consider my groove officially back until I get a new story accepted (the one accepted is a revised old one). Then I’ll really feel like I haven’t lost my touch. But still--even getting an old one accepted is a major milestone and a sure sign to keep pounding at the keyboard.
I started writing in 2006. Within a couple of months, I started getting acceptances. I wrote for all of 2006 with amazing results--I received plenty of rejections, but my acceptances-to-rejections ratio was very encouraging. Maybe I really was a writer after all.
But then I wrote a short for a fantasy anthology. They rejected the story as not being quite right for the anthology, but they loved the story and the character. They said that if I ever turned it into a novel, they’d like to see it. So that’s what I did. But something happened in the editing process. I don’t know if it’s just because I hate editing and editing something the size of a novel was too overwhelming or if it was because I had never written a fantasy before (horror is my usual genre). I got writer’s block. Actually, writer’s block isn’t strong enough to describe what I had. Writer’s coma or dead muse are better descriptions. I got halfway through editing and everything froze.
I spent the next year to year-and-a-half drifting. There were some other things going on in my life that weren’t working for me, either. I decided I had to do something to shake things up. So I went out and got myself a job.
After a year and a half of working the job, I decided to see if my muse was ready for resurrection. And it seems to have worked. I started in January. I’ve written two new stories and revised three old ones (only one of the new ones has been sent out--the other is still in revision). Of the four sent out, one has been accepted so far. I feel like I’ve finally gotten my groove back.
Of course, being the doubting Thomas that most writers are, I won’t consider my groove officially back until I get a new story accepted (the one accepted is a revised old one). Then I’ll really feel like I haven’t lost my touch. But still--even getting an old one accepted is a major milestone and a sure sign to keep pounding at the keyboard.
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