The last two and a half months
So, things are a little different now. Actually, make that a lot different. I'm not entirely sure where to begin, but why don't I start with the obvious facts.
First of all, I'm now in Iowa, in the northeast corner, at least an hour away from a city. Second of all, I have a job, an actual writing job for a company that makes trailers. I start on Monday and it promises to be interesting.
I took a bus from Rochester, Minnesota to Michigan. Actually, a series of buses, with layovers varying from one to eight hours. It wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience of my life. On the leg from Lansing to Grayling, one person was actually insane. I'm fairly sure of this because he rambled for two solid hours about literally everything before his stop came. Kind of schizophrenic. I took the bus because I had an interview with a Traverse City group. The interview went...fair. At some point I started to realize I might be out of my depth, but I kept on going. I also worked on a white paper, essentially a research paper. I didn't think it turned out too badly, but then again I did get a message saying that they had hired someone else.
However, let's focus on the job I got, rather than the one I didn't get. The company seems to be pretty nice, with nice people in it and it is apparently not hurting for funds, which is impressive given the current state of the economy. In fact, the company is paying to have me stay in a motel while I look for a place, which is extremely nice of them. Honestly, there's only one flaw, and I may or may not get around to addressing that. For right now, my big concern is that I don't get too complacent. It'll be very easy to just...drift away, keep at this job for the next X years, then retire, but that's not quite what I want to do. I really want to get some fiction published, and I really want to keep up my freelancing, which is another topic I want to address.
So that's where I'm at. It's pretty nice so far, but for the first time in years I've been completely on my own. And, for the first time, I've found out how much you have to kick your own butt when you have absolutely no pressure on you. Actually, there's also the problem of how much you can procrastinate when you have doubts about what exactly you need to do. Still, I have a job. Which means I have money. Which opens the door for ALL KINDS of fun things to do.
First of all, I'm now in Iowa, in the northeast corner, at least an hour away from a city. Second of all, I have a job, an actual writing job for a company that makes trailers. I start on Monday and it promises to be interesting.
I took a bus from Rochester, Minnesota to Michigan. Actually, a series of buses, with layovers varying from one to eight hours. It wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience of my life. On the leg from Lansing to Grayling, one person was actually insane. I'm fairly sure of this because he rambled for two solid hours about literally everything before his stop came. Kind of schizophrenic. I took the bus because I had an interview with a Traverse City group. The interview went...fair. At some point I started to realize I might be out of my depth, but I kept on going. I also worked on a white paper, essentially a research paper. I didn't think it turned out too badly, but then again I did get a message saying that they had hired someone else.
However, let's focus on the job I got, rather than the one I didn't get. The company seems to be pretty nice, with nice people in it and it is apparently not hurting for funds, which is impressive given the current state of the economy. In fact, the company is paying to have me stay in a motel while I look for a place, which is extremely nice of them. Honestly, there's only one flaw, and I may or may not get around to addressing that. For right now, my big concern is that I don't get too complacent. It'll be very easy to just...drift away, keep at this job for the next X years, then retire, but that's not quite what I want to do. I really want to get some fiction published, and I really want to keep up my freelancing, which is another topic I want to address.
So that's where I'm at. It's pretty nice so far, but for the first time in years I've been completely on my own. And, for the first time, I've found out how much you have to kick your own butt when you have absolutely no pressure on you. Actually, there's also the problem of how much you can procrastinate when you have doubts about what exactly you need to do. Still, I have a job. Which means I have money. Which opens the door for ALL KINDS of fun things to do.