The Day Job

It’s been a long, strange, fascinating week and it’s not over yet. I sat here blinking at the screen for some time before I wrote that first sentence, and what you’ve got in front of you is the product of a very tired mind. I started out the week in the company of friends, and can I just say that it’s a blessing? Having people I can talk to, listen to stories, maybe tell a story of my own, pat a cat, and just be with? It’s a strange wonderful thing and I love having it in my life.

There was a job interview last week. Two, actually. And another one this week. And this morning, an offer of a job that has me, well, twitterpated is the only word I can think of off the top of my head. I can talk about it in public, a little, since I’ve formally tendered resignation, and acceptance, and now it’s all administrivia for a few days, and wrapping up some old-work projects before I walk into a new challenge that is going to…

I know. It’s not about writing. No, it is. It’s all about writing, for a writer. And I am a writer, even on weeks where I struggle to put words on paper. I may not be actively writing but with ten novels and I’ve-lost-count many short works, I’m a Real Writer (and yes, I am aware that until you’ve done a signing with 500 people in attendance you can’t claim that according to some rando internet gatekeeper, to whom I delicately extend both middle fingers). Which means that eventually, when my life stops spinning like a perpetual motion machine, I’ll write about all of this. Not specifically. It’s all going in the sausage grinder of my brain, though.

And I could wish for an adult beverage, as it’s one in the morning and I’m short on sleep for the third or fourth night in a row and this burning the candle from all angles could end badly. So… Wait. I bought wine today. It was $4, but there’s alcohol in it (I bought it for cooking. Heh.)

Glass of wine in hand, I’m back at the keyboard. I’m laughing at myself. When I grabbed the bottle, I’d looked more at the price sticker than the label. It’s sparkling. It’s pink. I’m such a girl. And tonight I just can’t be in a bad mood even though it’s not what I thought it was. Change is… For some reason change is inexorably linked in my mind to goodness. Maybe because for the last decade, changes have led to improvements. Which doesn’t mean they were easy. I wrote out a long thing (which I am not sharing in public) about my thoughts on how my life has changed since I dragged myself out of the (metaphorical) quicksand a bit more than a decade ago. It’s a profound difference. I’m not sure you could capture that in a book. Real life, real slow hard slogs like this has been, complete with failures and recoveries, and successes and sheer grit and persistence? Boring books. But that’s how it was. And I’m not done yet.

I may not write for a while. The next couple of weeks are going to be me, cramming, getting ready for the next chapter, where I’m going to be doing something I’ve always wanted to do, in a way, and something I was totally unprepared to do, in another. I have acquired textbooks, and I do mean that literally, for a niche in Chemistry, and having dropped $150 on a couple of books, I mean to work my way through them and have them handy with notes when I hit the ground running. I’m going to be reading my little tuchis off. The thing about reading is, it usually leads to writing. I’m not sure what a deep dive into cosmetic development and formulation gets you, there. Other than a head full of emollients and creams.

The day job pays the bills. Most of the time, I don’t talk about it. It’s there, monumentally interfering with the writing, art, and whatever else. Only now? This new thing? Has the capacity to use me fully in ways I never thought the day job would be able to do. Take my creativity and my science and blend them up into something. What that is, we will have to wait and see. A hot mess, I suspect, at least for a while. I have motivation in spades. I just have so much to learn. Now, that’s exciting.

In the meantime, I’ve finished my glass (and yes, a glass. Is sufficient and I drink little enough to not want more anyway) of wine and bed is luring me with promises of soft warm darkness. It’s probably a good thing I don’t write about my life. You’d all be bored to death in no time. Or possibly bored into writing improbable adventures of your own to escape.