Tag: day job

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who needs sleep?

I seldom sleep much past 5am these days. Not that I don’t want to. I’d love to be able to sleep in the way I used to…but at the same time, getting up so early means I have time to write that I wouldn’t have if I slept in. Always the trade off.

I’ve seen stuff going round social media lately talking about Revenge Bedtime Procrastination, which sure, I sometimes have that going on, but I think this early morning nonsense is born of the same urge, that feeling like I need more time in my day.

It isn’t like I’m overworked. I do a good 8 hour day like most folks, but being alone means I also need to do all the things that need doing, and sometimes it just feels like I’m getting nowhere fast.

So yes, I was up at 4 am this morning and I already have a couple hundred words on the page to show for it.

I also have an empty coffee cup, so I need to see about filling it with some more Death Wish Coffee. We have finally arrived at the time of year where I can drink my coffee without a fan on in the mornings. It’s cool, almost even crisp this morning, though it will be warm enough for fans by the afternoon.

Happy Tuesday, Readers! I hope the day brings you good things.

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wherein Natalie is a dork

The first few weeks on any job can be trying. There’s so much to learn about the company, the product and your role/team. For an introverted agoraphobe like me, there’s all the stress of meeting new people and orienting myself to the culture of the place.

It can be overwhelming, no doubt.

At this moment for me the fact that I can do it in the safety and comfort of my own home helps. If I was meeting all of these people face to face in this short space of time, I’m not sure how well I’d cope.

However, one of my favorite things about coming in to a new situation is the opportunity to make order out of chaos. I’m wrapping my hands around my first real project, one which will give me a lot of hands on with our product, as well as help me really get to know that project through reorganizing and updating the documentation.

As a tech writer, I am fairly used to this as we are often the last role a company thinks to fill, and the first to be let go when money gets tight, so documentation is almost always in a state of flux. It might even be one of the reasons I love being a tech writer.

This type of project really makes me happy. It’s probably related to the reasons I love a jigsaw puzzle or those solitaire games like Freecell, where your job is to organize the cards in a particular way.

I am well aware of my dorkishness, thank you very much.

Now, I’m off to grab a cup of coffee before I get a little Blood Witch writing in before the start gun goes off on my day of organization glee. I hope your Thursday is FABULOUS, Readers. May kindness be abundant.

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let me tell you a story

There is something to be said about the ways a round of interviews during job hunting can help narrow your focus on what it is you do and why.

Sure, I get tired of talking about myself all the time (I’m not really all that interesting to be honest), but as you answer the same or similar questions, it really does help you hone an understanding of what you love about what you do.

The last few rounds of job-hunting helped bring a few things into focus.

  1. I love helping people to help themselves. That really is a lot of what technical writing is all about. My job is to make the instructions so clear that a user can do their job without needing to access customer support.
  2. I am a storyteller at heart. You may not think that’s something that pertains to technical writing, but you’d be wrong. The story I’m telling is about the user’s journey in using the product, or it’s about the product itself and how users can make the most of it.
  3. I am at my best as a writer, both technical and other, when I can get out of my own way and just let the words flow. It can be a challenge for me to turn off my internal editor, but my writing is always stronger when I do. Editing can come after the words are down.

This being my first week in this new job I’m on the other side of the story, the part where I am learning the story of the company and the product and what my place will be. It is a necessary step toward being able to then help write that story.

And that step needs more coffee! I’m off to start my day, Readers! I hope yours is awesome and filled with kindness.

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new day job

There is something fitting about starting a new job on my birthday. It feels like new beginnings.

Today I start as a technical writer with a company called Quantcast. Which means I also start my new job with learning new things. A lot of new things. I already have 52 emails, most of which are meeting invitations and training classes I need to slog through.

My morning of course will be filled with onboarding stuff and meeting my team.

Then I’ll buckled down and start reading, taking training and all that good fun.

I also had a breakthrough that fixed a plot problem in the third Blood Witch book, so that is now back on track.

But for now, I need to go jump in the shower and then get second coffee started. DeathWish Coffee to the rescue!

Have a wonderful Monday, Readers!

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I get by with a little help from you

This week, I once again found myself without a day job. The company I was with laid me off on Monday, so I am back on the job search. I’ve come to really not like looking for a job. I’m good at what I do, and I have always let the work speak for me. I don’t like having to swagger.

I’m in a bad spot financially, but I have been here before, and I know I will survive. And, I have a mini sort of vacation this weekend, and already have an interview lined up for next week.

I’m going to take today off of the active hunt, but I will answer calls if they come, and do some writing instead. What good is time without work if I don’t utilize it?

If you would like to help support an out-of-work writer, there are multiple ways to do that. I still have copies of my books “Forever” and “Tonight” available for purchase, $10 for Forever, $7 for Tonight, $15 for both if bought together. You can use my contact page, or hit me up directly on Venmo, Paypal or Ko-Fi. Links below.

Venmo

Paypal

Ko-Fi

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about time

We’re almost to the end of June already! Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re barreling through this year at breakneck speed? Are we making up for the dragging pace of last year? Are we trying to outrun the virus?

Time is such an odd thing at times. It messes with my head!

How is it that the week can be dragging and speeding at the same time? Like yesterday and Tuesday seemed to go on forever and ever, and yet today feels like it should only be Tuesday.

Life is crazy busy at this time of year, though this year, without SF Pride eating up a chunk of my time, it’s not quite as busy as usual. I guess that contributes to the strangeness of time these days.

My big work project eats up a lot of time during the day, and I have writing time and editing on the Sirens anthology, and I have a crochet project I need to finish.

Speaking of which, I should pour that last cup of coffee and get back to the day job. Happy Thursday, Readers! Make it a good one!

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the enemy of good

I am a perfectionist (…somewhat recovered). I hate making mistakes. Even more so when those mistakes are visible to the greater public. This is a reason why my first novel took me so many years to finish, and why every crochet project gets ripped back at least once.

In my day job I often have to balance my desire for perfection with the truth that good + fast is often more important than perfect.

It’s a lesson that’s taken me years to learn, and when I’m working on a huge project (as I am right now) that gets built behind the scenes, it is easy to fall back into the idea that it must all be perfect before I throw it into the public arena.

Fortunately, this current project also plays into my obsession with organizing information, clarifying language and teaching, and it is all going on where most of my company won’t see it until I show it to them. That means I can keep tweaking it and perfecting it as I go along, so long as I meet my deadlines.

But, now, Readers, my coffee cup is empty and I have a meeting to prep for. I hope your Wednesday is wonderful!

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to office or not to office, I’ll just stay home, thanks

This has been a tough week, and I’m not even really sure why. But the good news is that we have made it to the Friday and there is only about 6.5 work hours between me and the weekend. I’ll admit to a certain amount of anxiousness about this whole “returning to normal” thing that is starting to happen.

To be fair, I really love the whole working from home dynamic, and would not welcome a return to the office even in “normal” times. It suits my agoraphobic, introverted self quite well. But I’ve noticed an increase in bedtime anxiousness, an inability to turn my brain off and put my phone down, almost as if I’m expecting some disaster to befall us while I’m asleep.

I’m happy to have found a company that values me and has no issues with the working from home forever dynamic. There are so many companies out there that treat their employees like high school kids who need to be controlled. Worse even, because even in high school they trust you to do your homework at home.

I get that working from home isn’t for everyone and some people need the daily interaction/schedule to do their best work, but I will never understand why people whose work can be done at home aren’t allowed by so many to do that.

In my experience, I get more done in less time at home than I ever do in the office, and I’m not burning my batteries with the commute and being social, so I have more me left over at the end of the work day.

Another thing I’ve noticed about working from home this last year is that it helps me treat my non-work writing as I treat my job, which means that I have times set aside to do that work, and I don’t see it as eating into my “free time” anymore. I don’t have to choose between writing and all the other things. There is this “this is writing time” and “this is time for other things” dynamic to my entire week, not just Monday through Friday.

It is, however, as I said, Friday. That means another cup of Death Wish Coffee and writing time that is on the horizon. I hope the day is good to you, Readers, and that your weekend is filled with love.

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technically speaking

In my day job, I write technical documentation. Well, that’s what the job description says anyway. A good chunk of what I actually do is editing, formatting and coding, and organizing information. To be fair, I get to do a decent amount of actual writing, especially when we’re getting ready to release new features.

I also spend a lot of time researching APIs, and documenting the attributes our software will be ingesting and making available (we’re a data technology company). Some weeks it feels like all I do is this part of the job.

Sometimes though, I get to wrap my hands around a nice juicy project like a complete docs redesign/reorganization. This week I am just wrapping up one of those. There is something so satisfying about pushing that Publish button at the end of something this large.

Of course, most of our users will never know the amount of work that goes into something like this, and only a few of my coworkers (mostly other writers) will get it either. But that’s okay. I don’t need recognition for these things. If I’ve done my job well, my reward comes in the form of no one reporting broken links or missing information.

I push that Publish button tomorrow on the last piece of this project tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have a little celebration on my own after, then I get to spend my weekend writing non-technical stuff again.

It’s not a bad way to live.

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tear stained alleys and sun drenched fields

Sometimes, when I feel stuck working on a book, I’ll sidestep to a short story or some poetry. Sometimes into one of the other books in some state of written languishing on my hard drive. This last week, I’ve been wading into the poetry waters again.

I have a deep and abiding love for poetry. I can spend hours on a single line some times, working and reworking it until it’s perfect. Other times the words just drip straight out of my soul and stain the page permanently.

I have an entire bin full of pages of poetry, some dating all the way back to the 1980s. And sure, some of it is truly suctackular, but I never do seem to be capable of throwing it out. Each piece is a part of who I am, or who I used to be.

If you were to lay it all out in chronological order, you’d be able to watch me grow up, follow me from the angsty teen years to the angsty adult years, hear the changes in my voice as I got to really know myself. It’s almost a biography in poetry, if you will. My life story told in emotions and ideas, images painted with words.

This past weekend I spent some time immersed in those paintings, wandering down tear stained alleys and into sun drenched fields, gathering wildflowers before carefully putting the past back to bed.

Soon, I hope to be able to share with you what I found.

Until then, Readers, it is time for more coffee and the day job.

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