Tag: day job

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the return of the day job x 2

It’s Friday. It’s the first Friday in a long time that I’ve spent an entire week working on paying work. I mean, yeah sure, eventually, hopefully, all the work I’ve put into my writing lately will pay off, but this is the immediate…or close to immediate, paycheck kind of work.

Did I mention that I started TWO full time jobs on Monday, or close to full time for the one. Job #1 is with a BI software company where I get to dig into my data analysis background and learn new things. Job #2 is straight up editing work. Granted, it’s editing work for a big company on a big project where the end client is a state government, so think dry and unexciting reading.

I ended up keeping both, even though Job #2 is a contract job through a contracting agency because neither one of them pays me what I’m used to…by a pretty significant amount. I fully anticipate that Job #1 will be my permanent job, and that the pay will increase as we move out of the current economic situation.

I’m really enjoying learning how to use new tools and combine my experience with new things, and at the end of that long day I can unplug my learning brain and edit for hours.

Means not much else is getting done, though my muse Brain is nibbling on something new, based on a dream a friend of mine had. She has the three main characters and the set up, some back story, but there’s a lot of world building to do, and a chunk of research, but she DOES love a good world build!

Just finishing up my first cup of coffee and getting ready to get onto Job #1. So, if I’m a bit scarce for the next little while, forgive me! I promise I’ll be around. Happy Weekend, Readers!

Cover Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

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black lives matter. period.

There seems to be a sense of expectation hanging in the air, at least here for me. Some of that is the fact that after months of unemployment, I will be starting not one new job on Monday, but two! I pretty much won’t have a life here for a while, but neither of them pay what I’m accustomed to and combined they might just let me climb up out of the hole I find myself in financially.

Add to that confirmation that an event I had been looking forward to in August is still happening (at least at this moment…who knows what the future will bring…but it IS in Texas, so…yeah, no idea how that will affect things), and I am cautiously hopeful.

With so much wrong in this country right now, with death and dismay all around us, it feels good to have something to look forward to. But, we have to remember, this pandemic isn’t gone. And, we are sure to see spikes in the numbers going forward, with so many bodies out there protesting, with businesses opening, with so many people just acting as if now that we have a new threat, the old one is gone.

People are still dying of this virus. Which in no way means that I do not support the protests or my black brothers and sisters. I totally understand their choices, because if your choice is a slow, agonizing death or a fight to prevent senseless, violent death? I’d choose the latter every time.

I wish I had what it took to be out there with them, but I’ll be honest, between my agoraphobia and my immuno-compromised system, I break out in a cold sweat just looking at the pictures on my TV.

My new jobs will help me stay home too, since they’re both work from home. It means a lot of stuff I might normally be doing gets put on hold, such as writing. Today and tomorrow might actually be the last few days I have to get words out of my head and down on paper for the next few months.

So I should probably get on that…and make more coffee! Remember, Black Lives Matter. Kindness Matters. Love Matters.

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does it matter that it’s Friday?

Happy Friday, Readers!  I meant to post earlier in the week, but I have actual, paying work at the moment, so my attention has been on that.

How are you coping?  I’ve had a few bad days, but between work on The Blood Witch and working in my container garden, I’ve found ways to keep my head up.  I hope you can say the same.

I’ve also been indulging in two of my favorite things, Star Wars and Supernatural.  I find it soothing to re-watch something I am so familiar with.

Today though I feel beat up and sore all over, probably from trying to do too much with very heavy stuff last night (ordered a bunch of soup and it all came in one box…like we’re talking 16 cans of soup. I’d have been better off taking a few cans out at a time, but no…like an idiot I tried to move the whole box).  I’m hoping a hot shower can help me feel a little better.

Aside from that, I’m going to try to finish up these edits I’m getting paid to do, if the website ever comes back up. Right now I’m just getting a blank page.  I assume no one in the support team is currently online.

And, maybe some work on the book.  Depends on how long my beat up body can tolerate the office chair.

I hope your Friday is filled with good things!  Remember, kindness matters.  Please be kind to yourself too.

Cover Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

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the impostor

My beta readers have started to come back with their feedback on the zero draft of The Blood Witch, a thing that always makes me both nervous and excited at the same time.  A lot of people think that writing the book is the hard part, but for me it is always that first flush of feedback.

This is the time when impostor syndrome ratchets up my anxiety into the stratosphere.  What if I’m wrong and the story sucks?  What if people are lying to me about my ability to write?  What if none of them like it?

Then when the actual feedback starts coming in, I have to work overtime to keep my brain from saying “See, I told you.  You suck.  Even they think so,” when in fact the feedback is largely positive, with the bits each reader thought needed more information, or didn’t quite work, which is, after all, the reason for beta readers.  Eyes other than mine, able to pick out the places where the story needs work.

Some of what I’ve heard so far are things I knew, things already on my list of “needs fixing” and/or “needs work”.  Some of it comes from folks who are not US natives, which helps a lot, because I don’t think about things like “non-US folk won’t know how our foster care system works” while I’m writing.

I’m still waiting for a few folks, so I’m not going to start edits just yet, just update my lists and maybe start a read through of my own to add to those lists as well.

The day job continues to be elusive for the moment, but I’m hoping something is coming my way soon.  Had a pretty decent interview on Friday, and I submitted a bunch of applications in the last few days, including one to Lucasfilm for an editing position (fingers crossed).

Did you remember to spring forward this morning?  It’s later than you think it is!  Time for coffee and a peruse of Facebook and Linked In before I go start some laundry and other fun chores.

Happy Sunday, Readers!  May it rain kindness upon you.

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

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day job needed…again

So, I’ve been trying out this whole “independent contractor” thing for  almost a year now. My thoughts are that I could get used to the money, but not the responsibility for my own insurance and taxes.  My contract is up on the eleventh of February, so it’s time to buckle down on that search for the next thing.

Honestly, I’ll take another contract position if I have to, but I would prefer a regular, full time position.  The freedom is nice, but the security is better, in my opinion.

It really is a full time job looking for work.  Add it to the day job I’m still working, and hitting the gym (because it’s good for me), and writing and any side editing jobs, and I need a second ME to get it all done.  Forget any promo on the books I’ve already published.

So what’s a girl to do?  Dress up like Han Solo and go to Disney, of course!

I also have a Princess Leia on Hoth outfit planned.  Because I’m a dork.  My niece just sent me a picture of her First Order outfit and it is SMASHING.  I am really looking forward to a couple of days of child-like fun!

Anyway, I’m back to applying to every Technical Writer/Editor/Content Manager job I can find on the interwebs.  Think good thoughts for me, Readers!  I’ll have Feb and March rent and bills paid by the time the job is done, but that doesn’t really give me a lot of leeway.

 

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

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new year, same old me…

I’m not big on New Years as a holiday, or a time for big changes.   As a Pagan I celebrate the turning of the wheel toward beginnings at Samhain (Halloween), so it seems a bit redundant to do so again on the first of January.

I do get something of a new beginning this year, as the job I’m working moved into a new office during the holidays…and I just upgraded my home theater system with a new TV and surround sound system.

I took a few days off after Christmas to go visit my father, step-mother and one of my dearest friends in Tucson, Arizona and it was a chance to take my camera out into the desert where the sky put on quite the show for us.  It had been raining and stormy through the night, but the sun came out and the clouds were just gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, check out these beautiful birds!

I should get back to drinking my coffee before it goes cold.  However you view the new year, Readers, I wish you joy, kindness and success (by whatever definition you define success) in 2020.  May the Force be With You and Live Long and Prosper!

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and so it is…

Pride week. Second week on the new job.  Deadlines for writing and editing.

Yeah, it’s been a week.  And it’s only Wednesday!

I turned over my writing and editing stuff to all the various people who I needed to get it to early this morning, seeing as I was awake at 5 am, even though I’m pretty sure I meant to sleep a few more hours.  Might as well make use of the time, am I right?

I have to work the day job for a few hours this morning (it’s amazing how quickly you can burn through an allotted 20 hours!!), before turning my attention to the rest of my Pride prep, which at this point of the week includes doing laundry, sorting out my meds for the weekend, making sure the laptop is set up for sign ins over the weekend and making some hard boiled eggs.  Because Protein.

There is probably going to be some house cleaning and sorting through the piles of clothing I’ve pulled out of places to decide whether it stays or goes…and if it goes, where is it going to?  Having lost 122 pounds since my heaviest weight is great, but it does make clothing occasionally problematic.  I picked up two pairs of size 18W capri pants the other day…they’re already a bit baggy, and yesterday I put on a pair of size 16W that were too tight for comfort, but I could zip them up and everything.  Won’t be too long before I’m in those.  But that means the piles of 20Ws need to find new homes.

I should probably get on with the day job work.  More deadlines, you know?  And that cup of coffee I set down somewhere and is probably getting cold…I should go find that too.  Happy Wednesday, Readers!  And Happy Pride!

 

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash