This photo is kind of a free-association of what my life has been like this past month. Not bad, per se, just so ridiculously busy that when I wasn’t working or stealing a spare few hours to be human with my husband and friends, I was sleeping. But mostly, I was working and sleeping. I have never felt that falling into bed warranted the word “crashed” so often in one month before. There have been many, many days where I intended to do one thing, or six, and instead fell asleep. My last Tales From the Hollow Tree short, “Mooniversary,” was written the day it was supposed to be posted, and last Friday’s still hasn’t been written, and it’s the next Thursday already.
This has largely been because I have recently acquired a full-time job. This full-time job is graveyards. I don’t really blame the full-time job or the graveyards, though both of those things have been factors, but it was the fact that I was (am) still working my first, part-time job that really has been the clincher on my time, because as I said above, whenever I wasn’t working the night job, I was sleeping in preparation or recovery of it, or I was working the other job.
I worked so much this last month that besides missing my Hollow Tree story—which I hate to say I still have not written, but may be written tomorrow… ish… possibly—but I also missed my deadline of having my manuscript completed by the end of June, which was a very important initiative for me that I’m very sorry to have failed at, and I was frustrating people at the part-time job in the meantime. And so, I have decided to part ways with my part-time job. It’s a little sad, because it was a fun job and I’m going to miss interacting with both my coworkers and the customers, but on the other hand, I can’t deny that for the most part I’m counting the days.
Because the fact of the matter is, giving up writing, or postponing the writing of my book is not worth three or four hundred dollars extra each month. And I mean, that’s not an easy thing for me to say, because before I got the full-time position, this part-time one was the first normal job I’d had in… well, years. And the first job either me or my husband had had in a little more than a year. Basically this job saved us in more ways than I can count, and walking away from it feels a little ungrateful, but again… it’s not nearly enough to postpone my dream. Especially when I’m so close I can taste it. I mean, I’m still a long, long way away from being on bookshelves anywhere, but I’m close to having that finished product, that whole, gleaming manuscript.
To be honest, I was expecting my manager to be disappointed in me. To be frustrated that I was walking away when I wasn’t even fully trained. And I was expecting to have to justify myself, to say “No, see, I know it sounds crazy, but I already have two jobs, and I’ve been neglecting my primary one as a writer since I started the third.”
But thankfully it didn’t work out half as dramatically as I was worried it would. I have three shifts left at my part-time job. And a new adeptness at staying up nights. I think this writing thing will work out just fine.
How are you all doing, you lovely people?
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Well done for making sure your dream comes first!