Unscheduled Leaps

I drafted this post in October of 2017. I was too much of a fraidy-cat to post it then, but as I continue to mull and feel things about leaving my job at the end of March (when will I stop feeling things about it? nngh), it begins to seem like posting this is important. So I edited it a little and here it is.

--

There's a lot to tell you about the last three months of non-blogging. A lot of things I did and saw that I want to record and analyze. I read Our Mutual Friend and it put me off reading for about a month; I wrote the beginning of a very hard thing, and keep finding more of it squirting out around my edges; I had some experiences with ...mmmteachingkindof and I really really loved them. I went to Santa Fe and regained my center, the feeling of what makes me me.

But here's the main thing: I'm proverbially riding off into the sunset from my job.

Git along, li'l rexy

Sort of. I'm not leaving my job entirely, and I'm not withdrawing from it soon. I'm planning on working for the law firm I work for essentially forever, or for as long as they'll have me, but I'm cutting about 3/4 of my hours gradually over the next four months. [This turned out not to be feasible, in a way that's still disappointing. That job is gone for good.]

I don't have other plans for money right now. I don't have another job, and I don't have other opportunities on the table - aside from those I've applied for, which has little to do with getting them. But I'm sinking, losing ground creatively and just-general-life-ly, and it's because I spend 7:00 am to 8:00 am every morning driving all of 15 miles to get to work, and then I spend most of my afternoon hours sprawled on my couch or in front of my computer decompressing from the experience of work. I may be a hopeless wimp in terms of how most people do modern American life, but that's irrelevant; what's relevant is this way isn't working for me.

It wasn't any fun to realize I needed to do this, and it took me a year between realization and action. A YEAR. I don't know what would've happened if I'd leapt earlier, but I didn't, I'm leaping now, and here's what happens next.

• I'm teaching a sentence workshop on November 11 for San Fernando Valley-area writers. 
• I'm running a monthly writing group that's growing in interesting ways. 
• I'm volunteering at CSUN, working with students on the literary magazine. 
• I'm in the early stages of partnering with [redacted]. 
• I'm applying for proofreading and copy editing jobs, even weird ones. 
• I'm long-distance-volunteering at [redacted] to mentor young writers. 
• I'm querying agents with my writing craft book and my urban fantasy book. 
• I'm querying small presses with the other two manuscripts: the secret project and an essay collection. 
• I'm making zines of my littler work. 

[I can't believe it, but almost none of this worked out. 

• The sentence workshop was terrif and I want to do another one, but I still suck at promotions & marketing and can't afford to pay anyone to do it for me. If I'm going to teach workshops, something has to happen to draw strangers into them rather than just friends: a book, a partnership, a marketing campaign, something. I don't know how to make this happen other than what I'm already doing. 
• The monthly writing group has dissolved because it was an astounding amount of emotional effort and people kept blowing it off. When I stopped sending emails about the group early this spring, no one spoke up to say they missed it. 
• Volunteering worked out great in terms of enjoying myself, but did not net the main effect I was doing it for. 
• Partnering broke even, but that's about it. 
• I'm not applying for those jobs anymore - no time, with my writing schedule. 
• The mentoring thing totally blew up for reasons not of my making. 
• Still querying but nothing has happened. 
• Making the one zine was a good idea but has netted almost nothing practical (interest from a publisher, etc). I'm trying to decide whether I should attempt something bigger for my next one, still handmade but with a press instead of a printer, but it's too overwhelming to think about with all else going on.] 

All of this is stuff I can do. I know I am weak at marketing myself, but I'm strong at distributing my energy to a variety of points. Like a seed strewer instead of a seed planter. I'm also strong at my passion, so I'm leaning into volunteering for what I enjoy, instead of waiting and hoping for something paid + passionate to cross my path. Yeah, I hope the volunteering will lead to a job somehow, but the volunteering is adding to my life in itself.

I have other ideas. And I have essays and books to write. And I have piles and piles of other people's books to read. It's all too much to do while holding down a decent job, so the job had to go [this was the main truth I avoided facing for too long, and now that I have, it's so much better] ...or at least to morph. I was scared to ask, but I did, and it turned out okay. 

So here I go. Leaping. 

High hopes for a soft landing

If you want to help, subscribe to my newsletter, tell someone else about my blog or my newsletter, or share links to my work. You can also spread the word about me locally, if you live in LA. If you want to partner with me to teach workshops in your area, I might be down for that.

If you don't want to help, cool. Not everyone has to love me. 

Pictured: me when excited to see someone

(Truth is, the gifs I got when I searched "cat leaping" and "dog leaping"
were so amazing I couldn't stick with just one.)