Good morning! Years have gone by since I have even visited this little blog. So much has changed in my life's situation, and this blog missed it all. Yesterday I applied for a job as a Writing Coach with a company called Brave Writer. In the process of trying to convince them I could actually string words together to make a cohesive sentence, I revisited some old blogs: my "flagship" blog, smalldogtallweeds.com, and mydogistoofat.blogspot.com. Mydogistoofat barely got off the ground before I abandoned it because it had to do with me being excited about weight loss and exercise -- a fact which doomed it from the beginning. I included it in the application process though because the first couple posts were kind of cute. I didn't include this one because 1) it is very personal and revealing, and 2) I had no confidence there was any decent writing in it, and 3) it had been abandoned anyway.
I'm still glad I didn't include it, but rereading it has been fun. I remember these days as I read about them -- not everything, but most of it.
All that to say, I am going to come back to it. It is a good practice, and it made me happy to have an excuse to write every day without feeling the pressure to write something publishable. And rereading them years later is fun!
It is morning now, so I can't quite make a call for today's Happy Moment, but I can fill you in regarding the current state of the state.
David has graduated from GVSU in accounting. He has worked for BDO, PWC, and is now working for GM. He is in Mexico for three weeks for work right now, week two of the three.
Beverly graduated from U of M with a degree in English. She got a job with Groupon when she graduated and moved to Chicago, and worked there a couple years. Now she is working for another company called Litera Microsystems (I think), still in Chicago.
Robert is in his first senior year at GVSU majoring in geology, which he loves. I love that he loves his major! He will need another year to finish up. I hope to go visit him on Friday just to catch him for lunch.
Isabelle is living at home and going to Wayne State trying to get her prerequistes done in order to go to U. of Detroit Mercy for dental hygiene. Her boyfriend, the love of her life, graduates this year, and she is looking forward to marrying him.
Tom is still busy working. He talks about retiring, but honestly, I think he likes work. I can't imagine what he would do with himself without it.
Me? I have been writing. I have sold two stories. Two years after Isabelle's graduation, I am still struggling a bit trying to get my bearings though. I have tried to be disciplined to write, treating it as a part-time job that I was committed to four hours a day. That was very hard to maintain, I'm sad to say. Plus, I am not a natural storyteller. As much as I would love to write more children's stories, they don't come easily to me. I agonize and writhe internally trying to come up with that unexpected twist that makes for a good story. I really love to write my own thoughts in my own voice, but those turn out to be hard to sell -- which is very disheartening. I'm peddling my heart, essentially, and there are no takers. Very discouraging. Besides that, I think a lot of women write just like that. Bleh.
So! I was very excited to be clued into this call for Writing Coaches for a homeschool company called Brave Writer. I worked hard for most of a week getting my resume together, cleaning up my blog, taking down some posts that were a little too personal or revealing. Then threw myself into the application questions when the application became available two days ago. Finished it up yesterday and submitted it. And now, I feel like I just had a baby. Emotionally exhausted. Filled with the tension of hope. I want this job! I really, really want this job! But I have to calm down and trust God with the whole thing. I need to rein it in. If I am a good fit, I trust God will give me favor in their eyes. If I am not, then then job would make me unhappy anyway, so I can let it go. But I do hope it works out.
The application process has made me aware of what I have been hungry for since Isabelle graduated. I have been looking for, hungry for, an anchor for my life and my time post-homeschool. I do still want to write, but it is hard to make that the stable rock of my existence without anyone specifically to write for -- especially with children's stories coming so hard for me, and with not having any takers for my other pieces. I have no one to target. (Plus, the whole industry is frustrating to work with! The magazines leave writers hanging for months with no response at all. After three months of nothing but crickets, I'm left to just assume they didn't like or had no need for my piece. Honestly, would a form rejection email be that difficult to send, just to let me know to move on?)
This opportunity, however, has made me aware that this is why I quit volunteering as a literacy tutor in Detroit, I am reluctant to sign up for a yoga class, and I basically stripped my life of all those types of things. I feel like I need one significant duty, the anchor. Then I can build the rest of my life around it. Without that anchor, I am afraid of filling my life with dozens of those little claims on my time. I would be in danger of frittering away all my time, even for the rest of my life, and lose out on an opportunity to ever do anything more significant. As a Writing Coach, I could still write to be published, tutor in Detroit, take a yoga class. But the job would be the anchor; everything else would fit in around it. I like that. And that is why I'm ready to make myself crazy wanting this job! It is the perfect job for me, and it is what I have been waiting for in my life!
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