9 Signs You Might Be Ready for a New Job

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GIFSoup

Yes, I’m changing my day job (today is my last day, WHEE!), and hopefully I’m going on to bigger and better things. If the content of this blog doesn’t make it obvious, my job was not the most optimal. In fact it pretty well sucked. But, despite being unquestionably disgruntled in my job, I was only half-heartedly contemplating leaving. Really, there was a part of me that believed that looking for another job was a wasted effort, and quitting to start anything on my own was suicidal.

Luckily for me, once I was really and truly done with my job, I went looking and found a really promising job waiting for me. I’m under no illusions that everyone will have my luck, or be able to do the stretching and changing both me and my husband had to do to so that I could take a pay-cut. I might be completely wrong and throwing my family into financial ruin. But everyone has their breaking point, and if you agree with this list, you might be there.

1) You’ve got your resignation speech memorized, but haven’t applied for a single job… You’re saving that for after the bodies are found.

2) Said speech resembles the speech in Christmas Vacation where Clark freaks out (Halleliujah, Holy shit!… Where’s the Tylenol?)

3) Your morning routine requires multiple notes throughout your home with inspirational quotes like: If you die now, THEY WIN. One more day to slowly destroy their hold on reality. Vengeance is best served cold… in the walk-in… on Tuesday. I’m ok, really.

4) Leaving work at the end of the day includes doing back-flips in the parking lot on the way to your car. Like Daffy Duck flipping out.

5) You refer to taking off your name tag/uniform as “removing the yoke of oppression” And it feels much like removing “the One Ring” from your ripped and bleeding neck. 

6) Every morning you consider slamming your head with the bedroom door so that you don’t have to go to work. Maybe you even slide your head between the door frame and the door, and squish it slightly before deciding to once again don the yoke of oppression and take the sad, sad drive into oblivion.

7) You die a little inside whenever someone tells you “at least you have a job.” Yes, you want to destroy the world and everyone in it more and more everyday, but it’s better than sitting at home watching soap-operas and waiting for your government check to roll in. I mean it’s not like you’ve been shoveling cash into the system so that you could ever take advantage of it, right? Yes, best to keep sinking further into despair.

8) You’d rather tell people you’re unemployed and on welfare, AND not looking for employment, than tell anyone where you really work. Remember that last point? Does it make you feel better about yourself to be outside of that group of people who “at least have a job.” If a guilt trip for being a leech on society sounds better than admitting to your actual employment, then this list is for you.

9) You look at the guys panhandling by the roadside and wonder if there’s any openings. Do your mad bucket drumming skillz give you a leg up, or would they just consider that unfair competition and beat you with their shoes? Would people pay to see it? Hobo Fight! Everyone wins!

 

 

 

The Pantser Who Thought She Was an Outliner

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So, as a writer, I’ve kinda been all over the place in terms of what my planning entails. I usually outline… for a while. Then I stop as soon as that middle-of-the-chest, near-blockage feeling starts to happen as I start thinking about opening lines and realize that all of that thinking is in vain (in vain I tell you!) if it doesn’t get written down RIGHT NOW.

I should say that I thought I outlined. I recently learned that I never really outlined at all.

I had just sent off my novella to be slowly and painfully destroyed critiqued by beta readers, and I was about to go back to the WIP I had abandoned to get the critique file ready. I couldn’t get into it, so I decided to outline what I had. I had recently read Andee Hannah’s posts on Pen and Muse HERE and HERE, and thought “what the heck?” So I turned on Scrivener and got going. Holy Cheese and Rice, I found something lovely there! Well, not lovely. I found several issues with the plot, but I found them before I’d written a first draft and let it sit around for months!

I thought that, maybe, I wasn’t into the new WIP because I was worried about issues I knew were in the (I hoped) nearly finished novella. So I decided I should go and outline that. After all, Chuck Wendig had suggested a second outline. This actually turned into a horrific discovery of a broken file sent to beta readers, that is incredibly embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the realization that my outlining was going to come much too late. A second outline would reveal that I had spent four (count em’ FOUR) chapters establishing that my MC has a shitty life and deserves to whine about it.

Then I found a lot of other horrifying things that may or may not have been the result of a bad save. I’d like to pretend that all of it was Scrivener’s fault, because otherwise I really need to think about taking up scrap-booking or something.

Nah, screw scrap-booking. I’ll just have to take up some real outlining.

This really shouldn’t be a surprise to me. I kept up a web-comic in college, and the only things I ever finished were kept together with an outline. I haven’t had any real success with anything, outlined or not, since then. I just figured I would outline when it felt right, and not when it didn’t.

The real problem was that I wasn’t actually outlining. I made a list of things that would happen, but it was much more like a list of scenes. There wasn’t any thought to how they connected, or what the ending was going to be like. My finished projects definitely had endings at the outline level. One was a Choose-your-own-adventure comic about fate. It would be ironic if I didn’t have an outline, but irony doesn’t get you a passing grade on an art thesis.

So here’s my lessons learned on outlines:

1) Outlines really should be where you figure out the ins and outs of your book. Being vague does you no good.

2) Outline the whole thing. Figure out the end, figure out the blubbery middle, maybe even figure out the “why” of the dang thing and figure out how to get it into all of your scenes. Make life easier for yourself, that’s what an outline is for.

3) Use your outline to plant details and symbols and running metaphors.

4) Outline again before you edit. Maybe you can find your FOUR CHAPTERS of useless background info before you torture beta readers with them.

Why Amanda Palmer is Right or the Economics of Feels

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I hadn’t heard any music by Amanda Palmer until today. At least I don’t think so. The only reason I know she exists is because she’s Neil Gaiman’s wife. I am now her fan.

Why? Well, because she once stood on a street-corner dressed as a bride giving away flowers for pocket change.

I totally get that.

Because for the last two years of college, my vocation was drawing caricatures in a coffee shop for whatever people were willing to pay.

The difference between what I was doing and what she was doing is that a caricature has intrinsic value.

Being a living statue has no intrinsic value. Amanda Palmer was working in the funny business of providing connection. She was trading in feels. What she only really brushes on in her talk is that she got far more than she gave. When someone gave her a dollar, and they were one of those lonely people, she got a dollar and feels. I guarantee that made that transaction worth just as much, if not momentously more, than the guy who gave her a ten dollar bill and walked away without finishing the ritual she set up.

Actually, on a bad day, the guy who gives more money, but not more feels might be the one you want to throw a shoe at because he didn’t get it.

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6 Ways I’ve Failed to Potty-train My Child

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It’s hard to believe that my little girl is going to be three soon. What’s harder to believe is that the same little girl who simply spit out her pacifier one day and wouldn’t take it back; who loves her security blanket, but doesn’t NEED it; and transitioned almost effortlessly to her own room away from mommy and daddy; will not take to potty-training.

She appears to be morally opposed to it.

So, we have tried our fair share of potty training techniques. Tried and either failed or imminently about to declare the ideas as failures.

So here’s our list. Maybe one of them will work for you.

#1 Let them get used to the potty chair

Yes, that she got to be very comfortable with the potty. A bit too comfortable. She immediately decided it was a toy, and was happily placing all of her favorite dolls inside like it was a treasure chest. Thankfully, she has never used the potty chair other than with the seat directly on the grown-up toilet. She has also used the bowl that came with it as a hat, and decided that the fun way to deal with it was to stand with both her feet inside.

I say skip the potty chair, put it right on the toilet, have them get used to it there.

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No Matter the Reality book now available!

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I have mentioned from time to time that I’m writing a book, submitting short stories to Asimov’s, and other similar tales.

Well, here’s one of those projects brought to life! No Matter the Reality is a collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories revolving around the idea of small things and small moments.

I’m sure I am messing up the whole marketing thing as much as I possibly could by just putting this out there, but I have relatives and friends interested, and I didn’t want them waiting forever to get their hands on it.

Ya gotta put it out there at some point.

The book is available on Amazon, Smashwords, and printed books are on Createspace

In honor of the release, I’m going to give marketing at least a fighting chance, and do a giveaway! I’m giving away 15 copies of the ebook version to a random selection of people who post the title of their favorite short story on this post.