I'm going to be honest with you, and no you are not getting the full story. I do not have time for that. Do you? Didn't think so. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm just speaking to myself, and I always will be, because there are a bazillion blogs in the world right now, and mine's nothing special. But it's what I need right now. I've never written a blog before. Earlier this summer I tried to stop one. That lasted about half a peanut. If you don't know what that means, trying eating half a peanut (or cashew if you're allergic), or just ignore it, because it isn't important, just babbling.
I've always had my moments of ups and downs, as everyone does, though I rarely told anyone when I hit my down-want-to-die-and-turn-into-nothing moments, other than God. I was never going to harm myself, so no point in dragging someone's spirits down with mine. Not that I'm bipolar, my up and down swings aren't that severe (though it's debatable when I'm on my period).
But lately, it's been worse. I'm going through a very challenging point in my life right now. And I know my life is a cake-walk compared to others, and I'm not trying to complain. I'm just trying to make the best of my situation. That's where this blog comes in. Provides a somewhat productive outlook to my despair and challenges, successes and triumphs, and gets them out of the way so I can move on. Despair doesn't help anyone, so the sooner you get it off your back, the better. And who knows, maybe someone out there is going through a similar rough patch, will come across this, and feel less alone.
I've known since I was five, before I even knew how to write, that I wanted to be a writer, that I wanted to tell timeless, beautiful, flawed stories and help make a difference in someone's life through them. Stories have always had a great impact on me, giving me encouragement, inspiration, education, an outlet, and a good scolding sometimes too. I've also been quite aware for some time that writing was very unlikely to pay the bills. But I thought God would show me what to do, that one of the graduate programs in writing would accept me AND grant me tuition remission assistantships. And that if not, I could at least find a decent day job with my degree from Baylor with honors that could keep a roof, even a shabby one, over my head and let me write at night.
But I can barely find job opportunities, let alone anyone who will hire me (and apparently I need to pick grad programs more wisely). I couldn't even find a job in San Angelo, Texas, where honestly very few have a hankering to live, so that I wouldn't be long distance from boyfriend (you can write anywhere; why choose long distance unless you have to). And because I have fibromyalgia, I can't do a job that requires me to stand up for hours an end. I genuinely need to be able to sit down. That cancels out retail and restaurant work, which are the general fallback for desperate job-seekers like me.
So the girl who chose writing over an intense PhD program in Classics followed by an intense professor's life with little time for family let alone any writing other than research articles is jobless and living with her parents in Georgia, a good eighteen hour drive away from her boyfriend.
I worked for a couple of years in college for a professor as a research assistant. As her assistant, I performed all kinds of administrative and treasurial work for an international, non-profit, academic organization. I'm a fantastic organizer, so I was hoping to find an administrative assistant or receptionist job while looking for copy-editing/proof-reading opportunities, particularly for a publishing company. I'm completely lost on how to do all this. I signed up for monster.com and other job search websites and mostly came up with "work at home!" jobs and medical receptionist jobs (training provided! you click on it and it's a pay-for training site with small print on the bottom: job not assured at end of program). The few jobs other than those and engineering jobs (which I'm not qualified for. Engineers have a great market right now) that I found I applied to. So did a hundred other people. I generally don't even get a "thank you for applying" email, which if you have a hundred applicants is kind of understandable. I look at all the job postings in the newspaper everyday (always the same jobs, some of which I have applied for. Guess they didn't like that I was straight out of college or my resume). I've been asking around, using any connections of friends that I can scrounge up (it's not me to ask for help, but I'm learning how). I get great advice to be aggressive, go find those jobs, just keep applying, and everyone means well and I appreciate any advice I can get, but I'm just getting nowhere.
I know I just need to be persistent and determined, just like with query letters for my book, but it's hard not to despair when you hear such statistics as "50% of your age group is unemployed." Great, and a lot of them probably have business degrees rather than a degree in Greek and Latin. What's the use of a well-rounded, classical education if you can't pay the bills (though it's greatly improved my mind and writing).
By the way, this blog will include not just my rants, but will chronicle my struggle to get published, which could be helpful for others also trying to get published. Or it might not be helpful, but there's a chance. Perhaps you can at least learn from my mistakes.
Sum-up: Despair helps no one, and it's especially detrimental if you are in a high-rejection career such as writing, or if you are having trouble finding a job. Just get it out, then move on. I am a job-seeking writer struggling to improve my craft, get published, and keep a roof over my head. Here are my journeys, my thoughts, my mistakes, and the lessons that I learn.
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