I started this thing...

You know how people liken life to a rollercoaster? You've got your ups, and you've got your downs. You've got your thrills, and you've got those days when you want to crawl under the seat and roll into a fetal ball and cry your eyes out but you can't because the safety bar is holding you in one position and you are so stuck you can barely breath but now that you think about it, getting off the ride would be optimal...but you can't. So you sit there and wait for the happy gleeful wheeeeee part?

Well the last few months have been like that. It's like I'm on a supersonic speedy rollercoaster that never ends and the icky sicky pukey wailey parts far outweigh the gleeful ones. In my head I know that this is just a phase, just a season and the wheeee parts will outweigh the ugh ones in the big picture. It's just that some days, it doesn't quite feel like it and my head has a hard time believing.

I thought I would capture some good. Some glee. Some wheeeee. Even if just a little bit. Not knowing how else to do it, I started a page on here called Something Good Happened To Me Today. Most days I'll just write a little bit, one good thing that happened. Maybe a picture, or just a couple of words- something.

Most days.

Although I have only been documenting for a few days now, It's safe to say I like it. I like having to concentrate on the good; I like putting effort (however minimal) into capturing a happy moment into words and pictures. I like that I have to look for and track the good things throughout the day and pick the best one.

 I might end up making a tumblr or something less awkward but lemme get through the month of uuugh, wheeeee, nooo, seriously?,wheeeuugh first. But for now, I started this thing and the link is on the right hand side of my homepage.

Knock, Knock...

Who's there?

Bad blogger.

Bad blogger, who?

Bad blogger...me! Goodness! It's been awhile since I blogged on here! Forgive me?

No? Ok, I'll accept that. But maybe if I tell you what I've been up to you might understand.

I've been writing. A lot. Unfortunately at this point in my career no one cares. I can prattle on about the novel that I finished and am now submitting to try and get an agent. If you have done this, you know what I'm going through and my talking about it won't enhance your life at all. You know that it has nothing to do with the writing (although it feels like it) and you know that I simply need to be patient and persistent until I find someone who has enough of a connection with my work to want to champion it. Maybe not this project, but maybe they will connect with the next one.

 If you haven't  been through this I can explain it, but I lack credibility. I don't actually have an agent yet, haven't sold a book yet- you will point out to yourself- the novel  must suck because if it didn't, it would have been scooped up by now.

It doesn't suck, ok?

It doesn't.

And the one I am halfway through rewriting doesn't suck either.

And the one that is written but waiting to be rewritten doesn't suck.

And the one I have outlined and character sketches for won't suck when I write it. Well, it will then I'll fix it up to non-sucky. I will. I've trunk filed novels for being sucky. Sometimes I start a column from scratch hours before it is due because what I wrote the first time did suck. I didn't take a freelance assignment because the samples I wrote to see if I could do it sucked. I think I know when I suck.

For the last couple of months I have taken the advice of others and have reformatted my life so that I am sitting and writing for at least six hours a day. Writing and reading and researching and rewriting and learning as much as I can from that seat. (And standing up and stretching every hour or so because I know how painful a wacked-out pelvis or back can be.)

I love it.

I hate it.

It's easy except when it's excruciatingly difficult.

It's what I want to do, what I have wanted to do and I am sitting my ass in a chair and doing it (with limited external reward, I might add).

Which totally sucks.

But hey, that's the ride I got on, pulled down the safety bar and it's pulled away from the launch pad. I have to try, I'll always regret it if I don't and I might be rewarded if I do.

Meanwhile, upstairs...

A couple months ago my husband got reorganized out of a job. For the same six hours that I am yabba-dabba-dooing at my desk, he is working his business at his. Networking, visiting company websites creating profiles and applying for as many positions as possible. He has a nice career as a Customer Service and HR Manager to fuel him, a very impressive work history, an inimitable work ethic and more common sense smarts than any other person I have ever met.

What he doesn't have is a degree. And that is where he often gets spit out in the application process. See, when he ran out of money while going to college, he took a break to earn it...and landed with a company that offered him one job after another that he loved. He never went back to college. When the graduating class that he should have been with were pomp and circumstancing, he was managing a staff of college grads across a couple time zones and several states for a multinational company.

While his classmates were working through entry level management jobs, he was being promoted to a hard-earned Director level position.

It's not our first time doing the Restructure Lay-off Boogie. That great company had to do it back in the mid '90's. The company he landed at here in Kansas City had to do it again six years later. He restructured himself out a  position 10 years after that, and this one? He was there for less than two years before we heard the same line.

He doesn't suck, ok?

He doesn't. Although he is sitting at his desk with limited external rewards feeling like he does- he knows it's a matter of time. He knows that he has to be patient and persistent and work at it to find that job that he wants and can do better than anyone.

Maybe it won't be the job he hears about today.

And maybe not the job he hears about tomorrow.

But he'll get there.

And so will I.

Somehow.