New Day Job Will Let Me Write

HAVE MYSELF A JOB

You read that headline right. I got myself a job. A full time one at an insurance agency, to be exact, that starts Monday. They call the position an Agency Representative. I'll pretty much do a lot of what I did while working in Massachusetts, with a lot more potential for growth. Beyond that, I'm happy to make money to pay bills, so I can start writing regularly again. Yay!

After this week, though, I'll have to wait a little bit until using my nights for writing again. I can transfer the insurance license I had in Massachusetts. Since I'll start working in another line of insurance, however, I'll need to do some heavy studying for that test. Fun. . .yeah.

WRITING THE REST OF THIS WEEK

Since I more than likely have the rest of the week free, I'll spend most of it doing writerly stuff and a bit of reading. I pretty much have the same list of projects as before, with an addition or two:

+ Bachelors project, which involves a novel and 6 papers
  - Writing rough draft for 3rd chapter in novel
  - Doing research for rough draft of paper 6

+ A short story originally written in high school
  - Finished a major revision last night
  - Need to type up revision
  - Review again for revision
  - Come up with good title
  - Market to SF magazines
  - Maybe get a person or two to read and react

+ Need to do some preliminary research into SF personages in Chicago. I will either write articles or act as editor for a Web publication section

Lately I've invested a fair amount of time and emotional energy into the short story. More to the point, the emotional energy has focused on marketing the story. It has a bit of angst to it and after Columbine, I wonder about its appropriateness. Then again, back in high school, I wrote and published in my high school literary magazines a story or two that wouldn't work post-Columbine. One, in particular, focused on a teenage serial killer who only ended up with the serial part because people would get too close to finding out about the original murder.

I tried to get another, longer, angsty story published in a more serious magazine. This story involved kids coming together all around the United States, blowing up their schools, breaking into military installations then destroying the US with simultaneous nuclear explosions. Suffice to say, it has yet to get published, even though I worked real hard revising and revising that thing. . .and I don't intend on trying to publish it again.

That effort didn't turn out completely fruitless, though. Even though I didn't receive a writing credit or any money for the effort, I proved extremely lucky to reach an editor that provided tons of great criticism on the piece. Not only for the piece itself, either, but also tips on how to format a manuscript for editors. The editor didn't even talk down to me or necessarily say anything derisive about my thoughts or ideas, just that the story didn't feel believable. A nice lady who watched over me as I volunteered for a data entry job at a nonprofit said the same thing about all fiction.

Either which way, I haven't tried to seriously publish anything since I got that response from that editor. I did open mics with poetry, submitted some poetry to a contest or two and published a silly poem in a college literary magazine. Reworking this story and submitting it really just highlights this little history of mine and brings up a small amount of anxiety. Will this story have enough believability to it? Does it have too much angst in it, especially post-Columbine? Does it compel the reader enough? Do I try too hard to say something rather than entertain the reader?

I keep telling myself that I can't think about all that stuff too much. It will just hold me back. I need to just work on the story as best as I can until I feel like I can't make it any better. The believability and the abilities to compel and entertain touch me as valid questions. Nonetheless, I'll have to deal with those as I get closer to the point where I feel that I've done the best I could on it. And after that, I'll just have to say, "Screw you, doubts. I'll find a place for the story and get myself some writing credits."

After all, I'll probably need those writing credits when it comes to marketing the novel.