#WritersLife: Managing the Job Search

#writerslife

 It's been four years since I held a word-related job (an academic instructional associate at a community college), and it's definitely showing to the hiring managers when I submit an application. 

I don't blame them. We suffered something worse than a recession: a pandemic. The warehouse job I've held since 2019 definitely saved me and offered me more hours than I was signed up for because of everyone else forced to remain indoors. I thought, back in 2017 when I quit my college position, that I was ready to leave the writing world behind and focus on an industry that would be able to sustain me.

However, 2021 has been the most stressful and difficult year of my life. I lost someone I loved, and I've never experienced grief like that before and it took a long time before I even wanted to talk to family and friends again. But, as with all negative experiences, it also shed light on the lifestyle I was pursuing. Wake up, run errands, stress at work, shower, sleep, and repeat. I realized I didn't want that for myself. 

I want to wake up excited for the day. I want to look forward to work. I want to be happy to be living the life I'd made for myself. Instead, I started therapy to help myself cope with stress and life management because of how miserable my current job makes me feel.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate warehousing in the beginning. In fact, I found so much enjoyment out of it with my last company. The guys I worked for and with genuinely cared about me and looked out for me. I experienced rough patches where I couldn't identify who I was, but it was the lack of writing that led to those emotions, not the job itself. This new warehouse job, however, led to breakdowns in the company restrooms and wishing I could quit on the spot and never look back.

Unfortunately, I needed the insurance, and I couldn't afford to walk away from that. Until now.

My husband has a great job with a company that offers benefits, and I finally realized I didn't have to stay in warehousing to get the insurance I need. Not only that, but I haven't needed doctors' visits like I did with my previous head injury, so any insurance coverage will provide what I need. 

Needless to say, I can't explain all that on a resume, so I've been rejected almost half a dozen times in three weeks. Twice yesterday. But with the pandemic, so many creatives lost their jobs or full time hours and I'm competing with an even larger field than last time. Not only that, but these are individuals who never gave up on their writing careers, or who practiced writing regularly, or took unpaid or low wage positions to keep those credentials on their resumes. 

I know everyone says writing is something you can start at anytime, and it's true, but it's not something you can get paid to do at any given time. I publish posts on my blogs and run social media branding for a food truck, but neither of those are paying my bills right now. It's hard, but for some reason, I don't want to throw in the towel. I want to see this through. I want to write again.  

#WritersLife: Four Years Later

 

#writerslife, where I remember my former life.

It's been almost four years since I posted on this blog. In that time, I underwent cranial and spinal surgery, bought a tiny house, changed industries, and got married. Needless to say, none of those things involved writing. In fact, I turned away from writing in every sense.

I touched on a bad break-up I went though in 2016 that halted my ambition and that led to a slower climb in my writing endeavors in previous posts. However, I can't fully explain what coerced me to stop writing and change industries after spending four years earning my Bachelor's in Creative Writing and an additional three years working in the publishing and marketing scenes.

It started with wanting a break. A mental break from the self-imposed deadlines, an emotional break from wanting to live up to the best-selling author image I curated, and a physical break from the hours staring at a bright computer screen (yellow tinted glasses are one of the greatest inventions of our modern times). I took that break and then some, and stopped writing for two years, save for the occasional journaling that never lasted more than a couple weeks.

I felt frustration the first dozen times friends, families, and colleagues asked if I'd been writing. Why was it simple to understand someone no longer wanting to work in sales but difficult to understand why I didn't want to write? And then I realized: no one knew how to identify me without writing.

I had no identity without writing.

I suddenly had to find new things to define myself not only for others, but myself. Without manuscripts and book clubs and author events, what was I into? Since everything I enjoyed, mainly video games, church events, and playing with my dogs, couldn't equate to a paycheck, I thought I had nothing going for myself. I dove into warehousing because 1) I was good at it and 2) in 2017, I needed good insurance for my upcoming surgery and warehousing pays well in that department.

I had my parents, my college friends, and now ex-boyfriends push me to write again after my surgery in 2018, now that I had my own place when I bought my house in 2019, and definitely again when we went into lockdown in 2020. But I didn't know what to write about. I wasn't reading young adult anymore, and I definitely wasn't adult enough for fiction. I love my faith, but I am far too much of a sinner to write religiously.

While I pondered these thoughts, my newlywed husband proposed that I write again. I snapped at him, told him he wasn't the first to suggest it, the first to not understand, the first to think it was easy to jump back into even if I secretly thought my voice was gone forever. He said a dozen people could have suggested me to try it, but it was only meant to be the thirteenth person who made a difference.

Something about that moved me and it pissed me off. 

I was done with writing. I didn't know how anymore, or what was popular, or who was still agenting, or where the book blogs were jumping. But it stuck with me. 

A few weeks later, my dad opened his grilled cheese food truck. He asked me to do the social media, and I said yes. It gave me such a rush, and I had fun googling cheese memes and food truck events and blowing up my friends' pages with constant sharing of its posts. I actually enjoyed the scheduling. I enjoyed the self-inflicted deadlines. Within two weeks I was back in my old habit of scheduling posts a week or more in advance. 

Feeling encouraged, I applied to a writing job. They rejected me. I applied for another. They rejected me, too. And with that, I was back in the industry

I still don't see myself cranking out a novel or two a year like I did in my prime, but I know blogging will allow me to practice without feeling like I'm doing something wrong, and the social media posts will provide me with enough structure to creatively stretch my legs.

So here I am, four years after my last post, and this is my #writerslife.