Real life changes & update

A few of you know that I've changed jobs recently - so I went to interviews in December and January, and got the one job I wanted. With my skill set, I'd have been able to return to financial journalism or attempt to stay in financials.

While media companies were hiring (and I got a couple interesting interviews), the few I went to visit can be described as "young and hungry", and "hungry" tends to mean extremely hard work, and "young" tends to mean shit benefits, and, anyway, I didn't "click" with any of them.

With thousands of banking jobs (like mine) cut across the financial sector in late 2011 (and ongoing), I moved "sideways" and secured a copy editor job at a rating agency. I started work on Monday, and so far, I'm really enjoying it. Biggest challenge right now: To learn their house style as soon as possible. It's very different to my old team, but not necessarily in a bad way. Just different. It did mean I had a lot of time off, and that's now gone. But: good riddance. I do need structure in my day, and I like interacting with flesh-and-blood people. And this job will enable me to get some qualifications and bullet points on my CV, which should position me well to go back into banking, if I should so desire. Also, I'm now officially "comma police", which is quite amusing in many ways. The company itself is awesome--pretty good benefits, holidays, fantastic offices (with cheap and good catering), very nice team. I'm a lucky bastard when it comes to jobs and companies.

Also, I got a new boiler installed last week--two days of dirt, dust and noise (and extremely low productivity on my end), and not one day too early. The "Siberian" cold in London is absolutely biting. I'm so glad my heating's way more efficient now (and two rooms are noticeably warmer, thanks to new radiators - or "rads" as the boiler boys called them).

Also, just before I had to start work on Monday, I finished "Dark Soul" on Sunday night, and since then have been tweaking the fifth and last installment to make the most of it. I need to do an outline for a friend's novel, and edit a co-project, and fine-comb "Dark Soul 5", and all those should keep me pretty busy during February, apart, of course, from getting all the paperwork squared away (a gazillion background checks for the new job, paperwork for the job I left).

So, yep, busy. It's a good kind of busy.

On the writing front, that space opera is demanding face time, and there's a couple sexy shorts that I want to write about Silvio and Gianbattista, but I'll see if I can't push these away a bit longer. They'll attack me and bite me in the throat when I'm not expecting it, so I'm not too worried. I also need to get back into the research groove for the birds books.

And I'm keeping all my fingers crossed for a friend who's sent her 120k novel to a literary agent on Monday. Since I did a proofing check on that piece, I'm really nervous and excited on her behalf.

Next step is to do some more improvements around the house--the front garden could be fixed up to look less ugly, for example. I have plans for roses and tea bushes, and we need to remove some weird bush thing, a juvenile ash tree, a rickety fence and an ugly 1960ies concrete walkway up to the door. Now that I have a new job, I can even afford to have that done. It's been an eyesore for more than a year now.

Now, back to editing.