Hello?

Is anyone still there? Should you still be there? Am I still here?

Well. I am still alive, despite 2020’s best attempts. I stepped away back in…whatever year that was…because I was distracted with trying to buy a house, and then I just let life distract me completely away. But 2020, being a shit year that highlighted every shit thing about everything, also managed to highlight just how much I hated my job (which was not quite as much as that version of the job hated me, though it was pretty close), so after being told I could accept a position I didn’t want, or else quit in the middle of a pandemic-driven unemployment crisis, I…did not quit, but worked there for another 6 months while trying to find another job.

Turns out I’m particularly bad at job searching (this is not news), but at the end of the next transition period at work, when the position (which I hadn’t wanted) was slated to work under the person who’d undermined the last appearance of competence I had with management (I mean, honestly, management had had it in for me for a couple of years at that point, it wasn’t like she had to work very hard, but she still did it…I’d say I’m not bitter, but I’m really fucking bitter)…where were we? Right. At the next transition period, I tallied up my monthly expenditures, compared it to my current savings, and decided that quitting was the sanest course.

Maybe I’ll write you a story about how awful that last year was there, but mostly we’re supposed to put on a happy face and repress everything, and I’m terrified that my reasonable complaints plus my tendency to dramatically rant when I’m upset make me sound like an entitled asshole who caused all the things that happened to her out of arrogance and Not Trying Hard Enough–which now that I write it out, sounds like maybe that job did more of a number on me than I thought.

Anyway, since I’m unemployed until further notice, and since being an author is maybe the only dream I keep coming back to, I figured I might as well give it a whirl, again, For Real. I don’t think the money will last quite long enough to get published (I should be good for 4-5 months, assuming nothing goes horrifically wrong), but if I’m slowly looking for jobs alongside, or doing part time work, or…I don’t know, but I’m hoping I can get a bulk of writing done while I’m unemployed, so when I have to give up and crawl back to the industry I just left (which complicates the job search; I want OUT, else I could probably have my pick of jobs), I can maybe lie to myself that it’ll only be temporary while my dreams of Becoming An Author are realized.

And in the meantime I can be every third millennial who’s “taking some time” to “write my book.” Goddammit.

But anyway, I outlined an actual plot for Eggs Unsung, then realized Equipoise was more than half written, so I’m working on that, and intending to do EU next. Work is coming along steadily on Equipoise so far, although I’m mostly only adjusting things, and I expect that speed to slow as I reach the parts that need more serious work (or, you know, haven’t been written at all yet). But today I have a headache I can’t work around, so rather than write and delete the same 200 words three more times, I thought I’d resurrect this blog, for whatever three followers it might still have.

So yeah. Hi. Hello. I hope 2021 is treating you okay so far.