The Beginning
For the past two years I have kept a running account of life at our house to send out as a companion letter to the picture of our adorable kiddies at Christmas time. Many of the recipients find the letters to be entertaining and in some cases, jokingly ask when my book is coming out. Knowing that these are my friends and family, people more likely to say something too nice than too true, still I wonder if I could write a book or find a way to make a living as a writer. The question is, however, are two well-received Christmas letters anything to build a career on?
Right out of school, I took my bright and shiny chemistry degree into the environmental arena, hoping to clean things up and make the world a better place for the future. In my first job, I learned all about Superfund law and tracking down potentially responsible parties for Superfund sites, and then sadly, all about how to apply for unemployment when the lame company I worked for shut down our office following a failed contract bid. At my next job, I learned all about environmental requirements and due diligence for real estate and business transfers, and all about how small business that hire you from the unemployment line will pay you peanuts because they know you are desperate for work. At my last job before I became a stay-at-home mom, I learned all about chemical weapons demilitarization, and then all about how hard it is to turn your child over to even the perfect day care provider.
When I was pregnant with my second child, the army moved us from our home in Maryland to Kentucky, and I took advantage of the move to step out of the workforce for a while. Now I’ve got three kids who are just the way I want them – cute, friendly, kind, nonwhiny, and most importantly, happy. I know their good natures come partly from their daddy’s genes, but I also like to think that I have had a hand in their development, since I have been their biggest influence for all of their formative years. Although I can hardly believe it, in three years, the littlest will be ready for kindergarten, and I will be ready to go back to work (provided that the army stops moving us around so I can find a job). This time off has put me at what some might perceive as a professional disadvantage since I will now have to start over at a new company, prove myself over again, and work my way back up the corporate ladder. Fortunately, I have an abundance of self confidence and no doubt that I can establish myself as a valued employee in short order. Do I want to?
One day during discussions of what each of the kids would like to be when they grow up, my daughter asked me what I would like to be when I grow up. I don’t really know, and probably no one ever does. I don’t have a real passion for environmental regulations, but I do have a certain amount of experience and aptitude for it. When I go back to work, I’ll have three college funds to fill and a retirement to plan and a home to purchase with the hubby. Therefore, the most likely scenario for when I reenter the workforce, involves applying for a job that matches my previous experience, and after spending about a year learning everything I can and doing the best job that I can, slowly becoming bored with it. I’ll wish I had time to go back to school or change fields, but with 40 hours in the office and 4 people at home who need and deserve the attention I am more than happy to give them, I’ll be stuck. I’ll want time to exercise, time to keep in touch with friends, time to watch a good movie and time to sleep in now and then which will leave no time for planning the great escape to a second career. This professional future, I must admit, is rather depressing. So for now, while I have the time to fantasize, I am going to pretend that in three years I could get a job as a writer - a job that would pay the bills and free up all the time that I need for myself and the family. However, while I have always been a well respected writer in the workplace, I don’t think publishers are going to line up to get their hands on my next work based on the rousing success of the Halby Chemical Title Search, or the Programatic Lessons Learned Assessment #50 - New Monitoring Regulations, or even the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization Laboratory Quality Assurance Plan.
I have recently been an avid watcher of the reality show Project Runway. Not because of the designers that you “love to hate or hate to love” but because the designers on that show, even the worst ones, can take an idea in their mind and turn it into a dress on a model. The show films them doing stuff with patterns, attaching some sort of black tape to the dressmaker dummies, draping fabric this way and that, and to the untrained eye, wasting all sorts of time. Even after watching the show for two seasons, I can’t for the life of me figure out what they are doing and why a dress that is unfinished with 30 minutes to go is suddenly fitting a model like a glove on the runway. The technical skills and nuts and bolts of fashion design are absolutely foreign to me, and to some extent, so are the nuts and bolts of writing (too many science classes in college). I am not expecting to find the answers to my questions on a reality show, as I don’t thing Project Essay, with aspiring writers hunched over their keyboards, would be compelling television. So while I will attempt to figure out how to be a writer, here is where I will do my writing.
Needless to say, if I am going to get a job as a writer, I’ve got to get much, much, much better at it, and to get better at it, I’ve got to practice. And that, my friends, is where this blog comes in - this will be my practice. I’ve chosen 1500 words a day as a goal, because it seems like it will be challenging without being overwhelming. Having spent my entire life as an overachiever, I have decided to give myself a little leeway and not set any hard and fast rules for this endeavor. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll have more to say, sometimes I will have less. Sometimes I will be on vacation and sometimes the kiddies will be sick or the HP (husband) will be home on leave. But for the most part, I am going to attempt to keep this up at least 5 days a week. Anyway, wish me luck, and if you are ever entertained by what you read here, feel free to tell me. If you are not entertained by what you read here, feel free to ignore me. Thanks!
One more thing…While in Philadelphia recently I attended the Ben Franklin 300th birthday exhibit, and did I feel like a loser when I was done. The man never had an idea in his head that he didn’t act upon, an opinion he didn’t express, or a personal shortcoming that he didn’t try to solve. Like most people, I also have ideas and opinions and shortcomings, and like most people, I often reflect on these things while I am lying on the couch. Eventually, rather than finding solutions, I’ll find something mildly interesting on the TV, and postpone any action until the next day. I once saw an interview with Bare Naked Ladies where they were asked to explain the song “Pinch Me” and one of them (apologies to all you rabid fans out there, but while I like their music, I can’t clutter my brain with their names) said something along the lines of – the average person has moments where he thinks he is ready to go out and change the world, but then he realizes there are 2 reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati coming on the TV, so suddenly he is too busy for the next hour to do anything else (this is a bad paraphrase, but hopefully you see my point). I may never have an idea that leads to an invention or an opinion that the world is clamoring to hear or success correcting any of my shortcomings, but at least I will put aside the housework and the remote for a while each day (after the kiddies go to bed - sadly, the HP is deployed to Afghanistan and not in need of much of my time these days) and attempt to coax my brain into action. Maybe once my brain is functioning, I’ll be able to go out and change the world in some way, even if it is only by providing someone something amusing or distracting to read.
Right out of school, I took my bright and shiny chemistry degree into the environmental arena, hoping to clean things up and make the world a better place for the future. In my first job, I learned all about Superfund law and tracking down potentially responsible parties for Superfund sites, and then sadly, all about how to apply for unemployment when the lame company I worked for shut down our office following a failed contract bid. At my next job, I learned all about environmental requirements and due diligence for real estate and business transfers, and all about how small business that hire you from the unemployment line will pay you peanuts because they know you are desperate for work. At my last job before I became a stay-at-home mom, I learned all about chemical weapons demilitarization, and then all about how hard it is to turn your child over to even the perfect day care provider.
When I was pregnant with my second child, the army moved us from our home in Maryland to Kentucky, and I took advantage of the move to step out of the workforce for a while. Now I’ve got three kids who are just the way I want them – cute, friendly, kind, nonwhiny, and most importantly, happy. I know their good natures come partly from their daddy’s genes, but I also like to think that I have had a hand in their development, since I have been their biggest influence for all of their formative years. Although I can hardly believe it, in three years, the littlest will be ready for kindergarten, and I will be ready to go back to work (provided that the army stops moving us around so I can find a job). This time off has put me at what some might perceive as a professional disadvantage since I will now have to start over at a new company, prove myself over again, and work my way back up the corporate ladder. Fortunately, I have an abundance of self confidence and no doubt that I can establish myself as a valued employee in short order. Do I want to?
One day during discussions of what each of the kids would like to be when they grow up, my daughter asked me what I would like to be when I grow up. I don’t really know, and probably no one ever does. I don’t have a real passion for environmental regulations, but I do have a certain amount of experience and aptitude for it. When I go back to work, I’ll have three college funds to fill and a retirement to plan and a home to purchase with the hubby. Therefore, the most likely scenario for when I reenter the workforce, involves applying for a job that matches my previous experience, and after spending about a year learning everything I can and doing the best job that I can, slowly becoming bored with it. I’ll wish I had time to go back to school or change fields, but with 40 hours in the office and 4 people at home who need and deserve the attention I am more than happy to give them, I’ll be stuck. I’ll want time to exercise, time to keep in touch with friends, time to watch a good movie and time to sleep in now and then which will leave no time for planning the great escape to a second career. This professional future, I must admit, is rather depressing. So for now, while I have the time to fantasize, I am going to pretend that in three years I could get a job as a writer - a job that would pay the bills and free up all the time that I need for myself and the family. However, while I have always been a well respected writer in the workplace, I don’t think publishers are going to line up to get their hands on my next work based on the rousing success of the Halby Chemical Title Search, or the Programatic Lessons Learned Assessment #50 - New Monitoring Regulations, or even the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization Laboratory Quality Assurance Plan.
I have recently been an avid watcher of the reality show Project Runway. Not because of the designers that you “love to hate or hate to love” but because the designers on that show, even the worst ones, can take an idea in their mind and turn it into a dress on a model. The show films them doing stuff with patterns, attaching some sort of black tape to the dressmaker dummies, draping fabric this way and that, and to the untrained eye, wasting all sorts of time. Even after watching the show for two seasons, I can’t for the life of me figure out what they are doing and why a dress that is unfinished with 30 minutes to go is suddenly fitting a model like a glove on the runway. The technical skills and nuts and bolts of fashion design are absolutely foreign to me, and to some extent, so are the nuts and bolts of writing (too many science classes in college). I am not expecting to find the answers to my questions on a reality show, as I don’t thing Project Essay, with aspiring writers hunched over their keyboards, would be compelling television. So while I will attempt to figure out how to be a writer, here is where I will do my writing.
Needless to say, if I am going to get a job as a writer, I’ve got to get much, much, much better at it, and to get better at it, I’ve got to practice. And that, my friends, is where this blog comes in - this will be my practice. I’ve chosen 1500 words a day as a goal, because it seems like it will be challenging without being overwhelming. Having spent my entire life as an overachiever, I have decided to give myself a little leeway and not set any hard and fast rules for this endeavor. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll have more to say, sometimes I will have less. Sometimes I will be on vacation and sometimes the kiddies will be sick or the HP (husband) will be home on leave. But for the most part, I am going to attempt to keep this up at least 5 days a week. Anyway, wish me luck, and if you are ever entertained by what you read here, feel free to tell me. If you are not entertained by what you read here, feel free to ignore me. Thanks!
One more thing…While in Philadelphia recently I attended the Ben Franklin 300th birthday exhibit, and did I feel like a loser when I was done. The man never had an idea in his head that he didn’t act upon, an opinion he didn’t express, or a personal shortcoming that he didn’t try to solve. Like most people, I also have ideas and opinions and shortcomings, and like most people, I often reflect on these things while I am lying on the couch. Eventually, rather than finding solutions, I’ll find something mildly interesting on the TV, and postpone any action until the next day. I once saw an interview with Bare Naked Ladies where they were asked to explain the song “Pinch Me” and one of them (apologies to all you rabid fans out there, but while I like their music, I can’t clutter my brain with their names) said something along the lines of – the average person has moments where he thinks he is ready to go out and change the world, but then he realizes there are 2 reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati coming on the TV, so suddenly he is too busy for the next hour to do anything else (this is a bad paraphrase, but hopefully you see my point). I may never have an idea that leads to an invention or an opinion that the world is clamoring to hear or success correcting any of my shortcomings, but at least I will put aside the housework and the remote for a while each day (after the kiddies go to bed - sadly, the HP is deployed to Afghanistan and not in need of much of my time these days) and attempt to coax my brain into action. Maybe once my brain is functioning, I’ll be able to go out and change the world in some way, even if it is only by providing someone something amusing or distracting to read.
posted by Shannon at 10:51 PM
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