scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
posted
...of the rest of my life.
Actually, it is. This isn't another godawful bondy self-help thread which I can't seem to avoid starting recent months, more an oportunity for the evil geniuses of TMO to play puppetmaster, which I know you'd all enjoy.
As some of you know, I have been BORED in my job. I mean, I don't mean just sort of demotivated and vaguely disinterested, I mean mindnumbingly, cripplingly, weeks-at-a-time-spent-sitting-on-my-own-in-an-office-miles-away-from-anyone-I-know-doing-absolutely-sweet-fuck-all-and-not-just-'not-doing-very-much'-but-actually-doing-NOTHING-AT- ALL-and-I-am-not-exeggerating sort of bored. I finally cracked at the beginning of last week, when my editor at a magazine I've managed to keep freelancing for mentioned that when they can afford to pay me, they're going to offer me a permanent position. The realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks - of all the things I thought I'd be doing when I was 25 - living abroad, writing a novel, stamping round a ridiculously trendy office in Soho shouting 'What? YES! NO!' into a mobile phone - sitting in glorious isolation and trying to pass my time by buying unnecessary items on ebay was not one of them.
Clutching a copy of the media guardian (is it just me, or does everyone who's ever desperately scanned the pages of the media Guardian for a job start all of a sudden feeling like they should be in advertising sales, as those are the only positions ever available?) I managed to find a couple of jobs (both writing based, one part-time but well paid, one full-time but only on a ten-month contract) and shoot off a couple of applications. It was about this time that I started scribbling poems about graduate recruitment and how soul-destroying it is.
Anyway. On Friday afternoon, I went out for lunch with my boss. We started chatting about my job. He said it hadn't been what he'd hoped it would be for me. I admitted to having applied for other jobs. I left the restaurant two hours and two bottles of wine later, with a cheque for three months pay and the promise of a lie-in on Monday. I no longer work in a soul-eatingly dull job and have the luxury of about two months off before I actually need to start working.
Bonza.
Having said that, part of me thinks I should work straight through, save the money and go to Peru next year or something. I do have a couple of reasonably paid but horribly corporate short writing contracts on the cards. However, for the first time in my life, I have time and money to stop and think about what it is I actually want to do. I've been progressing towardrs this for a while, but the more corners I bounce off in my life, the more I feel like I should be writing. Not corporate stuff or wanky branding articles, but actually something of my own, to take time over and put my name to. I haven't churned out anything I've been really proud of for ages. I'm well aware that this kind of free time doesn't come up very often, and maybe now's the time to buy in a bumper bottle of squash, two months worth of toast and marmite and enough marlboro lights to start an epidemic, sit down and get the fuck on with it. A couple of months ago on this forum, I remember pointing out that yes, it's really fucking tough getting something published, but it's a whole lot tougher if you haven't actually written anything.
If you were gifted, out of nowhere, two months worth of free time and money, what would you do? Go on holiday? Write a novel? Work straight through? Buy something you've always wanted?
How would you make the most of an unexpected step off the treadmill?
(Also, suggestions please. So far, in the first day of the rest of my life, I have made two cups of tea and posted this. It's time to step things up a gear.)
[ 01.08.2005, 08:07: Message edited by: scrawny ]
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posted
I'd use the time wisely. Last time I had a week to spare, it just vanished into nothing, so if I had two months to go I think I'd dedicate it to trying to clear the computer game backlog I've got at the moment. It's a nightmare. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Tribes: Vengeance, Warhammer: Dawn of War, Medieval: Total War, Resident Evil 4. All unfinished at the moment. When I had a week between jobs, I meant to finish some of them off but in the end I wasted the time going back to see my folks, helping Octavia move, and writing. It was pretty gutting not being able to spend the time on something more productive.
posted
Don't have a clue what you should do Scrawny but good for you !
I quit work in March to 'look after' Beckett and freelance. Beckett now takes all the time, I have no work other than housework and even though I still have some money coming in and could if I wanted sit on my arse all day doing nothing more than enjoying bringing up baby, watching DVD's, playing games and drinking, writing that book and following that dream I have no energy, no vision or direction or desire to do much more than go back to work, even (and this is the odd part) if it's soul sucking, mind numbing and dull.
There's a void I always used to fill with work, that empty space that just sits there, the one you need to feed, the one that provides you with your own 'self worth' for want of a better term. That space is the one work filled and now there's no work it's emptying out at speed.
I say follow whatever dream you have and do your best to make it come true.
I had dreams but mine were always a little too practical for my own good, I wanted a house and fiscal stability and now that's done I'm not sure what to dream about any more.
Keep your dreams alive Scrawn, don't let them slip away, because without dreams, sleep is nothing more than temporary death.
I wish I could dream again.
Fuck, that was supposed to be positive, didn’t quite come out like that though did it ?
Do whatever you want to Scrawny, you’ll be great at it.
Maybe the Google ads would be some help ? they all seem to say make money from writing to me..
posted
Scrawny if you can wait 3 weeks we can be ladies wot lunch together as I collect my redundancy cheque and merrily skip out of this hell-hole after 5 years. I'm only taking a month off and at the moment I have vague plans to buy a car and do the UK as my geographical and cultural knowledge of my own country is pitiful. However I may just spend a month in the Caribbean sipping cocktails.
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Scrawn. The world of freelancing appears rosy from without - fewer bossy tosspots to work for, less office politics, freedom to work when you want, endless opportunity to write columns in sunday supplements on your opinions and get paid £1000 a time...
Howevs, I have found the reality to be a bit less exciting - never taking a holiday, taking any work given, thus ending up just doing work I can do standing on my head, not having any power and no-one listening to me, not a single offer of a sunday supplement column.
However, I am lazy and find it impossibly cringe-inducing to promote myself or my work, so it may well be different for you, or in fact anyone with any gumption.
In the meantime, book in definite things to do - like a week reading the complete works of Dan Brown, a week going to galleries - or you'll piss away three months by watching daytime telly and doing grouting. Like I did. However, I am lazy... ( see above)
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