One step forward, two steps back
Submitting my application to Newsweek was pretty much the last substantive thing I've done on the job front in days. What's happening to January? I had such high hopes. I made a promise to myself.
I had two interviews lined up for next week. Notice the past tense--one has been canceled. The job was a tutoring gig for an east coast-based company, and I was supposed to drive out to White Plains on Tuesday to give a mock lesson. But I got an email on Friday telling me that the company decided not to expand into the New Haven area. My invitation to interview was rescinded. So much for my back-up plan.
The other interview (which has yet to be canceled) is in upstate New York, at a small newspaper. I don't know what to make of it. [In truth, I'm trying really hard not to admit the fact that it really isn't what I'm looking for.]
Maybe I should just start the damn novel. I haven't even attempted to write fiction in more than two years. (The last occasion was during my sophomore year creative writing course, which turned out to be a pretty soul-sucking experience. My designated tutor was an incredibly aloof thirty-something guy who commuted from New York City. Through a combination of disinterested comments and restless body language he almost succeeded in destroying every ounce of confidence and creativity in my body.) I've got a truckload of ideas floating around in my head and scribbled into pocket-sized notebooks. Stagnation is the only thing keeping me from getting to work on my first grand creative work, and that's hardly an excuse.
I'm tempted now to go down the familiar road of "what have these past months been about" with perhaps a detour into the land of "facing reality and navigating the intersection of one's potential and one's desires." But I'll put off that trip until another day. It's late, and I'm in no shape for philosophizing.
I had two interviews lined up for next week. Notice the past tense--one has been canceled. The job was a tutoring gig for an east coast-based company, and I was supposed to drive out to White Plains on Tuesday to give a mock lesson. But I got an email on Friday telling me that the company decided not to expand into the New Haven area. My invitation to interview was rescinded. So much for my back-up plan.
The other interview (which has yet to be canceled) is in upstate New York, at a small newspaper. I don't know what to make of it. [In truth, I'm trying really hard not to admit the fact that it really isn't what I'm looking for.]
Maybe I should just start the damn novel. I haven't even attempted to write fiction in more than two years. (The last occasion was during my sophomore year creative writing course, which turned out to be a pretty soul-sucking experience. My designated tutor was an incredibly aloof thirty-something guy who commuted from New York City. Through a combination of disinterested comments and restless body language he almost succeeded in destroying every ounce of confidence and creativity in my body.) I've got a truckload of ideas floating around in my head and scribbled into pocket-sized notebooks. Stagnation is the only thing keeping me from getting to work on my first grand creative work, and that's hardly an excuse.
I'm tempted now to go down the familiar road of "what have these past months been about" with perhaps a detour into the land of "facing reality and navigating the intersection of one's potential and one's desires." But I'll put off that trip until another day. It's late, and I'm in no shape for philosophizing.
posted by temporarily unemployed at 12:40
3 Comments:
A poem for Mike:
What happens when you get a job? Will you continue with the blog?
Or will this disappear into the haze
of your disappointing, jobless days?
Get a job, then start the novel.
That's what Daily Themes did to me, too! ...Well, kind of. I finished the course convinced that I was just a really bad writer, but then I was reading the course reviews online this semester (to see if anyone else thought it was "soul-sucking," I guess) and was vindicated by one reviewer's comment: "Take this course. Unless you get Harriet." Only slightly vindicated, though, because how much more would I have liked the course (and how much less would I have hated myself?) if I had had a good tutor?
Anyway, that was really just me venting. Creative writing = a good idea. I just know you'll be great at it!
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