There have been quite a few things in the works for me lately, no small number of which related to writing. Some of which, such as my coming reentry into book reviewing, were planned and, hence, expected (the book I chose won’t be published until next month, so I’m still waiting, though I actually just sent off a request for an ARC; we’ll see what happens). Others have come as more of a surprise.

First and foremost, I found out last week that I will be taking a 50% cut in my hours at work. This is not unexpected with the work cycle I’ve seen in our office, and with the State budget issues, but the accompanying 50% cut in my paycheck will be depressing. However, I’m trying to look on the bright side, to think of how much time this will give me to devote to my own projects. When I do look at the move in this light, I really can’t see it as a bad thing.

Which brings me to my next item. I received my first ever personal rejection a few weeks back. It came right in the middle of a serious dip in my writing self-esteem, and I can’t say how much those few sentences have done to re-energize me. I had submitted the story on a sort of whim, mostly because I’d found out that a fellow graduate of mine had recently had something accepted somewhere, but since then, I’ve gotten serious about polishing and submitting work. It’s been difficult to balance this with the work on my novel, but no one ever said the learning stops when you get your degree.

Along with the rejection also came an invitation to submit a guest blog post to the journal’s blog. I sent something off last night finally (there were some issues that resulted in the slow turnaround time on the project, issues that I hope I’ll be able to talk about someday relatively soon but can’t right now), and now I just wait to see if they are going to accept it as is or if they want some revisions (or something completely different). When I get a final say so, I’ll post a link here.

I also signed up for a creative writing evening class. Not because I expect the class to substitute for the classes I had at EWU but because I miss the community of writing, of sitting around a table discussing work. I’m also thinking I might start a writing group. I know a few people who might be interested. The main thing that’s holding me back (that pushed me to this class before starting something on my own) is that I’m not sure how much time and energy I want to invest in something. But now that I will only work 20 hours each week… Well, it might be the perfect time.

Of course, eventually I’ll have to find some work that pays to fill those hours, but I think that, for the time being, this arrangement might work out to be something better than it first seemed.

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