I'm back to a universe of collared shirts, toe-pinch shoes, and sub-humanist overhead lighting. That's right. The cubicle called to me; the paycheck gestured "Come hither."
Progress to date: The finance book is half-finished and due to the economy, temporarily shelved (bad pun, yay). I get a very small monthly income from E-how and have no time to write new articles. I'm trying to keep up with the Examiner.com, but writing the minimum three articles a week is an incredible time demand. It's too soon to say if the Examiner is financially worth it, and unless they get a print version in Chicago I'm not sure it's a resume boost either. Last week I 'auditioned' for Mortified. My usual stage fright has tempered with continued improv classes, but I was still very flustered. I won't know how it went for another month, I'm guessing not well, but at least I had the balls to try.
It was a sleepless week in Chicago for the AWP writer's conference. I was giddy to visit lectures, pick a school for my MFA, and bump shoulders with fellow wannabes. Then Monday came...
...And these past months where my schedule revolves around writing, dissolved from memory. I'm back to scheduling every hour of free time to ensure I write/journal/read every day. All this while maintaining my year's goal to do something or meet someone new every day.
The pressure to find each new adventure has left me feeling ballsy. I go to bars alone, I try things I've always been afraid of, I talk to strangers. Why don't more people do this? Why do we hesitate? Screw that whole fear of failure thing; it's time to start getting what we want by trying, failing, getting embarrassed, and never regretting that we didn't try.
