In which I am grateful to be sacked

The universe works in mysterious ways, as they say. On the Friday after the New Year, I found out I was being “restructured” out of the horrible office job I’d been in for a year (after five in a different, not horrible job at the same company).

My self-worth immediately collapsed. I’m the type of person who isn’t happy with an A minus, know what I mean? Being told I just hadn’t done a good enough job because I lacked the experience required (which they knew when they hired me, of course) was crushing. At first.

In time, once the shock and hurt had worn off, I began to realize that with a severance package and potential unemployment benefits, I wouldn’t necessarily have to rush into a new horrible office job…

I had finally, over the previous year, published a couple of Arts & Living-style articles thanks to a journalism class at Harvard Extension (with a fabulously encouraging professor). More than a decade before, I had submitted a few short stories while pursuing an English degree when a diabolical man at Boston University (whom I shall someday soon tell the story of) stomped on my burgeoning dreams and left only latent shreds.

Over the past five years, I crept back into writing, starting a painfully-photographed but fun little fashion-for-less blog and signing up to be the Examiner for budget living in Cambridge. Since I was raised by a cheapskate, and have never had much extra money, frugality is one of my major focuses, along with living more sustainably and healthfully. I hoped to someday “find the time” to start a novel (doesn’t everyone?) and vaguely (but without action) longed to repeat my small successes in publishing locally. But it had not occurred to me, dude, that I would be giving a shot to making writing my life.

March 1st was my first day of a nice little vacation from everything…  (yes, I had to work for two full months knowing I was being sacked: good times). A successful day included yoga class, sauna time, a trip to the library and languorous reading time with maybe a bit of writing thrown in… and a month passed me by in a moment. Whoops. Clearly it is time to get serious and start querying and coaxing the ideas from my head onto the page.

I would love to have you along on my journey. I hope that my experiences, book reviews, and commentary on the process will be helpful for writers, entertaining for readers, and interesting for anyone trying to take (or thinking of taking) the leap from a day job to self-employment.

Thanks for stopping by.

-Desiree