Back to the Day Job

I got a job today.

Unfortunately it wasn't a writing job. I haven't been offered a contract (lucrative or otherwise) to sit down and arrange words on a page to form ideas or a story.

Nope.

I got a call late in the day for a job at the Census Bureau.

And you know what? I'm grateful.

I really am.

It's not a job I'm dying to have; certainly not something I aspired to in my younger days.

BUT ... the wolf has been at the door of my family's home for awhile now.

And this job will remove the wolf.

And in so doing, it may help free up some of those synapses I've been using to wonder how I'm going to pay the bills (I'm never more creative, heaven help me, than when I'm figuring out how to pay the bills).

Wonder what my mind would conjure up ... if I had less concern about those blasted bills?

If those bills were -- gasp! -- removed?

How many stories, how many characters, how many situations that now do not flow through my fingers -- perhaps because of more immediately pressing matters -- would spring to life if I had some of the pressure lifted off me?

And in the process, I found out that I MYSELF could be the one to take the pressure off?

Well ... that would be nice.

And it would make me proud to know that I did it myself.

Yeah.

Tomorrow I'm working ... as a poll manager at our local precinct(s) here in Mount Pleasant. In fact, I'm running 3 precincts -- getting up at 5 a.m. and probably not back home until 10. And I earn a small check for doing it, and I'm proud that I'll be helping my family AND doing my civic duty.

And in the process, bringing in enough to provide a few Christmas presents.

My writing hasn't been doing too much of that for me lately. A book I labored over for literally years brings in, four times a year, a check that's just about large enough to pay for one lunch.

So for now, even though I'm -- yes! -- in the middle of Nanowrimo (with a pitiful 1000 words to my credit after 3 full days), I'm looking forward to training for my new job next week. To being out of my house for 10 hours every day -- maybe more, with commuting time. To meeting new people. To doing something I probably wouldn't have chosen to do.

And I am truly grateful. From such mundane beginnings can great stories grow.