Am I Ever Coming Back To This?

Very few people, I imagine, will be asking this, but the question on a few people's might or might not be: Am I ever going to finish Vacation For Three Please?
And my short answer is, I simply don't know.

I have a full outline of the story and drafts of some of the future chapters not yet released. But as I'm sure only the people who were reading it are aware, back in January, I suddenly disappeared from the writing scene and stopped posting. At the time, I was sure I would finish it.

Now I'm not unemployed, but I think a good word for it is "under-employed". However I am on the look out for work, it's just unfortunate that in my field of expertise, there are a lot of people and only a small number of jobs, meaning sometimes you have to make your own work.

Back in January, making my own work dried up, so I had to take a different approach to working in my industry which took up most of my time. I had to learn about website building and find and apply to as many employment websites as I could (related to my field). This started to produce results, and then COVID hit. And then lockdwn stopped everything.

Now, I believe for many, this was a good time to keep on writing, I had plenty of time to write now, right?
In theory. Is my answer.

See at the time, I believed lockdown would only last a matter of four weeks, that the rules would work, and everything would slowly go back to normal after that. So I charged myself into preparation for the end of lockdown. It gave me time to finish my website and connect with people, and then reconnect with some old friends too. While lockdown was about, I even started my own project too, rather than waiting for more employment to surface.

I believed this project created by me and some of my friends could be done in a few weeks so it took most of my energy. But while I still had drive to complete it, some of my friends dropped off which meant it would take a lot longer to complete, so I drove more energy into it, while at the same time my key-worker-under-employed job asked me for more hours, which I was fine with, getting paid is always a bonus.

So I ended up:
Working more
Looking for work
Writing a new project
And ironically, socialising more.

Not only that, but the enviornment got better, people at work become more respectful, families became closer and and I got to level up on some video games.

Sounds like it all worked out great. Except it stopped me writing on here because I got busy elsewhere.

That's when the downside of isolation hits hardest though.
As much as I got more involved in my industry than I had been, I don't really feel like I know what's going on anymore. Lockdown wasn't just weeks, it was months now, and a lot has changed. I haven't done any focused and dedicate work in about 5 months, and being new to the field, that definetly puts me at a disadvantage now, when jobs are scarce. Not only that I feel rusty and disconnected.

I actually very nearly got a job yesterday. I lost out at the very final hurdle by a very close margin. But it didn't feel great, and although they liked my work, which I was pleased about, I came away realising that I didn't really know what I was doing and it could have easily been a fluke.
I came away realising I needed way more practice to confidently secure new jobs basically. More work needed.
Like I said, it's a competitive industry.

I was driving home from work today, listening to some Equestria Girls to cheer me up and it reminded me of the stories I hadn't finished. I've got a lot of work to do, more now I realise I need to really practice my craft constant;y. But I would like to make some time to write maybe a little every day, or once a week.

I joined this site really to force me to finish Auroras & Souls which I had written as a fiction just for me, but I really wanted to finish it.
Unfortunately, as a first fiction often does, it became scrabbled and the narrative messy. I have the whole story mapped out to the end. But I found introducing so many main characters into the epic storyline confused the plot and, I think at this point, it will take a lot of work to rewrite a new version. I hope I can finish it one day.

In the mean time, Vacation For Three Please is only a few chapters off from being finished. Maybe I'll come back to it. I'm thinking I might.

I never really left, I have been reading a few new stories here and there, on and off. But I'll say this to end on.
Sometimes, life beats you down so hard, it feels impossible to get back up again. I'm not that kind of person. I like to find impossible tasks and try to solve them. But for me, sometimes you get so close to the thing you deemed impossible that when it kicks you in the face and stops you in your tracks, that's when it hurts the most.
Sometimes people forget to tell you that you're doing good work because they're too focused on their own work. Even if it's something you don't even care about, it still makes you feel shitty.

And I don;t know what the answer is, it's probably different for everyone.

But Well Done you! You're doing good work.
And if you don't have what you want, or what you need right now... remember:
Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible and suddenly you're doing the impossible ~ St. Francis of Assisi.

I'll be back, I'm sure of it.
Blues Rider

Comments

[Lame Joke]

damn. i feel for ya, except my problem is that im kinda over-working i guess.

you see, im a teacher. a vocal coach, to be more exact. so lockdown here had just been lifted, and we are all struggling to return back to normal lifestyle. didnt help that i got lots of planning to do for the students, and students singing with masks on/singing in videos doesnt really help that much. oh and lots of people apparently decided to sign up immediately after lockdown, tbh idk why tho.

and i met a karen yesterday. got a laugh outta it but still, eh.

so i gotta say, good luck man.