Summer Solstice: A Fresh Start

So today is the first day of summer, which means it’s the first official day of sweating as soon as you walk out the door (although truthfully, we’ve had an unseasonably warm spring). More importantly, it’s the first day of my new journey: trying to become a writer who can support my family.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about writing for a living. It’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a tiny child with an overactive imagination: I’d make up stories all the time about running a giant animal sanctuary or turning into a horse at will. Blame all those tearjerker Humane Society ads or Animorphs books if you want.

Anyway, as I got older, I was gently encouraged to take a different path—by which I mean they told me, “You can’t make money writing. Be an engineer. Engineers have health insurance.” And fair enough, I did like math and science, but reading and writing made my weird little goblin-brain light up. Still, I gave engineering a shot, and lasted a whole semester. Turns out calculus isn’t nearly as fun as writing Harry Potter fanfics where the owls can talk.

Fast forward twenty years (three existential crises and one expensive caffeine habit later), and I’ve finally gotten my bachelor’s degree in English. Was it a massive waste of time and money? Maybe. All I can say is that it felt good to finally accomplish something because I wanted to, not because I was being pushed into it.

Actually, it even got me a foot in the door training LLMs. I talked to robots all day, helping them understand human nonsense…pretty cool for a while. Until the work dried up like those first few houseplants I forgot to water.

But I didn’t panic, not right away at least. My husband and I were both without work for weeks, but somehow I stayed positive and didn’t let the fear of unpaid bills get to me. (Mostly thanks to denial.) Once he went back to an out-of-the-house job, though, it started bothering me that I was still just sitting at home, wearing the same pair of pajamas and aggressively applying to jobs I was technically qualified for.

I had put in literally HUNDREDS of applications and only gotten a single interview, which turned out to be several days of unpaid trial labor and ultimately ended in a “no thanks.” But then I had a revelation in the shower (of course, the best time for thinking): why am I waiting for some random company to grant me permission to be a writer?

So now, here I am. Believing in myself for the first time—which is a little terrifying, not gonna lie—and deciding to just start. To put my writing out there. Maybe it’ll never reach anyone but my incredibly supportive husband (hi babe!), but maybe someday someone in a similar situation will stumble across this blog and realize they’re not alone.

If that’s you, if you’ve made it this far…thanks for reading. My vision for this blog is to show people that it’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to laugh about them. I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes, from Red Green (The Red Green Show):

Remember, I’m pullin’ for ya. We’re all in this together.