Playing to Our Strengths

Over the past couple of weeks, I have embarked into my first foray with completing creative content for pay. Besides the obvious monetary benefits, I get to work from wherever I want and at any time. The site I've been securing these jobs through is called UpWork. Writers work as independent contractors, so they must all fill out a W-9 before being paid and will file their taxes using a 1099 form.

The reasons why I'm jazzed about this opportunity:

1. I'm getting paid to write. Writing is all I do. Writing is all I want to do. I'm a simple creature. Most of the jobs I've been securing request genre stories of a certain length. I'm becoming proficient at organizing stories, creating a brief outline, and executing those plans in a way that doesn't leave the reader with an out of place cadence to the story they're reading.

2. I can add this to my writing resume. I don't have to say specifically UpWork, just say I was doing freelance jobs that surrounded content creation.

3. It provides me with practice. As mentioned above, I'm getting practice creating a plot and writing it in a short amount of time. After I finish my current assignment, I'm going to try to write my own romance eBook under a pseudonym and publish it for sale on Amazon. I'll sell it for cheap and let Dan do the marketing because it's one of his strengths. (More info on that project to come.)

Speaking of strengths, I accepted a position as an environmental article writer for UCapture. They partner with major shopping sites to collect the carbon emissions people create while online shopping so as to help the environment. Essentially, I am doing content creation, writing informative environmental articles to try to attract visitors to the site. Pay isn't that great, but this is definitely a resume builder that will also provide me with clips for my portfolio.

All in all, now is the time for me to flesh out my writing resume and, so, here I am. I'll be sure to post here as my projects progress.

And life stands corrected...

I think I'm going through the phase everyone goes through whenever they finish the "prerequisites" outlined for them, such as high school or college. The sheer number of different paths available presents limitless opportunities, but, also, an abundance of overwhelming choices.

I always have known that I wanted to travel all over the world and, ideally, live abroad. Therefore, I applied to a Teaching English as a Foreign Language position in Thailand. I bring this up because I had a Skype interview for one of the companies this evening and they wanted me to start in June. Unfortunately, that is something I cannot do due to school and doctors appointments. However, the recruiter said they would save a position for me that starts in November. Perfect.

You see, people get nervous when they don't have a plan. I'm pretty versatile and accommodate easily to change, but I need to know that change is within a larger structure. Globe-trotting is ideal within the set parameters. I'm a human being and we crave structure, just look at our government and its endless sets of rules and regulations.

My plan is to secure accommodations and visas in different countries by teaching English to the residents in each one. I have a plan for the foreseeable, and unforeseeable, future. This makes me comfortable with how my life is progressing.

I had my disability meeting in UCSD's Disability Office today and the woman who helped me printed out letters for me to provide to my instructors which will allow me to type all exam answers. This has been necessary following my fall out of a tree last July that resulted in an 11 day coma. I'll post a more detailed entry about that at a later time.

Right now, I'm just providing some context to my life; I'll promise I'll get to some palatable content soon enough.

The first cut is the deepest...

I'll begin this blog ahead of schedule, with an excerpt from my current book project. It's about a private eye solving the mystery of a missing friend in the near-future where girls are getting devices implanted into their brains that make them walking advertisements.

This is the beginning of the first chapter:

It was “one of those mornings” which seemed to be every morning for Blake, these days.

The morning glory vines crept along the graying wooden fence and leaped off at the end onto the stick remnants of a dying tree, which clasped to the tangled branches of a flourishing apple tree. Blake sat on the back deck of the large, green house, feet propped up on top of the short wall enclosing the space. The rocking chair she slumped down into looked like it was made from the same wood as the fence.  Every time she leaned over the armrest to pick up an amber bottle by its neck, using only her index finger and thumb, the wood fell into an uncomfortable creak which Blake replied to with a, "Shhhh" and a swig.

            The marine layer swept in unbeknownst to her and the sunlight behind it all made grey look greyer. A squirrel scurried across the vines and she wondered if its feet could even permeate the tangle to touch the top of the fence. Running on blossoms and floating on floral, what a sight for dimming eyes. She watched the squirrel’s progression, leaned back in her chair, and whispered, “Shhhhh.”

She heard creaking sounds that did not come from her chair. At the far end of the deck, a hunched, but by no means miniscule, figure clambered up the rickety staircase. It was a long and lean body, curved over at the top in a haphazard effort to hide its height. One slender, pale hand gripped the handrail and pulled the form up the last step and onto the deck.
            “Hey.” His voice was a low, long bass note that slipped out as he cocked his head to the side, letting the hair that was too long on top fall from one side to the other. He reminded her of a rooster.

She lifted the bottle in her hand and extended it towards him. With one eyebrow slightly raised, he took it from her and pulled one long pull off of it before handing it back. She did the same as he spoke.

“I haven’t heard from Tesily in a while.”

“Yeah, Deuce, not surprised.”

He extracted a bag of tobacco from the pocket of his button up shirt and began the process of rolling a cigarette. Stray strands of tobacco fluttered to the ground like burnt confetti and she thought of fire and celebrations and cancer.

“Well, I mean, she knew it had to happen eventually. We broke up months ago. Did she think I’d be celibate forever?”

Blake shrugged and raised the bottle to her mouth only to find it empty. Deuce noticed, opened the screen door, and walked inside the house. Blake remained seated, arm slung over the side of the chair, fingertip lightly tracing the mouth of the bottle. Deuce remerged holding two open beers.

“My hero.”

“Where’d the rest of that pack go? These were the last two.”

“What time is it?”

“The weather is throwing me off too. It’s about one thirty.”

They both looked out at the grey sky and contemplated inside themselves. He lit his cigarette and she admired the swirling grey of smoke that melded into the sky behind it. Everything grey, wispy and ethereal. She was drunk and started feeling godly, like she could snatch the smoke from the air and pin it down into something tangible. Something solid.

“You want me to call her? I haven’t heard from her in a long while, myself.”

He glanced at her without moving his head, just his eyes, and only for a moment. Then, he fixed them on something far away, past the morning glory clad fence and all of the grey beyond it. His hair flopped back and she thought of a rockabilly singer and vaguely remembered an old cartoon featuring a rockabilly rooster. She wondered if maybe he would start crooning to an invisible audience seated on grey clouds. Ohhhh, love. Ohhhh, life. Ohhhh, loooovvvveee.

But, he didn’t.

Inaugural Post

We always hear the word “inaugural,” but we, or at least I, must remember not to pawn my own ignorance off on readers, never think to ask from whence that word hailed. I’m not going to bog you down with an etymology, just a definition. Augury, as it were, is a sign of what will happen in the future. An omen. So, in a way, this post is a sign of what will come in the future. Which, I mean, it is a type of charter or groundwork, telling readers what they can expect to find here. It is an omen of this blog’s future. Whether it was a good or bad omen, only time will tell, as the proverbial “they” will say.

I feel like I should begin with a disclaimer, announcing that many posts will focus on topics ranging from Literature and writing (my passions), brain damage/TBIs (my deficits), and miscellaneous other subjects that I find interesting or that I wish to discuss. Maybe I want to rant about why I find Jane Austen novels insufferably boring (I do, by the way, maybe we can still be friends) or my general dislike for spit (a ripe field for Freudian analysis, I’m sure).

I’m going to try my best to only make 1 post per week about a specific subject. This post will be the only one, ideally, to feature my rambling – a fairly frequent fault of mine. As for the day of the week the update will take place on, I’m tentatively setting it on Sunday. Sabbath Sunday Funday, right guys?

Right now, I’m taking a class on mythology of the near East (think Mesopotamia) and another on the postmodern director Iñárritu (Amores Perros, Birdman, The Revenant), which wouldn’t make it far-fetched to expect posts on these topics.

Much like a revenant, this blog keeps coming back from the dead. My hope is that this incarnation will be more promising than the last.

So, stay tuned, kiddies, and, ideally, you won’t be disappointed.