Oh well, sometimes that’s the way it goes.  Thing is, with no current job, finances are tight.  And it looks like I’ll have to bite that old ‘follow the money’ bullet and apply for any old shit.  The thing is that I’ve done that for years and always ended up in companies that tended to treat their employees poorly (even if they didn’t think so themselves) and have hated doing the same repetitive crap for people who wouldn’t know how to manage their own shoelaces.  My last two jobs, Whiteinch Church of Scotland and Scottish Power, are prime examples of that.

So, is that just what we have to do to get by?  I know the old saying ‘you work to live not live to work’ has a lot of weight but surely if we have to do something that takes up approx. 40 of our waking hours in a week that it’s important to find something that doesn’t suck completely.

Perhaps I’m just expecting too much.  I have a beautiful wife and daughter and I love them both very much.  I have a group of very good friends who I don’t see enough of.  Perhaps doing a crappy job with disrespectful and critical assholes is just the way of it.

- Alistair

It’s been a ‘interesting’ year, full of ups and downs.

It started well, with me riding high off the relative success of last year’s NaNoWriMo.  It was an important milestone with my writing, the first time I ever got around to actually finishing something in a short time that I even remotely liked.  So, that was Planet Of Snakes (a sequel to the unfinished Desert Of Zin) and very happy I was with it too.

(Not that it matters what’s finished and what’s not, things have changed in that quarter.  More on that in a mo.)

Then, shortly after the new year, my mother had a cancer scare.  Not good, not good at all.  But she had it removed, went for her radiotherapy and everything is currently peachy keen.  (It’s amazing how you can get all of the angst, worry and relief of a time like that and boil it down to a couple of sentences…)

Then a few months into the year amazing news arrives.  Ruth is pregnant!  I still remember how excited I was when I found out.  We had been trying for a while and finding out really was a gift.

Then we hit the summer.  And intimidation and bullying at work.  Not good seeing as I worked for the my church.  With the benefit of hindsight, and plenty of counselling, there is definitely an element of a culture of dishonour about the way some Christians act despite the ‘Culture of Honour’ that is advertised.

Anyway, it wasn’t a sudden thing.  Using the same old hindsight as before it’s clear that my self-esteem and confidence were being ground down over a long period of time.  More on that later as well.

There was a welcome break in there called Summer’s End, a progressive rock festival in the small town of Lidney, by the Forest of Dean.  Myself, The Psycho Chicken, Bruce and (when she felt like she could endure all that glorious prog) Sharla enjoyed Steve Hackett, Pallas, Pendragon and all the wonderful bands in between.

But then back to work where the situation continued to get from bad to worse…

The months of September, October and November were back to the growing depression, anxiety, stress and suicidal tendencies.  This really was the worst part of the year for me.  I was being intimidated and harrased by my line manager (who, unfortunately, was also my minister) and despite already letting people in authority know the situation he was still my line manager and still intimidating and harassing me.

Now, I understand that in the cold light of day it might not seem like much, but when your church is your work and the only feedback you get from your minister/line manager is negative and your interests and thoughts are open to ridicule, it tends to affect you poorly.

NaNoWriMo arrived in November, right at the height of how bad things were getting.  With panic attacks and ‘The Fear’ growing almost daily it was a miracle in itself that I was able to get over 24k words.

This was the ‘All-New’ Desert Of Zin story.  I felt like the existing one was going nowhere.  I had no plan or interest in keeping it going and any ideas I did have just seemed tired.  But then I thought that it might be an idea to take the core concepts I still had in mind for the story and just start afresh.  Different setting, different characters (although with the same names) and with a narrow scope, at least initially, than the original attempt.  And for the most part I’m a lot happier with it so far.  Lots of stories to tell though, which is good.  Stops me from getting too bogged down with any one story.

But it wasn’t finished in the month, so there we go.  I’ll try again with something new next year.

It was the second-last weekend in November when everything hit the fan.  Angry threats were made at work and that was the straw that broke back of it and I handed in my notice.  Better that I was unemployed and healthy than employed and suicidal.

And I haven’t really regretted it once.  It’s a no-brainer that I have not been back to Whiteinch Church of Scotland for the Sunday Celebration and I don’t think I ever will.  I do wish them well for the future but if they ever want to see this ‘Culture of Honour’ fully realised they’ll have to really look at sorting themselves out.  One thing that going though my own counselling process has shown me is that there are a good few of Whiteinch Church leadership who need counselling of their own.

But with a month of the year left, two wonderful things happened.

A story, Whiteinch In Flight, was accepted for a local anthology…

…And my daughter was born, late for Christmas, but in plenty of time for the new year.

I have big plans for 2010.  It really feels like I’ve been through a lot this year and I’m confident and a feeling a lot more prepared for what I’m planning for the year ahead.

There are books to write, a wife to keep happy and a daughter to raise.  No problem.

- Alistair

Let’s see.  What has been going on in the life of Al?

Well, NaNoWriMo started and, two and a half weeks later, stumbled and fell of the ride.  Loads of bad stuff happened, mostly from my work, and I was a basket case for the majority of the month of November.  Truth be told I was a basket case for a good few months before that and I still have a long way to go before I’m back to normal (whatever that is) and am back working on all cylinders.

25,000 words though.  That’s not bad at all.

I’m currently unemployed as I had no other choice than to leave, the sanity of both Ruth and I was more important than a part-time admin job, and it’s going to be a long haul before I have my confidence and self-esteem back to where it should be.

Anyway, all of this madness got in the way of my finishing NaNoWriMo, which is a damn shame as I was really enjoying the story I had set myself this year.  But with time on my hands before the impending birth of my first child (due date = 13th December!) I am spending some of it on Desert of Zin so I don’t totally lose the thread like I did before.

- Alistair

The computer desk has been jettisoned (today, thanks to Edgy) and the pc has been set up in the front room on Ruthy’s old work desk, with a new Acer 22inch widescreen TFT monitor replacing the 19″ CRT monstrosity that took up most of the space on the old desk.  And now that part of the shifting of stuff seems to have settled, I have time to dedicate to bashing more words into the various stories I have on the go.

Which nicely brings me to the point : yWriter is back on the PC!

For those who don’t know yWriter is a very nifty piece of software that helps you organise your work, by chapter and scene if neccessary, and it helped me organise things enough to get though the joys of last years NaNoWriMo.  And it’s back in time for this year.  Quality.

One thing to note though, I tried running it on Linux through Mono but it’s nowhere near as good as it is in Windoze.  Fortunately I have Xp set up in VirtualBox and it’s working very nice there, thank you very much.

Which reminds me, more work to do.  The pub beckons soon but there’s easily an hours worth of writing to get done.

- Alistair

So I have taken a sly day off work to catch up with some writing.  I’ve got this nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that I have things to do in the office today, but nothing so important that can’t be put off ’til tomorrow.  It’s not like i’m full time with the church anyway.

There are a few things I’m working on today, notably at least another 2000 words for DoZ.  I’ll give a full update later to show how productive I’ve been.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, there was a particular reason why I left the after-school group. A particular reason other than it being crap. That’s a whole other reason, and not one that’s good enough for giving up a paying job.

No, the reason why I’ve cut my hours down is so that I can dedicate working hours to writing and other creative pursuits. And I reckon that the only way for me to get the time and focus my enthusiasm to getting a substantial amount of work done is by treating it like a job.

I’m not expecting wonders here (and maybe I should) but Ruth and I have discussed this at length and we’re both of the opinion that I have to try and make it happen and stop just talking about it.

It’s a bold move, and one that cuts down our income for a good while. But we can survive on an income and a half for the time being. And I’ll get more time to produce work as long as I’m actually producing something.

Initially this crazy plan is for the rest of the month of January and at the end of the month we will see if it’s worth continuing with.

The project is “The Desert Of Zin”, the story that prompted the name of this website. There’s an existing prologue and old notes for the rest of a story that I’ve been working over for the past few weeks. I’ve put in a lot of the groundwork to make the proposed story as strong as possible and I’m confident that come Tuesday morning, the first “official” day of the new writing regime, I’ll be hitting the ground running.

My “working” days will be Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I’ll be posting an update where possible.  And to cut down on the distractions, which are an ever-present problem at home, I’ll be working in the local library.

Hopefully that should do it. 

There are some other creative objects on the horizon but I’m wanting to get this under my belt before entertaining anything else.

I’ll share these other ideas at a later date.

Take it easy,

Al

Just over 13,000 words. A far cry from 50,000 but it was fun trying.

Again, real life got in the way, even during the week I took off for it.  Nevermind.   It was the best fun I’ve had writing in ages.

One thing I took from this year’s attempt was that I really need to dedicate “proper” time to my writing and by “proper” time I mean dedicating working time, that is treating it like a second job, to my writing. Especially if I want to ever think about doing it for a living.

The problem with that is, with two part time jobs and all the stuff I’ve dedicated time to in the evenings, I don’t really have the working time to spare.

Oh, hold on… I’ve just quit the job with the after-school care. Looks like I might have the time after all…

It has been a long haul today. With church work, the after-school care and Revolution in the evening, I only got in about 8ish.

It certainly has been a long day. And all the longer with 1667 words waiting to be written.

But despite my lack of enthusiasm for the WriMo today…

1802 words today.

6863 words in total.