this week, I have mostly been writing letters. lovingly crafting letter templates, drafting standard paragraph after glorious standard paragraph.
and the best news is, I've only just started. there are many, many letters just waiting for me to get my sticky little mitts on.
oh, how I am enjoying my new job! may the letters never end...
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Saturday, 5 June 2010
a little bit of tweaking...
So I told you that I’d pre-paid for a competition so I would have to enter, right? Well, as I pre-paid, I selected which story I was going to enter. It was “strongly considered” for last year’s Aesthetica competition, re-entered in this year’s Mslexia competition and as far as I could see, pretty much good to go, right?
Wrong.
I’ve just undergone the short story equivalent of thinking you’ll perhaps clear out your jewellery box and before you know it, you’ve emptied all your drawers, pulled everything out from under the bed and are sat in the middle of your room surrounded by piles of crap you haven’t had a use for since 2002.
A full-on accidental re-write, but oh! how I feel so much better for it. I’ve also given myself the luxury of time (it isn't due in until the end of June), so I can now leave it til next weekend and hopefully when I look at it again any faults will pop out at me, easily fixable, so I can then send it off.
I've also (finally) fixed the last lines of my story for the Waterstones Perfectly Formed competition and have just emailed that off. Over the last few days, I've had the inklings of another (longer) story, and the title has just come to me, as have the characters names so I'm going to start off by making some notes and see where that takes me. Originally, I thought it would be my NaNo story this year, but I need to start making notes now before I forget so if I play by NaNo rules, I can't technically start it yet...hmmmm...I think I will just have to see what happens. Its likely that I'll put it away and not look at it again until November anyway, so it might not technically be cheating...
Anyway, must go. The sunshine is glorious but I'm sat at the kitchen table being dedicated to my art. Go me.
Wrong.
I’ve just undergone the short story equivalent of thinking you’ll perhaps clear out your jewellery box and before you know it, you’ve emptied all your drawers, pulled everything out from under the bed and are sat in the middle of your room surrounded by piles of crap you haven’t had a use for since 2002.
A full-on accidental re-write, but oh! how I feel so much better for it. I’ve also given myself the luxury of time (it isn't due in until the end of June), so I can now leave it til next weekend and hopefully when I look at it again any faults will pop out at me, easily fixable, so I can then send it off.
I've also (finally) fixed the last lines of my story for the Waterstones Perfectly Formed competition and have just emailed that off. Over the last few days, I've had the inklings of another (longer) story, and the title has just come to me, as have the characters names so I'm going to start off by making some notes and see where that takes me. Originally, I thought it would be my NaNo story this year, but I need to start making notes now before I forget so if I play by NaNo rules, I can't technically start it yet...hmmmm...I think I will just have to see what happens. Its likely that I'll put it away and not look at it again until November anyway, so it might not technically be cheating...
Anyway, must go. The sunshine is glorious but I'm sat at the kitchen table being dedicated to my art. Go me.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
odd day
today was a very strange day. it started off normally, I spent yesterday out of the office so caught up on my emails first thing, chatted to my team, drank some tea, as you do. about half past nine, my manager and the rest of the ops managers, and our director, and a girl from HR (carrying a box chock full of letters) spoke in whispers and then disappeared upstairs. uh-oh, we thought, and immediately started discussing all the horrible things that this could mean.
whispers + letters = change
five minutes later, we (ie all the managers) were summoned to the fifth floor. they like to get everyone in a room and give news in a controlled environment. we've recently moved into our building, and the fifth floor is currently unoccupied. glorious views of newcastle, some upturned tables and big empty spaces. everyone was thinking redundancy, what we got was redeployment. there are two sides to our department, benefit entitlement checks (where I work) and community legal advice (where I don't work), and my department is getting smaller and people need to move over to the other side.
phew! is that all? well, thats ok...isn't it?
well, yes, and no. no-one is losing their job (technically), but there are currently eight managers on my side. David and I are off on secondment for a year (more on that later) and we need to cut down and have two managers transfer to cla, and have three managers left on bec. doing the maths, that means that one person who is currently a manager will have to not be a manager soon. and that sucks. and for me, it means that when I go off on secondment, my job disappears, and although I've been reassured that I will still have a job to come back to, no-one knows what that job will be.
I don't like uncertainty. I like to plan. and I feel so, so sorry for whoever doesn't get their managers job, because although I know that having a job is better than having no job at all, and it could be an awful lot worse, the reality of being the one person who doesn't get it would be absolutely mortifying. and this person will be one of my friends.
as for me, well, I have a year to find myself a permanent job. a lot can happen in a year. part of me thinks, ok, I hadn't really intended to return from this secondment anyway. the plan had always been to find another job (more money, etc) and now my hand has been forced and thats ok. and then, another part of me thinks, sometimes life hands you a ready made deadline, and I should take advantage of it. a lot can get written in a year...
perhaps I should harness this uncertainty and use it to motivate myself. why perhaps? that is exactly what I should do...
in other news, with my new secondment comes a work blackberry. I am more excited by this than I should be. I've already sent one sarcastic out of hours email to IT...
whispers + letters = change
five minutes later, we (ie all the managers) were summoned to the fifth floor. they like to get everyone in a room and give news in a controlled environment. we've recently moved into our building, and the fifth floor is currently unoccupied. glorious views of newcastle, some upturned tables and big empty spaces. everyone was thinking redundancy, what we got was redeployment. there are two sides to our department, benefit entitlement checks (where I work) and community legal advice (where I don't work), and my department is getting smaller and people need to move over to the other side.
phew! is that all? well, thats ok...isn't it?
well, yes, and no. no-one is losing their job (technically), but there are currently eight managers on my side. David and I are off on secondment for a year (more on that later) and we need to cut down and have two managers transfer to cla, and have three managers left on bec. doing the maths, that means that one person who is currently a manager will have to not be a manager soon. and that sucks. and for me, it means that when I go off on secondment, my job disappears, and although I've been reassured that I will still have a job to come back to, no-one knows what that job will be.
I don't like uncertainty. I like to plan. and I feel so, so sorry for whoever doesn't get their managers job, because although I know that having a job is better than having no job at all, and it could be an awful lot worse, the reality of being the one person who doesn't get it would be absolutely mortifying. and this person will be one of my friends.
as for me, well, I have a year to find myself a permanent job. a lot can happen in a year. part of me thinks, ok, I hadn't really intended to return from this secondment anyway. the plan had always been to find another job (more money, etc) and now my hand has been forced and thats ok. and then, another part of me thinks, sometimes life hands you a ready made deadline, and I should take advantage of it. a lot can get written in a year...
perhaps I should harness this uncertainty and use it to motivate myself. why perhaps? that is exactly what I should do...
in other news, with my new secondment comes a work blackberry. I am more excited by this than I should be. I've already sent one sarcastic out of hours email to IT...
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