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Wednesday, Well, bugger I didn't get the job. I spent the entire day indoors, fending off three phone calls from AT&T long-distance telemarketers, carrying the cordless phone into the john with me, for Boombah's sake, just to learn this. Apparently it was a really tough decision for the hiring manager, which is why I didn't hear from my recruiter until 6:00 pm, but in the end they decided to go with someone else with stronger writing skills and more Fireworks experience. Needless to say, I ain't particularly pleased, and the reason especially chaps my ass. The experience with Fireworks I can understand (I KNEW I should have said, "Yeah, I'm an expert, can do it in my sleep," but in the words of a great Albanian-American, NOOOOOOOOOOOO, I had to be honest and say I was at intermediate level). But STRONGER WRITING SKILLS??? I knew from the moment the hiring manager asked if he could keep my writing samples for further consideration that something weird was going on. Of course, I'd like to see the successful candidate camp out on the doorstep of Swedish techs, pull specs out of them in broken Swinglish, deal with micromanaging dookie-heads whose first language isn't English, and still produce quality work. As Tom Hise wondered, "Stronger writing skills? Who did they hire, Connie Willis?" So I went through hurt and utter soul-destroying despair, to sobbing and feeling like shit, to a horrible shaking anger, to gradual resignation, all within about four hours. And my sinuses still feel like someone poured Bactine into them. Such fun. A long call with Lyndon helped, as did bitching to pretty much everybody I know on-line (at one point I announced that I was going into hardcore porn writing, as I'd rather work for Larry Flynt on a regular basis than deal with one more mid-level manager. And believe me, folks, I'm considering it -- the market isn't as big as it used to be, but some 'men's magazines' still take stories). The only thing that is keeping me from strapping on Scrivener and going after the TBS Village with C4 (on the basis that they completely fucked up my life AND wasted copious amounts of money on a uniquely ugly and badly designed building), is the fact that I have another interview scheduled for tomorrow with a local university. I actually don't know much about the job other than it's some sort of writing position, but the fact that I have to take a typing and spelling test as well as an editing assessment doesn't fill me with confidence that this is some sort of hard-hitting, high-paying position. However, if they want me and what they offer pays the bills, I'll take it even if it's basically a jumped-up admin job. I don't have the luxury of being proud anymore -- I'll take anything I can get if it keeps this place over our heads. Oh, and then, in a fit of very weird but reassuring serendipity, I checked my email around 10:30 pm and found a message from one of my recruiting agencies wondering if I'd be interested in a 6-week contract. Is Della Reese hanging out on the Internet these days? So Mellie is not the happiest of campers at the moment, but at least she's not staring into a deep dark hole and wondering how long she would fall until she hit bottom.
And in an attempt to find yet another way to stake my claim on the Internet
And yes, I know I have a perfectly good journal here, and I already have a blog. Why set up another one? Well, because I needed to have the account anyway if I wanted to leave comments on the boys' pages, and public humiliation has always been a great spur to production in the past so it seemed like a good time to resurrect the concept and focus solely on my writing output. Anyway, I was working on White Knight, Queen Alice before today's little bombshell was dropped, and I did manage to get the first chapter done and get a couple of pages into Chapter Two. It ain't pretty, it ain't publishable yet, but it's also not bad. Damn, I may wind up with a finished novel yet.
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