The Journey

Good morning one and all, it's journey day.

I have been graced with a few months to indulge my writing whims without the burden of financial concerns. Soon I will have to get serious however, which kinda sucks.

After working in-house for a high tech company for seven months I was suddenly free to write whatever I wanted. This opportunity hadn't come before so I decided to really use the time for my personal creative projects. I have written poetry and fiction and I have sent it all off to literary journals and contests, just to get it all out there.

The experience has been, oddly enough, an extension of what I learned while working in-house.

Everything I wrote and edited in-house was 'micromanaged.' I developed a very thick skin indeed. It was a fantastic learning experience and also taught me that I had to finish everything I started. No excuses were acceptable. It was work, work, work...I was a writing and editing machine.

The experience taught me never to give up and also how to evaluate my own work. I learned where all my little writing and editing quirks existed, but also what I was really good at naturally.

The in-house experience also taught me that writing and editing are very subjective products. We were three editors and three writers and we almost never agreed on anything. Each person had their own style and I could tell by the work who'd written what.

It was great to be free of that atmosphere, however. Why?

Well, I think in any company there are limitations to how much you can learn, I'd hit mine. I could tell I was starting to get restless with my position and it was very timely when I was free to go.

I still keep in touch with two of the women I worked with there and we share our professional and personal experiences regularly.

The process of moving from one working environment to another is profound. I was deeply ready to be working in my home office again and certain work needed to be born and it has been.

I will never forget the skills I learned in-house, but I feel like I'm dancing on air when I settle in front of my own computer and create.

I raise my glass to the forward motion and optimism of the future.

Being exactly where you should be when you should be is powerful.

I am liberated!