This post comes as I sit in a coffee shop with an $8 latte and plain bagel. There’s a kid watching an action movie without headphones on, clearly unaware coffee shops are a sacred space for writer’s who can’t write unless people are there to witness it. I came with the intention of editing my most recent short The Great Tribulation, and as I stared at the screen with my fingers and creative brain cells numb, thoughts turning to how terribly hard and pointless all of this writing stuff is, I realized it’s been a whole month since I’ve written anything other than a few passing thoughts. So here I am!
My time away at the farm taught me that as a farm-hand you’ll never have time for lounging over a book or jotting down all the stories that pop into your mind while doing some repetitive task. I started reading Here Comes The Sun the day I left and it’s been such a struggle I’m only 47% through. I’m having a hard time caring about the characters and what they’re going through, I think it has a lot to do with my not finding the characters very definitive or interesting. It’s a bit like a drama where the writer wants to keep things suprising but holds your hand the whole way through. Still, I’ll probably keep reading because
- I paid full price for the ebook…
- I’m curious to compare it to the other First Novel Prize finalists and understand why it was nominated. The writing is good, but my guess is because the plot falls nicely into this year’s selection of finalists that are culturally rich or have LGBT related plots that are all the rage right now.
It’s been about 10 days since I got back and in my time offline I’ve started applying to some Upwork jobs (a freelance website) and am looking for work slowly, applying to jobs that sound within my capabilities and interesting. If you’re new to freelance writing and have little to no experience Upwork is a great website to gain experience and get the ball rolling.
Before I left for the farm I was undecided whether I wanted to keep this blog as it is or focus more on my fiction. I’ve since decided I’m going to keep things mostly story-oriented with the occasional book review or gif related post, especially because improving my creative writing was why I first decided to start Drunk Off Rhetoric. So expect some short stories and flash fiction in the next few days.
That’s all for now, it’s good to be back and I look forward to checking in with you all 🙂