All Change

I haven't blogged here recently because life has been more than a little hectic.  

First of all I handed my notice in at the horrible job. I've been wanting to leave for ages but didn't want to leave until I had another job to go to. In the end the atmosphere had become so toxic that I felt physically sick each day before I had to go in and near to tears most of the time that I was there.  Eventually I decided that life was just too short.

It saddens me that an organisation whose aim is to empower women made me feel so belittled and diminished.  From the moment I handed in my notice until the day I left the trustees didn't even have the courtesy to speak to me or even respond to work related emails. After nearly two years of dedicated hard work I found their attitude positively insulting.  I can only take heart that their behaviour reflects badly only on them.  I know I behaved with professionalism and dignity until the end.  I am just so pleased that I don't have to have anything to do with them any more.

Because I didn't have another job to go to (although I didn't tell them that), I spent my notice period applying for jobs and trying to make more freelance contacts.

I left work the day that half term started and was hoping to have a quiet week spending some quality time with my boys.  But it wasn't to be as two lots of last minute work came in which kept me tied to my keyboard for most of the week.

The following week I was offered a job, working three days a week.  Its with another charity - this time working with the elderly, but because of my recent experience I was a first hesitant to take another job in the voluntary sector.

As the expense of Christmas is around the corner though, I took the plunge.  I completed my first three days this week and thankfully they seem like a really friendly bunch and it has felt good to be in an environment where the staff are respected.

There is just so much to take in though that each day my head has been near to explosion point by the time I get home.

Its going to be a challenge fitting my increased freelance work, home and family around all this and over the last few weeks my writing has definitely taken a back seat.

I'm sure things will settle down soon but in the meantime I'm setting myself small writing takes each day so that at least I'll feel as though I'm achieving something, rather than having so little time and head space that larger projects seem too daunting.

There is one thing I'm grateful for though, and that is that I didn't sign up to NaNoWriMo this month.  I think that might just have sent me over the edge.

Life On The Cobbles

One of my guilty passions is – Coronation Street.  I was brought up on Corrie, and the opening soundtrack to each episode evokes such a sense of pleasure, I fear that I have turned into one of Pavlov’s dogs. 

OK, as it’s a soap, I have to admit that it can be a bit far-fetched – I mean, just how unlucky can some characters be?  But it also brings some massive issues into the forefront of people’s minds – ie how men can be the victims of domestic abuse (Tyrone), euthanasia (Hayley), depression (Steve), alcoholism (probably several characters here – I mean, how can you drink in the pub at lunchtime and then go back to the factory and sew knickers or mend cars in Kevin’s garage?) and one of the current storylines of an adult being abused by her teenage step-son. As the mother on one teenage son and one soon to be teenage son, this is particularly scary.

But sometimes the smaller stories can also resonate.  The developing relationship between Roy and Cathy is one that springs to mind.  Both of them have recently lost their spouses and both are trying to move on with their lives but are struggling in different ways.  They have feelings for each other but both feel guilty about still being alive when their partners can’t be with them anymore.

Cathy is a hoarder, her house has become her own death-trap and Roy has been trying to persuade her to clear the clutter.  Cathy has admitted that the amount of possessions she has are diminishing her, but they also provide her with a comfort blanket.

In response to her admission, Roy replied with something that I found particularly profound.  He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that he liked to anchor his life in predictability but that the one predictable thing in life is that it has to change.  As I heard him say these words I felt something really connect.  My husband tells me that “it’s not real you know”, but hey, I write fiction and good fiction is about making a connection. 

Perhaps it’s because my own life is about to go through a period of change that this touched a nerve, who knows?  But one thing it did for me was to encourage me to embrace that change.

My children are growing up and need me less (unless they want a lift or money) and although a period in my life has passed, I’m looking for the positives.

Perhaps that has been behind my current need to declutter.  Now, I’m nowhere near the hoarder that Cathy is, but I’m ashamed to say that I have found a stack of magazines which are older than my marriage and therefore older than my teenage son, need I say more?  However, I haven’t been able to throw them out without reading them once more, after all, something in them might be a trigger for a new story.

So, I’m slowly working my way through them and yes, I have to admit, there are things in there that have triggered some writing ideas. And now that I have harvested them, I simply must recycle!!!