A Message From My Friendly Ovesoul

Missy-
I know you feel like you are going through a bit of the wilderness here...depressed by the loss of job innocence once again, disappointed by your efforts at writing, posting, blogging; disturbed in general by your lack of discipline in posting to "Numerlogica"...discouragement over the fact that there are so many, many others out there writing columns or anything literary that seem much more talented at WRITING than you. Plus they are younger, hipper, have smaller mortgages and better hair and teeth. Oh the list goes on and on of what you have to feel bad about.

BUT, despite all this niggling nonsense, the fact remains: you want to write for a living. Face it kid...you've tried to recast yourself in other clothing. You've tried your hand at more trades than a monkey can shade a stick at. You've willed yourself (unsuccessfully) not to become despondent when each Answer-to-Every-Job-Woe morphs into a thorn in your side. What is the constant here??? After the veil of delusion is ripped from your eyes, you begin to write. You pitifully pour out your sorrowful soul and then you begin to speak your true language, dance to your true melody. You begin painfully (because it is through your writing that you excise your angst) but instinctively to practice what you came back here in this life to do. To write. This is not difficult to deduce.

Yes, the thought of trying to figure out how to make a living with your imperfect skills is daunting to the power of infinity. Still, it is truly all you've done that has never failed you. Frightened you, yes; failed you, no.

You have a fine, strange mind. You have an above average vocabulary and you have a love of technology. Using these elements alone, you can dig yourself out of your depression and make a path to a new working existence. Please know now that it will be without a doubt, NOT EASY. It will be a pain. It will be a lot of hard work to get noticed, to improve your skills, to simply finish what you say you will and to be consistent. Add to that that it will expose you to criticism. It will expose you, period.

And no one can say whether you'll ever get all that you want to achieve but at least you will achieve PART of IT. If you simply pursue with passion your desire to write for a living, you will have satisfied an important part of your destiny. And that part will bring you more joy than the total of your working life put together up to this point.

August and the first of September are all about your struggle to overcome inertia, to expertly route out all those silly fantasies you have about becoming a solid gold dancer or chef or transportation planner. Yes those things hold your interest and it's important never to lose that curiosity. But, as a person who is for better or worse defined by her work, you cannot be confined by these narrow occupational categories. To muse and write about these roles is part of YOUR role. To communicate to others your vision of how you see these things (and others) is your responsibility. It is your very lifeblood.

How can I put this in the strongest terms possible? It is not necessary for you to be the best writer that ever lived. It is not necessary for you to win the Pulitzer Prize or be on the New York Times best seller list or be the most tremendous blogger that ever blogged. These things are NOT necessary. It is only necessary that you write while you are living. Period. That's IT! Everything else is gravy.

Oversoul out.

My cousin Christine Birch, was one of the 2004 Key Art Award winners (honoring excellence in movie advertising sponsored by the Hollywood Reporter). Christine won for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

We haven't communicated in years but she's one of the only relatives whose picture I found through googling. Congratulations Chris!

Work and Risk

My working life is all about risk. No, not risk as in I'm exposed to
dangerous substances or other hazardous conditions. Risky as in it's a
gamble because there are stakes involved. It's the same for everyone. We
all decide that for what we get from an employer-- say health benefits, a
salary, a pension (if we're lucky), use of a powerful computer and free
internet connection-- we provide services to our employer, namely, the
benefit of our skills and efforts. This is an exchange that we do for a
goodly portion of our lives.

I often forget that by accepting the comfy seat out of the cold we trade
away our right to exercise our potential. The potential wages and benefits
that we could accrue if we worked somewhere else; the possibility of
achieving more if we were to evoke a latent option.

This fact has become more apparent lately...there are vague rumblings in
the head office of Megabucks Industries, my current employer. You
know the drill: the company wants to trend leaner and meaner. There's a
upsurge in talk about leveraging new resources and driving new standards. Blah, blah, blah, corporate CYA speak, blah.

Hmmm.

As a support person this makes me nervous because often the luxury of
support is dispensed with during a time of 'change management'. I'm
fearful that the new 'strategic direction' won't include a box on the org
chart for me. So how do I cope?

After passing through the obligatory denial, then enragement phases, I've
restarted my search for a new career. One new thing I'm considering is copywriting. Yep, one of those employed to write advertising or publicity copy. I've been checking out Nick Osborne's site and I've been guiltily intrigued...why would I want to learn how to write copy for the kind of mailbox dreck that I regularly shred? Because it's writing for a living. It's tone, ebb and flow. It's flavor and modulation. It's impalpable persuasion...the art and science of influence and silkily-subtle temptation. Who wouldn't want to do that every day???!!!

Naturally, if all I'm doing is bald-faced manipulation for an obscene
product like cigarettes, then I'm not going to feel too good about myself.
So I'd like to believe that I'd work for a non-toxic employer. Sitting
here today, anticipating obsolescence, it looks pretty doable.

I'm fairly convinced of it.