Perseverance, Luck, and Inspiration

This post is in three parts, can you guess what they are called?

Perserverance

I started this blog almost two years ago with this post.  It was pretty amateur I’ll admit (not like it’s any better now), but it was a lot of fun and it felt good to put something out there.  It wouldn’t be long before my blog was discovered by the WordPress admins, and after my third post I was freshly pressed.  I was blown away by the overwhelming positive response I got.  I thought I was set.  I can quit my day job!  Boy was I wrong.

My remaining 17 posts all garnered the same positive comments but none came close to matching the popularity of that initial post, so I lost interest.  I thought, “if no one is reading it, what’s the point?  I have other things to spend my time on, like getting a decent job.”  Six months after my last post I found myself an unemployed “aspiring screenwriter” living in Los Angeles.  Life sucked.  I debated going back to waiting tables again.  I debated selling my body.  I debated asking my parents for money, but not necessarily in that order.

I decided to bite the bullet and start applying for full-time, career-oriented jobs.  I played to my strengths and applied to different writing positions.  Through my research I found that there were quite a few internet marketing firms based in LA, so I applied.  Surprisingly, after only about a week of applying, I heard back from one such company.  They called me in for an interview and in I went.

Luck

I arrived a solid ten minutes late to the interview, like any good creative person should, but apparently I was right on time because the person interviewing me was late as well.  After waiting for about five minutes I was ushered into a small office and the interview began.  It will be noted that normally I do quite well in interviews.  I have above average self-confidence and fair generally well under pressure (I’m a good BSer), but today I’ll admit I was quite nervous.

I managed to compose myself, and overall I thought everything was going pretty well.  I was still kind of wondering what got me the interview considering I didn’t really have any paid writing experience, internet or otherwise.  This question was soon answered though when she got to the topic of my blog.  At first I was surprised, but then I was worried because I started to remember all the ridiculous shit I post on this thing, especially this one.  And that would be the exact one she chose to discuss.

Not only did we discuss the blog post I wrote about how working a job sucks compared to being in college, but she actually liked it.  In fact, it was the very reason why I got this interview.  I would go on to get two more interviews because of it, and eventually select one of which I am currently employed.  Ain’t that some shit?

Inspiration

Which takes me to this post.  I have been working for a little over a month now.  My finances are starting to get back on track, and I am generally happy.  While I had originally quit this blog because I was frustrated with the response and didn’t think it was worth my time, it eventually paid off.  I’ve also learned that being creative isn’t about the reward; it’s about expressing yourself.  It’s about being an individual.  If you do that then eventually everything else will just fall into place.

Hence I have returned to blogging.  This time around I’m not hoping for any kind of monetary reward, but just hoping to make a few people laugh, make you think, or just make your day a bit better.  Happy reading!

I have also been inspired by the return of this brave woman.

Oh and yes, this means a new post is actually coming.  This time I promise.  I will have it up by the end of the week.  Here is a snippet:

“Finally, I locate the miracle eye juice.  I stumble to the cash register, fumble around for some money, and hand her some blurry-ass bills I can only hope are the right ones.  She does some cash register things and hands me back more bills, which I also assume to be the right ones.  I take the magic eyeball liquid, walk three steps out of the store, and squeeze that shit in my eye like a fire hose turned on a raging fire.”