Monday, January 16, 2012

Panel to Panel

Because I'm in a cliche-y kind of mood this morning, I'd like to start this post out with the following, staggeringly insightful statement: Life is funny sometimes.

Told you it'd be cliche-y.

But tired old cliches are both tired and old precisely because they're usually quite true. And, despite the validity and/or ridiculousness of that previous sentence, I do have a point I'd like to make today. Only, as with most things when it comes to my writing, it's taking me a little while to get there.

I just find it funny--not "haha funny," mind you--that just a couple weeks ago, I was stressed out to the max, worrying about every possible future event that might have been on my horizon. As I've talked about, just before Christmas, I left a job that I had spent the past two years doing, working with truly wonderful, smart people.

I'd carved out a nice little thing for myself, and I was content with it.

But, as life tends to do, an opportunity arose that I couldn't ignore. And then, when I wished that there might be some kind of sign to help me make a decision about what to do--take a new gig or stick with the one I had--a sign literally fell on my head and all but made the decision for me.

Still, I was hesitant and more than a little angry and sad at the way things went down.

But in the end I knew that I had to make a move. And now, two weeks into the new job, I'm glad I did. Don't get me wrong--I am by no means an optimist, and I fully understand that every job has its ups and downs and sometimes the downs can be crushing. And I still miss the people I used to work with, but I'm very fortunate that I've been able to stay in touch with a good number of them.

But the way things are now, I get to spend the majority of my day writing.

Like, for a living.

After being an editor for seven years and working on everything from high school textbooks to how-to guides on laying tile, from interviews with pet psychics (Note to Self: Must write a post about that, one day) to a book on built-in furniture, I've always had a...let's say, love/hate relationship with writers.

And I've always wanted to write my own stuff, obviously, but as an editor, that can be poison. So I all but knocked that thought out of my head.

Sure, Nathaniel and I write on this blog every day and quite a few people read what we lay down on the keys. But for me, at least, Exfanding has always been my only venue to get my work out there. Nathaniel, on the other hand, writes for GameCola and produces an insane number of YouTube videos--both of which garner an impressive number of readers and watchers.

Now, though, I have a new creative outlet (that's WWE.com, kiddies) and, like I said, I spend my days writing.

And that's just fine with me.

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