what's cooking?

Today is the beginning of my 18th month out of having no day job.
I know you don’t care-but obviously it is on my mind. At the beginning of this journey I knew I was in for a pretty “rough” time. After all we are in the midst of a recession/depression and most of my contacts in public relations were also being laid off. Many of my free-lance writing compadres were also frustrated by the lack of responses from what used to be fairly good resources for assignments.

It sure isn’t from lack of sending out queries, applying for positions or offering my services to venues that weren’t even in the realm of my interest zone.
Thinking back-out of my own love of research I should have started a list of when and where I sent out all those various “letters” and their attachments.

Whatever-I have to admit I’m getting just a shade less optimistic about things. Knowing you’re in for a rough time and actually saying “hey, what the heck is going on here and what do I do next?” isn’t the same thing.

I have received computer generated notes telling me things such as:
We are no longer accepting outside queries, thank you for your interest in our publication.
Due to the economy all articles are now being handled in-house.
Thank you for your interest in “fill-in-the-name”, there are no openings at the present time but we will hold onto your resume for a period of six months.
Your story ideas intrigue us-since we work totally in-house, we will pass them along to the appropriate department.

I think you get the idea. Essentially, I’m being told to go bite the big one. And NO it doesn’t help to know half a dozen others who are being told the same thing.
One thing I did do-before breaking my hand, I wrote up an outline for a book I’ve been trying to put together. I also wrote an intro of sorts, started a chapter and even asked some of my contacts to write an anecdotal to include. I’ve even received 3 and an offer to write an opening. I’ve also been told that once I’ve written the first couple of chapters and my introductory letter that this one contact would get me in touch with her publisher/agent.

Not sure if she meant it-but I’ll find out when I get to that part. I think I would have been there except for the slight physical problem of having only one hand that works well enough to type at a decent speed.

That’s improving-finally. So here I sit, typing articles, doing interviews, submitting queries and doing what I can to move forward.

It sure isn’t easy though-my only thought is that tomorrow is the beginning of an entire new month (today is February 28th), so maybe it will also be the start of a new opportunity.
Never know-but I sure can continue to hope.

And guess what-just as I was getting ready to hit publish here, A REAL LIVE PERSON CALLED ME!

Editorial assistant for a very well-known company. Its entry level-but sounds intriguing.

Time to put on my Sunday best-get my hand to help me do my hair and make-up and take a really deep breath.

And I think I’ll say a prayer…