The Big Transition

Two weeks from today will find me officially unemployed. After four and a half years of working at the MEC Head Office, I’ve decided to leave it behind to move on to other opportunities. Many people have asked exactly what those opportunities are—and I’ve given a lot of vague answers—but I think it’s time I admit what my grand plan for 2010 is going to be.

My first action as a free man will be to trade in my double 17″ monitors for a stretch of warm sand somewhere near the equator. I want to detox from the electric necessities of my job, and reset my brain with a rigorous program of surfing, reading, and eating fresh made tortillas. Costa Rica and Baja are topping the list at the moment, and if you’re looking for me in January or February, that’s where I’ll be.

And after that?

The rest of the year is a chance for me to take risks. I’ve had some serious conversations with myself, and we’ve agreed that I should be given the permission to fail catastrophically at something I’m afraid of. Over the years I’ve had persistent interests in some creative areas, but haven’t taken the time to pursue them on a serious level. Being a professional writer was always a thing other people did, and never a real possibility for my own future. It was for the financially lucky people who didn’t need a day job, or the innately talented people who were producing great work from the time they were children. It was for bolder, wiser, braver people. It was for everyone who didn’t have the multitude of excuses that I’d created for myself. After all these years of keeping my fiction private and avoiding personal investment in a creative endeavor, I’m acting on the fact that all of the barriers between me and what I want to do have been imagined.

Here it is, out in the open: the creative project I’ve been hinting at is the completion of my first full fiction manuscript (MS). I’m not expecting to land a book deal, or even an agent, by the end of the year, but I do hope to give the writing the solid attempt I owe myself. Only after the year has seen itself out, will I assess my progress and the possibility of pitching and selling the story. The focus on 2010 is producing 80,000 words with which to judge my potential. I want to make progress by making mistakes.

I may complete my MS and realize that I want to go back to the office world.
I may complete my MS, realize that it’s not great, but that I want to proceed to a new idea.
I may complete my MS, love it, and begin running it through the editing process before seeking representation.

There are many possible outcomes, but the only one I see as a true failure is not giving myself the opportunity to see this through to the end.

This has by no means been a spontaneous decision. Writing a novel not the sort of thing a smart person typically quits their day job for, but I’ve done a fair job of setting aside money over the last two years so that I won’t need to work more than casually to ensure I can feed and shelter myself. Nietzsche wrote that ‘one must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star,’ and although I find myself confident in my decision, I feel the mix of excitement and nerves that I hope will lead me to something worth of all the support my friends have shown me.

Thank you to everyone who has been there for me up to now, and especially to those of you I’ll be leaning heavily upon in the new year.

Before anyone asks, yes, I know what I’m writing about, and no, I won’t tell you. I may let a few hints slip here on the blog, but those will come in time. Until then, this is the place to stay on top of what I’m doing, and where I’ll end up. I’ll be writing about my travels, my travails, and hopefully my triumphs, and you can subscribe to the blog to receive RSS updates in your feed reader or an email whenever a new post is added.