Life After

I am currently in a sort of limbo stage of life where I have graduated college and have not yet started my big-girl job. I'm living with my parents and working as a froster at Nothing Bundt Cakes.

I am moving to Atlanta in two months or so, and the anxiety to find the right job is hitting hard. Especially since Atlanta is not an inexpensive city

I've also been feeling like I've been spinning my wheels as a writer. To be a successful writer, I feel like I have to have a high profile job, and already have two books published that have made best seller lists.

In reality I know this isn't true. I know that to be a successful writer, I just have to write, and maybe the job and the publications will come.

So in that way I am successful. I have been working on three big projects. One YA book manuscript that is finished and needs editing, a new-adult romance novel in the drafting stage, and an experimental memoir-fiction hybrid.

Life after leaving school, has been so much better. I have been writing so much consistently. Even though I'm still plagued by the anxiety of getting the good job, and getting the right agent, I know that what I am doing is enough.

It's perfect really. Right now I am collecting stories. I can now write better about bakeries, living with parents, and the little things that make up living in transition. I've learned that for a writer, it is just as important to do different things than finding the one thing you want to do.

My advice to young writers who are anxious about making it is to do something that interests you and pay attention. If you need a job, don't be afraid to apply for the ones that don't have anything to do with your end goal but sound fun. Be an escape room game master, be a foster, be a eucalyptus feeder at the zoo. Engage in places, listen, and maybe talk to people.

Even if you can't get the job that sounds fun and get the job that simply sucks, you can still pay attention, but make sure to take measures so that it doesn't suck the soul out of you. At least not for good.

I am saying this to whoever needs to hear this just as much as I am saying this to myself: it's okay to simply live a life where you make it up as you go along.