Thoughts

Today we went to see Mum. During the conversations we had we turned to talking about jobs and how there are more things that I'm incapable of doing than, unfortunately, I'm good at. She mentioned how I'm not a people person, which would make working in a shop difficult, and I also have very little patience. I'm clumsy, so waitressing wouldn't be a good job for me. Now if someone placed me in a room by myself and asked me to research something I'd be in my element. However that isn't a job that is easy to find, if it exists at all. I know that I'm an introvert, I know that I socialise best online via email or occasionally IM, and that is partly why I started attempting to turn my ability to write stories into a way of making money.

Nearly two years in and I'm not doing as well as I hoped to. Last year didn't help, because of not having a connection to the net for three (possibly four) months, so I've been trying to build up my audience ever since we moved. When I check my site stats I see that I'm getting visitors, which is wonderful, but they aren't consistant and I have no idea what to do to make them more consistant. I've been posting a serial twice a week that I was hoping would help, but it doesn't appear to have worked, unless I'm getting readers at LJ and DW that I don't know about. Maybe having two mirror sites was the wrong choice. The problem is I know I have readers at both sites so I feel like shutting them down now would be a mistake. *sigh* I just don't know what I can do.

I've tried giveaways, I've tried auctions, I've tried commissions, I've tried advertising on web lit sites, and nothing seems to work. So what I need right now is ideas that may help. Next month I'm setting up something new that I think might help me earn enough to be able to buy the groceries without using my birthday money, Christmas money, or savings.

Either that or I need to find a job I think I'd be capable of doing. The problem is that there seem to be so few jobs out there that I would be capable of or would like to do, because if I end up doing a job I don't enjoy I know I'll burn out. It's going to have to be part time, because I'm still going to write, and I know from experience that I'll burnout if I try to work full time. I did when I was at school and college, and I ended up having to take a year off when I was doing my A-Levels because I was trying to write while I was doing my exams. Neither even took up as much time as having a full time job would.

The World Walkers: Pendragon: Clara: Declining an Inheritance

It took all Clara’s willpower not to walk out of the room. She sat with people she had known all her life, knowing that for them it was probably the best day of their lives, while she was waiting for it all to be over. The guilt she still felt was really the only reason she stayed, because she knew that she was going to let her parents down when she gave back her inheritance. Where she was going she wasn’t going to need any of it and she wasn’t planning on ever returning. Her decision had been made long before she came of age, so she was as certain off it as she was of the man who had become her husband.

He was in the back somewhere, waiting until the ceremony was over. When it was they would go back to his boat and Clara would become one of travellers of Pendragon. It was almost unheard of for someone to leave the undersea towns behind, but she knew it was what she wanted, because she was in love with a man who could never feel comfortable spending more than a few days in one place. She knew what her parents were going to say when she told them, especially as she’d handfasted without their permission, and she was going to be leaving everything behind. Neither of them were particularly adventurous, even though she’d heard stories about a Walker aunt who rarely returned to Pendragon.

Towards the end of the ceremony that Clara’s name was called. Slowly, running her sweating hands down her dress, the same dress she’d worn when she’d handfasted the man she had loved for years, she made he way up to the plinth where the mayor was standing. He smiled at her, obviously assuming she was feeling as overwhelmed as the others. She managed to smile back, even though the urge to leave was growing, and waited for the declaration.

“Clara, daughter of Velia and Terho, you have been gifted the Rose Cottage, which has been passed down your family from mother to daughter for ten generations, the Wishing Well, a present your aunt gave to your mother for the day you came of age, and one of the boxes made by Riordan, fae traveller who visited Pendragon during the year of your birth.”

Swallowing, Clara ran a hand through her hair, reciting the ritual word within her mind once more before she felt ready to speak. “I, Clara, thank my mother and my father for their generous gifts.” That was something that everyone said, so her speech seemed normal to begin with. “Unfortunately, with a heavy heart, I must decline them.”

The mayor didn’t seem to know what to say. Clara didn’t know how long it had been since someone had declined their inheritance, but it was before their current mayor was elected into the position and probably before his predecessor. “What are you doing, Clara?” a voice asked, from the parent’s section, and a shiver of trepidation went down her spine because it was her mother.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.