Monday 21 June 2010

Phew!

The vast majority of things I (we?) worry about do not come to pass. Never once have I discovered, on checking for the twenty-seventh time, that it turns out I did leave the gas on, the back door unlocked, the iron plugged in.

And, of course, the SfEP lunch was not the trial by fire that I had feared it might be, but an extremely pleasant afternoon with a group of warm, witty people who were more than happy to share their experiences and offer practical advice. I was particularly interested to hear about the SfEP mentoring scheme ~ sounds like the perfect bridge between hypothetical training exercises and 'real life' proofreading work. A lovely lunch, a rare baby-free half-day for me (the first ever, no less) and lots of lovely motivation. Can't wait for the next one.

Here's hoping that the current over-riding fear in my life ~ baby G's first sessions at Montessori nursery ~ aren't as awful as I'm anticipating they'll be....

Monday 14 June 2010

A moment (or several hours) of doubt...

I remember, with absolute clarity, the precise moment I knew I would not be going back to my previous job.

It was a February morning, I was in the shower and - as clearly as a bell ringing - I heard my own voice in my head: 'I'm not going back'. And I knew immediately that I had made the right decision.

I'd come about my previous job by accident rather than design, and I'd wanted to leave for years. Not going back, post-maternity leave, was considerably easier than handing in my notice and working out a period of leave. Not going back requires much less courage than getting up and walking away.

I still know that I'm making the right decision. But sometimes I have days like today. Days when my inner voice rambles inside my head in sheer panic: 'I'll never find any work. There's a recession on, half the country has lost their jobs, no-one will give me work because I've got no experience and then I'll never get any experience so I'll never get any work. We're going to starve. I'm going to end up working nights in a bar after the baby is asleep. I'm going to have to beg for my old job back, tail betwen my legs. Who am I to think I can have what I want? I'll never make this work because I've never made anything work...'

Tomorrow I have my first meeting with my local branch of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. I'm nervous, of course. Meeting a largeish group of people I don't know is going to be daunting, especially as I haven't had a non-baby related conversation in a looooong time. Plus I'll be leaving baby with my husband for the day, and since I've never left her for more than an occassional hour here and there this is scary for me.

But more than that, I'm scared that when I ask them for tips on how to get started in the industry they'll tell me that I'm wasting my time, that there's barely enough work to go round as it it is, it's not what you know it's who you know, and so forth. In short, I'm scared in case they suggest, however obliquely, that I'm probably going to fail.

Saturday 12 June 2010

And speaking of portfolio careers

This is a nice little article on that very subject.

My favorite bit? Focus on one job at a time [...] Choose which hat you’re going to be wearing for the next hour/day/week and keep it on. Don’t try putting on more hats at the same time, you’ll just look stupid and they’ll probably fall off.

One hat at a time for me from now on. Easier said than done, of course, although I am currently trying to master the art of focussed mindfulness, with Buddhism for Mothers as my sourcebook. I'll be a serene and beatific paragon of perfect motherhood by the end of the week, you mark my words...


Thursday 10 June 2010

Once upon a time...

...a lady had a baby and decided that she wouldn't go back to her old job.

Instead she chose the least bouyant period of our recent economic history to kiss goodbye to financial security and set herself up as a freelance proofreader. With a bit of writing on the side, maybe. And probably some other stuff along the way. Portfolio careers are very du jour. I read that somewhere.

This is how it happened....