Eat, sleep, work, write, repeat.

Not as catchy for a song title, but it does very much sum up my life these days.

Working in a music store definitely has its advantages and disadvantages, but there are certainly worse places to work for any creative type. For one, I meet tons of people, good and bad. Also, it’s not really a difficult job aside from one tiny thing: Understanding Success.

I’ve enjoyed many different aspects of the company I’ve worked for in my two management roles, but my latest position has me trying to figure out if I’m actually doing a good job. Sales are a tricky and fickle thing. My store depends on the weather. It depends on the staff. It depends on the current financial climate. So to say my job is black and white? Well, that’d be a lie.

My job among the management team is summed up by saying I am the Sales Manager or better known as Second in Charge. In other words, Assistant Manager or ‘Assman’ as some employees affectionately refer to me by. My job is two things, Sales and Management. For the most part, to understand if I am doing a good job I’ve been trying to nail down some things that I can track. Lucky for me, budget is heavily tracked. However when your day depends on so many factors, missing budget can literally just make me feel like I’ve failed, despite my best efforts. I feel as though I’ve let the team down. Like it is my fault.

On the other side of that coin is management. I feel like we have a great team and I feel like I manage chaos pretty well when things turn ugly. Even issues between staff are something I enjoy getting into. The only thing I can’t understand is why people don’t take more pride in what they do? How do I convince them that what they’re doing is extremely important, not just for the business, but for the customer? How can I get them to walk through the front door and be self-motivated? It frustrates me to no end when someone is having a stellar week in sales only to watch them take their foot off the gas and end up missing budget. I’ve read books, watched videos and tried many different things. Some days I feel progress, while others I feel like we’re rolling backwards down a hill.

Work rant over.

As for writing, I’ve come to a conclusion about my wonderful story. It sucks. I read and reread my novel more than a dozen times now in the hopes I would have

It sucks, and I mean that.

I have read and reread my novel more than a dozen times now in the hopes I would have ironed out all the kinks and hiccups along the way. I got my lovely girlfriend to do something similar. The novel I have now has been read probably close to twenty times and had multiple edits.

And it still sucks!

For those of you who love me dearly, you most likely think I’ve lost the plot(book pun, unintended). That maybe I’ve gone off the deep end. No, I’m still here and I still love my novel. It’s the fact that right now I’ve guarded this story so close to my heart that I don’t have a very diverse group of people reading it. In fact, I have two people and we are both biased. Also, any questions she may have had, I have most certainly answered in talking about my story. It was unintentional, but we are both too close to the project.

So for the good of my story and the fact I more than likely won’t be published with HarperCollins in four days’ time, I’ve decided to reach out to some writing groups and centres at universities. This felt good at first, but what I’ve quickly found out is that… well… writers are a hopeless lot. We are disorganized. Busy. Slow to reply to emails or messages. Distracted. In fact, if I end up at some writer’s group within the next two months, I’ll be shocked. Strangely, some meet at like ten in the morning on a Wednesday. What the hell? Don’t they have jobs like the rest of us struggling artists? Who is going to get Wednesday off? I need to set up the catalogue!

Writing rant over.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but my partner and I are building a house. As of this past week, we actually sat down and asked our preferred builder a million questions and hashed out a couple details. At the end we actually told him we would be giving him a ton of money to build us our home for the next… well… ever. The good news for me is that not only am I actually getting a ‘Mancave’ but suddenly my Writing Room became a reality. I had resigned to the fact that asking for one would be too over the top and extravagant, but to hear him say that actually works better with the plan made me light headed.

I mean, a writing room! My Writing Room!

No more writing in a bedroom, or spare room. It will be a room with a door where only writing happens. This may seem like a little thing to many people, but to have a sanctuary where you can go for a single purpose and be completely distraction free means so much to me. It will definitely help to set that routine for writing and considering this is my forever home, that is looking like many years of writing ahead!

Is it next year yet? Why am I not living there already?

Wishing rant… well, actually the wishes came true. Now we just have to pay for them.

All in all, 2016 has begun well for me. Now, I just have to prove my Mom’s psychic right and get published this year and then move into our dream home next year! If everything goes smoothly, by the time 2017 happens, I will be well and truly beyond happy!

Now, to make it happen!

Hopefully, things are going as well for you lovely folks out there beyond the internet and that 2016 is lining up to be your year too! Anyway, back to writing for me! Share the warm and fuzzy feelings and wins in the comments below!