March marked the one year anniversary of a turning point in my life.  I had been struggling for some time before then.  I had been unemployed for ever so long, and a move to help us get back on our feet didn’t really garner us any reward.

Until March.

A former coworker recommended me for a job.  From how she talked about it, it was a good one.  And it was.  I was able to buy a car, start putting away for a savings, pay off some debt, and stop worrying about every penny (although, too long worrying about every penny has made me a bit of a miser).

And then I got promoted.

The money wasn’t as good (because any time you move from getting tips to not you’re going to feel it), but it created a path to doing something else, something more.  And I like it.  And I’m good at it.

My boss has become a friend, the work, while generally remaining the same from day to day, varies during events, and I’m meeting people in an industry I always thought would be fun to be a part of.  They’re kind and thoughtful – like on my birthday.  They bought me a cake and gathered around to sing.  Some of them even took me out to dinner and began planning a road trip to help me get my writing career on track.  See, thoughtful.

That’s the work-financial side of life.  The creative side finished the next chapter in the Dragon Age fan fiction series.  What started off as a simple Writing Prompt exercise has grown into 123,000+ words about a girl’s journey to save the world (while falling in love, of course).

The strange thing about fan fiction, for me anyway, is that because the characters aren’t mine, I just sort of write.  It’s freeing and uncomplicated, and that freedom led to a chapter of 41K words that I didn’t outline or plan.  I just wrote it, with very little forethought or editing, and it’s my most well received work on AO3.  And, it’s non-canonical.  So while yes, the characters aren’t mine (except for the protagonist), the story is and that’s a huge boost to my writing ego.

In my own work, I agonize over every word, so there are some days I may only write a page, and that’s a screenplay page – there’s a whole lotta white on those pages.

So March turned out to be pretty good.  I’m in a better place overall and that’s encouraging for the year ahead.

I hope you all are well and still reaching for your goals!

xx, Rach