Why I Choose to Study to be a Paramedic, and Wouldn't Necessarily Give it up For Full Time Writing

This is kinda self indulgent, but if you were ever wondering why I chose paramedics, feel free to read:

It took a bit for me to figure out what I wanted to do in life. I knew from the start that while it would be nice to write 24/7, it was unrealistic. Not just because of the whole "You'll never make any money off it" thing, but because... well, I was well aware of my age, and experience level, and I was experience hungry. I wanted to travel the world, live in different cultures, meet different people.

So I did. I managed to wrangle a scholarship to go to Japan on exchange. I learnt a lot. I paid for my second exchange trip to china. That was more of a disappointment, but again I learnt things. I went on to go into medicine. I learnt things, namely what I didn't want to do with my life.

So by the time I found paramedics, and it fit, I was more than ready to settle into a career and get it started. Which is why I'm still at university, only now starting the third year of a course while most other people are onto their first job about now.

But... Paramedics fits. And one thing it's not short on is experiences.

So I think, while writing full time would be nice, I'd bore of it eventually. Paramedics suits in that although the hours are... not fun, the people are great, the job is structured and interesting, and all that sleep deprivation comes with an extra two weeks holidays. So I may have to work every public holiday a year and cram 48 hours work over four days, but I will get six weeks of paid leave.

There's downtime too, which means I can study and improve myself within the profession, or just read. It's one of those jobs where you're either terribly busy, average, or nothing happens until half an hour before you're meant to go home.

I like working in the community, I like meeting new people, and I like the competence of the job. I like that I will have seen and experience more than most people my age would have.

But most of all, I like how it feeds into everything else I do. As people, we write to explore the world. I fully expect the first traumatic event I come across will be written down in a locked file somewhere on my laptop, for my eyes only. Records are probably useful too, given that writing = reflection = self-improvement.

But fiction, itself, is in a exploration of themes and truth. Every book has a point, whether the author intended it or not (honestly, sometimes readers can create their own point without the writer's say so). So for me, being both a paramedic and a writer goes hand in hand because I get the great honour of witnessing the most terrifying moments in people's lives, and trying to make those moments less terrifying. I also get to see how society treats those it thinks aren't up to standard (ambulance cover is free here under a certain wage threshold. As such we get lots of calls that aren't necessarily emergencies, but do need to be seen to.)  All that has to be processed somewhere.

Enjoy all,

Sian

Sheer and Utter Terror of Failure

This happens to me quite a bit. I'll be writing, revising, whatever. Then I'll look at other people's work, read agents blogs - everything I should be doing to improve myself in my craft.

Then, out of the blue, I'll get this intense fear that I'll never be good enough. That no matter how hard I write, how hard I try to get something right, no one but me will ever like my work.

I reason with myself. I tell myself that I have a career planned out, a career I look forward to, wish to do, plan to revel in. Medicine is going to be my passion, writing my life. I can't live without stories - they visit me throughout the day, play themselves out in my head when I'm trying to sleep. If I write them down, they leave me alone. But I have more than one goal in life. If I'm not published, I can be a good surgeon (That isn't the least bit subjective. You can either do it, or you can't.)

The only problem is that after you've written something down, you have this intense need to show someone else. And it's then that you realise you first draft might not be as good as you first thought.

So you revise. You re-write. You edit. You pass your work onto good beta's, and they help you make it better. You find the right beginning for your story, the right middle, the right end.

And then you worry that it won't be the right beginning for anyone else. That they'll put it down thinking - this character is just reacting with grief at the moment - this is YA, there should be something exciting on the front page. Never mind if that something exciting confuses, it should be there.

Now, I know people don't think like this (Well, some people do, but I don't really want to know them when it comes to this book. Others - maybe. But they're not going to be the right person for this one.)

I consul myself. I tell myself that even if it never is published, it will be the best that I could make it at that time. That I will have achieved something extraordinary in my life.

It doesn't work. So often the bruising of the ego is so bad that I have to talk myself back into writing again, and then only so I don't go mad with lack of sleep.

So how to fix this? You can't. I can't, anyway. Maybe if I had the validation of being published, it would help, but I doubt it. The practical part of my mind talks of trying as hard as I can, failing, and then moving on to the next project, which may do better. This is why I set deadlines for myself, so I won't keep trying.

There is only one thing that ever helps. Creating something new.

So that's all the advice I can offer. If someone doesn't like what you've written, move on, create something else. Practise.

But above all, write.

A fitting start to Nanowrimo, I think :)

Sian

Random Revelation

Just out of nowhere:

Keeping a person interested is a balancing act between giving someone enough information to care, and enough mystery that they want to know.

May seem rather obvious, but still. I like to write stuff down (almost seems counter-productive to say that really). It makes it seem solid.

If someone does care, they won't read. But if you tell them too much, they will get bored. So you've go to know where to go to, and where to stop.

Something I have yet to learn, I think :)

Optimism vs Election depression

Well, sometimes things are just weird.

Let's start with the good news. As long as she doesn't disappear into the net, I now have one very nice beta, who is doing a very good job. Hopefully she sticks around. She picked up on some things (namely that I'd been a little over savvy in my cutting) that made me rewrite some of the first chapters. Well and good. At least she didn't hate my characters :)
I started part time work. YAY! Money! I have to move all the way to Queensland next year (image moving from Texas to Canada. About the same distance) and it's going to take a bit.
I don't dislike my job. Okay, it can be boring at times, but the people I work with are nice, the customers are generally nice, I didn't have to do anything horrible, and I get paid according to a quite nice EBA. Which means I get paid more on Sunday.
So, there's two things going well.
And then there's this bloody election.
This is one topic of conversation that definitely is not going to be part of a checkout conversation unless someone brings it up. I live in a country seat, and we've been Liberal (the conservative party) for so long that the Liberal's MP office is starting to rust. If Labor ever did win, they'd have to move into the Liberal's old building, so "rusted-in" is that office.
So yes. I'm a fan of biggish government. Which means I will probably die before I consider voting for the Liberal party. So we're not going to have any conversations about politics, cause they will turn into debates :)
In other news, Australia now has a hung Parliament. Which means we have ANOTHER WEEK OR TWO of this until someone actually forms minority government. And then, stuff will only happen if Labor is that minority government, because the Greens control the Senate. A bill has to go through the House of Reps and the Senate to be passed. If the Libs form minority government with the independents, they will be able to pass things through the House of Reps. However, Can you see a right wing policy (the Liberals lean to the right, for those wondering) getting through a GREEN CONTROLLED SENATE (the Greens are the leftest leaning party you can go while still being pragmatic and practical IMHO)? Nope. Not going to happen.
So, yes. We get another three years of BS.
I think that's enough depression on the the national scale to offset the happiness in personal life. Delightful.

As I said. Sometimes things are just weird. In an awful way.