Why I'm Here (otherwise known as Welcome to Kas Rambles 101)

A little over two weeks ago I walked into work as if it were any other Friday afternoon.  Ten minutes later I found myself unexpectedly walking back out, flooded by the strangest mixture of relief and devastation.  For three and a half months I had been working at a wine store, recruited by the owner's wife--a regular customer at my previous job.  I had become bored at that job and was looking for something new, and when the woman described the position as, "in need of a young creative mind to join our small team--to do creative projects around the store, help with design work, and work to bring in a younger crowd," I thought it sounded perfect.  When the owner went a step further and promised to teach me about owning a small business I took the job without even a tiny glance back.

Reality set in as soon as day one.  What I thought would be just introductory tasks... stocking shelves, reorganizing shelves, stocking more shelves, and carrying around cases of wine and beer became my every day life.  Signs were needed on occasion, and throughout the three months I was able to take on less than a handful of creative tasks, but for the most part I was a glorified errand girl.  Oh, the trash needs to be taken out?  Sure.  Oh, the floor needs to be swept?  No biggie.  Oh, more stocking?  Cool.  Oh, we're out of labels?  Sure, I'll run to Staples.  Oh, we need to rearrange the shelves again?  Mmkay.  Oh, we need paint?  I can go get that.  Oh, the dishes need to be done?  Leave it to me.  Oh, you need me to make one more of this boring identical sign?  Yep, be done in 20 seconds.  Any of those tasks scattered amongst everything I had been promised would have been tolerable, but to have such high expectations and wake up to the reality of THAT?  I was bored out of my mind.  That Friday, the owner asked me how I felt about working at the store.  I answered honestly.  I was learning, I enjoyed the people, but I needed more of a challenge.  He decided it wasn't going to work.

As much as it felt like a slap in the face, and as borderline panicked as I have felt the past two weeks scrambling to find a new job, it has also been incredibly refreshing to just breathe a little.  About a week ago I decided to open up my NaNoWriMo story--of which I had only written around 10,000 words--and play around with it.  I started writing, and in just a few days I doubled my word count, a pace that is not just unheard, but borderline miraculous for me.  I realized how much I had missed writing, and how much I had missed the excitement and energy at the start of a new story.  I contacted a writer friend for help on something in my story, and was pleasantly surprised when she asked if I wanted to be writing buddies.  We are both notoriously sporadic writers who tend to slip away into life and neglect our writing, so we decided that together maybe we can motivate each other to keep at it.  I started quick editing and sending her what I had written thus far, and her feedback has not only helped me fill in gaps, and pace my beginning, but our conversations have sparked ideas that add layers to the story that had never occurred to me before.

Throughout this crash landing back into my own writing, and seeing how incredibly helpful just a few email exchanges had been, I realized how much I missed the writing community I had tentatively introduced myself to the first time I attempted blogging.  What had started as a way to connect with other writers and bloggers, and learn, ended up as a place to vent, and I realized that that was not what I wanted my blog to be.  I shut it down, and hadn't really considered starting another one until this week.  And here I am.  I'm not yet sure exactly what this blog will be, but I hope that it is a way to keep myself writing more regularly and continuously learning more and more from all of the expert-like folks whose blogs I follow.

Coming Soon... Why I Find Naming Things Impossible (otherwise known as the explanation behind my blog's name).

xo Kas