So, I've signed up for another course.
Before I did so, I asked myself whether this would be like the others that I've taken over the last few years. There was that selective write your novel course; I finished that, but then had to rewrite the novel. I got about 60% of the way through before Covid - and home schooling - arrived. You might think that now the schools have re-opened more or less properly, I would be able to pick it up where I left off and crack on with the remaining 40%, but still I don't feel I've regained my creative mojo. Or at least, not enough to actually get on with the book - currently I can't bear to even open the file. And that with an open invitation from a literary agency to send them the finished MS. Pathetic.
Then, I signed up for an online course on learning about and how to manage the various forms of social media. It held my attention for a while but the overwhelming enthusiasm of the other participants, all of whom - not entirely unexpectedly - were at different life-stages to me, became so off-putting I dropped out. Well - that, and the fact that I wasn't entirely sure where it would lead me; did I, at 54, really want to commit myself to a role where I would constantly need to stay up to date with all the latest social media trends and be almost permanently online if I wanted to stay a) current and b) employed? I probably should have thought it through before I signed up, to be honest.
Since then, I've picked up various other roles, all of which are unpaid. They're rewarding, sure, but I'm not yet ready to say farewell to the world of paid jobs. Shoot me if you must, but leaving aside the fact that every little helps, it's also about feeling valued; a pay cheque certainly helps with that.
So this week, after I returned from a dog walk where the unbearable lightness of being hit me once again (my kids are getting older, I am so completely bored with being 'at home' and mostly out of paid employment for the last 16 years, there must be more to life than this - you know the drill), I decided I needed to take action.
This time, though, I thought I would be a little more thorough in my approach. Before I did anything else I took a couple of tests, to see where my skill set might take me. Astonishingly the answers came back and did NOT include 'You're not fit for anything, go away and stop wasting our time', and even included a couple of job sectors that I was interested in.
I dug a little further. What sort of jobs might this course lead to? Would I enjoy them? Would I be qualified? And, once I had satisfied myself that, at present at least, there are jobs out there in this industry, I would enjoy them and hell yes, I would be qualified (on paper, if not in my imposter-syndrome ridden mind), I signed up.
Watch this space for how it turns out.
