Library Life Update

Salutations, dear readers! I'm a little late, as you can tell, but not without reason.

October, as you may know if you follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, or Instagram, was very busy, what with my being a writer-in-residence for my library, picking up a million shifts, doing a craft fair, and attending a wedding. I hadn't had an actual, unclaimed-by-various-obligations day off since the beginning of November.

My life isn't going to calm down anytime soon, though, owing to my new job. That's right! I am no longer a library specialist! I am now a fully fledged, honest-to-goodness librarian (I would have said card-carrying, but isn't that all of us?). Technically, I'm also a library director —though I prefer "Librarian" as my title—because I'm now in charge of the Williams Public Library.

Though this is an exciting step up for me, it's also a steep learning curve. Before, I only worked in reference, which mostly entailed answering patron questions about books, local attractions, and technology (and occasionally, much weirder and more obscure things). I still technically do that, but now I also do the work of circulation staff—checking books in and out and shelving them—and youth services— storytimes and crafts and whatnot—and whoever orders all the books. Thankfully, my colleague (there are currently two staff members at this library, myself included) handles cataloging and preparing newly arrived books for circulation, and soon our library district will catalogue all the county libraries' books in Flag, so that takes some pressure off, but still! It's a lot to wrap my head around, and I haven't even started doing any programs yet.

To make things more complicated is that I don't live in Williams yet, so It's a forty minute drive back and forth each day. For reference, my drive to the Flag library was only ten minutes! I'm in the process of buying a house in Williams, which will eventually make my life easier, but in the meantime has made it that much more hectic. Thankfully I'm on the downhill side of negations and inspections and such, but I'm only about half-way packed up (I have a lot of tea cups, and a lot of books). I long for the day I can come home from work after a short drive, pop into my lovely new house, and get some writing done!

Long story short, I really, really, really hate transitions. I like destinations, but not travel. I love editing, but not writing. I want to own a house and be a librarian, but I don't like moving and getting used to a new job. It's just the way I am. Change is stressful, and I don't like being stressed out. It makes me forgetful and anxious. It also makes it hard to do writing-related things, on top of my not having time to do them in the first place.

That being said, I'm not sure how my writing goals are going to fair. At the beginning of the year I said I would write, outline, edit or research something, and take a book-related picture each week, but then I foolishly added on a "bonus" goal of doing some fifth action each week (because I am far to ambitious for my own good). Well, I can tell you for free that ain't gonna happen, but if I stick to the original goal, or something sort of like it—that is, four writing related activities each week—I think I can still make it. On average. Sort of. Look, if by December 31st, I have 208 writing activities completed (that is, 4 for each of this year's 52 weeks), I'll consider it a roaring success. I mean, I already accomplished my goal of becoming a librarian this year, so everything else is just a cherry on top, right?

There is one goal, however, that I hope I can finish by the end of the year. Some of you may have seen me talking about Love & Chaos & Other Stories on Facebook (largely by accident). Just what is this mysterious work of fiction? Love & Chaos & Other Stories is, or rather, will be, a compilation of all the short fiction and poetry related to Styx, which of course, includes the novella, Love & Chaos. It's all appeared on this website before, but certain persons have requested I put it into a proper, purchasable book format. I was planning (at the beginning of the year) on having released it by now, both as a paperback and an ebook, but that obviously didn't happen, for a number of reasons. This is the one thing I really want to finish before 2020, but I can't make any promises. Hopefully, things will calm down in December. If not, then at least there's next year, right? Stay tuned!