Ryan

comedy - meditation - sci fi - science fiction - universal consciousness - writing -

I have a hard time saying I'm a writer. I've been writing in some form or another since I was a child, though never seriously until now. Lately I've had a strong desire to do nothing but write.

I spent the past nine years focusing on my career as a technician in wireless communications, but those years of on-call duty and eratic shifts wore me down to my knees. I was a prisoner to my work and ultimately became disillusioned with my life. When an engineering position opened up within my same company (albeit in a new city), I went for it. What the hell, I thought; I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

I took the job (after a very grueling series of interviews, I should add), put my house up for rent, and moved to the big city of Charlotte, North Carolina (it's actually the second largest banking city in the U.S. next to New York City, but who cares.) It's been a good move, forcing me to scale down from a moderate home in the 'burbs to a small condo downtown. My new job has a tremendous amount of responsibility, but I'm no longer chained to a pager or anxiously awaiting that dreaded call to duty in the middle of the night.

Change is frightening. I wrestled with the choice of staying where I was, comfortable but unsatisfied, or moving away and starting fresh. I needed to change in order to grow, and I feel so gratified now that I've done it. I have a newfound desire to write, write and write. Ideas are forming in my brain, and in my off time I'm either thinking about or writing the next line in whatever it is I'm working on. Soon I hope to have something completed. I'm focusing on short fiction, and eventually I'd like to write a novel. Small moves, though. The thought of jumping right into a novel terrifies me, but I'll get over it.

For example, "Come on down y'all to the Kountry Kabin." This irritates me to the point of derangement. Or how about "Kut & Kurl," or "Kool Kat's Kampground." Some even seem to be the expected norm now, like any RV lot boasting their special "Kampers." Krispy Kreme, as yummy as they are, bothers me too. Do these people think they're being clever? Who started this? It's not cute, it's just plain ignorant.

Update: I received this bag at the market yesterday; didn't realize it was in violation of the "no-no spelling" as I like to call it, until this morning when it caught my eye: