Brick walls

For those of you looking for the cheesy pun in the blog title, I am sorry to disappoint!

The dog and I have both hit brick walls in the past two days - him literally, he has suddenly gone completely blind and we have an appointment with the veterinary opthalmologist tomorrow.  He is quite distressed by it - he doesn't get out of his bed until I guide him around, he stays much closer to me when we go for a walk, and won't attempt the step down into the kitchen without me patting the floor to show him through sound how far down it is.  I doubt there is anything that can be done to help him, but hopefully he will come to terms with it.  By the end of last night's walk he had progressed from trembling outside the house to venturing a few feet from me with his tail wagging.

My encounter was more literal and, being me, I will take far longer to bounce back.  After months of looking, applying for jobs and networking - at which I am hopeless, a former colleague put me forward for a role and I got an interview.

It was an interview I should have walked.  Instead I froze, stumbled, tripped and dived headlong in the abyss of cringe.   It was so bad that I am not yet ready to relate all the cringing details.  It left me, however, with a dilemma.  This is the second interview in 3 months that I have thrown through fear and panic-attacks.  If I can't get through an interview, what kind of jobs or earning activities are available to me that don't require them?   Most of the answers for that have been dismissed as unattractive - the clientele would not be attractive to me, and now fast approaching 50 I doubt very much that I would be attractive to them either.

This left me with either a life of crime or writing Mills & Boon novels - more and more people are turning to reading and writing this kind of fiction.  The average author makes around £4,000 a year.  It's not a living, but it is more than I get on the dole.  If I am writing full time, I might work my way up to £8,000 a year, which is as much as many part-time jobs.   I know "they" say there is a book in everyone, but I am yet to be convinced that applies to me.  But I did come up with a further plan - write a novel.

I have written the first 1,000 words and quite a few people very kindly gave me some really helpful feedback. My aim now is to continue working on it for at least one hour each day.  I will occasionally post excerpts to bore you all with.  Huge thank you to everyone who contributed.