So, it’s been four months since my last day of work, which is as good a time as any for a reality check.
How’s it going?
When I first started to think about this milestone, I believed I hadn’t done enough. What was “enough”? Oh, I don’t know. How about completely drafting my series, publishing book 1 and the companion novella, not to mention reacquainting myself with Photoshop for covers and images, and …
And that was a totally unrealistic view of things. But it’s the sort of toxic productivity mindset born from: if you’re not hustling and grinding eighteen hours a day, what good are you.
What I actually did:
- Finished the draft of book 2
- Sketched out the content and structure of book 3
- Contemplated another bonus novella
- Cleaned out the bedroom closet
- Spring cleaned
- Planned and took a dream trip to Italy
This doesn’t include what I did this past week: I jumped back into book 1 to refine and edit based on changes from drafting book 2 and the trip to Italy. Also? Add in some bonus gardening.
Then, on Thursday, I learned that my former workplace conducted another layoff two and a half years after the one that set me on the path to burnout and had me quitting.
That previous layoff diminished the department by at least 50%. Mind you, the work did not decrease by that amount. Now? I doubt the work is going away. (Unless they plan to use GenAI, in which case, good luck with that when it starts hallucinating.)
But I wondered, would I have been caught up in the layoff this time around, like (at least) one of my friends was? Or would I’ve been retained and watched my workload quadruple?
Would those extra four months have been worth a severance package?
And I realized, no, they wouldn’t have been. Even with the current economy, which I won’t lie, is making me very nervous for various reasons. I wouldn’t have the draft of book 2. I only started making progress after I quit. I wouldn’t have the structure and content of book 3.
I wouldn’t have taken a dream trip to Italy. Or, if I had managed to, it would have been shorter and constrained by having to check work email on the regular.
I don’t know what the future holds. But in this particular instance?
No regrets.
Writing Wrongs 