The dominoes fell this way:
Congress failed to contain spending. Congress passed laws requiring automatic
spending cuts. The Defense Department used furloughs as one of its spending
cuts. Since my day job is a DoD
position, I join my 650,000 coworkers in working 32 hours a week in July,
August and September… and maybe longer.
So, how does the furlough affect
THIS writer’s life? How does anyone deal with a 20% pay cut? Well, first you whine. You rail against cruel fate and forces beyond
your control. Then you examine your
expenses and make adjustments. You shift
things from your “need it” list to your “nice to have” list. Then you do what you always do when you need
to escape this unruly world. You
write. You slip into an orderly universe
where, even when things go wrong, everything makes sense.
For most of us, our jobs are part
of our identity. What we do is, to an
extent, who we are. But it’s different
for us writers. My DoD identity is my
version of Clark Kent. That’s the
disguise. It’s what I do so I can be
myself at home. Who I really am is a novelist.
So I haven’t simply lost 20% of
my income for three months. I’ve traded
it for a full day every week, a day that I can devote to reading, or watching
TV or meditation. Or I can use it to
catch up on those big projects I always put off, like thoroughly cleaning the
aquarium. But of course, what will
really happen is that I’ll write. And
with the house to myself there’s a good chance I’ll write a lot.
Many people divert their life
plans and sublimate their true desires for the security a government job
offers. At a time when that security
seems less than secure, I imagine a lot of Defense workers are using their
unexpected weekly free day to spend more time with their real but sidetracked
desires.
For me the furlough has provided
hours I can devote to Intrigue Publishing and more importantly, to HannibalJones and his supporting characters.
More than half way through the next mystery I need to focus on the back
story that needs to be filled in. There
is character development that needs to be done.
Writing is just better when you can do it in larger chunks of time. So in future posts I should be telling you
about all the catching up I’ve done.
For now, the furlough days have
just started. And this week… well, I did
in fact give the aquarium a thorough cleaning.
