My Future is Not Bright

Sometimes I realize that my future is a series of minimum wage jobs until I can’t work and die.  That’s many years from now unless something drastic happens. I don’t have the qualifications to get anything other than a minimum wage job. I’m not fit for anything else. I tried working as a coordinator at my current job but it started to burn me out and I had to step down. I’m trying to make my writing a thing I can fall back on but I just don’t think it’s going to work out for me. I know this is inevitable. My future is a dim hallway with locked doors.

And yet I keep trudging along. It’s not hope at something better coming along. Nothing better is coming for me. But I want what is owed to me. What pleasure and joy I can get out of my life I want it. It’s not much but it’s mine.

“It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah – still good.”

 

I’m okay.  This is just some thoughts I wanted to put to post.

Patreon

I’ve launched a Patreon for my writing.  Every story I write will still end up on my website, www.Gillian-Ybabez.com.  Patrons will get early access to new stories and the chance to read first drafts/sneak peeks.  I will also be posting weekly updates about stories I’m working on just for patrons.

Right now I only have two reward tiers.  For $1 you can suggest character names for me to use in future stories.  For $5 you can suggest names + get PDFs/e-books of completed serial stories.

My first “State of the Writer” update up as a public post as an example of what I’m doing over there but future ones will only be for patrons.

A Reflection of Herself

Content warning: self harm

Experiences leave scars. Some mental. Some physical. A soldier, just uploaded into a new body, must make it her own before its reflection is her own.

Read it here.

Content warning: self harm

Experiences leave scars.  Some mental.  Some physical.  A soldier, just uploaded into a new body, must make it her own before its reflection is her own.

An Idea

So I had an idea today.

I’ve been thinking about my zombie story(trans woman in a zombie apocalypse, you can find some early sections on my fiction tumblr). It’s the longest single piece of fiction I’ve written(I have a series of stories that’s longer combined). It’s not novel length. At around thirty thousand words, it’s in the novella range. This is the first part of the story that I’ve written, there’s a second part that I have outlined but not written.  While the first part is not completely stand alone, it ends at a good transitional section.  The first part is about 90% written. I’m going to make a push to finish this first part soon(I’ve said this a few times before but I really mean it now). So soon I will have a finished draft, which I will have to spend lots of time editing before I begin putting up parts on my website.

Or do I? What if I ran Kickstarter to turn this draft into a polished ebook? Hired an editor, hired a typesetter(or whatever you call someone who can turn a text document into an ebook(yes I could learn to do it myself that’s not the point), hire a graphical designer for the cover, maybe hire an artist to illustrate a few scenes(this would probably be a stretch goal).

And what if I hired only trans women?  I can think of a few off the top of my head that might be great for this. At the end of everything I would have a shiny ebook that I can sell, I’d have briefly employed 3-4 trans women, and backers would have gotten a copy of the book and some rewards.

I’m mostly thinking out loud at the moment but it’s an idea.  I’ll have to actually finish the story and then figure out what it would cost for editing, typesetting, cover design, and illustrations.  And I would need an actual audience to buy into the Kickstarter.

Is this idea workable?

Two kinds of customers

This is not a definitive guide to customers you will encounter working retail.  This is just a recounting of two encounters I had today.

The first was the rare treat.  The talkative customer that is actually interesting.  Very subjective because one person’s interesting is another person’s boring.  This customer was buying some small cherub angel statues, about the size of a softball.  As I’m scanning and wrapping them in paper, she asks me if I’ve ever heard about setting out angel statues to get rid of, or quiet down, a haunting.  She tells me her house is haunted, she’s heard things, a photo album that plays music when opened started playing, her tv has turned back on, she’s heard thumps in the night, and she’s even gotten scratches.  I love paranormal stuff.  I listen to a few podcasts on the subject and in fact on my way to work, I was listening to one about a haunted cemetery.  She says she’s not scared of the ghosts or what it is.  Then she confides in me that she has a bit of second sight.  She’s made predictions for people and they’ve come true.  I have no way of confirming any of this but why would she lie.  Even if she did lie, it was still an interesting few minutes.

The second type of customer I encountered today is more common.  The customer who wants a discount.  This customer takes many forms.  The one who want’s a discount on  dusty shirt.  The one who wants a larger discount on an item already marked down.  Today’s customer insisted that we had a senior citizen discount.  I’ve worked in this store for almost four years and I know for a fact we have never had a senior citizen discount.  But she doesn’t believe me, so I call over our headsets, “Do we have a senior citizen discount?”  I make the call because sometimes that’s enough for them and maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe I have misremembered  the last four years.  I get a response, “No, we don’t have a senior citizen discount.”  I tell her this hoping I have reached the end of her inquiry.  She asks again if I’m sure.  I tell her I will call the manager for her.

Once upon a time I would have gone one or two more rounds with her.  These days I’m old and tired of people, so I don’t bother arguing with them anymore, I just call the manager.  I’m not paid enough to run circles with these people.  So the manager comes to registers and tells her, “No we don’t have a senior citizen discount.”  She now has no higher authority to appeal to.  She has to accept that we don’t have a senior citizen discount.  Which she does and I can now begin scanning her items.

The interesting talkative person and the discount seeker.  Two of the many types of customers you will see working retail.