The Fork in the Career Path

If you had a chance to choose a different career path, would you do it?

As a matter of fact, I'm in that position right now. Only thing is if I hadn't gotten laid off I'd have never had the courage to consider any sort of career change.

Been in the finance industry for twenty-plus years. It's something I rather fell into, and like pretty much anything I've tried, I ended up being good at it. There's been some absolutely wonderful moments.

Without my job I'd have never had the opportunity to visit Alaska - twice! I've had the chance to go all across this country because of my job. I've also seen the best and the worst of the industry. But the thing I still love is working with people and seeing those individuals realize the great American dream.

Working in the industry has kept me close to the entrepreneurial spirit that keeps this country humming. Have to admit, however, that being so close to the entrepreneurial bug caused me to get bit a long time ago.

Close to ten years now I've wanted to open and operate my own business. The benefit is that I've had the experience to know and understand the pitfalls that lurk in the realm of small business ownership. God also bestowed upon me a very creative soul that isn't satisfied unless I'm stretching, reaching, and learning new things everyday.

So crazy as it may sound, I'm thinking about taking some night classes, getting my cosmetology certification, get some experience under me and then opening my own upscale salon and spa.

The little town we live in is one of the fastest growing areas in the state. There's also alot of money out here and virtually no salon like I envision, just little stop and chop shops (as I like to call them) and a small family-owned stylist salon that caters to a different crowd. This place is ripe for a real salon and spa to service the area.

I've already even thought of a name and have a general floorplan set-up. Of course it would be best for me to have certification and experience in the industry first, but this was one of my dreams when I was younger.

It's something I'd completely forgotten about until last week when my son and I drove by a cosmetology school. Told him about that dream too and he commented that I'd had alot of dreams when I was younger. I told him that I'd never fulfilled any of them. Had the chance once, but was too afraid to take the plunge.

That's water under the bridge, as they say.

But this is something that I could do. This is something that I know I'd be really good at, if given the opportunity. May sound crazy, but I just have to check into this a little deeper. If I take night classes then I can still take employment in finance when it's offered to me.

Once I have my certification, however, I'll have an opportunity to take a different fork in the road.

If I have the courage to pursue the career change.

Dark Recesses of the Night

The creative juices are finally flowing again.

Yeah, like I finally have time to THINK again - hello!

The other night I had a really interesting dream that was so enormously engaging and intriguing that when I woke up, it stayed with me most of the day. I knew immediately upon awakening that it would make a great storyline if I could figure out how to make a full-scale novel out of it.

Getting back into writing again has my blood pumping.

Well not that I'm actually writing anything at the moment, just having the time to think about it and let the brain relax and wrap around an idea when it hits.

You know, it's kinda funny now that I think about the dream. There's several of my books that got their start from a dream I had. Sometimes I take just one nugget from that dream and create a whole story from it, while at other times pretty much the entire dream worms its way out onto the page.

The story I finally finished earlier this year actually had its beginnings in the dark recesses of the night. Ended up that I didn't even use that scene in the story, merely the essence of the character. Heck, it was even a year or two after I had the dream and wrote that scene out that I got back to it and created "Running Into The Darkness".

Was very pleased to have actually finished - but the story has a sequel I'll need to get started on someday.

So for now I'll go ahead and pound out the first scene or two that I've got floating around in the grey matter and see where it goes. Perhaps I'll have some submissions for critique group again in a few months.

In the meantime, I'll keep on dreaming and hoping for that best-seller idea to pop into my subconscious. Then it'll be up to me to actually do the typing.

Man - osmosis would really be good here!

Enough Said

Well we finished up with the first run-through of the final scene tonight.

Gosh, I tear up easy during this thing - even if it is only rehearsals!

The final scene encompasses some sad goodbyes, letting go of dreams, and accepting the hard spots in life even when we don't understand why God allows them. The sister to my character has to say goodbye to a man she didn't realize she loved until he was gone - off to war. My character gets a telegram from the war department.

Enough said.

But even in the midst of the sadness and fear of the unknown, a ray of sunshine comes strolling in.

I'll leave it at that.

For those of you in the area, you're just going to have to take time out of your busy schedules the first weekend of December to come and see how it all turns out. Yes, Brian, it is in a church but this isn't heavy-handed. It has some very real moments that relate to what we see on the news even today.

And it even bears relavance to the world where it was 2,000 years ago. Humanity - we've changed so little in our years on this earth.

Enough said.