Yet another job transfer, first writing conference

[waldenwriter]

I have two rather different prayer requests.

The first is that I found out on Friday that I was being transferred to yet another store. It's the same company, just a different store. I've only been with the store I'm at now for about a month. But it's a lateral transfer, meaning the store I'm going to is sending somebody to my current store, so my current store has to send someone over there. I start at the new store tomorrow.

I have to admit I am a little fed up with getting moved around so much. This will be the fifth store I'll be at in the about 2 years and 8 months that I've been with Stater Brothers. Not only do I not like the change, but I worry about how it will look on my résumé later on. Who is going to hire a person who was transferred so many times? The interviewer might think I was a problem worker.

My second prayer request is about the San Diego Christian Writers' Guild fall conference I'm attending Sept. 25-26. This will be the first time I've ever been to a writing conference. I have plans to bring either a written proposal or in some other way pitch my current work-in-progress to someone for "faculty consultation" while I'm there.

Overall, this makes me very nervous. I've never been to a writing conference, never written a proposal or pitched my book to anyone except once with the produce manager at work in conversation (and that didn't go too well), and don't know any of the speakers or "faculty consultants" except for Peter Zindler, a local writer from Ramona who I met once when he and another local writer, Elaine Swann, did a book signing at the Christian bookstore I was working at at the time.

Please pray for these two requests. I feel that I need prayer for those things, but I've never been good at praying out loud. Lately, I don't feel like I've been good at praying at all.

[Christian Soldier]

Absolutely, WW. Prayers away!

Real quick I'd like to point out that folks like us sometimes need to experience change in order to learn to deal with it. I know that one of the reasons God called me into the Army was to force to me acclimate to change. It's very... uncomfortable, but it helps me to grow and depend more on Him.

Also, every store you work at increases the number of contacts you have. There's bound to be someone in each store that likes Christian SF, remember them and make sure that they hear about your works as they come out. Trust me, it works.

All that said, I'll pray for guidance for you as well. Just because constant change was a learning experience for me doesn't mean that it's intended for you as well.

God bless -- Glyn

[beckyminor]

Hey WW,
I totally understand your nerves about the conference...I felt like it took me until the middle of the second day of my first conference experience (last month) to shake off my nerves. But despite how scary the process may seem, I am a huge proponent of conferences now! I really think a conference is one of the single best things a new writer can do if he wants to get serious about the craft and taking a book to publication. I found the experience of being surrounded by so many like-minded people extremely energizing and motivating.

I think you're on the right track with how to represent your novel during your appointments. If the book isn't done, I would think the "one sheet" would be the way to go...having a quick breakdown of the premise and the reader's emotional "take away" (etc.) from the book will give you plenty to talk about at appointments. But I'm a rookie on all this, so don't take my word as gospel, of course.

Sorry to hear about your job woes. I do wonder, if you have to apply for work in the future outside your current company, if your resume could not simply reflect the time you worked with Stater Bros., without too boldly calling out the location transfers? After all, its not as though you were quitting and job hopping, but being transferred by management, right? There are lots of "acceptable ways" to format resumes these days, so I'm sure if you need to apply for new work, there will be a way to put your employment history in its best light. I do pray the stress of the changes levels out for you a bit.

Just my two cents here...blessings as you journey to your conference, and I pray you have an amazing experience.

[Kristen]

Sept 6, 2009 23:16:48 GMT -5 waldenwriter said:

Lately, I don't feel like I've been good at praying at all.

Enjoy the conference. It's been my experience that people who participate in conferences are there because they want to help writers succeed. So fear not.

I'll pray about this, and about your work life, and about your prayer life. Remember prayer doesn't have to be something you're good at, it just has to be something you're honest at. "Lord, I feel like I've not been good at praying lately..." is certainly worth praying. And most of us have had to pray it at one time or another.

God bless you.

[waldenwriter]

Thank you everyone for your prayers!

Becky, you do bring up a good point about not having my résumé reflect all the transfers. None of them WERE my choice. They just said "We're sending you to this other store" and there wasn't anything I could really do about it.

I do worry about how my résumé looks though, to an extent, because before I got this job at Stater Bros., I was out of a job for three months after having been let go from my job at a small Christian bookstore, a job I really liked. Part of it was budgetary -- the store wasn't doing well financially and had to consider paring down the number of employees - but part of it was because I didn't work on behavioral things, like not talking to the customers so much when I was ringing them up, when they asked me to.

Anyway, after that, I sent out résumés with cover letters to a bunch of the businesses in the business park near my house, hoping I could get a job where I could use my office skills. I didn't get anything from those - no interviews, nothing. It finally came down to whatever I could get, and I got two promising possibilities - Stater Bros. and Walgreens. Stater Bros. called me first, and I accepted their offer.

But it's not a good job fit for me, what with the amount of social interaction (an autistic person's nightmare) and my slow, thorough work being a problem in a world of speed and rush. Plus, even though my hourly wage has gone up $2.15 since I started at Stater Bros. in January 2007, I don't get a lot of hours and quite a bit of money goes to taxes, my union dues, and my insurance before I even see my check. I'd like a job where I make enough for me to be able to move out and live on my own.

CS, I haven't met anyone who likes Christian SF at my work (the only person who's shown interest in my writing at my work is that produce manager I mentioned) but I guess you're right about contacts.

Kristen: Thanks for the thoughts about prayer. I guess, for me, I feel like I used to pray a lot more, and now I don't. It's like I can't think of the right words, and even if I do think of words, I sometimes don't feel like they go anywhere (like they bounce off the ceiling instead of going through). I have also had moments that felt like spiritual awakenings, but because my life didn't change noticeably after them, I doubted whether they were genuine. In the end, I think it comes down to trust. After my rough high school years with a bad relationship and two family deaths added to the usual stress of high school, I've found it hard to trust God. Especially when my maternal grandmother died. I'd prayed a lot for her to get better and for her to accept Christ, which as far as I knew she hadn't done. But then she died, as far as I know without Christ. As for the relationship (which was a guy-girl friendship, not a dating relationship; he had a girlfriend already), I got angry at God in the midst of my broken heart and wanted to know why he didn't stop me from developing feelings for that lying jerk. If I hadn't fallen for him, I reasoned, the pain of "breaking up" wouldn't be so intense. So it's been hard.

Becky: You're probably right about how to promote my novel. I haven't even written the first draft yet, but the novel design plan I'm following says to write a proposal now and get it critiqued...so it's confusing. But the faculty consultations are only 15 minutes long, and you can sign up for up to three consultations, so at most I'd have a total of 45 minutes to pitch it.

Well, it's late here. I better go. Thanks again everyone for your prayers.

[waldenwriter]

A little update: the conference starts tomorrow! I'm going to try to write my little pitch today. I'm debating about whether to make up some business cards on my computer to hand out (to promote my writing site and stuff) or just write my URL with some nice pen on these namecards I have left over from my senior graduation stuff (my mom told me I should keep them -- they're those little ones you put in the invitations). I know that getting professionally-made business cards is best, but I don't have time. Any thoughts?

So anyway, once again, please pray that the conference goes well.

***

UPDATE (so I don't have 3 posts in a row):

I went to the conference. It went well. The 3 faculty members I went to all liked my story. I got to go to three good workshops, including one on writing fiction proposals (a skill I need now). It still was very nerve-wracking, because everything was so new, but I think it went well.