As Things Now Stand
April 27th, 2010 / Author: Z.N. SingerThe Wordpile is going somewhat lower key.
Not lower key than it’s been for the last two months or so. Actually, this post is an official recognition of the circumstances that have led what was being regularly updated to being – well – less regularly updated. What cannot be helped, cannot be helped, and life is one of them, but you are all due some proper explanation.
When I first set this place up, I’d graduated at last with an Associates in Graphic Design and was trying to get a job with it. But as those in the U.S. know all too well, the economy has become a rather punishing place for Bachelor packing professionals with years of experience, let alone an Associates holder with none. So I’d already been searching for two or three months with no results at all, and no longer expected to land a full time job anytime soon. I set up this site thinking that the writing part, the resources part, and the graphic profile part, might all end up helping the other out. Having a writing blog up really did appeal to me, I could put up a graphic profile with some of my better work so that I finally had an online place for people to evaluate me, and you never knew when a visitor from the first would be diverted to the second, to my benefit. I was hoping that some part of the site would become popular enough to start drawing some funds, thus allowing me to devote at least some portion of my time to the it regularly. And even if it didn’t, there was the ever present possibility of the first scenario. So my logic went. Overall I was someone with a lot more free time and no idea when that would change. This site becoming part of my support seemed as likely as any other option. So even though it was a one man project, I ended up making it all sound pretty ambitious.
And then my parents realized that I was wasting my time job searching in such a situation: I should go back to school. At first, I still expected to have a lot of time for a while. Though they’d decided I should take some classes, they were not necessarily ready to commit to another two years yet. Then I got a part time job. Expectations slowly morphed into me truly returning to being a full time student. After a period of research, on my father’s (very good) advice, I decided that I wanted to turn my Associates into the base for a degree in Interior Design (architectural, not decorational.). So now I’m part time in college, part time working, one third time getting back and forth from work via public transport (no seriously, it takes me a collective three or more hours getting back and forth even though it’s a twenty minute drive by car), and part time arranging my entry into the CIA – Cleveland Institute of Art. Which will require much martialling of financial aid, plus they want some kinds of artwork to evaluate me by that I didn’t already posses and therefore must produce from scratch first…you get the idea. My life is full time again, and having time for too much more than my own creative writing and the occasional rejuvenating break is no longer a given. Some time can be made I’m sure, but much of the promises, both stated and implied, that went up with this site are no longer within my power.
In the fanfiction section, it’s is actually more the people I talked too when collecting material who will find the present scheme a severe downgrade. It is a little embarrassing, and I should have known better than to make it sound that way, even though I believed it at the time. I will continue to request those quality works I find when I find them, and post them, for so long as I am not forced to stop, but the pace will be rather slow. I will no longer invest in trying to post works longer than, say, fifty thousand words, if even that much – thirty thousand is a more likely limit, and that not too often. I am at a complete loss as to what I am going to do about Velf’s work. On the one hand, the only justification for the presence of the first two Spirited Away works by her is the third one that reflects her final achievements in skill. If I am not going to post that one, I should delete the firs two, but I can’t help but feel guilty about that. I’m even less sure about Indebted. There is another two hundred thousand words to go in that monster and she’s not finished it yet. Drop it, and the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve already posted, or keep it, and perhaps never get very much more up? At moment, I’m just sticking my head in the sand on that one. My own works will of course continue as they have, operating as they do by a different set of criteria.
I will be trimming down the resources section drastically, or at least I hope so. All or nearly all of the free resources should remain. Much of the other material will go. Additions, if and when they occur, will be largely free as well. And as for my graphic profile…once again I just don’t know yet. I’m not going to be a graphic designer now, but making some income as one until I get my final degree is no bad thought. On the other hand, will I have the time to respond to an request if I get one? Things are kind of in flux. All creative fiction and non-fiction writing sections, as a rule, will continue to exist but operate at lower levels than previously suggested. I really do feel kind of like a jerk about this, talking big and then saying ‘oops, can’t do that, can’t do that, ahhaha, did I say I’d do that? I must not have been thinking, sorry’. But it really is the way of it, and cannot be helped.
To those of you five hundred regular visitors I have been receiving, I hope this leaves you still reasonably kindly inclined towards this site. As stated in the home essay, I continue to welcome you and pray that you will enjoy your stay, and continue to be flattered at having such a sizable number of admirers. I hope my future efforts are not too disappointing.
Z.N. Singer
