Ups and downs
Today has been a good day. I received a great testimonial from one of my friends for proofreading his first children’s book. You can see it here. I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of being freelance, even though I have yet to secure any real, paying jobs. I imagined this is how it would start, so I’m not too worried, just determined to keep going and not give up.
The second good thing is that the Virginia Woolf book and the statue project are now featured on the Byte the Book website and will also feature in their newsletter which comes out tomorrow. I’m extremely grateful to them for allowing it to be featured, as well as tweeting about it. I’ve been working hard on the revisions to the book for most of the day, and I’m currently looking at quotes from Woolf about the many visitors that she recevied, and right now the focus is on Katherine Mansfield.
The other thing I had to do today was go to the job centre. As someone who is not making any money yet, this is still allowed, but as soon as I get some income coming in, this will not. And not before too long! It’s always demoralising going in, having to show your book to the people hanging around the door so they can judge you and tell you which desk to go to. Today’s person at the desk seemed genuinely disinterested in me, and in fact, I think she only spoke to say hello, ask me to sign the electronic thing and say goodbye. That was it. Now, I know I have plans (and they’re going alright) to become freelance, but what about people who genuinely need help in looking for work? Surely not even looking at the job book (where one has to write down everything you’ve done to look for work) or asking how things are going are detrimental to anyone looking for a job? Whenever I go there, I often wonder whether I should help them to help others look for a job, because at the moment, the service there is pathetic and unhelpful.