Suddenly, I Can't Move For Work

You know how it is. You struggle on as a penniless writer, heating your garrett with a couple of candles and slipping an extra thermal vest 'neath your frilly shirt until you decide that perhaps the four book deal is going to be a little longer in forthcoming than you originally anticipated, so you apply for, and get a new teaching job to ease the financial ruin, and then three more job offers come along straight after.

Or perhaps you don't. But that's what's happened to me.

Back in June I applied to go on a tutor register set up by my local education authority. One to one tutoring of students either during or after school, a very nice hourly rate, thank you very much, leaving me a substantial amount of time to 'Carry On Writing' (ooo-err, Missus). July, nothing happened. August, nothing happened. September, nothing happened. October, nothing happened, so I applied for a teaching job and got it. And then, in the last 4 weeks, now I am going back to work full-time, I have had 3 schools contact me asking if I am available for tutoring.

Aaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

And also, so successful has been the Adult Ed course I've run for the last eleven weeks, I may well be asked to repeat it in January.

So what, pray tell, is the Universe trying to tell me? That I am a better teacher than I am a writer and if I want to pay off the mortgage more quickly and buy my Nissan Figaro I need to work like stink in proper paid employment and stop writing weirdo abstract prose about chickens? That I am still far too impatient in my nature and if I had waited just another couple of weeks instead of panicking myself back into full-time teaching, I could have a couple of nice part-time tutoring jobs by now and still be a part-time writer?

Or that I can still fit it all in because the more one does, the more one can do? If you get what I mean.

Blowed if I know the answer to this one. And now the house sale has fallen through and we've decided to stay put for the time being, it does feel a little as though I've travelled full circle and ended up back at the starting point of a year and a half ago.

But what I do know is that I still want to be a published writer one day; that I enjoy teaching; that I still want a house in the countryside with a plot of land for chickens and geese and veg growing.

How will it all happen? Indeed, will it all happen? I don't know. But what I have learned is that it's never wise to second guess the Universe, and just be happy to go along for the ride!