Call it what you like....

No matter what ridiculous euphemism is used, we all know it's the same thing as being fired....except perhaps that there's a severance package.
I never know what to say. I offer my sympathies and anything else I can do such as recommendations or references which seem meager and inadequate to loyal colleagues who have been with me in the trenches for years. In some cases there is genuine shock, but after so many of these damn ' staff reductions', it's hard to be shocked. The most shocked I've been is when my name isn't on the "list".
I hear the gossip of who got cut. Occassionally, someone will contact me directly to say "hey, I'm on the list." Usually, the news sort of blunders about for a few days. We all live in a fog pretending to do our jobs when all we want to know is "Who's left standing?" and "Of those standing, who will now be responsible for this, that, and the other?"
That is the sort of crux of things. People get cut. The work, does not. The work remains behind being shepherded by the remaining souls who try to soldier on without complaint. But nobody feels good about it, and there's plenty of grumbling when nobody's looking.
We know that some of those cut were excellent at their jobs. Smart, efficient, innovative. It makes you wonder why it wasn't enough. But, it only makes you wonder a minute. In some cases, we know the work will be sent to 'low cost' countries. We have to pretend like we agree that it's a good smart business decision, while at the same time trying to make things work with new people who have nowhere near the knowledge of the people they replace.
It's extremely difficult. It doesn't build confidence or rapport or teamwork. We have to try to rise above it all and put the work first. But, I'm a person first....a human being who recognizes talent and dedication....a person that can see beyond dollar signs. I get that sometimes tough business choices have to be made. But don't expect me to pretend like it's okay. It's not.

writing reading writing

I just re-read some things I slapped onto this blog in December. Horrible.
Subject matter okay, but writing was marginal at best.
I forced myself to write something, anything. That was what fell out of my head. Badly. Like the unmistakable yet cringe-inducing sound of a high-performance vehicle throwing a rod. Okay, I'm not a high performance vehicle. It's an analogy for crying out loud.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. By lately, I mean the last 14 months. Well, actually, the reading was only for about 8 months. I probably did neither serious reading nor writing for a good six month stretch. I digress.
I realized that the more I read, the more my critical brain kicked into a gear that I didn't even recognize. I found myself wanting to fix the novels I'd been shoveling into my brain: plot holes, weak characters, horrific sentence structures, meandering pointless prose. But, of course there were merits as well. I'd savored some amazing descriptive painting-by-prose, admired heroic characters, loathed unforgettable villains and raced to devour labyrinthine, but engaging plots.

Previously, I'd been doing a lot of writing but no reading (unless you count 39 Clues books that I read with my son). During that time, my writing got more and more monotonous. I wasn't enjoying the ride. I wanted to beat up my characters. I don't mean that figuratively. I mean literally. Like take em out back and just brain em with a cinder block.
Figuratively, I guess I did exactly that. I stopped writing.
I needed to drown in the words and worlds of others.
It isn't that I lost the story. I can find a story in anything and everything. Story is the fiber of my soul: the touching, the absurd, the cataclysmic, even the mundane. It's all a story if you see it from the right angle. But to put those stories into words and sentences and paragraphs and descriptive prose, I had forgotten how delicious it can be. To consume the work of others reminded me of that and made me want to try my hand at mastering the recipe.

I think now it is time to begin again, begin anew. When I've been in a writing rut, I default to stories and characters and worlds I've previously created to kickstart me again. But, I think at this point, my old characters are not going to be brought back into play. Molly, Lilli, Miss Parkinson, Desmond.....love all of them. But it's time to start over.

And even as I contemplate the next character that I shall pluck from the purgatory of my brain's waiting-room, I will continue to read. After all, there's a mammoth pile of books at my bedside beckoning me.