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Delaware, United States
Deborah Hawkins, penned Debra Renée Byrd, began writing after a blank book project in elementary school and never stopped, fashioning stories based on her favorite TV shows and movies before creating more original works. She studied at the University of the Arts and Florida State University before settling down and graduating from Temple University. She now resides in her hometown of Dover, DE, where she spends most of her time at work or at church. She loves fantasies, superheroes, is a trekkie and a brown coat. She loves television and lives for Final Fantasy video games, having collected most of them. She has read a myriad of authors, and her favorite authors change whenever she finds a new book that changes her life... "When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl...well, you know the rest." -Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"

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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Best Week Ever

It's Saturday, and that means it's time for BEST WEEK EVER!! (Please don't sue me, VH1.) With each Saturday, you will get to see whether the title is ecstatic, sarcastic, or a little bit of both.

For my first BWE post, it's a little bit of both.

I almost don't remember Sunday. I had to stop for a second to remember what I did. I woke up about 15 minutes later than I usually do for church on 4th Sunday. The choir I'm in sings at our 8am service, but my sister usually gets up at the time I got up. It only comes around once a month, so I forgot, and we were slightly late to meet everyone. But it was a good service. Then, we went to Kirby & Holloway's, a mom & pop restaurant here that has good food but terrible service, which we got. Sunday, I also decided to schedule my Y and Z posts so I wouldn't have to look at A-to-Z again, so I was free!

Work. Ugh. A very long week. By Wednesday, I felt like it should have been Friday. When I graduated college in 2008, I had only had one interview for an internship which I didn't get, so I came home to data entry. After 2 years of that, then a bad 6 months of online customer service at the same job, I quit and applied at a temp agency. I've been at my current assignment for a year now, and they really like me and give me a lot more work than what I'm contracted for (telephone operator,which takes up probably 30mins of my day). Instead of placing me in a permanent position, however, they tell me to "apply for the jobs on the state site." Now, a job had opened up in one of the buildings where I attend bi-monthly meetings, manage all the paperwork, and also handle dental liaison things. They expected that I would get on the list for an interview, and I'm not sure why, because the hiring manager (who I know now, because I've been there for a year) doesn't choose the interviewees, the state does. So, when I didn't make the list, everyone told me to "just keep applying."

Needless to say, I did two things. 1) When the temp agency asked if everything was okay, I explained the above in a much less bitter way and told her that if they can't create a job out of all of the non-telephone-operator work they have given me to do, then I will need to find another job, since I'm on telephone-operator pay. 2) I renewed my business license! I started an editing business in 2010 (I can't believe that was 3 years ago), but I'm not good at marketing, so I only had one steady customer, and she usually only needs work in the Summer. I'm going to do my best to put in the marketing time because I love to edit, and I want to do a job I love to do. My mom also told my sister and I about friends of friends who started their own business and are now millionaires, and while I don't expect millions, if I can make money doing what I love, I need to try it.

Secondly, I submitted to my first contest in at least a year. Duotrope.com is a great source for submissions to websites and magazines for writers. One of the sites, Hazardous Press, have a topic that I had been working on for a roleplay, and I was able to flesh out a character for it. The publication is for charity, but I also think they pay whoever makes the cut, so wish me luck! It would be my first real published story.

Finally, my mom has gotten me sick. Again. I don't feel as badly as I did two weeks ago because I took 3 packets of Emergen-C (which altogether contains 3000mg of Vitamin C, 30mg of B-6 and 75mg of B-12, well over the daily value), so I'm going to try not to be too mad at this lady who doesn't quarantine herself. I have a Mother's Day photo to take with my sisters and cousins and a concert at a sister church today, so I'm going to keep sucking down Emergen-C and take an anti-histamine.

This is a much longer post that I expected. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

4 comments:

Mark Koopmans said...

Aloha Debra,

Hope you feel better soon and GOOD LUCK with the writing contest - You can do it (rah! rah! rah!)

PS... hope the editing business picks up for you, too... isn't it great to wrok at something you love, rather than something you *have* to do :)

Anonymous said...

Aloha! And mahalo!

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

Good luck with your competition submission! And good luck with the editing. I enjoy editing too--gosh, there was a time I thought I'd never hear myself say that.

Anonymous said...

lol Thanks!