Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Rebirth

*UPDATED: I fixed the broken link!

So a lot has been going on over here at Team Lev Headquarters. I have decided not to go back to teaching next year. I am going to focus on writing and, to make up the difference in income, I had to seek out an endeavor that was lucrative and yet allowed me to work in short bursts when Miles was either in a good mood or asleep.

So, on the employment front, I started doing transcription. As it turns out, I don't have the time right now to really pursue the types of writing activities that would be lucrative enough to cover my nut. But I do have short bursts of time to type what people are saying. I have some wicked fast typing skills (mostly from years of typing my own research interviews) and I had a really good friend (the owner of Yarnia!) who sort of shepherded me through the process of getting some gigs.

Then I had to take some tests from various companies. And I failed one. Let me tell you how well I handled that! Me! Type A, control freak, perfection nazi. I failed a damn test. It was like my world exploded. I pretty much ate 11.5 cupcakes and buried my head in the sand. (actually, I ate 11.5 cupcakes as part of a spring cupcake party...more on that later I guess) As it turns out, my problem was technological and not physical. I just didn't know the Word shortcuts necessary to type fast and accurately as people are talking. But I learned them!

And then I passed a couple of tests and got paid $75 to transcribe a test file, which I also passed (take that, shitty-paying magazine gig!). And now I'm doing some captioning and transcribing and it's been great. I stick Miles in the jumperoo and type for 20 minutes while he pushes buttons with his face and jumps up and down. Or then he falls asleep and I do some more work. It's all been pretty snazzy.

On the other issue, my writing, I have really been working to sort of streamline what I want to do as a writer. I have been, you might have noticed, very transformed by the birth of my son. It has affected everything about me and I find he's all I want to write about. Him and mothering in general and birthing in general. So I am reinventing myself as a mom/birth writing specialist. I don't see my writing about ecological sustainability as separate from this, so I'm still doing those gigs, too. I mean, who wants their baby to eat bleach or succumb to CO poisoning? So I keep writing about the earth.

Which brings me to my very exciting piece of news. I totally revamped my website, with help from my brother-in-law, and included a blog on there. Check it out here: http://www.katyranklev.com. I will, from now on, do most of my blogging over there on my own site and I'll pretty much be only writing about mothering and birthing. Am I a mommy blogger now? Probably. And I'm down with that.

I like to think I have a unique voice out there. I'm not scared to admit that motherhood is hard and often sucks a fat nut. I'm not afraid to admit it was really unenjoyable for large portions of the first four months. And I know I'm not alone in thinking so and I hope that my voice can somehow offer validation to other moms who share my experiences.

So you'll find me over there, where I publish my other work and will now publish my independent ideas. I've started out with a bunch of posts from this archive.

New stuff to come soon!

See? Isn't it all very exciting?

7 comments:

pghrugbyangel said...

Katy, the link in the text of this post isn't working. Just FYI.

Amy said...

Yes! It is exciting! You're a great writer Katy and I supremely enjoy your blog; while I relate less to your 'mommy blogging' than to grad school and rugby I learn something from your posts nearly every time. So thank you and good luck in the new focus.

P said...

So will you be shuttering this blog or keeping it open for non-mom posty stuff?

Transcription, huh. And here I've been excited to be typing with six fingers now.

Laura V said...

The link's still broken: it tries to go to https://www.blogger.com/www.katyranklev.com

instead of

http://katyranklev.com/

Computers: always finding a way to foul you up.

Katy said...

hmmm this is very distressing about the link. but, em, yes, i will likely come here to post about non-mom things every now and again. maybe even more regularly than that! but i'll try to contain my mom things to my new site.

ellen said...

Just saw this! I'm going to miss the posts on here. And, there was no link at all when I checked in today. The only link was to yarnia.

Anonymous said...

Hi Katy--

I'm Val's sister. She told me about your blog awhile ago and I've been lurking ever since. I tell all of my friends who nurse about the story of you being walked in on while pumping in a spare office that wasn't really a spare office at work. They all nod knowingly and smile.

Anyway... here's a blog I thought you'd like if you weren't already familiar with it.

www. dooce.com

She makes a living as a blogger and has a pretty hilarious parenting blog.

Congrats on starting your new writing gig!