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?