There really are people with jobs like this.
People who get paychecks for just… coming into work. I thought this was an illusion. It is not. I haven’t really done any work since June.
My office space looks a bit like my college dorm room did, only the sticky notes affixed to my computer have vendors’ names and addresses and project numbers instead of story notes. But here at my left elbow are 150 manuscript pages I’m revising, and a yellow notepad upon which I’ve got book pacing/layout notes for the stand-alone fantasy I’m working on for my next novel project. I’ve got a copy of Zelazny’s Guns of Avalon sitting out (yes, yes, I’m only 2 chapters from the end – I keep getting interrupted by reading other things), and I’ve just cracked open a can of diet dr pepper and set it next to my stash of CDs. I’m listening to the soundtrack to The Hours. There’s a packet of dried apricots here that have been stored in my outbox for the last week.
I’d like to think that this is my reward for doing all the admin. work for $12M worth of projects this year. Either my boss has forgotten to fire me (which is a possibility), or I’m viewed as such a valuable asset that they don’t want to lay me off and risk losing me to another job just as they sign on for another project.
That’s the great thing about being in a big firm: they have the resources to retain you and your writing habit.
