My lost job, and the beginning of my travels

January 29, 2015

So, funny story. A few months before I published Wage Slave Rebellion, I got laid off from my job.

I’m sorry for not mentioning it until now. It’s not out of shame, nor a desire to keep parts of my life private. I do intend to keep some elements of my life private, but such a key detail isn’t among them. As for shame, do you really think someone who wrote a book called Wage Slave Rebellion—and those italics were for emphasis—was happy with his job? Possibly, possibly. In reality, most of the truth in that bit of fiction was drawn from earlier positions and employers, but, while most of my characters are based on others instead of me, the desire for liberation from the wage slave’s life that I imbued in Mazik is 100% me. So no, shame had no part in it.

The reason I didn’t mention it up until now is that I felt revealing my sudden unemployment would smack of emotional blackmail upon my book’s release. Which wasn’t necessary—in some ways I unashamedly consider myself a sharp man, and personal finance is one of those realms. I planned ahead. While I’m no means rich—my parents gave me an education and some sturdy furniture, which is amazing and more than many people get, but I didn’t get a trust fund on top of that—I prepared for this eventuality, which is why I left that building smiling.

Did I mention that I was laughing and smiling when I left my exit interview, with my little box of deskly belongings under my arm? A story for another time. It was a lot of fun, to a weirdo like me.

But oh, how can I describe the feeling when you’re suddenly set free? I needed to leap. I wanted to leap. But it would have been “stupid” to do so before I was ready, so I kept waiting, figuring that I would do it if the book launch went well, if I sold X copies, if Y and Z fell into place. Then the choice was made for me, and it was glorious.

Sometimes you need a kick in the ass, even if the people giving it to you aren’t meaning to help, and are doing it for all the wrong reasons. Did I mention I left that place laughing? Haha!

With no specific reason to be in the city of my recent residence, and no great fondness for it to boot—Houston is all right, if you like living in a broiling swamp—I decided to leave. Come this weekend I’m moving, because, and this is my exact rationale, I can. There’s no reason to be here, and I don’t wunna, so I’m not gunna. So there!

So begins my travels. I have four cities planned right now, which I’ll visit over the next few months. All of them are where friends are located, one of which is on another coast (Portland, Oregon) and another overseas (Shanghai, with a stop over in Beijing). I’ve sold all my furniture, am packing the last few boxes, and will be ditching my apartment, opting instead for a life on the road.

It will be an adventure.

(Imagine me grinning from ear to ear. See what I did there?)

Who says we can’t make our dreams come true? (Liars, that’s who.) Not only do I get to call myself an author—the book sales have been going well, by the way, though a little word of mouth or an Amazon review is always appreciated. Spread the word!—but I get to travel around like my characters as well. On cars and planes, true, and I’ve no plans to fight monsters of create explosions with my mind (more’s the shame), but an adventure nonetheless.

As I stand here, weary from packing up everything I belong, stopping only to set aside what little I’ll need on my journey, it … it feels good. Nothing to say other’n that. It feels good, man. Maybe I’ll have to wake up from this dream someday, maybe sometime soon. But for now, it feels damn good.

Oh, and I’m already hard at work on the next book, and paper copies + the Smashwords version of Wage Slave Rebellion should be ready soon. Turns out publishing multiple formats for the first time in the middle of a major move isn’t easy. Who knew?