Over the past two months I've managed to get roughly 30 cover letters written for jobs I feel I'm qualified. Judging by the response I've received in return I am the only person that feels I am qualified. Cover letters are a menace. You don't know who is going to be on the other end reading so the tone of your letter could be a huge hit or a disastrous miss. I have been many personalities in cover letters. I've been humorous, business-serious, less than enthusiastic and over eager. I get less than enthusiastic when I'm hard on myself, knowing my letter is going to be unanswered anyway.
Writing a cover letter is not an easy task. And you can't just have a well-written generic letter saved for quick send-off. Different jobs call for different skills and the letter needs to highlight those skills. I got skills. Tell me what you want, I'll tell you what I got. Ugh.
And then the cover letter gets sent, and you think of things you should have said in addition, or you regret the tone you chose, or you wonder, "Did I remember to change the address from the last company I wrote?" A cover letter is never good enough. I don't know why the resume can't speak for itself. We all know anyone can say anything in a letter and it's not a real reflection of the personality of the writer. Don't we all know that?
But I'll admit my cover letters do tend to be hurried, just like my blog updates. My blog posts could be better written, but they're usually written while Clara is napping and Lxkas is watching Thomas. To have these two events occur at the same time is pure luck. Right now Thomas and Toby are on an adventure but Clara is stirring in her bed. I'm on limited time here.
There is one project I'm working on in which I'm taking all the time in the world. I'm writing a story that started developing in my head last summer. A complete story is sitting in my mind waiting to come out on this computer screen. I wrote the first chapter and sent it to a couple of good friends of mine, because I told myself that if they said it sucked I wasn't going to waste any more of my precious time writing it.
Well, I got mixed reviews. Friend 1 flat out told me it was unoriginal and my style sucked. I appreciated her honesty and told Friend 2 not to bother critiquing it because I was going to find better things to do with creative juices. Well, turns out Friend 2 sees something promising in my story because she has inspired me to keep writing. She gave me a couple of suggestions, I did some revisions, and we feel the story is on its way. I'm two chapters in now.
It's a story about culture and the complex relationships of women. My main character struggles with living in the present because of the past and her grandmother is a huge part of this struggle. Also, she's growing up in a time of rapid change, where roles of the sexes are changing, the family structure is changing and the environment in which they live is changing. In case you haven't guessed yet, my character is Cherokee, and she doesn't know it yet, but she's going to be walking the Trail of Tears.
I don't know what I'm going to do with the story when I finish it but I do feel I want to finish it just so I can say I did. If it does suck completely to hell and back, at least I tried. If it's okay and mildly entertaining, I'll upload it to the internet so maybe a couple of people will take the time to read it if they like. If it's better than mediocre, or if it's good, maybe I can sell it and make a little money. I know the third option isn't very likely, so let's hope for #2 because I don't like to suck.
So every now and then I'll catch a good lengthy break where I can get a few pages churned out. At the rate I'm going we may see a finished product before the apocalypse. That's a big maybe.
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