Updates and Revised Pitch (Advice Encouraged, Again).

Still no news on how the interview went...I did find out the job is much further away from me than I originally anticipated, it's actually based in a city 20 minutes east of the one displayed in the job description.  I'm 25 minutes west of that middle city...so it'll be quite a haul if I do get offered the position.  They told me they'd let me know if they want to include me in the second round of interviews and the fact that I haven't heard from them yet makes me extremely nervous.  I'll update as soon as I hear word.

My other update is my newly revised pitch for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award...

Melanie Foster was finishing up her junior year of high school, enjoying her last moments of class, savoring the warmth of the sunny summer afternoon, and replaying the moment that her long-time crush asked her on her first real date.

Her life takes an unanticipated turn for the worse when she returns home from the date to discover her house left in disarray and her parents gone. A strange voicemail left by her mother during the kidnapping leaves Melanie questioning everyone, even herself. 



Melanie is thrown into an extraordinary adventure of love, loss, deceit, and despair when she is introduced to a new world, one explained to her as the original planet inhabited by human beings. Her grip on reality is tested when she learns that her world is actually the Third Earth discovered and populated by humans in a process known as the Earths Project. 



After learning that her parents are actually scientists working on the Earths Project, Melanie is sent on a journey to the place where they're being held, the Second Earth. Eager to help rescue her mother and father, Melanie finds herself tasked with the unexpected role of saving her entire planet.



The Earths Project: First Earth is the just the beginning of a journey through worlds of possibility and leaves the reader gazing up at the stars and wondering, what if?

The contest closes Sunday and I'm down to only having FOUR chapters left to edit.  I did my rewrite scene (just finished it up today actually), so those four chapters might take a little while.  I'm glad the contest has stayed open this long, but it makes me feel like I'll go crazy if it closes early when I'm THIS close.  So keep your fingers crossed that they don't get their ten-thousandth entry before Sunday!

Job Interview!

So the editing is going well.  I am up to chapter 23 now, which leaves me 10 chapters left to go.  Not too bad.  I want to get them finished over the next 4ish days and on Wednesday, I have a JOB INTERVIEW!!!  Finally!!!  First one since August!  It's a job in Phoenix, so it's only about a 25 minute drive (sans traffic).  And the job itself sounds great.  It's not in a library, but it'd still be a good experience and would keep my resume on track, so I'm really hoping they consider me.  There's also a volunteer supervisor position at a library closing for new applicants on Monday, so I hope I hear news from them this week or next for an interview.  After all of these months of no interviews and constant disappointment on the whole employment front, it'd be such a relief to finally have a job.  I know I'll probably cry a bit about the fact that I won't get as much time with Jane, but I know she loved the daycare and after spending this much time with her, I know she misses that interaction with the kids and the full-time toddler oriented activities (here, I make her sit in a cart for shopping, I have times where I have to go make jewelry, laundry, clean, so she really only gets about 2-3 full hours of my attention in the mornings and a couple hours after her nap).

Plus, I got my Master's Degree because of my strong desire to have a career and was never equipped mentally or emotionally to be a stay-at-home mom.  I have days where I feel completely useless, and days where talks about money make me feel horrible (like the thought of paying back my student loans), plus since I was in grade school, I have wanted to be a career-driven woman.  I am not at all saying I think staying home with Jane is in any way not honorable.

Wait...screw this...

I hate that moms always seem to feel the need to defend their decisions whether they want to work or stay home.  I never see a man defending his decision to work full time.  And if a man is staying home, I feel like the defending would be for why the mother is working, and not about the man.  What kind of bullshit is that?  (so I swapped out the word 'bullshit' with 'bullcrap' to be less PG-13 and found out that my Mac thinks 'bullshit' is a correctly spelled word, whereas 'bullcrap' is not...so I stuck with my first choice).

That's not where this post was supposed to go (and seriously, leave the fact that I'm a mom out of this, haha)...I'm just thrilled to finally have the chance to interview for a job I'd feel really good about (and one that I feel really qualified for).  It makes this three-day-weekend a lot less stressful.

The interview is only a 15-minute over-the-phone one...which makes me nervous that a.) they're interviewing a lot of people, and b.) I didn't get the last over-the-phone job I interviewed for so I am a little more uncertain about my interviewing skills.

Either way, I have to keep my head up and stay optimistic, because why else be excited for the opportunity to interview?