Actually, I think I’ll stay retired…

As I sit here in front of my desk, balancing a water bottle on my forehead to relieve boredom, it occurs to me that I don’t really like being retired, and yet, I don’t really mind it either.

I miss a few things about work. There was always something that I had to research, whether it was a new computer problem or reading a manual to learn how to change the bulb in a projector. Work kept me busy, and when work didn’t, I could always gab with my coworkers.

But you know what I don’t miss about work? Managers. I don’t miss time clocks, half hour lunch hours, ass kissers, drama queens, pissy customers with god complexes or looming deadlines. I love waking up when I feel like it, and I love being able to get to work only after I feel ready to tackle the day.

In short, I appreciate the freedom that comes from being retired. I would not mind finding ways to make money on the side again, but this is not a forgiving economy that has room for the healthy and the sick to both be competing for the same menial tasks. You healthy people can promise to work long, hard hours whenever the boss demands your presence. The best I can offer is a few hours when I’m  in the mood to work. I show up when I feel like it, and not a moment more. This is not what an employer wants to hear.

To that I can only humbly say, “fuck ‘em.”

This is why I enjoy writing so much. I get up when I want, drink down enough tea to wake up my brain and rouse the muse, and then we get to work making up new stories. I write for me, and I work for as long as I feel like it. If a chapter has me swept up, I might not stop for lunch. But if I’m muddling through a scene or working with a lot of shorter scenes, I’ve been know to take breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, tea, brunch, lunch, and linner, a special snack I have between lunch and dinner.

The great thing is, it’s not really work. It’s just what I do to fool myself into thinking I’m working. I don’t have to stress out when a story takes a long time to develop, or when I get to the middle of a story and realize, wait, this is shit. I can just throw it away and work on something else. I am my own boss, and while I insist on working almost every day, I’m not a stickler on how many hours of each day must be devoted to the job.

Throughout this year, I’ve been asking myself seriously if I would come out of retirement to make something more of my hobby. But here’s what I’ve come up with after wrestling with the issue for a year.

I see no point in worrying over the marketability of my work when all I’m doing is putting a bunch of monsters together to see how many get laid and how many get killed. It’s my dark fiction experiment, always in progress, and I don’t care if it sells well. I don’t care if people don’t get the point, because it’s my art. Sure, it’s pop art, an attempt to build mythological systems that don’t collapse under their own logic flaws. But it’s my art, and I don’t see a need to sell it through a professional venue to be happy with it.

And besides, if I was going to start a new career, it would be in porn. They pay better, and they ask for permission before they fuck you in the ass. As a newbie writer, just try getting that kind of deal from a fiction publisher.