30 Day Blog Challenge Day 15: My Dream Job

It's day 15! It's all downhill from here. Today's assignment is to talk about my dream job. Let me see--what would my dream job be?

I know! My dream job would be being a writer! I love my kids, but I really do want to be a full-time author. I don't care if I make a million dollars. I just would love to support myself with my books. So my job would involve getting up and writing every single day. I'd write every morning until lunch time and then do writing-related work in the afternoons and weekends, like signings and readings and talking with bookstore owners and book clubs and organizations. When that wasn't going on,  I'd be working on my online presence.

I would love to branch out and try another genre, like straight literary fiction, but between school and my other writing job, I just don't feel like I have the mental energy or time to try anything too new. The Shalan books are fun, but they don't take great mental gymnastics. At least I don't feel like they do. I mean, I know the characters so well. Harry and Dee are real people to me. And not just real people. Real people that I know better than any actually real people. So when I put them in a situation, it's not that hard to figure out how they'll deal with it. Creating a whole new world of characters is something that sounds attractive but time- and brain-consuming. And I have such a limited supply of both.

In the meantime, I already have a pretty darn dreamy job. I get to fall in love with a new crop of kids every year and then send them off to college, for which I haven't had to pay a penny. And I do enjoy teaching. It's the outside-of-the-classroom parts that aren't as fun. That and the having to show up for work every day, even when I want to sit at my computer and pound out another chapter. But I am sure that when I leave the classroom for good, I'll miss loving on those kids every year.