Having lost yet another role, which this time was a technical writing role (as opposed to the training one previously), I am…writing.

Although I’ve written blogs previously, it’s not a blog. Nor for those that do follow me, not poetry although the muse is yet to visit me. But the muse will.

A revamped novel. As I’m not working and I’m not writing thousands of job applications I am resurrecting a novel. Not the first one which is a dual reverse order narrative mess. No this is the second one which I didn’t end well.

That one I wrote some years ago and the heroine died at the end. For no purpose. None. Even reversing the ending didn’t help. She still died. And it was meaningless.

And two events prompted the rewrite.

The first was reading Save the Cat during which I realised I had written at least a part plot with my failed novel.

And the second was reading a book called Paper Cut which is a whydunnit, set in rural California focussed on a religious cult. Which I didn’t like for reasons I won’t go into.

But I realised that my less than a draft of a novel was also a whydunnit (an occurrence with no reason at the time (like losing a job), set in rural Queensland which is focussed on a church group. So I thought I’d start again.

And so some months hence now, I am continuing. And I suspect that I am fufilling three out of the four criteria for Ikigai:

• What you love (Your passion).
• What you are good at (Your skills).
• What the world needs (Your mission).
• What you can get paid for (Whatever).

So three out of four. And I’ll see about the whatever as I’ve done exactly nothing to further the prospects of said novel (27,000 words out so far). And for the connection (see above) that also remains to be seen.