I have too many projects going, and I have too little time on my hands. Here’s a snapshot of my word count for the last fortnight:

As you can see, my minimum required per diem word count is going up steadily. It’s also going up exponentially, but that’s not really apparent from the small snapshot here, since we’re so far away from December 31. I have a ton of stuff to edit, a ton of stuff to write. But if I wanted to get any of it done in a timely manner, I’d have to quit my day job and devote those 40+ hours to writing. But there’s no possible way I would be able to pay my bills writing 200,000 word Star Wars fanfics and rewriting trunk novels (they have good bones; don’t judge me).

If I were working in a field that energized me, I think I would have more energy to devote to my numerous hobbies. Writing is just one of them, as are music, 3D printing—a new one for this month—and video games (check out my tiny, currently-on-hiatus channel, 42Embers Gaming. So I need to recareer myself to a job where I can work with my hands or do design work or something, rather than pounding on a keyboard all day combining duplicate medical records. I can easily spend 8 hours working on designs in Fusion 360 or working on a DIY project. So shouldn’t I regear and put that creativity to work? Makes sense, except for the fact that I’d have to go back to school.

The recurring theme in every career interest test I’ve taken is Landscape Architecture. I’d need a new degree for that, and the schools that offer it aren’t cheap. But I can also make potentially more money than I am now by fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a heavy equipment operator.

I would suffer a guess that anything that you obsess over as a child, continue to obsess over as an adolescent, and still obsess over as an adult is something that you should seriously consider as an occupation. The biggest roadblocks I can think of are the virtually required joining of a union (ew), and forcing myself to retrain myself to be familiar with the SAE/CAT control pattern (also ew). But I’d rather learn CAT controls and join the Local 3 than sit behind a computer clawing my eyes out because all the patient info is running together at the end of the day.

Once I’ve spent a few years digging in the dirt and paying off my previous student loans, I could go back to school to become a landscape architect, which would potentially increase my salary by a factor of 1.5 or so. Then I’d be much, much happier, and I could potentially afford to get more loans (triple ew) to pay for the new Bachelor’s degree.

But with any luck, I’ll have more energy at the end of the day to write. We’ll see what happens, I guess.