It’s never a sure thing – Two Novels and a Game – Rhi Axtell

About a week ago, I interviewed for a job. I was pretty confident it was a sure thing. I had lots of relevant experience. I look like me*. I went into the job interview last Wednesday and came out feeling pretty pleased with myself. I even bought a celebratory cake.**

*self love – it’s important.

**as opposed to an ‘interview-went-poorly’ cake. There is a difference, believe me.

“We’ll let you know by Friday,” the interviewer said. “We don’t want to leave you hanging around and waiting for an answer.”

Fab. Wonderful. Awesome of the sauce variety.

I waited for an answer. Friday came and passed. Saturday. Sunday. Silence. But still there was a little voice inside me that whispered “It’s a sure thing, Richard. Don’t worry, they are just checking your references.”

When Monday rolled around, I said to Julie, my wife: “If I don’t get this job, I’ll just write three novels in a row to make up for it.”

This was said with confidence because, after all, it was a sure thing.

…

So this morning, I got the rejection email.

A wonderfully computer-generated, completely impersonal, no. My ‘sure thing’ collapsed into a small pile of grey mush and scurried away beneath the sofa making little pathetic squeaking noises.

I took the appropriate amount of time to tell myself it was all my fault, and how I am useless*. Then I took a deep breath, forgave myself for all that nonsense and moved on with my life.

*somewhere between 24 hours and 32 years.

Here’s a picture of me learning lines for Hayfever to break up the text.

Then I remembered what I had said to Julie. Three novels. Three. Not one. Not one and a short story. Three whole novels.

As I reflected on what I had done, I comforted myself with a slice of ‘oh-no-what-have-I-done’ cake*.

*different from ‘oh-no-what-have-YOU-done’ cake and ‘oh-no-what-have-WE-done’ cake. Very different.

There we have it. I have three novels to write.

Buuuut I also have a few other projects that really need finishing. I’m going to be a bit sneaky and change my promise a bit. I’ll make it two novels and a game. Still a very large momentus task. Mind bogglingly large. I don’t know how I will get it done.

A promise is a promise. I wonder if this what I was supposed to do all along.

Life is funny like that.