by Eugénie de Rosier

It was a grand task to take up the humanitarian challenge of Peace Corps work for 27 months in Southeast Asia. Whew! It was great to come home in May 2008, but not so fine to be faced with the chore of a job search in our slumped economy. Nonetheless, I started a disciplined and organized effort in June.

Seventeen months later, in December 2009, I was still without full-time employment and had been wrestling with writing fiction full time. I’d made a commitment to writing twice and did so for two weeks each time. Downbeat newspaper articles or national labor statistics affected me and I returned to networking. Not seeking paid employment was scary.

On the other hand, designing my life to have a kind of dedicated open space for writing fiction had been a goal for years. I’d published nonfiction for decades. Fiction, my heart’s desire, was generated, the usual way, over weekends and in the evenings across years. Here was an opportunity.

It came down to trusting myself. Why not risk writing full time for six months? See how much material I could generate. Certainly no money would be forthcoming. I receive a $1,200 stipend monthly. I’m a wizard at managing money. I could tighten my belt further. In December, I began.

My decision and the work felt right gradually. With the rhythm of daily writing, my employment cares vanished. My goal was to generate material, revise, polish, and market short fiction, heading toward a book-length manuscript. I tracked my writing time and disciplined myself to produce four to six hours daily. Usually that worked. Some days I wrote eight to eleven hours.

Everything related to writing counted: thinking, interviewing, researching journals, marketing, applying for grants or contests, writing classes, editor consultations, tracking hours, generating material. Occasionally, during those months, I was gripped with fear, and the siren call of a paid job overwhelmed me. My linear thinking intruded on my creative cortex, urging it with demands for action. How could I justify no health insurance, no IRA contribution, no investing? I mastered my thoughts, gradually, banishing every idea that didn’t align with my writing goals.

The six months ended on June 30. I’ve written, revised, edited, and cut five short stories, four of which are being marketed, individually, to literary journals. I hired an editor to assess each story, repeatedly. He told me I’d “been incredibly productive,” which made me realize, for the first time, that I had been. A literary journal editor commented: “We were very impressed by your writing. We hope you will be encouraged . . . to send us something else.” Oh, yes. A friend offered to evaluate my manuscripts from a reader’s perspective.

This way of living feels right, and despite its challenges I’m going to continue. On to month seven.

Eugénie de Rosier has published creative nonfiction in II Cities, Hurricane Alice, and Vertigo, and essays or commentaries in many periodicals. Her work has been included in an anthology: Streams from the Sacred River: Women’s Spiritual Wisdom. She wrote at a Norcroft retreat and has been working on short stories. In recognition of her creative efforts, she has won six writing awards. In June 2008, Eugénie returned from the U.S. Peace Corps with a sackful of raw material for new stories. She was a 2009 Loft Mentor Series finalist in fiction.