“What’s this?” you ask, “A regular post?”

Yes, indeed my friends. Normal service of markaeology has resumed after the Blitz (geddit?) of posts all about my book.

However, that does also mean the return of the sporadic and totally irregular posts, comparable with that most famous of analogies where a bus doesn’t show for ages and then suddenly three come all at once.

Life has continued as usual for the most part, and I am back at my desk working away at book number two. There is, of course, lots still to be done with book one. It’s been released but that’s only the start. Now I have to sell it :-)

As any other author will know, when chatting to people (who aren’t writers themselves) about your chosen path in life, they instantly assume riches to be yours. You are a writer, ergo you must be or will soon be rich. Us writers know the truth all too well; unless your last name is King or you’re the creator of a boy who flies around on a broom, you need a day job just like everyone else.

I’m oddly proud that I have, somehow, via a maze of obscure life choices, ended up doing what is usually associated with wannabe actors and models. You see, most of those I know who write have what I would call “proper” day jobs. You know the ones, those that start and finish at a routine and normal time, where you get a specific number of days holiday per year and the money that goes into your account at the end of the month never wavers in amount.

You always read in interviews with actors and models, however, how they had to get by before they “broke out” by being a waiter or a hotel porter.

Well, I’m even further behind the scenes than that. What do I do? I flitter from job to job, and currently I have two. Both are manual labour, and the second I started only recently. That one is as an events porter – I’m lost as one of the very many people who make things like a charity drinks reception for 1,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall happen.

It’s, as a colleague said to me on my very first shift, a means to an end. It pays the bills. It’s the stopgap before either your work sells enough to live off it, or it doesn’t and you have to start thinking about how you’re going to provide for yourself and possibly a family more substantially and securely for the rest of your life.

But at the moment, it’s all good. Doing jobs like this is a constant reminder of the bigger picture, and boy do you meet some characters. And it somehow feels kind of right, like this is how it should be done if I want to be a writer.

Colleague: So how many shifts have you done?

Me: This is my first one.

C: *Smiles and looks away* You won’t be here long, then.

M: *Raising my eyebrows*

C: I don’t mean that in a bad way, but this is a means to an end, isn’t it?

M: Is it? *A small grin forming*

C: Yeah, this isn’t what you want to do. You’ve got something up your sleeve. That, and your British.

M: Ha! Just because I’m British doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to make a career for myself in the events industry.

C: But you’re not doing that. C’mon, what is it?

M: *I pause* I write.

C: Ha! Knew it. See? A means to an end.

Yep, just like everyone else :-)