 Hello and welcome back to my channel. My name is Jackie and I'm a writer, and today I'm going to do a random writing vlog. So it is the 18th of May, and I think today is going to be a good day. Reason one is because Jim's just opened in Estonia, so it's now just almost 7am and I'm heading to my local gym to get a workout before the work day begins. And from next week I'm hoping I'll be able to go back to the office because one of the things I've been struggling with with working from home is just having a lack of structure and routine, especially because all of my work activities and all of my leisure activities take place on my laptop, so there's not a lot of variety. The other reason why I think it's going to be a good day is that for the past month I've been in the process of applying for and negotiating a role, and I think the final decision is going to get made today, and the reason I'm using sort of passive voice with that is because I actually got the offer on Thursday and asked some questions and then I declined it on Friday and I thought that was it. And although I was really disappointed to let go of this opportunity because it seems to be a really good one, I was also at peace because this thing had been going on for a few weeks and it just felt good to be able to put it to bed and to go, okay now I can plan my life without this job. I know we're probably going to be heading back to Australia later this year and I can start thinking about life through that lens as opposed to if I got the job we'd be relocating to Switzerland later this year and it's actually one of those moments where there's a fairly significant fork in the road for where we go. So I thought it was all done when I sent the thank you, but I need to reject this offer. And then I got an email from the CEO saying, you know, I heard we've made you an offer. Just want to remind you that the package does include this bonus twice a year and the reason I declined it was because the salary wasn't high enough. And so I got this email and went, well, it's nice of him to reach out personally, but I did already know that and that doesn't change the base salary. And I was in the middle of drafting and I replied to him when HR got back to me and said, oh, we cannot use some extra, which was kind of weird because I'd already asked whether there was any wiggle room and they said no. So it's just strange to be in the position where it took me rejecting the job offer to get offered more. And honestly, it's still nowhere near what I was hoping, but I just went back to them. So she said they could offer an extra 5% and I went back and said, look, if you can make an extra 10% I'll accept. But that was late Friday afternoon, so I haven't heard back yet. So now it's Monday. I'm hoping I hear back one way or the other. At this point, like, even though objectively speaking, it is a great opportunity. And this point, I just hate being in limbo and I just want to know one way or the other. So regardless of what the outcome is, as long as I get an outcome today, it's going to be a good day. And now I am almost at the gym. So I will check back in later. It's now 8.45. Obviously, I'm back home. My workout was surprisingly challenging, but also surprisingly good. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that after two months of doing nothing, my muscles could not handle as much. And I found that I was getting fatigued really quickly. Having said that though, I feel really good after it. And one of the most interesting observations about how I feel is that my good feelings are in relation to this job that's come up. From the last interview until now, which has been about a week and a half, I didn't know if it was actually going to happen because as an Australian citizen living in Europe, residence permits are a little bit complicated. And they are more so now because of coronavirus and travel restrictions. So we had a good week of talking about options and whether I could start working in Estonia and then later relocate to Switzerland. So it's sort of been in limbo for a while. Like I knew I was going to get an offer, but there was over a week between the last interview and when the offer came through because of that complexity, which I understand because obviously they don't want to have to make an offer and then rescind it because it's not possible to do anything. So I was already not in the best place about the role because when I have the interviews and I'm actively talking about it, I feel really excited. But then when I left my own devices and start waiting and thinking, I start to get less enthusiastic and I think part of it was just being in limbo and not liking being in limbo. And that's why even though it was really disappointing to turn it down on Friday, there was also this like sense of relief like I'm gutted that at least I can plan the future now. And then they came back to me and it was all open again. And that closure I had, I'd lost. And so on Friday of the weekend, I was feeling really anxious and also questioning whether I'd done the right thing because they said they had a budget for the role. I said I had an expected salary. Obviously, those two didn't line up hence the offer being lower than what I had hoped. And they said there was no wiggle room. So I said, okay, well, then I'll have to decline. Then they came back and said, we might be able to do an extra 5%. And when I got that email, I was at the point where I thought there are three options. One is I still say, nope, I've made my decision. We're done. Two is I say I'll think about it. And then three was go back with a counter offer. And I ended up going back asking whether we could do an extra 10%. And there were a couple of reasons for that. One is because if I said I was going to think about the 5%, then I didn't feel like I'd have the option to go back and ask for more. Two is that because I'd already turned down the role, I sort of felt like I didn't have the role anyway. So I wasn't losing anything by asking for more. But of course it was the end of the day. Haven't heard back. And that meant I was stressing thinking, oh my god, what if they think, you know, I'm greedy or entitled or all of this crap. And how I feel after the workout is actually that it doesn't matter either way. Because the truth is that my priority is my writing and becoming a better writer. And that's why last year I decided to sell my business because that had been taking up a lot of mental space. And because writing is my priority, it doesn't matter if I get this job or if I get another job or if I go home. Because regardless of what path my career takes, that is just a source of income. My priority is my writing and yes, it would be nice to have the source of income be a high paying one. It would be nice for it to be something that's challenging with great people. But the truth is in the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter that much. So I sort of feel free and I already knew that whenever the response comes through today, I knew that I'd feel better just knowing what was happening next. But now I actually feel really good about both options. So that's good. Who knew that working out makes you feel better? And obviously I know that exercise makes you feel better. I know it releases endorphins. I've experienced that over the last what year and a half or so that I've been going to the gym. I didn't realize how big a difference not going for the last two months I've made. So feeling good. Now today, if I look at my work calendar, I've got a few things on. I have two one-on-ones with my team and I believe, yeah, I've got an interview with someone we're considering recruiting. We're looking for a new position for my team. There's also a webinar this afternoon which I'm not running but I'm the person in charge of clicking the start button on Mondays. So a few different meetings. There's this potential email with an offer or no website of you coming through. I have actually already written today. I did my writing before I turned on the camera just because I was in the mood to write and I thought it was better to get the writing done than it was to get the vlogging done. But I think I will try and write again later today, depending on how I feel after this job stuff gets worked out and even if I don't end up doing more writing, I'm at this stage in my book where I feel like I've put so much thought into it over the past few weeks it's holding me back. So I'll also touch base about that. So this morning I interviewed a candidate for an email marketing manager role on my team and I'm now going through some of the other applications that have come through over the weekend and something that really annoys me is that anytime I post a job ad I specifically say cover letter and CV in English and I can't tell you the number of people actually I could tell you because there aren't that many applications in Estonia because the population's smaller but it surprises me how any people only send through an Estonian or a Russian resume or they submit an English resume but they don't submit a cover letter and the thing is the cover letter is a test and it's a test in a number of ways. One of them is simply that most of the roles that I personally am hiring for involve a degree of writing and I can get a much better sense of your writing from a cover letter than I can from a resume. However the other part of it is that this shows whether you are capable of following instructions. So if you're going for a job and the job ad requests you to do something beyond just submitting your resume so it asks for a cover letter or a writing sample or I don't know what else a video with your enthusiasm for the role like make sure you do that because if you don't that's just one of the things recruiters and people like me who are hiring are using to cut you out of the pile of resumes they have to go through. So in this list of applications and there are only about 40-45 but in this list of applications anyone who doesn't have a cover letter I'm not even looking at their resumes because they haven't done what I asked for and it's quite unfortunate because it means it doesn't actually matter how good they might be for the role or how relevant their experience is because I'm never going to see it. So a little lesson if you're going for a role and you have a tendency to just send off your resume and nothing else it could be costing you. Here's lunchtime and I'm going for a walk in my local forest because Estonia has those and I still haven't heard back about the job which is really I know it's strange like I still feel like I did when I recorded earlier I still feel good I still feel like both of my options are good options and my writing is a priority so it doesn't really matter what happens. I would still like closure though and of course because I put that aside I've given myself something else to worry about because anxiety and now I keep thinking oh my god what if they don't like me anymore what if they thought my last email was rude what if I was too blunt what if what if what if so trying not to think about that and I'm also until I have an actual update I'm not going to mention this again because this is turning into a hiring and getting hired vlog rather than a writing vlog so when it comes to writing May hasn't been that productive for me mostly because of this job and the interview process and I think one of the problems that created was I didn't have the time to write or the energy to write but I kept thinking about the book and when I was trying to think about what to write next I started thinking about giving some of the minor characters more backstory and one of the things I did was I decided to start giving a backstory for how Cecily the protagonist and Catherine the first woman she became obsessed with how they met and how it turned into Catherine being Cecily's captive so I wrote this stuff and now that it's written I feel like it should go in the book somewhere because if it doesn't then what was the point in writing it but it doesn't fit anywhere and I've been really struggling with how to shoehorn it in even though it doesn't work and I actually ran into this problem with a project I picked up again last year after letting it sit I think 10 years since I've been at uni basically and what happened with that it was quite similar like I put so much thought into the characters in the world that I couldn't figure out how to put it all together and what I noticed when I reread Powerless the other week was that that wasn't a problem there and I think it's because I didn't give myself time to do that thought I just I had a plot I was doing NaNoWriMo and I was trying to do my words each day and move from scene to scene and now what we've got is something that could be built up a bit more but I feel like every scene is necessary there's nothing that's been like shoved in there just for the sake of character development or backstory or I don't know stuff that in theory is important that can weigh down stories in some cases and I feel like that's what's happening with reciprocal stalking now so one of the things I've decided to do is to stop thinking so much even when there are sections where I'm not entirely sure what should be happening and just attempt to keep writing the next thing and then the next thing and then hopefully when I get to the end I'll also have something that's tight that the bones of it work at least that does need to be fleshed out but it's not just a whole lot of scenes that I wrote when I was trying to think of stuff to write that somehow need to be stitched together and it doesn't work I'm not sure what that means for this story about Catherine though because I really like it which probably isn't surprising since I'm the one who wrote it but I really like it I like that it shows that you know Cecily has this pattern I and I like the transition from a romantic interest to captive and it's actually accidental the first time how it happens and I think it shows like how you go down the slippery slope where something that is not acceptable becomes acceptable by doing some small thing wrong and then you know your level of what's acceptable or what's justifiable keeps getting lower and lower until you'll do anything to maintain control of the one you want so I like it from that perspective but maybe these scenes don't need to be in the book anyway that's a problem for future Jackie for current Jackie my focus is getting the book written and then I can go back and figure out what to do with these scenes and it's webinar time hey Paul so it's coming up to the end of my work day this webinar should be over in the next few minutes which means I will then end it and sign off and do some writing so writing done it's been about 50 minutes and I've written for about 40 minutes at that time and I wrote 564 words so if I add that to this morning's session which was 539 words that means about 1100 for today so that's pretty good considering that I think this is the fourth day I've done any writing in May so May has not been a great month I was struggling which is why it wasn't that productive a session I'm dealing with a couple of things I mentioned earlier that I have been thinking almost too much and that's causing problems because I don't know how to put all of those thoughts into the book there are another couple of issues I'm facing one is that I haven't been writing regularly so things are getting rusty things are getting stale and the longer I wait before getting back into a regular routine the harder it's going to be so that's on me I just need to start writing daily or most days and I think this is going to be the start of getting back into that the second thing is that I've run out of runway in terms of the bits of the book I was really inspired about so the first maybe 20 percent I was really looking forward to I'd imagined it really clearly I knew or semi-clearly and I knew how Cecily was going to be stalking Kara and I was really thinking about all of the internal monologues where she notices her hair and her eyebrows and her skin and her freckles and her lips and you know all of this just thinking and obsessing over this woman so I was really excited about that and even though if you watched my April vlogs it was a little bit of a struggle to get through that I still got to the point where they officially meet for the first time and really liked that interaction and thought that the book was for the most part structured well until then and after that point is when I really started running into trouble and that was about mid-April so from the middle of Camp Nanarimo I was struggling with my camp project and I think part of it is that there's this momentum and build up to that first meeting and now that's fizzled out because it's happened and I mean I think I need to think about what the next milestone is in the book that we can start working towards because at the moment I have a list of events that should happen but one they're vague because I've realised that when it comes to plotting I think I'm done and I'm not because I have a tendency to write a one-line description of a scene and don't actually figure out what's happening in the scene so for example what I'm up to is when Cecily and Cara meet up for the first time what do they do I don't know how does it end I don't know is there chemistry is it a date or is it just as friends I have no idea so this is a problem and I'm getting up to this part of the book where basically all of the scenes are like that like I know okay there should be a meeting here the friend should interrupt at this point this is when she needs to offer the ex-boyfriend but I don't really know much more than that so I think I I think I just need to do some more planning in fact I need to I need to plan their first date other than that there are no updates on the job situation at least I don't think so I'm going to check my email now to see if anything's come in in the last few minutes no no updates I don't know what to think about that I don't know if it means they've decided they're not interested and they're just not going to let me know or if they're still having internal discussions about whether to make it work or whether to make me a counter offer yeah those are the only two options I can really see I think if they decided it's not going to work and I never hear from them that's not ideal on their part just considering how much time and effort both they and I have put into this process I mean I've had what five I've had three interviews and then two additional conversations with HR I did five assignments and they obviously had three different people no four different people at the company interviewing me they reviewed those assignments they spent a long time trying to figure out how residence permits would work so on both sides we've invested a lot of time and energy into this so I don't think they just go let's leave it and not say anything like I think they would at least send me an email going look we can't match that offer unfortunately it's not going to work it just feels odd to be getting to the end of the day and to still not have closure on this but we'll see and if I do have some sort of conclusion to this drama before the video goes up editing Jackie will let you know what happened because that has been a greater focus at this video than the writing has future Jackie here it is the next day and I got the job so they actually emailed me this morning and agreed to the extra 10% and yeah I'm super excited about it so what's interesting is how excited I was to get the email and it's funny because salary can seem like such a superficial thing and it's not the most important thing but it is a factor and when I got the offer last Thursday I sort of went oh you like my heart sank a little bit because I'm like oh that's the value they put on me and my experience and I know I can get more elsewhere but I really like this company but you know it's just a little disappointing to see that and I don't know if I mentioned earlier but there was one figure for Switzerland and then there was actually a lower figure for when I was in Estonia because at their end the cost is still the same but there's a higher percentage cost to employers here than there was over there so that meant the salary I was getting paid was lower again so it was like I was hit once when I saw the first number then I opened the contract and got this other hit when I saw the second number and just went no I can't I can't like chop 30% off my value like this so I'm really happy they got back to me from here I'm going to be starting the role in July I think and we'll work in Estonia for the first couple of months until Switzerland opens up these are applications and residence permits again and then once that happens we will relocate so I will probably give you another update then so I hope you enjoyed this mess of a vlog let me know if you'd like more videos like this because I've only really done writing vloggy type videos as part of Nana Raimo and they are generally weekly vlogs which means there's more touching base throughout the week and it's more writing focused so I'm not sure if the one day format works so let me know if you think it works please give me a big thumbs up let me know in the comments and I will see you next time bye