On Friday my manager and her manager took me to a nice lunch at one of my favorite “let’s do lunch” restaurants, Rhapsody, to hear some of the reasons why I’m leaving. And after work was my going away “happy hour”…in the wonderful setting of Millenium Park at an outdoor restaurant/bar just beneath the Cloud Gate sculpture, AKA the Bean. I will definitely miss the people, but not the frustrations. Next week I start training my replacement.

My first event on my first business day of freedom will be a 2-4 hour wardrobe fitting for the Clint Eastwood WW II movie, Flags of our Fathers!!! And I think I’m now booked for three days/nights, up from the original 2 of the 8 days they will be shooting here.

Today I emailed the required excerpts/summaries for the AT II contest to Romantic Times magazine : a 100 word bio, first line of the book, 75 words each to describe the hero and heroine (try to describe yourself in 75 or 100 words, it is harder than it seems!), 250 word summary of the entire book, 300 word dialogue scene and 400 word love/romantic scene.

14 more working days until I’m officially unemployed…

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I’ve created this to relate the adventures of life after quitting my corporate job to pursue my passions, writing and acting, full time.

On Sept. 12th, management announced my impending departure. Since then, three fabulous things happened:

1) My medieval romance FOLLOW YOUR HEART is one of 10 finalists in the Dorchester Publishing/Romantic Times national contest, American Title II. Similar to American Idol, the two finalists with the fewest online votes each month will lose their chance to win a publishing contract. Snippets of our manuscripts will appear in RT starting in January!!!!

2) A literary agent, to whom I’d sent the first three chapters of FYH in August, asked to see the full manuscript.

3) I got booked to be an extra for two days on Flags of our Fathers, a WWII Clint Eastwood directed movie.

Coincidence, or confirmation that I’ve made the right decision?