Life with a Day Job

I'm officially part of the workforce now.
I work or I die--it runs in my family. I've spent a good majority of my life working on things, be they books or crafts or school projects. But now, I officially have a job. I work in fast food--not bad, I guess, considering the fact that I could be doing yard work or walking dogs in the 108-degree weather we had today. I feel bad for the people working on our neighbor's roof.
And since I'm already running late for work, this is going to be a short post.
I don't plan on working in fast food forever. When I tell people I'm majoring in English, nearly everyone assumes I'm going to teach English. Teaching is a respectable job, but it's not what I'm after. When I tell people I want to be a writer, most of them look at me and ask, "Do you have a backup plan?"
Which I really don't. My main goal in life is to be a homeschool mom, author, and worship team volunteer. If I end up being two out of three of those things, such is life. I just need to find a guy with a job. People don't realize that writing, when done properly, is in fact work. Let's look at it this way.
Imagine you're writing an essay for school. Now imagine that essay has to be at least 70,000 words--around 150 single-spaced pages on the average word processor--or you aren't likely to get a grade. But you can't just pull that essay out of thin air. You have to research. For an optimum grade, you have to research every single tiny detail.
On top of that, you have to be creative. But you can't steal other people's ideas--that's plagiarism. And you can't be too creative, or no one will want to read your essay. Oh, by the way, you have to literally create people and worlds and places and things and, on occasion, languages and governments and cultures and even types of animals that don't exist in the real world. That's almost like thinking of a color that doesn't exist.
And all those people and worlds and places you create? You have to name them.
When I tell people I'm a writer, they might assume I'm just a self-absorbed nerd who sits procrastinating, staring at pictures of cats on Pinterest with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. Part of that's true. But what they don't know is that I'm a creator and destroyer of worlds. I take people to worlds that don't exist. I make you cry and laugh and sweat all by arranging letters, one after the other. And it's not always easy. I've spend the past two days researching the Norse financial system. It's not easy writing a barter economy, especially since I don't happen to live in one. But I know I'll get through it. I just need a library, the internet, and some help from God.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to play origami with pizza boxes and learn how many pieces of peperoni go on a large two-topping thin-crust. And also feed my dog, go to the post office, and maybe eat something if I have time...….