Work, when you've got it

"So what have you been doing since you got back?" people ask when they see me for the first time since I moved back from London. To which I usually say, sheepishly, "Not very much, actually. Sleeping. Catching up with family and friends. Shaking legs.*"

The next question is then, usually, "So what are you going to do now that you're back? Find a job?" To which I give a dutiful but vague answer about continuing with freelance writing, even though the truth is: I'm lucky, terribly lucky, and I've already had a number of great conversations with people whom I'd like to work with, about prospective projects that I'd like to work on with/for them. More details to come when they're ready, but I'm so very grateful to everyone who's expressed interest and faith in me.

And then there's that novel I want to write, which now I have to write because I've accepted funding from the National Arts Council for it, which binds me to certain deadlines and "deliverables" (i.e. write up proper chapters and everything). I like deadlines; they make me write. I just need to, er, not procrastinate on this particular project in the next year or so.

So yes, work --- aplenty, it seems, should I choose to accept it. At a time when politicians and economists are murmuring slowdown (or the R-word), I sure ain't complainin'.

* In Singlish, to "shake legs" is to be idle, to do nothing.