Business Launch for International Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day 2017, I participated in A Day Without Women. Organizers meant it to be a general strike, but it supposed a lot of privilege on the part of the strikers. There were millions of women who couldn’t take a day off. Being freelance, I worked extra hours early in the week so I could strike that day.

But there weren’t any good events in my city. This was weird, because I live in the kind of city where political events are listed in the “going out” section of the local weekly. But I only found one afternoon-long speaking event that sounded like a snooze-fest. I decided to devote my striking day to seeking out women in automotive occupations, especially engineers, and boosting them. I tweeted about some women, I offered to volunteer with a university that holds seminars for women students in automotive engineering, and I reached out to a woman who runs an excellent automotive website for membership in our local professional organization.

And then it was lunchtime.

Bored Enough to Work toward Goals

That was not a full day of striking. I continued searching and Googling and ran out of women to boost. It is a small cohort.

I got bored enough to take steps to move my own long-simmering plans ahead. I registered Practical Fox as a business in the state of Oregon. PF is essentially a vanity publisher. I have a nonfiction paper, a revamp of a previously published book, a historical fiction trilogy, a fantasy book for middle-grade readers, and more that I want to publish over the next couple of years. I also want to own my work, which seems like an appropriate goal to realize during a general strike. I put the work and the money into these projects, and I will get the rewards (however great or small they may be) in the end.

So from boredom was born a publishing schedule that, in addition to my paying freelance work, will keep me very busy. Boredom will not be an issue for a long while.