I recently left my position at Forest Hill Church as Youth Director. Since my last day at Forest Hill, my life has been filled with moving, travel, a funeral, and a new job. But, life is finally settling down and I am growing accustomed to a new routine.
My new routine includes working a local ice cream shop, Sweetie Fry as an assistant manager. My work is varied; I do anything from creating a new website, social media, blogging, event coordination, marketing, inventory management, to scooping ice cream. It's a great change of pace for me, and I've found scooping ice cream is helping my fiction writing. Let me explain.
I am fortunate to work in an area with a great amount of cultural diversity and I encounter interesting people each day. Some days, I learn a portion of their story or background. Other days, I simply learn their favorite ice cream flavor and invent a story for them.
The interactions with new people are seeping into my characters and writing. I am putting faces to characters based on interactions or creating stories based on a person I met. I jot down notes of someone interesting and make a note for a later story. It's so much fun and I'm glad to have a job which fosters creativity.