The fate of the world rests in his hands! When the Protectorate was founded, Pyre just wanted as normal a life as possible for a…
Geeking Out with Jeffrey Harlan
Category: Writing
The time is once again upon us for the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale, held annually in July. This year, I have four books on Smashwords, three…
Donner und Blitzkrieg is the Deal of the Day today at DriveThruFiction! The first superheroes appeared in 1953. The first supervillain wasn’t far behind. Donner…
Best friends are a staple of fiction, because they are an integral part of the human experience.
Happy book birthday to Revelations: Book 1 of The Protectorate! A team of young superheroes… …is fated to save the world! In a world where…
A Year of Disasters The year was dominated by a global pandemic, but that was not the only disaster that faced us. The year opened…
Happy book birthday to my novel, Donner und Blitzkrieg! It’s available at nearly a dozen retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and Smashwords! For a full list, check out the book’s store page.
I won NaNoWriMo. I didn’t write 50 thousand words, but as far as I’m concerned, I won.
I wrote 42 thousand words, and finished the first half of my novel. While working a grueling schedule that frequently saw me pulling 50-60 hours at work each week. Plus finding time to spend with my wife. And I still managed to crank out 42 thousand words. That’s a win in my book.
At the end of October, I had to make an incredibly difficult decision. I had to quit my job. It was, unfortunately, not the best fit for me, and I was beginning to feel the negative impact from that throughout my life. My work performance was suffering, I was falling behind in my classes, and I was spending such long hours at work and in school that I hardly spent any time at all at home with my wife. When I left the job, I was assured that I would be given a different position, one in which I had done well for more than ten years before switching to my last job.
It’s been nearly six weeks. None of that came to pass. For the first time since before I enlisted in the military nearly twenty years ago, I find myself unemployed. I’ve been searching for a new job with little success. I spend most of my waking hours each day scouring employment web sites and forums. Numerous leads have looked promising, only to fail to pan out.
My transition from military to civilian life was difficult, and even after more than eight years, it still seems to be a work in progress. I was fortunate to have a job lined up and waiting for me when I separated from the Air Force; an old friend from my pre-enlistment college days was working as a teacher, and knowing that I was going to need a job while I went back to college, helped me to secure a position as an instructional assistant for special education.