Stayed up until 12:30 AM on Tuesday, finished a screenplay for the Nicholl’s competition, and placed it in the mail at 3:34 PM today. Which is good because it meant I did fulfill 1/2 of my contest entry resolution for 2007–the deadline for the second contest is December.

Now besides hitting a goal, today is notable because an email from an agent requesting a partial manuscript arrived at 5:07 PM; it’s one I did not query directly. I actually contacted another member of this agency.

Pure sweetness for the following reasons:

1) Three chapters and a query letter survived a team of assistants, who thought enough of the story to ask their boss.

2) Senior agent read and passed, and instead of tossing it into the SASE and then a mailbox, recommended it to their colleague.

3) Colleague read the sample chapters and query, then contacted me directly.

4) Agent requested a fairly substantial sized partial, knowing what my writing looks like, lessening the chance I oversold the project and disappointed us both.

Letting go works for me, when I allow it to.

Or maybe it happened because I jumped out of a plane…

The advance towards the Nicholl’s deadline continues…so close…so close. Four days and quite a few scenes left to write. Next time I enter this competition, it’s with a preexisting script.

Three activities I invested a lot of time on are ending at once: spring cleaning, the Nicholl’s competition, and round one of Project Get Agent. By Sunday, whatever hard core cleaning remains is tabled until mid May. Deadline for Nicholl’s is May 1, so * title redacted by sam * must be done in the next eight days. Preferably six, so I can revise a bit. And then there’s Project Get Agent.

Sending off another query/sample blast pack meted over the next few weeks, somewhere in the low double digits. Once those packages hit the post, I’ll be situated to easily–if necessary, as it’s always possible one takes me on–exceed the New Year’s resolution.

Otherwise, it’s pretty quiet. The school year ends soon–the students leave by May 31–and I must decide how to spend my four weeks of vacation. Oh, I will use every single day. Leaving an allowance like that on the table is criminal.

Some jobs suck; some rock. In terms of satisfaction a gratification though, a recent list compiled by the General Science Survey is very interesting.

Below are the top jobs in terms of satisfaction and the percentage of participants who indicated being happy about their job:

* Clergy—87 percent percent
* Firefighters—80 percent percent
* Physical therapists—78 percent percent
* Authors—74 percent
* Special education teachers—70 percent
* Teachers—69 percent
* Education administrators—68 percent
* Painters and sculptors—67 percent
* Psychologists—67 percent
* Security and financial services salespersons—65 percent
* Operating engineers—64 percent
* Office supervisors—61 percent

Two creative disciplines–writing and the arts–not only appear, they rank high on the list. Which is a surprise, because the entries mostly consist of vocations that place individuals in direct contact with the person they assist or manage. Jobs where there’s not only a built in feedback loop, but opportunities for connections with the larger community.

And yet, only firefighters, clergy and physical therapists indicate a higher satisfaction level than authors.