Ericka Scott


I’ve been Tagged
Sunday, July 1st, 2007
Filed under A Writer's Life

I was originally going to give you a sneak preview of my current WIP, Tinsel Time. But, instead, I get to bore you with eight things about me (bleh) …

This weekend, I’ve also been thinking alot about story ideas for the BIAW challenge coming up July 9th. It’s to be about “Ships that Pass in the Night”. . . which then led to me thoughts of the Rascall Flatts song, Bless the Broken Road, which then led me to thoughts of how I got “here”. Amazingly, I’ve had eight jobs (well, actually nine, but I dont’ know if being a Kelly Girl counts) that led up to writing romantic suspense…

1) As soon as I was sixteen, I got a job working nights and weekends at Taco Gringo. It was an expanding chain in Illinois back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, but I think the only stores left are a few scattered around Southern Illinois. I’ll just say I can roll a really mean burrito! The only writing-related duties I had was to replace the little push letters on the menu board!

2) While I was in college, I worked spring breaks and summer vacations at a warehouse place that assembled sandwiches to sell at 7/11 stores. I stood on an assembly line (kid you not) and plonked lunch meat, frozen patties, etc. onto bread for 8-9 hours a day in 55-degree temperatures while my classmates splashed at the pool and sunbathed. . .Nothing writing related here. . .except to note that there were LOTS of typos on those sandwich labels!

3) After college, I got a really glamourous job working for Frito-Lay. I examined corn kernels and tested grain for pesticides at a grain elevator out in the middle of nowhere. No free chips for us! However, I began writing up procedures for a test manual. Kind-of like cookbook chemistry. Take 1 cup corn…

4) After I got married, we needed money. But, I was in a new city and didn’t know where to apply. So. . .I did the next best thing, I was a Kelly girl! I worked temporary jobs all over the city. I didn’t make much money, but I learned my way around…fast! Now here, I got to type, enter data, and even worked for a paint company.

5) My next job gets really spicy. I worked at the University of Louisville KY Eye Research Lab. . .I was a lab tech in charge of doing vile things to bunnies’ eyeballs. I did just a tiny bit of writing here. Mostly documenting all the vile things I’d done to the bunnies’ eyeballs!

6) Still at the UofL, but at the Brown Cancer Center, I did cancer research trial data gathering. Still no dedicated writing, but I did learn more than I ever wanted to know about cancer, cancer treatments, and medical billing. Bleh.

7)Still at the Brown Cancer Center, my next job was in a laboratory working with rats. Step one, induce tumors. Step two, treat tumors. Step three, write up results. Yep, here I got my first REAL writing credit on a technical paper along with my boss and all the lab employees. I wrote the background and introduction!

8)I moved with my then-husband to California where I worked for a local Air Force contractor as a technical editor. I learned lots about the history of the area, how airplanes work, and learned to run a Docutech. If I needed to, I could work at Kinkos!

9) My last job before I decided to take up fiction writing full-time was as a technical writer. Now, I don’t have an engineering degree. . . so, I would write a up template for the engineers to fill in. I’d use their test plans to write up everything except the results. Then. . .once they were done, I got to turn it over to the technical editor to polish.

So….that’s the story of MY broken road that led me to where I am today.

What’s yours?

Oh. . . and I’m tagging Lacey, Jacqueline, TJ, Debra, Lady Leigh, Lenora Bell, and Maggie, and CM.

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