Once Upon a Time, a Writer Met Ruby

Once upon a time, an impoverished writer raising many children realized that her love for writing romance novels would not pay future college tuition or buy a bigger home.

Sad days, indeed.

But the great thing about romance writers is that we love a HEA (ahem: Happily Ever After). And we will do whatever is necessary to get our protagonists to it, even if they suffer great pain along the way. They will be happy at the end. The romance writer determines it, and so it is.

When I started realizing that my fourteen year old's six foot body might need more than a twin bed, and that my two seventeen year olds' wings were beginning to flap near the edge of the nest, a desire for change entered my soul.

I've been writing romance stories and novels since seventh grade. No doubt I will always construct worlds in which my characters get the ending they deserve.

But shouldn't my children too? Shouldn't I? Even though I love writing, I am neither famous nor prolific. So I began to think of ways in which I could begin a career that I would love as much as writing but that would provide more income stability.

Here's the thing: I'm raising seven kids.

Some are biological, and some are my niece and nephews. I have an amazing extended family, wonderful support, but in the end, I am the kids' stability. I provide the home, the food, the love. Speaking of the house we live in . . . it's small. Like, convert-the-Florida-room-and-the-garage-into-bedrooms small.

I want more. For myself, and for them.

So I went back to college and completed the AA degree I had started twenty years ago as a dual enrollment student. Then I began to really think about what I could possibly do to make more money. I've only ever been in banking, and though I loved customer service, I loathe sales. As an introvert (INFP: woot, woot!), talking to people all day long is not my idea of a dream job. Trying to sell products, even less so. I'm also not an authoritative person. I do not enjoy being in charge of others and I'm not particularly structured. Rote roles such as a job in a manufacturing plant might torment me. Worse, I'd probably start daydreaming and accidentally cut off a finger.

At this point, you might be thinking, Sheesh, what does this writer girl like?

Well, I like books, languages, writing, and computers. In fact, I used to play around with my mom's laptop whenever it got a bug because she refused to pay for virus protection. And I would fix it. I can spend hours alone, quiet, thinking, doing, creating.

Coding had been in the back of my mind for many years, long before I realized that software engineers make good money or that it's a viable career. I had dabbled with Solidity and the Ethereum network in 2016 but life changed in 2017 and that interest fell by the wayside.

It revved up again when my thirteen year old started playing with Lua to create Roblox games. At that point, my curiosity flared and I began researching languages to learn. After a superficial preference for Ruby over Python (don't judge me), I began a few Udemy courses with the goal of learning how to create websites on Rails. I needed more help though. I needed to understand how everything fit together.

Enter FlatIron school. There are tons of coding boot camps out there, but this one seemed to be offering exactly what I was looking for. Their curriculum mirrored my goals. Not only that, but since Solidity is similar to JavaScript, someday I might explore that language again.

Because I love to learn new things, and a career in software engineering offers the flexibility, creativity, and challenge that I crave.

I'm at the beginning of this software engineering road. To me, it looks like a story waiting to be written. Instead of creating worlds for my characters, I will learn to create worlds for businesses. Beautiful worlds in which the customer interacts with the company, in which data is saved, in which authors can showcase their books.

Coding is how I'm adding more happy to my Happily Ever After. My life is full of love, but it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra money too.

And so here I am.

A thirty-eight year old mother stubbornly starting a career.

Building myself another story, line after line, function after function, chasing that HEA while basking in the HFN.

That little acronym means Happy For Now. Something I hope for us all as we explore new paths and push ourselves to reach higher and dig deeper. Happily Ever Afters don't come easy. But they are always worth it.

Therefore, I am romancing the code until my HEA is written and the contented, smiling reader closes my book.