Coming Down to the Wire

Writing stats, 1 day, less than 5 hours before NaNo: 

• 50,009 words completed on my sci-fi work in progress
• 1,000 words or less from finishing my sci-fi work in progress. YES!
• 4 character descriptions (approx.) shy of what I would like to have before I start NaNo
• 1/2 of an outline done for my NaNo plot
• 1 internship accepted at a rate of:
• 5-10 hours per week
• 1 potential part-time job offer in the works

  Figures I'd start having actual commitments to people right before NaNo starts. Like I said last week, when it rains it pours.
  Finally got the new website project transfer completed and redesigned! It's up and running and looks beautiful.
    As far as NaNo goes, I think the biggest problem I'm having is that I've never tried to write a story like this before and my imagination is coming up short. It's a sci-fi alien comedy story. Sort of in the fashion of Douglas Adams, but I'm not that funny. I just had a bit of insight this morning into a direction I could take it, but I still don't have a solid character description for any of my main characters. I have names and a couple of minor personality traits. That's it. Starting to get scared.
    However, now that I've decided which items on my to-do list can be put on hold once NaNo begins, I feel a little better. I just am going to feel guilty every time one of them gets pushed back. My goal is to make better use of my weekends, and with Thanksgiving coming up, I'm hoping a lot of the television shows will go on break for a couple weeks. I am going to have to cut way back on those and watch them on Hulu, which I have found allows me to multi-task better than live shows. In any case, the blogs are probably going to be fewer and farther between, but maybe that will allow me more time to choose more interesting topics.
    In other news, I set up my first free Kindle promotion for the ebook version of my latest book and it has been doing pretty well. I was a little nervous nobody would even look at it, but a fair number have and have downloaded it! Now I'm just nervous that nobody will like it. I hope that the people who do read it (and didn't just add it to their libraries on principle because it was free) like it, and those that do like it leave reviews! We'll see how it plays out over the next few weeks. If it starts getting bad reviews, I may have to start writing under a pen name, though probably not Constant Writer ;)
    As to Hurricane Sandy, I hope everyone out east is staying safe and keeping their spirits up as the storm wraps up. I can't imagine what it's like to see that kind of devastation in your own backyard, but I hope that everyone knows that the entire country is sending out good thoughts, prayers, and well wishes in your direction :)

Stay strong and keep your head up.

Driving, Parking, Bookkeeping, and Facebooking

Don't let the pretty skyline fool you.
Denver=parking nightmare.

  What a week! I'm totally ready for a weekend, though a vacation would be nicer...
    The bf left for Europe this week, and I was the lucky one to drive him to the airport. Airport is a lot farther than I thought! I was in the car for about 3 hours straight, and it was right at the heat of the day. Miserable.
    Plus, I was low on gas so I didn't want to push my car harder by running the AC. It's September, Earth--you're supposed to start cooling down more in this hemisphere at about this time!
    Wednesday was by far the roughest day, though. I just discovered that the SBDC offers classes for small business people, many of them free, and decided to sign up for their Quickbooks seminar. I have been turned down for several jobs now for not having Quickbooks experience, so I wanted to take a class to at least get the basics.

    It was VERY basic, but it was only $35, so what could I really expect? On a sidenote, I'm talking to you, employers, if they're hiring an administrative assistant, you can't really expect them to also be the accountant/bookkeeper. Those are two separate positions and having one person do both can lead to doing one job better and the other worse. Overlapping positions can be really stressful for the employee. I know--I was the executive assistant/receptionist/content manager/editor/writer/technical support/sometime project coordinator/etc.
    Also, if Quickbooks is so important, don't say "helpful". "Helpful" makes it sound like you're willing to train. If you aren't, say "required". Then I won't bother applying. Except now I can, because I do have experience, albeit minimal.
    Anyway, that class set off a shitstorm for the rest of the day: they didn't give any info on parking, and parking in Denver is an effing nightmare. The class was supposed to be 3 hours, but all the parking lots/garages/meters only allow you to stay 2 hours, or the max you can pay for is 2 hours and then you have to pay for the whole day ($10). So, after searching for spaces for about 15 minutes (making me that late for the class), I finally parked and paid for the whole damn day.
    Turns out, there was a 20 minute break in the middle of the class, where I could have gone down and just paid for an extra hour or something. Furthermore, the class got out about 45 minutes early, meaning I probably could have gotten away with a 2 hour pass in the first place. In short, blarg.

If only I had Coca-Cola's resources,
maybe I could get some more attention
to the Facebook page I manage...

    I had also signed up for another class, FREE, up at the north SBDC later that evening to learn about Facebook fan pages, but my day was shot after I ended up getting an interview at 3:30. Still didn't stop for gas yet because I was so ticked off about the parking when I left Denver, I made it to the interview three hours later. The gas light came on just as I pulled up.
    The interview went all right, but when I went to gas up the car, I didn't have any King Soopers points and had to pay full-price. Then, I ran over a median, despite desperately trying to avoid it. Why are there so many medians? They seem to exist for no other purpose than to damage the undersides of cars whose drivers either didn't see them or have terrible depth and distance perception like me.
    The evening class was one of the only redeeming points in the whole day. I actually learned quite a bit, and felt more comfortable around some techie/internet people in a college campus classroom than a stuffy conference room in downtown Denver. There's a lot more to Facebook business/fan pages than I thought, and now that I know what else I can do to improve the page, I feel a little better about moving forward with it.
    So glad it's finally Friday. I got to visit my friend from my old job and work on the redesign of my other website (super-excited!). Plus we had totally awesome Indian buffet for lunch and free wifi at the public library. Today makes up for such an awful Wednesday, and semi-crappy Tuesday airport drive.
    It's nice that there are always good days to make you feel better about the bad ones.

It's the freakin' weekend!

The Quest for Employment

  So, I did it. I quit. After almost six months of thinking about it, and over 3 months of actively searching and pursuing interviews, I decided that it would be better for me to take the time to actually pursue jobs rather than treating it like a hobby in my spare time.
    It isn't easy searching for a job. I don't take the rejection personal unless someone's going to criticize me after rejecting me (yes, that one happened). Generally, I figure they went with someone who was more qualified, settled for less money, or had a more extroverted personality to assert themselves with. But, it's a much different experience now than when I was searching a couple years ago. I have the experience now, and in actuality, I have more experience than my resume's timeline might indicate. I learned a LOT at my last job, and that's given me every confidence to find another one.

However, looking for a new job has given me some insight into improving my game.

1. Don't rely entirely on your resume
    I'm not going to lie, I have a really good resume for someone who doesn't have five years, or even three years, of experience. I was given a fair amount of responsibility and I learned how to handle it by creating my own systems and organizing things that worked best for me. However, I think that's made me a little overconfident going into the interview. Relying on my resume skills means that I haven't exactly been selling myself at the interview as well. For a lot of people, your skills and experience speak for themselves and personality or confidence aren't as important. I've been approaching most interviews as a chance to interview them as to whether I think it's the right place for me.

    On the other hand, many hiring managers are looking to find a person who's "a good fit", whatever that means. Unfortunately, me not being all bubbly and sparkly, I don't always come off as being a good person to have around the office. However, smiling and at least appearing confident can help make a good impression, so I think I'll try that a little more often...

2. Location matters
    Applying for jobs in one city when you're still technically living in another is challenging. It makes interviews a half-day event with the commute, and it confuses employers who think you're going to be making that commute every day, possibly coming in late all the time or trying to leave early to beat the really long wait in commuter traffic. While some people will still give you a chance--and at least bring you in to ask if you're planning to relocate a little closer to the office--others may see this far-off, distant town listed as your address and think you're not worth the trouble.

    With this in mind, I have implemented a new strategy: put a more local address on the resume--i.e. Dad's place. It's not really a lie, because that's probably where I would be staying and commuting from until I found another apartment in the area. I just started with the new address plan a couple days ago, so no results yielded yet, but we'll see if it makes a difference. Considering I've been asked in interviews twice now about my commute situation, I have a feeling it might help.

3. Stay positive
    Rejection is rough and when you've sent out dozens, if not hundreds by now, of resumes and had only a handful of interviews, it can seem rougher. On the bright side, I have had two offers, but I didn't think they were the right fit for me. What this means is that while I may not get an offer for every job, or even the few that sound really great, getting an offer from time to time reassures me that I am qualified enough and smart enough and perhaps even bubbly and confident enough to get one that eventually will be the right one.

Just keep swimming :)