The World Is a Big Place

Photograph by Mary Lundin, submitted to My Shot via NatGeo

I've had my mind on travel lately, and not just because it's summer, though that's undoubtedly part of it. Somewhere beachy and photogenic sounds best--coastal Maine, California. Or somewhere historic and iconic, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston. I don't know if I'm getting stir-crazy (a strong possibility), or if I'm just feeling like I'm missing out on the world because the 9 to 5 grind has me in its death grip.

I'm not even full-time, so I feel like maybe I shouldn't (or others who are FT think I shouldn't) be complaining about not having had a vacation in two years. But we all wear out. We all lose sight of ourselves and what's important to us, and a vacation is sort of a mentally stabilizing factor that reminds us that the world isn't all spreadsheets and time cards.

Of course, vacation planning can be extremely stressful, mostly financially, but coordinating driving directions, flights, routes, public transportation on arrival, hotel reservations, campsite reservations, and figuring out what's legal to carry on a plane nowadays is a trip unto itself, and not a pleasant one. As if you're supposed to suffer before you get to let it all hang out.

I think mostly I want a vacation to have time to myself. I don't even have to travel out of the state (granted, I do live in a pretty cool one) to do that. Some time alone to read, I'm so behind on my reading, some time away from the Internet, some time to write, some time to think, some time off from the worries, fears, and frustrations of everyday 21st century life.

I've always wanted to travel--like EVERYWHERE. England, France, Italy, Russia, Australia, Thailand, Egypt, New Zealand, Israel, Greece, India, etc. etc. I've always been held back by money, and occasionally by priorities. The "someday" mentality firmly implanted in my mind, as it is in most minds.

There's always something, usually quite a rational something, that's going to hold you back from doing what you want to do, whether it's money, time, family, romance, or fear of air travel, but at some point, you have to decide what you want, and how far you're willing to go to get it. Sometimes, as we all learned well in Risky Business, "you have to say, what the fuck" and run with it.

As much as I'd like to be that person more of the time, I'm still the cautious person who plans everything out and considers everything carefully and thoroughly before making a decision. Maybe that's a good thing. My life overall is in pretty good shape, all things considered. But, it means I don't take risks very often, and while that has kept me out of danger for the most part, it has also kept me from experiencing some of the best things the world has to offer.

via AmericanSongwriter.com

Just a few ruminations on travel, vacations, and what's important.

Runnin' down a dream. 

The Key to Coping: Keeping Busy

  I'm sure whoever is still stopping by and reading this is sick of hearing about this, but it's cathartic for me, and since it's my blog, you're SOL.
    I've actually been doing all right overall. I think I had about two or three days in which I lost it a little bit, thinking about being alone and being dumped, but it didn't last all day on any of those days.
    My main anesthetic? Avoidance. Not denial, but avoidance. I have blocked his posts on Facebook. I have removed his contact and photos from my cell phone. I have disconnected myself from his projects for the most part, except for one. The exercise DVD program we had set up on a website is still mine to work with. Why? Because I was doing most of the work on it to begin with, so I figured instead of just throwing away all that hard work I've done over the past several months, I'm going to take over the website and completely reimagine it.
    I'm going to transform it into a broader health related blog, as I think one of its issues before was that it was too narrow a topic and there was not enough good information (i.e. new blog posts) to get people interested in the product. I'm a little concerned I may have bitten off more than I can chew--it's a pretty drastic change, and it will mean I'll have to be posting regular content (in addition to the other 4 blogs I write), but I think it'll be good. It's a new angle, it's going to be more women's health oriented, and it's going to be useful. Instead of just sharing what other people write articles about on Twitter, I'll have my own new articles to share.
    Since I'm not a doctor or a personal trainer or a dietician, I'm going to have to include some disclaimers and make sure that I use credible sources (i.e. not Web MD) for the posts I create, but I think it'll be good. And the best part about it is that I won't have to look at pictures of my ex all over the home page anymore. The DVD will still be included on the website because I don't feel right about removing it completely, but anything related to it, questions and any potential (albeit unlikely) sales that come through will go directly to his email. Only questions/comments relating to the new articles and content on the website will be my responsibility. I don't know whether it will pan out or not, but I'm hopeful.
     Beyond taking on this new project, I've been editing my new book. It's taken up a lot of my time, and there's still so much to do before I release it, so I've been trying to keep up with it all. I'm actually considering paying for some marketing solutions this time around. Partly because I am working now and I have a little bit of extra money to spend (not really, but I have more now than I did when I released the last book when I wasn't working), but also partly because I really want to have this book do well and if it's just up to me to do the marketing, hiring a little temporary contract help for a blog tour may not be such a terrible idea.
    The book itself is coming along well, though. I still have a few more rounds of revisions to get through, but this round has been a lot less painful because it's mostly mechanics and minor tweaks rather than rewrites and major cuts. However, figuring out these mechanics is no easy task. I'm relying on a gigantic textbook of the Chicago Manual of Style and it's not always straightforward where to find the correct usages. Despite how thick it is, I think it could use a better index.
    In any case, keeping so busy has also been helpful in terms of keeping my mind off things. I think in terms of grief over the loss of the relationship, I'm at the anger phase. Not wanting to see, speak, or even think about anything to do with him. Since we don't really have the same friends or even live in the same city, running into each other isn't much of a concern.
    As to the other phases, denial seemed to come and go pretty quickly. I'm not quite sure how the bargaining stage is supposed to play out since I have absolutely no intention of putting myself back into that situation, but I guess I'll find out in the days, weeks, or (I hope not) months to come. Mostly, I'm still trying to keep my head up, focus on what comes next, and hope that whatever happens will be better and I'll be better for it.

Idle hands and what-not.

Of Tips and Tithing Part 2: What happened to "There's no such thing as bad publicity?"

  The tail end of this story is that Applebee's fired the waitress for posting the receipt with the note on it. The pastor complained to management that the "viral" photo had disparaged her reputation.
    Seriously? You do something like that in a public place and you don't expect somebody to talk about it? Tell their friends? Spit in your food next time? Not to mention, this is the 21st century--you can't say, do or write anything anymore without somebody putting it on the internet.
    To say it violated the pastor's privacy is a red herring. A sales receipt isn't a social security number or a bank statement--how many hands and eyes go over a receipt from the time it's printed to the time it gets filed away in the records? Furthermore, I can only assume that the receipt was the "merchant's copy" and not the "customer's copy", so I don't really think the pastor had any rights to privacy over what she submitted to the restaurant for its records.
    I'm not saying we should post everybody receipts online--though it would be an interesting study into how poorly people treat and tip service staff in this country--I'm just saying there are a few things about this particular case that push the limits of common decency.
    On a final note, I am surprised the pastor didn't get fired. If pastors have the cash to be going out to dinner and then having the gall to write something so condescending and nasty to the person who did nothing but wait on them and try to give them a pleasant evening out, they have no right calling themselves pastors or even Christians.
    It goes back to generosity, something I thought was a basic tenet of Christian teachings--something you can't really be lacking if you're going to get ordained as a pastor/minister/priest, etc. This woman who posted the receipt is a waitress, not an investment banker. She gets treated like crap by a dozen different people every day--all I'm saying is you'd think a pastor would have the decency to treat her with a little more kindness and graciousness rather than resorting to derision and hubris over a standard industry practice.

I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

-Abraham Lincoln

Of Tips and Tithing: Part 1

  You may have read about the waitress who posted her customer's receipt online after getting a cheeky note instead of a tip. Here's what's wrong with the whole situation.

The Thing about Tithing

  "I give God 10%," Bell wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip and scribbling in an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. "Why do you get 18?" (Yahoo News)
    First of all, I was unaware that tithing was still so prominent. Traditionally, dating all the way back to the Old Testament, good Jews and later Catholics, then Christians, were required to pay a tenth of their yearly income to God, aka the church. Over the years, since the Church split into so many denominations, I was under the impression that this was primarily a Catholic thing, but that might have just been my microcosmic worldview prejudice because I went to Catholic school for so many years.
    Apparently, it still lives on.
    The problem here is: who are you to be eating out and refusing to tip, calling on God as your excuse? Let me hash this out: a pastor doesn't make a ton of money that would go against the whole "worldly possessions" thing. But they apparently donate 10% of that income back to the church every year. AND they can afford to eat out with party of more than 8 people? I don't buy it. If you can afford to eat out, you can afford to tip. Simple as that. If you can't afford that extra 18-20% on your bill, stay home and eat Ramen. Period.
    Secondly, 10% of your yearly income is a LOT more than 18% on a bill at Applebee's. Not knowing anything about what pastors make, I have to assume they at least earn a salary that puts them at or above the poverty level in this country. They have to live somewhere. They have to drive to work. They have to eat. And, if the church doesn't pay taxes, I don't think their ministers and pastors would pay incomes taxes either. So, that's a goodly sum, presumably outright, of which 10% goes back to the church.
    Waitresses do not make minimum wage to put them at or above the poverty level for their yearly income. They need those tips to even things out and put their income at the appropriate level. The guys at Starbucks and Subway and those little fast food places that leave tip jars out--those guys make minimum wage. Most of them are part-time, so they appreciate the extra tips when they get them, but they don't rely on them. They're like a bonus.

    It doesn't work that way at a "sit-down" restaurant. The reason the 18% gratuity gets tacked onto large party bills is people tend to forget about the tip when the bill is so large to start. It's to protect the interests of the servers who are the ones who suffer if the tip is forgotten.
    Tithing is an outdated practice. There are far too many people in need of food, shelter and healthcare in this world to be giving 10% of your money to a church to build a new wing, erect a new statue, or pay for all those fancy robes the Pope wears. 
    If that money were going directly to build a soup kitchen, support a literacy program, or buy cots for a homeless shelter, that would be one thing. But it doesn't, and parishioners aren't always told where it does go.
    Check in soon for the follow-up and conclusion of why this whole thing is ridiculous.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.

-Sigmund Freud

Getting in Tune

  No, I'm not talking about my musical skills, which are pretty limited, though I'm trying to change that. I'm talking about perspective, my continued theme from last week. I have spent several months now working on my goals, while still sticking with the status quo which allows me to earn money while I'm trying to get the rest of this stuff in order. You gotta make some sacrifices (e.g. selling out) to get what you really want (e.g. making a living doing what I enjoy).
    Sidenote/bonus: the inspiration for my post title, and arguably the greatest band in rock and roll history: THE WHO.

    I'll admit, I've become a little despondent about my progress. I'm still enjoying working on my own projects, but I feel like my present track has hit a plateau in terms of progress toward my ultimate goals. It's been very frustrating to have the feeling that I've worked so hard and accomplished so much, while having so little to show for it.
    I feel like I need to revise my strategy, but I feel like everything is running at such a fast pace right now that I don't have quite enough time to reevaluate everything I've been working on to find a way to do it better. It's extremely frustrating to know that you're on a plateau in terms of results and productivity and not having the time to be able to improve it. If I were to stop work on these projects completely to strategize, I'd fall far enough behind that even if I came up with a better strategy, it'd take a lot longer to implement and might even undo some of the progress I've made so far.
    I have scaled back my work on a few things because I was on the verge of burn-out a few weeks ago, and it seems to have helped me get back on track a little bit, but I'm still not where I want to be with these projects. I believe in hard work, and I know nothing comes easy. I just wish I didn't also have to deal with everybody else around me trampling on my goals so that I can become their version of a productive member of society. I'm working on that in my own way with my projects; it's just a process that takes longer, and while more fulfilling, can take a long time to be lucrative, if it ever is.

    The argument against me is: you have to be realistic. You have to have a car. You have to have a place to live. You have to eat. Granted, I do have to eat, but I don't absolutely have to have a car. And if you want to get right down to it, I'd probably survive even if I didn't have a place to live.
    Case in point: I just saw a post about award-winning actors who were once homeless. And then they worked really hard for a few years, caught a break, worked really hard some more, and won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, etc.
    This was inspiring to me. Not that I want to deliberately live out of my car until such a point as I'm successful with my writing, but if these people made it to where they are after living out of their cars or at a bus station or whatever, there's hope for the rest of us with dreams. There are no hand-outs. We all have to put in the work, the perseverance, and the time to get to where we want to be.
    Sometimes that means we have to make sacrifices, and sometimes it means we have to do things that our families and friends disapprove of in order to achieve our dreams. Of course, looking like Halle Berry probably wouldn't hurt.

Success is simply getting up one more time than you fall down. 

(I attribute this to a wall-sign in Jerry Maguire,
but I'm not sure where it came from originally.)

And it's December.

  How did that happen? Well, Nano is over. I stayed the course and won, official website count, 51,631. (I validated early because even though I had hit 50k, I was afraid I wasn't going to finish the story by midnight.) My end total (according to Scrivener) when I finished the story (just under the wire at 11:53pm!) was about 53,600. Yay! Streak unbroken four years running :)
    I JUST started editing my next story for publication (shooting for a pre-Valentine's Day release) and if the first page is any indication of what's come, it's going to be a LONG December. THat's as far as I got. There are purple marks all over the page. (yes, I edit in purple instead of red because of something my 11th grade psych teacher told me about self-esteem.)
    Double bonus: just got my first paycheck at the new job! I was shocked and amazed that my take-home pay was nearly 93%. I was only expecting about 85-88%, but since the check was a little small (a day short because I didn't get paid for the holiday), I think that percentage will probably change with my next "full" paycheck.

    Hopefully not by too much, though, seeing as I still owe money for car insurance, and a whole bunch of my stuff broke at the same time. I dropped my camera and now it won't turn on, and the battery on my laptop just conked out. Five years later, that's pretty good, I think, but it's still another chunk of change I'm going to have to shell out because I can't afford to get a new computer, and in any case, this one still runs pretty well considering its age. (knock on wood!)
    This last week, I fell really behind on everything. The blogging, the social media, my contract work, and even my health, was put on hold so that I could finish that novel.
    Now that it's done, I can procrastinate editing while I catch up on this other stuff. Over on Always Happy to Entertain You, I have the entire week's worth of shows to post about. As an added bonus, Netflix just got season 7 of How I Met your Mother, so I'm finally able to catch up on that (albeit 4 months into season 8, but better late than never!), and I'm going to enjoy catching up on the movies this winter as the regular network shows go on break for the holiday season.
    Despite the slight relief I have in not having to average writing 1,667 words this month, I am still going to be super-busy with things. I have to do Christmas presents, and I am completely behind on that too. last year, I did all of my shopping online, and if I want to do that again, I'm going to need to get on that ASAP to make sure everything arrives in time.

    Last but not least--I almost forgot!--new phone! Finally! The touch screen on my old one was starting to act up, only working about half the time, the data signal was going in and out, and battery was not holding a charge. So nice to have something that works! But, now that I have this nice new phone, I'm really terrified of dropping it! It's the first really nice phone I've ever had (I usually get the cheap/free ones that come with the new contract agreement), and I don't want to lose it or drop it accidentally and have to get stuck with one of the cheap/free ones again!
    Anyway, hopefully I can get back on track with the regular posts soon.

Happy December!

I Think I Nano'd Myself Out

It's over 2/3 through November, and I am beat! I just started the new job last week, more on that in a bit, and am still desperately trying to keep up with Nano, my internship, my freelancing, my book marketing, my blogging, etc. etc.

Getting back into a 9-5 routine 3 days a week has not been easy, to say the least. I think on those nights, I have gotten between 5 and 7 hours of sleep. Which thoroughly explains why I keep feeling like I'm getting sick every now and again (haven't yet, and don't intend to!).

The good thing: I think I just found the best driving route to work today! I've been having a hard time because it's RIGHT off a major highway so it always gets bogged down with traffic right at the times when I need to get there (I've actually been having more trouble getting to my internship than to work, as it's farther away and not right off the main highway).

I've been experimenting the past couple weeks with different routes, though I've been nervous because going home (best time for exploration because I'm not in a hurry) it's been getting dark so early! I made a wrong turn last week and ended up on the damn toll road. Lesson learned there! But today, I think I found the right way to go. There isn't much traffic at all (which I hope isn't just a side effect of the holiday tomorrow!) and the speed limits are decent, the lights are not bad, and it's a pretty stress free drive the whole way.

I also found a way home that might be good for avoiding some of the bad traffic on the main road that goes near my house--it's a little windy, slower speeds, and there is a set of train tracks (blech) that you have to cross, but again, WAY nicer with no traffic, no stop-and-go, no dozens of tail-lights and headlights winking at me the whole way. So, yay :)

The new job is not too bad--I was expecting a little more challenging work, but I love having my own cubicle, which is huge, for a cubicle, I think, and double bonus (no pun intended), I have dual monitors! I also asked IT for a trackball mouse since it seems that copy-paste is going to be a big part of my job and I don't want to get carpal tunnel from using a crappy default mouse.

Everyone there has been really nice and welcoming, and despite the repetitive work so far (which I hope will evolve sooner than later into something that requires neurons), I think it'll be a good place to spend my time, earning money, and hopefully learning some new stuff along the way.

You know what I'm thankful for? My dad. Because of him, I don't have to pay rent (except on my storage unit), I don't have to work full-time to get my own place, and I don't have to live out of my car with my poor cat. It will also be nice next week to have a paycheck. I don't imagine it'll be very much, since I only worked five days this pay period (no holiday pay), and most of it will go for car insurance and paying rent on my storage unit... Wait, where did all my money go??? What about Christmas??? Noooooo!!

Anyway, the reason I've been staying up later than I should, even on nights when I know I have to get up early is, of course, Nano. I fell behind on my word count last week, and have barely been staying on top of it (and some days, I have still been behind) since. I am hoping the big holiday weekend will be enough time to power through and get it REALLY close to done, if not all the way. I plan on holing up for most of Friday and Sunday (Thursday and Saturday are family days, so I probably won't be able to get as much done then) to get down to business.

The story itself is coming along. It's a little slow for me, a lot of travel time for the characters right now, and I haven't quite figured out how to let my villain loose on the world yet, but I expect a major burst of speed to get from my 33k up to 45k this weekend! I think my characters are really starting to come into their own, so that's great too. Hoping it will just write itself (wishful thinking) for the next week or so!

I am really loving my internship. It's with the humane society, helping out with social media (Facebook, mainly, but Twitter and Pinterest too), and I get to visit the animals and take pictures to post on the social networks to encourage people to visit, adopt, and support the work there. Everyone there is awesome--both the people and animals!--and I'm so glad to be able to help out!

Unfortunately, I MAY be allergic to cats. Who knew? I've had cats my whole life, but only one or two at a time, in a house. When you walk into a room where there are six of them hanging out together, you really find out what bothers your allergies.

For all those in the US, Happy Thanksgiving. I don't really like turkey, but it's nice to get together and eat and drink with family and friends. For all those who aren't, have a happy Thursday a great weekend!

34 days 'til Christmas--just sayin'.

Quiet: Part 3, The Book

  In Part 1 and Part 2 of my discussion on this topic, I covered how the book (pictured at left) made me think about my experiences as an introvert, now I'm going to cover some of the details of the book itself and why it's worth reading.

What it has going for it:

    The book goes over the science of introverted and extroverted personality types. The author is not a scientist herself, but has done quite a bit of research into the science and spoken to scientists, psychologists, and other experts on the subject. Having these examples, studies, and case studies included is really helpful for people who have never really understood why they are more introverted or extroverted.
    It goes a long way to making a case for a new approach for rearranging education and workplace environments, as well as how we interact and communicate with our peers, partners, family members, coworkers, and others around us.
    It includes backgrounds and case studies on specific individuals in places like Harvard Business School and Silicon Valley, and explains how some introverts overcome some aspects of their personality in order to lead a cause, do a job, or participate in their relationships.
    Unsurprisingly, the book is sympathetic to introverts, but it is not entirely condemning of extroverts. Rather, it condemns the "extrovert ideal" and supports a more balanced or mixed standard. This standard will focus more on allowing each type of individual to demonstrate their strengths rather than expecting or even requiring individuals to show a particular set of skills or personality traits, and condemning them when they don't. It applies to teaching, parenting, hiring, working together, living together, and any aspect of our daily lives and interactions.

Author Susan Cain

Where it is lacking:

    Not enough case studies. The book is nothing but psychological experiments and case studies, but I still felt like it didn't go as deep as it could have or offer as many examples as it could have for some of the topics, especially during the second half of the book.
    I think the book would have benefited from talking about more successful, well-known introverts. It discussed a few, like Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Steve Wozniak, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Warren Buffett, but it could have included more examples, specifically more modern examples that include discussion with the person directly rather than taking details from biographies.

Why it's worth the read:

    If you're an introvert, you can learn more about why your brain works the way it does, why you prefer certain activities and habits over others, and a little bit about how, why, and when you should go out of your introverted comfort zone.

John Lennon
Peace Monument,
Liverpool, UK

    If you're an extrovert, you can learn more about some of the quiet people around you, and how not to take it personally when they don't agree with you or don't want to participate in an activity you suggest. You can learn more about how introverts "shine" and why you should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to social norms. 
    Overall, this is a great book for everyone to gain a better understanding of both personality types and how to get the most out of your interactions with each no matter what you're working on--a class project, a client report, a marriage or anything else.

Give peace [and quiet] a chance.
-John Lennon

Whirlwind of a Week

  So, I got a job last week. And I've already left it. I can handle a lot. I'm smart. I work hard. I'm eager to please. I like to learn new things and improve my skills. However, I studied philosophy. I meditate. I am pretty in tune with myself, my abilities, and my limits. My limits were tested this past week.
    At my last job, my limits were also tested, but in a different way. I could have stuck it out there for a while. I was unhappy, but not upset. This job upset me. I was in physical discomfort and mental strain for most of the few days I was there.

I literally had a knot in my stomach working with the boss, and more than once, I was brought to the verge of tears as I drove home because of how stressful it had been. If that is happening during the first few days of a job, it isn't hard to tell that it's not the right place for me to be. There need be no further analysis.
    It was the "method" that the boss used to train that was so stressful. It was hovering, micromanaging, correcting me as I wrote an email or a document--I have never in my life experienced such a lack of trust or confidence in anything I did so much as I experienced this past week. I know I'm knew. I don't expect to get it all right the first time. I'm happy to have somebody look over my work before it's sent out or filed away. But I'm not an idiot--I haven't gained the skills I have through luck or chance. I know that if somebody rewrites my work, it's not because it was so unsatisfactory it couldn't be used. It's because they have too much focus on how "they" would do it.

    I am going to keep looking. I know there is something out there that will offer me what I'm looking for: the chance to learn some new things, meet some great people, and do a good job at whatever I'm doing.
    So, as evidenced by this post being a little later than usual, I've fallen behind because of the tumult this job caused me. I was too exhausted and stressed to get much done over the past few days, but I'm trying to get back on track.

 Know thy limits.

A Writer's Work Is Never Done

  What a week! I helped my friend relaunch his site, with press releases, social media, and other marketing stuff; I launched my new book (!) and have been doing marketing for that; I got a Google Adwords credit when I set up my custom domain hosting, so I set up an ad campaign through Google; I created a new landing page for my book to send the ads to, and added a couple more thousand words to my new writing project.
    Now, all I need to do is find time to write a couple essays and guest blog posts, on top of my regular weekly blog posts. And write my new story. And edit one I already wrote. And come up with a topic for NaNo this november. And so on. And so on.
    The story's still the same--I'm busier now than I was when I was working, but it's all good work--fun, challenging, interesting, and creative--so it hardly feels like work. Which is probably why I've been "working" such long hours! I set up my calendar differently so that all the "work" stuff gets done within 8 or 9 hours and all the other tasks that are more personal to-dos and fun to-dos, like catching up on my personal emails and writing my new story, happen after that 8 or 9 hour window.
    Still, I'm on my computer pretty much all day, so it doesn't really seem like there's much of a shift.

    In funner news: the fall television season starts tomorrow (NBC's first season premiere night) and I'm going to pick up a new blog entirely on television reviews and commentary. I actually started it last fall on WordPress, trying to get in the habit of writing every day to gear up for NaNoWriMo, but I gave up on it as soon as Nano started. This year, I'm going to try to keep up with it a little better.  I moved it over to Blogger so everything will be in one place for easy posting, and did a fun, if a little cliched, new design for it.
    Visit HappyToEntertain.blogspot.com starting Wednesday, 9/12, to follow the new fall shows, returning and new, on CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC, and FX and USA when a couple of my returning favorites come back in the next couple months.
    I'm going to have a hard time picking which ones to watch this year! Long list of new shows and old shows on new nights to pick from! Hulu and I will become best friends again for a few weeks while I weed out the decent shows from the crappy ones as well as the ones that are unfortunate enough to run in the same timeslot.

Turn on the boob tube: I'm in the mood to obey. 

-Jack Johnson

Working 11 to 2 (am)

  I never thought I'd be so busy being unemployed! Technically I'm not completely unemployed, because I'm running the social media for a product website. Plus, we're in the middle of a redesign of the site which at the moment is creating more problems than it's solving. On top of that, I'm working on marketing one book and wrapping up formatting and production on another. Needless to say, I've got just as much on my plate as when I was working full time, if not more. I just don't have anyone giving me deadlines.
    It's nice getting things done on my own time, but it's definitely challenging setting my own hours and due dates because there's no one to reprimand me for it if something isn't done.
    One of the problems I'm having is finding time to write. I'm writing this, but I'm already working on a new (hopefully) novel, and I haven't had time to work on it lately. With any luck, this redesign will be done by the end of the week and my "project coordination" role in the website's development will be on hold for a while, though maintenance of the social media stuff is going to be ongoing. It's not that I mind doing it, I just wish I knew more about the strategy and process of it to do it more efficiently. That way, I'd have time to work more on my writing and marketing my book(s).
    As far as a paid job goes, I'm still being picky. I don't think I'm being unreasonably picky, because I'm insistent on not ending up with another job that I have trouble getting up for in the morning. I can handle pretty much anything if I know it's just temporary, but since I have no idea whether the next one is going to be temporary or a place I'm in for another ten years, I think I need to be picky enough to find something that's at least a pretty good fit even if it's not perfect. Who knows, eventually, it might evolve into something that is really great.

    As to the new book, I keep thinking it's done and then I change something and it throws my whole schedule off. I'm still shooting for a September release date, but we'll see if that works out. I'm waiting on yet another proof, but if I don't add any new scenes or catch any more anachronisms--you believe that? I've read through this thing probably 5 or 6 times by now and I found an error like that--it should be good to go soon.
    Seeing as I'm writing this at 2:40 in the morning, I think it may be time to call it a night/day.

Who needs normal hours when you're still getting stuff done?

Keepin' Busy

  Despite being out of work at the moment, I am far from lazing about on my butt all day. I'm finally getting around to writing my blog again (ta-dah!), all three of them--yeah, this isn't the only one I write, dear readers. I've also been helping my boyfriend with some of his entrepreneurial projects. While my writing is the only thing I have found I have to market to the public, he has plenty of ideas for products and books, and even videos.
    I've been helping with the SEO, content and web design and I must say it looks pretty good even though web design is something I know very little about. It's all based on Blogger templates, of course, since I don't know nearly enough HTML or CSS to do a site without a template, but it's way customized and I think it passes for a semi-professional job. 

    In addition the website stuff, I also started a Twitter account for the current project we're working on. Two days at it and I've got three followers. I thought that was pretty good for a beginner. I'm not new to Twitter, but I'm new to trying to promote something on it. My personal Twitter is what most people's personal Twitter accounts are--link sharing and brain farts. If I do a decent job at gaining some interest for the product and the website through Twitter, I might add this to my resume too. (I.E. Double bonus!)
    As to the blogging, I am hoping to get back to Insistent and Persistent more frequently. I've got a portfolio site for my professional stuff that I'm trying to keep up with at one post a week. And, on to the big one--for me, anyway--my author website.

    In April, I used CreateSpace to publish my first book. Of course, it's not really my first book, but it's the first one in print and I love it. I did the book cover design myself and it came out pretty well, again for an amateur designer. With that, I created an author website and an author profile on GoodReads to try to create some interest in it. It's not the next Great American Novel by any means, but I think it has the potential to be something that some readers can relate to.
    If anyone here is a member of GoodReads and interested in my book, go ahead and check out their giveaways section and throw your name in the hat for one of two free copies of "Realistically Yours". Make sure to read the description to find out if it's your cup of tea first. It definitely won't be everyone's. Or, if you're feeling spendy and impatient, find it on CreateSpace or Amazon. Reviews welcome, but please be kind to my fragile ego.
    All in all, I'm keeping busy and I'm so glad to have some time to work on these things now. I feel like my stress levels are way down and I feel healthier just being out of the fluorescent lighting and the office chair.
And now for your viewing and listening pleasure, Skynyrd!


Get it? ;)

Oh, The Weather Outside Is Delightful

  Hello Dear Readers! I had to take a bit of a break for a while, and if you are wondering why you couldn't get in to read Insistent and Persistent the past couple weeks, I temporarily changed my privacy settings due to a breach. (Post coming soon: 10 Reasons Not To Friend Your Mother On Facebook--just kidding. But seriously, don't do that. Even if you get along well with your mother.)
    Without further ado, this is why I opened the blog back up and wanted to write today: I've been dreaming of a white Christmas since about July, and in Colorado, we rarely get a real white Christmas. "Real" being defined as snowing on the day or the day before, preferably overnight. This year, once again, it looks like I will be robbed of that dream once again, but on the plus side, IT'S SNOWING!! I wasn't sure if it was actually going to happen--but almost the minute the winter storm watch went into effect up here, it started snowing on my drive home from work.
    Funnily enough, it smelled like rain rather than snow, but there was also a smell of static electricity in the air. I never listen to the weather people when it comes to precipitation in Colorado--they have a nasty tendency to disappoint in terms of accumulation. But sometimes, they underestimate the storm and it dumps a few inches more than expected. As much as I hate scraping car windows and driving near so many crazy people (most of whom are from out of state and have never driven in snow before or just suck at it), I still love the snow.
    My cat (affectionately known as "the furball" received his Christmas present in the mail today--a catnip toy squirrel--another furball. He doesn't love it as much as I'd hoped, but he does like it, so that's good. (I'm hoping this might give him something to do during the day so he will consider leaving the furniture alone.)
    I got most of my shopping done online this year, for the first time. It is quite convenient. And I expect to still have money left over from what I budgeted, which means I may buy myself a rather sizable Christmas present... Or early birthday present. Or early anniversary present. Whatever. It seems like everyone is being a little lean this Christmas, compared with last year, but I think I've spent more than ever.
    I also get to go up skiing this weekend--hopefully this time I will not fall on my face again. Hoping to make great strides in my ski skills so that I won't have to stay on the Bunny Hill for the rest of the season.
    Aside from my blog, I have been getting the opportunity to write for real at work (real this time means I am actually credited!). I cannot tell you how positively tickled I am to be able to do that. I am probably spending way more time on it than i should be, but it's important to me. I want the stuff I'm writing to be good, worthy, sort of. All the other writers on the site are professional writers or journalists and have been for several years, so I feel like I need to write well enough so that I seem like I belong among that group. If you know me, you can find that stuff on Facebook. If you don't, you'll just have to wait until I decide to use my real name around here.
    Remember how I once said bad things happen in threes? I had one of those this past week. My brother got some bad news which meant I got some bad news; I got my FIRST EVER speeding ticket which I am still super-pissed about; and one of my co-workers was let go earlier this week. That one hit hardest. We're a small company, and whenever something like that happens, it affects everyone because we're all pretty close. I think what bothered me most about it was that it happened one week before Christmas.
    Not to put a damper on the holiday spirit, I discovered a new cocktail: gin and ginger ale. I received an excellent bottle of gin from a local craft distillery a couple weeks ago, and I was amazed at how clearly I could still taste the flavors through the ginger ale.
    I am also currently editing my novel that I abandoned the blog for during November. I made all the edits by hand, so now I am transferring all those changes to the document on my computer. Next step will be to revise it. What's the difference, you say? Editing: typos, spelling, grammar, syntax, vocabulary--the nuts and bolts of the writing. Revision: rewriting scenes, adding scenes, deleting scenes, removing or adding characters, etc--the heart of the story. I'm hoping not to do too much revision, because I think after going through it once now, it actually turned out quite well. But, we'll what happens when I really look at it with that in mind.
    Sorry for being out of the loop. I just had to recover a bit from my privacy scare before I was ready to come back here and start sharing again. I welcome you back, and I hope I didn't scare everyone away by changing the security settings for a couple weeks.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Sweet Exhaustion - Er, Victory

  What a rough month! Writing this novel was like pulling teeth! Truly a labor of love, I guess. Novel completed just a short while ago, with the final word count at: 50,748, based on Nano's word counter (MS Word is about a hundred or so words extra--though I have no idea where it could possibly be pulling them from...). Winner's badge now on the sidebar, and doesn't it look so snazzy ;)
    Surprises: My main character got married--something I never thought she'd do. She also ended up with the guy I didn't think she was going to end up with. I managed to make the best friend pregnant, instead of the main character like I usually do for whatever reason--it is an excellent word count padding technique when used appropriately, though. And I finished! This was the first year I doubted finishing, just a little, though I was determined to finish anyway, come hell or high water. I'm just a little surprised i finished because I had to write the last 25 thousand words within the last week alone because I had fallen so far behind during the earlier part of the month.
    In other news, work just got really busy! I felt like I've been hit with something new to add to my to-do list almost by the hour, and the to-dos I had at the beginning of the week are now being pushed further and further down the list. But, I'm always glad to be busy than unbusy! My boss hesitated to ask me to write a 1400 word piece (or rather, several of them) yesterday, and I was like, 1400 words? No sweat. I'm about to reach 50k on a novel. Now that I have, I no longer fear word count. I never really was bothered by it before--I only hesitated if it was a topic I wasn't too familiar with. But now, I really have no fear of it. 1000 words? Five? Ten, you say? Let me at 'em!
    I feel like I've become inordinately cheesy, and I'm going to blame some of the people I've been dealing with at work recently. Cheesy and clever are not the same thing, and I hope that because I'm able to recognize the difference, I will be able to strike the cheesy element down and continue with my previous quippy, sarcastic, and hopefully occasionally humorous tone.
    While I'm not counting my chickens on new winner's goodies from Nano this year, I'm hoping for something new that I will actually put to use this time. Free stuff is always best, but discounts are ok if it's on something I really want. I have not taken advantage of my winner's goodies too much in the past, and I'd like to do so this year, but only if it doesn't make me feel poor or irresponsible for buying something I don't really need...
    Also, getting better at skiing. I've been twice, and despite the cold and wind, I think I'm improving. I've been told I'm improving. However, I may have been told a few too many times, because the first day I went up, I did so great on the bunny hill, that I thought I was ready for a regular hill. Unfortunately I was taken up the highest damn hill they had open, and my overconfidence and decreased fear of falling got me going WAY too fast and I couldn't stop. I wiped out hard, broke my goggles, and got a nosebleed. I didn't break my nose or my leg or anything, and didn't get a concussion, I don't think, but that was terrifying. I think I better stick to the bunny hill a few more days before I take on another hill. (Also, icy conditions plus me as a beginner do not mix.) In any case, I don't think my fall ruined me. Just humbled me. It's the boyfriend/teacher's fault--he kept saying how good I was doing. And picked the large hill with the never ending chair lift ride.
    Anyway, Happy End of November to All, and to all a good night! And if you participated in no shave November this year, shave!

My eyes are killing me. 

A nap, perchance... 

Then again, hockey's on! 

What else is new with you? Did you participate in Nano? Did you win? 

Have you had unseasonally early snowfall in your neck of the woods? 

Whatever. Comments are open!

Being A Little OCD Sucks Sometimes

  I spent the last couple days sorting through 410 articles for our new site at work, trying to sort them into categories and find relevant tags for all of them. It covers a lot of ground, so the lists got pretty long. I think I put together a pretty decent one though, one that was comprehensive but not exhaustive. I took it upon myself to put it together because it was starting to look like the alternative was another brainstorming session that probably wouldn't yield too many finalized results. And I guess it went over well, for the most part.
    The problem with this one is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, I think, and everyone has their own idea of how to sort the content out. But, being that I'm the one who's going to be managing the content and probably the one who will have to go through and categorize and tag a lot of the content we currently have, My idea makes the most sense. I don't think that's immodest or stubborn, I think it's just realistic. I have a good overall understanding of how the content stands currently, and I think the way I've planned the organization of it makes the most sense for what we have on hand, as well as being a good place for us to move forward when we get new content in.
    I'm not saying my way or the highway, but kind of. When you have a website of this magnitude, there needs to be a process in place for handling certain areas, like content, as we move forward. If I create a process, I know I can stick to it. All that's left is making sure whoever comes in at any point to help with the content knows how I do it and does it the same way so that everything on the site is uniform and nothing gets confused or messed up because somebody didn't follow procedure.
    I am aware of how neurotic and OCD this sounds, but I am a little neurotic and OCD. When I have a job, I find a way to do it the best, most efficient and most organized way possible. It's one thing for the articles themselves to have different content--of course they would--they're written by a bunch of different people with different writing styles. It's quite another for them to be SEO'd and formatted differently because the people we have in-house are not all doing it the same way. I think that looks sloppy. And if I'm in charge of the content, you better believe it won't look sloppy for long.
    So, I may be compulsive and excessively organized, but it pays off from time to time. My high school psych teacher always used to tell us there was a method to her madness, which I always found terribly amusing because a psych teacher talking about madness is pretty funny/ironic, and I completely agree. I may do things the hard way and I may dot every single I and cross every last T, but there is always a reason for everything I do when it comes to this stuff. I don't do things without thinking, and while maybe my solutions or processes aren't perfect every time, I always have a very reasonable explanation for having done things that way. I don't think this makes me inflexible, it just keeps me organized.

One more person says "a whole nother" and I think I'll scream.

What are your little pet peeves, idiosyncrasies and neuroses? 

Or are you so easy-going that nothing bothers you?

Explain in the comments. ;)

Working for the Weekend

  For the first time, I was asked to work this weekend. I didn't have to go in to the office or get anything done by a weekend deadline, but it's more the why I had to work this weekend than the fact that I had to at all that bothers me.
    I work hard, and I put a large part of myself into the company. I get stress headaches, my eyes get dry and bloodshot, I get back pain sitting in a chair all day, and I strain my brain staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying: I put a lot of time, effort, and both mental and physical strain on myself at my job. I do this willingly. I work hard, and I take pride in the work that I do. I don't half-ass it, and I don't cut corners because that's just not how I was raised to do things.
    So when I am asked to work over the weekend to redo an assignment that was originally assigned to someone else, I get a little perturbed. The assignment was completed by this person, who shall remain nameless, but it was not up to snuff. I will leave the reason for why it was not up to snuff out of this, because it is a really poor excuse for poor work, but I will say that, not only should someone not turn in work like this in the first place, but they shouldn't be in such a state as to turn in work like this.
    If you are not able to do what is assigned to you, you probably should take the day off until you are ready to come back and adequately do your job. I do my job. I don't like doing other people's jobs for them. I will do it when asked, because I figure, if I'm asked to do it, that makes it part of my job. But I also figure that if I have to do someone else's job for them, that makes them a liability rather than an asset.
    It's one thing if someone has pneumonia or has a relative in the hospital--those are reasonable, good excuses. And in those cases, I'm fine stepping up and taking on a little extra work while they're out. But poor work quality while you should be in fine working capacity, leading to someone else having to fix your mistakes, is not ok.
    This is a job, not a class. You don't get to take it over if you fail a paper or test. Separate your personal life from your work life. Don't air your dirty laundry in public. And if you can't do your job, don't do it badly and leave it to someone else to fix it. I'm telling this to you, dear readers, because unfortunately, my aversion to confrontation will prevent me from telling it to the person whose job I had to do this weekend.

Welcome to Adulthood. Failures Will Be Shot. Or maybe just fired.

Have you ever cleaned up somebody else's mess at work? Did you confront them about it? 

Leave a comment, and feel free to use phony names to retain anonymity.

Crisis Averted

After being stressed out for about two weeks now, the looming storm on the horizon has disappeared and it's sunny again. Well, maybe sunny with a few clouds.
    So, as promised, I will get into the "stressor number 2" I mentioned last week. (Just to clarify, this is the reason I've been absent and erratic from Insistent and Persistent for the last couple weeks--sorting all this out.) After long deliberation, some of which I've shared here, I've decided not to continue grad school in the fall. There are plenty of reasons behind it, some of which include job prospects after graduation (or rather lack thereof), not enjoying being a teaching assistant (which indicates probably not enjoying teaching in the future), and liking my job more than school. I never thought that would happen, but for now, I consider myself lucky.
    While I realize I have disappointed many people making this decision (a couple of whom I haven't had a chance to tell yet), being young and knowing myself well enough to make pretty good decisions about things, I had to go with the decision that would lead me in the direction I wanted to go, rather than a direction that other people wanted me to go. Sometimes those two are the same, but this time, they aren't, and I couldn't keep doing something that meant more to other people than it did to me.
    So, that's done. It's official. I turned down about 12 grand in financial aid (plus tuition waivers) for nine months of school next year--another thing I never would have thought I could do. Turning down free money is even harder than turning down free food for me. And with that done, I'm down to four weeks of school, not counting finals, of course.
    One of the best parts of finally sharing this decision is that everyone has been really supportive. I had been so worried that they would ask all kinds of questions and demand more explanation than I was prepared to give. So, me being the overachiever that I am, I prepared explanations, as in-depth as I could, to explain my reasoning. But no one did demand that kind of explanation. Not yet, anyway. But the people who needed to know most, the school, and certain family members, know now. I still have to tell the teacher that I TA for--and while I can hope she will have the same optimistic and supportive attitude as everyone else so far has had, I still doubt it.
    A good outcome of this is that I really don't regret this semester, despite the amount of stress and anxiety it has caused me. I don't think I would have known that I didn't want to be in grad school until I had done it and seen what I have seen and learned what I have learned. I'm a big fan of process of elimination, and doing a semester of grad school has shown me that it needs to be eliminated as a possibility for me and my future job prospects. However, it's not completely eliminated. I may still decide to go back, later on sometime, but if that day comes, I will definitely be applying to a different program. As much as I like philosophy, I never saw myself with a career in it.
    Although I never had the idea that the particular job I have currently would be anything more than a temporary place for me to earn money until I got my financial aid to finish graduate school, I'm glad that it has turned into more than that. A place with good people, good opportunities, and satisfying and challenging work. I'm not counting on doing it forever, or being at the same company forever, but in the meantime, I think--and desperately hope--that I've made the right choice. I get to be a grown up for the first time in my life, and for once, the idea doesn't completely terrify me.

Live and learn.

No Time Left For You

Last year, I had too much time on my hands. Much of which was spent surfing the Internet, looking and applying for jobs, playing online games, reading articles--some with merit, some without--and watching a lot of television. But 2011 is the year for too little time. I don't think I've ever been this busy except during my college prep type courses in high school. Even my undergraduate years in college didn't keep me this busy this often--just once a semester near and during finals week.
    I suppose this proves everything is cyclical, and maybe 2012 will give me a little more time to work with. But in the meantime, coping with exhaustion for about 75% of my week is frustrating, because I can't do much about it. I try to go bed earlier, but consequently, I don't finish what I need to finish.
    It's an uncomfortable situation, trying to decide which is your highest priority: school or work (although in my case, it's both), a social life, or sleep.

In a perfect world, all should be doable simultaneously. 

    A person should have enough time to sustain a social life, get enough rest, and do their school/work related assignments, tasks or projects, while still having a little time for herself to read, watch TV, blog, eat three meals a day, et cetera. When there isn't enough time for these basic human necessities (although TV may not be a necessity, I think you can agree that time to decompress and get your mind off all your other worries is), something has gone horribly wrong. It isn't right that people should have to decide which of these things is more important--or worse, which of these things are expendable. More often than not, sleep gets sacrificed first. Sometimes the social life disappears or wanes, but sleep tends to be the first to go. And yet, sleep, and its relativity to good health, is probably the most important of the three. 

    Normally, I'd be the first to say:

"Well, if you can't do it all, you're just not managing your time very well." 

    But even those people with excellent time management skills can fail to distribute their time fairly to each of these areas of life. If I separate each of them out, I can manage my time quite well, and arrange it so that each one gets its due attention, and I can get everything done that needs to be done, on time, and correctly (in regard to school/work related tasks). However, stacking them all together and sorting three things out together makes it much more difficult. I can make schedules; I can set timers for when I should finish tasks; I can arrive at social engagements on time and leave early; I can even add another 15 or 20 minutes to my sleep time by setting the alarm later. Still, all put together, something always ends up taking longer than expected and it throws the whole deal out of whack. 

    Lack of time is a vicious cycle because the more you try to catch up, the more your time passes faster and slips away from you, like trying to grasp at water--it just slides through the openings between your fingers. While some people would probably say that if I'm that busy, why I am spending this time writing a blog that hardly anyone will read? Because writing is one of those things that I do for myself, and without it, I might indeed have more time, but less sanity. So, I'm going to keep the writing, even if I lose a little time to do more homework or, unfortunately, get more sleep.

Dreams and sleep may not be economically productive, 

but the cultivation of wellness and intellect makes them worth it.