I am a Techno Wizard

 Look at me with the QR Code skills.

I used these to make some car window decals

for some advertising.

I'll show you when I get them.

Let the Real Work Begin

It's been six months since I've looked at Revena's Revenge: not a pretty love story. That should be enough time to let it look fresh to me so I can do one more edit/rewrite.

There are a few areas I want to tweak and expand, things I didn't have time to do while I was preparing it for my Pitch Week in Vermont.

I will take the opportunity to review the story and characters for the eventual movement into book two of the Storm Sword Trilogy, The Bastards' Battle.

My deadline for finishing will be March 31, 2018.

I am also working on my synopsis for Revena's Revenge. This is hard work. My deadline for the second first draft (the first one was ok but too short) is Sunday, January 7, 2018. This deadline is so short because I've been putting it off for way too long.

Finally, I am writing a short, short PDF book in the What Would Revena Do? (WWRD?) series that will be a give-a-way to build my email list. It will be about the basic tools of magic that Revena would use and how to duplicate them in your own home. The deadline for this is January 31, 2018. 

Thank you to my friend, Mike Keren, author of FOUR FUNERALS, NO MARRIAGE, a funny memoir of love, care taking, and loss for the WWRD? idea.

Time to go write those deadlines on my calendar and then actually do some work.

brain food

~ click image to make biggerer ~

I’m going to be studying marketing. Specifically, I’m going to be learning about digital marketing and analytics. I’m changing course at work. I won’t be needed in the traditional financial functions so I am swerving into getting our brand out there and bringing in more business. I’m good with getting new information into my brain. I love learning new things.

I’ve signed up for two courses from the online college course hub, Cousera. They offer free classes from some big universities. They are non-credit earning classes but the information you get is good. If you want to pay a nominal fee, like eighty dollars, you can get a certificate, but I won’t need those. The classes I’m taking are Marketing in a Digital World and Digital Analytics for Marketing Professionals: Marketing Analytics in Theory. Both are in the Digital Marketing Specialization and are from the  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Aric Rindfleisch and Kevin Hartman respectively.

What’s going to be really great is that I can do the courses while at work. My boss is excited that I’ve taken the ball on this and decided to learn what we need without anyone asking and that it won’t cost anything except my time, so when I told him, he insisted I do it on company time. I like my boss.

I signed up for the classes last night. They are “at your own pace” rather than with set starting dates and weekly goal dates. They are four weeks long with an estimated six to eight hours of course and study time needed each week. While looking for the word “deadline” (required looking online for due date related words and then going to do some dishes before my tired brain regurgitated the word I wanted - this shit pisses me off no end), I found a website that outlines the project management tasks and timelines, so I guess everything has a good side. I’ve totally lost track of where I am in this tale. Oh, yeah, no deadlines. That makes life a little easier although deadlines are handy if you are procrastinator like I am, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ve not take a self-directed class yet.

It’s good I can do this while at work because I’m exhausted. I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I’ve been getting up each day this week at four so I can get everything done that I need to get done. My To Do list is huge. I’ve put it all on stickies and I’m going to use a Science Project Display Board as my planning board. I’ve done loads of things this week and have a pile of completed stickies. I put the start date in the top right hand corner, write in the task and then put write “done” when I’m done along with the date I’ve finished. My little pile of done tasks feels good since I haven’t done much of anything for about a year. I was feeling quite out of control. It was so bad that I couldn’t even manage to write lists, something that I normally do all of the time. I can go through a steno pad a month when I’m in my right mind.

It’s seven. Time to go walk.