The Secret

Ooops. Missed a few days...

Tuesday is my last official day with a job. It's nerve-wracking, but also exciting. I feel like I'm on the verge of some really great life discoveries.

I wrote several chapters in one of my novels on Wednesday night. It's not the memiors one that I planned to focus on, but inspiration stuck and I'm hoping to be more discliplined about completing it. It would be my first completed novel, so I'm trying not to be hopeful of getting it published, etc, but then again, I kind of want to "secret" it. If you don't know, this is the "secret." http://www.thesecret.tv/ Actually, I'm not all that sure how "the secret" works, so I guess I should rent the dvd or something. Basically, my understanding is that by the power of positive thinking, you create your own reality, or something, but like I said, I haven't read the book or seen the movie.

So, plans for this weekend, my last weekend, because I envision all the days just running together after Tuesday-

Tonight- wash the dogs, do laundry
Tomorrow- go yard saling with Sarah, rent The Secret
Sunday- come into work to organize all my files, get everything in order, etc, make plans for the person taking over my responsibilites to help her out cause I like her and don't want to leave her in a bad place.

History is happening. This is the kind of thing that our grandkids will ask us about- either a black president or a woman vice president. Either one is a good thing, but if this term doesn't go well, and it won't, no matter who wins, either cause will probably be set back by this election. If Obama wins and things go south, people will blame his misfortune of inheriting a disaster on his being black and it will be a long long time until we see another black president. And God knows, that Sarah Palin is going to make all women look bad no matter what she says or does because of how she presents herself and a bad term for McCain will result in Palin's gender taking a hit. It's too bad, but bound to happen. Just my thoughts. I hope that I'm wrong.

Local Pubs

Picked up three intesting local publications today- a pet magazine, a women's magazine and a local neighborhood magazine. Going to contact all three of them in coming days to see if they accept unsolicited submissions, etc. A magazine editor that I know and have worked with in the past also sent me an email expressing interest in having me write some pieces for her publication, which is a magazine that is for people who are new to Atlanta.

I also got fitAtlanta to agree to publish me, but they don't pay. I've been writing a regular column for them for a while on behalf of my job, but now I'm going to start doing that independently. At least that will give me some clips. They only publish quarterly, so it's not a huge commitment. I know I just talked about undervaluing yourself, but since I have an existing relationship with them, I'm making an exception in this case.

I cannot wait until my two weeks notice is up. November 12 I am a free woman.

Oh, I'm also going to contact the television station that I used to work for and see if they want me on a freelance basis... Writing this time, not doing the horrible soul-crushing stuff I was doing before...

Home from Greenville! I'm going to write a weekend getaway article and try to sell it.

Posting today from the lovely Greenville, South Carolina!

I'm no stranger to working from the road. In fact, I've already logged into my work account and responded to some emails, etc, but since I'm trying to establish habits and whatnot, I'm here updating the blog as well.

I checked all the freelance writer listings this morning- most boards don't update on the weekends, but I did learn something. I found a job I wanted to apply for on craigslist, but couldn't because, of course, I need to submit writing samples and my resume, neither of which I have on this laptop. Bummer. I guess that's an argument for setting up a website/online portfolio sooner rather than later.

I'm a little bit nervous about doing that though. This business seems rife with plagiarism and fraud and since so much online writing is non-credited, what's to stop someone as claiming any old website as something that they wrote?

It's also interesting how often I see in freelance writing communities people that can't really speak English applying for jobs.

I'm also noticing the controversy surrounding price setting. Many people offer payments like $5 for 500 words for simple articles. At first, I was snatching these up, thinking that it was better than nothing, but now I'm beginning to understand why you shouldn't do that. Basically, you're undervaluing yourself and the writing community, in general. I mean, how many $5 articles would I have to write to support myself? I don't know. Can't do math. I'm a writer. But a lot. Doing this kind of work did give me some experience and some writing samples, but I think I'm done with this type work. If all writers stop accepting these type payments, especially good writers, then the increased demand will drive the cost up, right? You've got to manipulate the market a little bit. Plus, my time is worth more.

Writing

My Linkedin freelance writer's group had an interesting question today- Do you write habitually?

As of right now, I would say no to that. I write a lot- for work, in my blogs, for fun, to vent, etc, but not "habitually." To me, writing habitually would mean sitting down every day and writing, no matter what.

I personally believe that the secret to success is routine. It's the only thing that's ever worked for me when I was trying to achieve any goal. I learned this from Flylady. It seems so obvious, and to people who are naturally successful, it is obvious. They were raised with routines like brushing their teeth before going to sleep or making their bed in the morning. These things were not part of my upbringing. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV most nights as a child. Concepts like "bed time" weren't known to me and because of this, as an adult, I shortly realized that I lacked discipline, for which I've had to learn to compensate. I've done this through creating routines, but I'm planning on incorporating more items into my routines in the upcoming weeks, such as exercise and more housekeeping and yes, writing. That's part of the reason that this blog exists- for me to write to get in the habit of writing and finding words, building paragraphs, editing my own work- keeping the juices flowing.

Past

So, I'm 30 years old and I've already had two successful careers and I'm looking at starting my third, as a writer. During all this time, my husband has had the same job, which makes me incredibly thankful for his consistency and dependability. I'm a risk-taker, but so far, it's paid off. Somehow, I managed to get a job in the #8 television news market right out of college. It was a miracle, really. I toiled away there for 6 long years where I endured repeated and critical viewing of such tragedies as the September 11 attacks, the tsunami disaster, Hurricane Katrina, Daniel Pearl's beheading, the Saddam torture videos and more. I remember once studying a pile of blood and debris, trying to figure out if there were any body parts in it after an Israeli car bombing. Can't show body parts on the local news. That's a little too real. No one wants the truth.

So, I left news and went to work in media relations at the zoo. Ah. The zoo. All my animal friends. It just so happens that while I'm at the zoo, a certain baby panda was born and with her birth, there was also opportunity. We launched a national media campaign that paid off in a big way. Won awards. Got many accolades. Established myself in the media relations field. Baptism by fire.

But, my boss left the zoo and things there started changing and I seized the notoriety of the zoo that I had helped create and moved on to work for a health care non-profit. Which I have been less than happy with. It's not the organization. It's a great organization with a good mission, but my job is not what I expected. I'm the only marketing person here and well, I'm not so into marketing. I'm a media person- a "news" person. I'm not so into direct mailings and phone calling, if you know what I'm saying.

So, I'm back on the market, trying to figure out the next step. I've applied for lots of jobs, but I've learned the hard way that you shouldn't just take whichever offer pays the most and that you should have a clear understanding of what your job will be before you sign on. This time, I'm playing smart.

And in the meantime, I'm going to take this opportunity to do some things that I've been putting off for YEARS- like losing weight and writing that novel, all while making ends meet through freelance writing, baking cakes and selling on etsy. Hopefully.

This morning, I applied for a gig writing a press release for a pet product company. They actually seem like a cool company. I kind of want to buy some of their stuff. I could spend hundreds of dollars buying stuff for my pets. I have two cats- Chi Chi and Chloe and one dog, Duke.



Right now, we are fostering another dog, Douglas for Atlanta Animal Rescue Friends. He's up for adoption. He's a good boy. He's pretty ridiculous. All "Doh-dee-doh, I'm Douglas." Guaranteed to make you laugh! And how funny of a name is Douglas for a dog? Haha. It kills me everything I say it. It totally suits him though. Like if he were a person, he'd have a stain on his shirt and be wearing Reeboks. But, he's not a person. He's a beagle. And he needs a home.

And I need some work!