Monday, October 24, 2016

Some Bits and Pieces

We're in the home stretch of this election, and all the adults I know are counting the days until November 9. All the kids are of course counting the days until Halloween.

John Scalzi wrote a post today about how this election hurt his productivity, and yeah... I'd say it isn't just authors suffering from this problem. I am using all my tricks and still getting some stuff done, but it feels so much harder that it should be and I'm going so much slower than I should be. I'm behind on the formatting of my next book. I struggled to get my last Chronicle Vitae article done and turned it in late. And I don't even want to think about how far behind I am on the next big writing project I was going to do.

I think that maybe I'll just escape into a good book, but I'm having trouble there, too. I keep buying short ebooks that look promising and then deciding that they actually sound to dark for my mood right now. Judging by the slump in my company's book sales, I'd say that other people are just not buying things. What are we all doing instead, I wonder?

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Speaking of Halloween, my kids have decided to be a New Zealand rugby player and a scientist for Halloween. So the 9 year old now has a new All Blacks jersey (we settled on the training jersey because even with the exchange rate discount, the actual jersey is stupidly expensive) and the 7 year old has a lab coat and a surprisingly cool science kit. I bought that kit for the big plastic Erlenmeyer flask (which is currently filled with a mix of water and washable purple paint), but the kit is really well done and may feature in our Christmas gift giving this year.

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Speaking of Chronicle Vitae articles, I'm running out of ideas for things to write about there. Suggestions welcome. 

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Gah. I can't even maintain focus long enough to write a hodge podge blog post. So I'll give up on that, too, and just leave you with Mr. Snarky's latest random music find, which is making me want to take a trip to Tucson:

2 comments:

  1. I'm running out of ideas for things to write about there. Suggestions welcome.

    What is a typical day of a manager? What are the hardest parts of the job? Do you still do the technical work in addition to managing the rest of the team? How does working as a contractor (assuming still a manager) differ from being employed, the pros and const of both? Would you go back to full-time employment? How do you find clients? Do you reject clients and what are the common reasons? Do you miss technical work? Do you miss the lab? Do you wish you had made different choices somewhere along the career path and what you think would happen if you had? How do you see your next 10 professional years?

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    Replies
    1. such fantastic questions.

      Mine are: what has surprised you most about being self-employed, and what has been the biggest disappointment.

      Also, do you ever miss "water cooler" conversation? When I was on my 4-month sabbatical, I missed being with people most of all. Then again, I'm an ESTJ.

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