The new job is anything but boring, I have to say-usually I get far too much to do at one time around here. But then there’s the odd here and there when I just have too little to do, like right now. The days can swirl past me, and I can get hit with a rush of work that’ll take hours on hours to get done, and then have enough lull for about a half-hour or so that I’m utterly bored in between meetings or other tasks, or simply waiting to hear back from my boss for further guidance. It’s nerve-wracking, but it’s exciting and I love it. I don’t regret making this move one bit, although I have to say that I do miss having quite as much downtime as I used to-I used to have enough time to blog for hours and hours, hell, I did all of my Masters coursewerk during my downtime at the office at my old job, but no such luck here. Even my little side project requires me to do some of it at home, something I would have never had to do before.
Speaking of which, I think it’s safe to go ahead and tell everyone reading what I’m up to.
Around a month ago, one of the senior editors at Ziff Davis Media approached me, a long-time commenter and reader of one of their gadget blogs. I had tossed in a message when they moved to a new blogging platform to let them know some bugs I had found, just to be a good little netizen. She responded in kind, and checked out Gears and Widgets in the meantime. She liked what she saw, and shortly thereafter was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to do some freelance writing for them, putting together bite-sized blog posts that would fit into their gadget blog, and possibly in the long run, their sister site they had yet to launch at that point. Naturally I lept at the idea, signed on the dotted line, and sent it in to her. I perched on the edge of my seat waiting for her reply, and when it came, I was estatic. I got started right away.
For the tl;dr crowd, this all means that I’m a freelance writer for Ziff Davis, selling my wares for post to their gadget blog, Gearlog. You can find a sampling of my work at these links, and there’s more where that came from, including this new one today. I’ve been pretty busy, but I absolutely love it. It’s literally my dream come true to be a technology writer of some fashion, and while I’ve always blogged for fun, this time I can blog for fun, profit, and journalistic cred! Maybe someday I can sell full-length articles for paper publication, or even -gasp- someday be a full-time tech journalist. We’ll see, we’ll see. Still, I’m taking it one day at a time and enjoying what I have now, because it’s freakin’ sweet.
I can’t tell you all how thrilled I am about this, the geek comes through and I’m being rewarded for it-and that makes me incredibly happy. I want to get more of a routine going-maybe whipping up some more posts to submit over the weekend when I have more time and submitting them over the course of the week-something to ramp up my turnout and give me more time to edit. You know, I could get used to this.
So. That’s the big news! I’ve been holding back a bit because I wanted it to take off, and well, it has. I’m incredibly grateful to Carol at ZD for bringing me into the fold and giving me a chance, and being probably the best editor a newb writer like myself could ask for.
In other news, the holiday season is in full swing, and I think I’m almost done my holiday shopping. I have one last place to stop for one last gift, and I just ordered the last online gift I’m going to buy today-then I’ll be all finished. Really. I swear. Then I have to wrap everything.
This weekend we’re headed up to Philly to see Raevyn’s mother and our friends up there for an early Christmas, and next weekend we’ll be with my parents, to return Sunday night and wake Monday to open gifts and then scurry off to spend the day with Tim and Brooke at their new pad, the Ralston Social Club. (yes, that’s their house) Still, I can’t totally sing It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas with high temperatures in the mid 60s around here. What’s with this? Freezing and snowing and crazy storms in the pacific northwest, and spring/autumn temps here?
Anyway, I wonder what the odds are of my getting out of werk early today are. I’d like to get an early start on the weekend, and I don’t just mean cracking open that Japanese import ginger beer (with real beer!) I bought at the grocery store last week.
So that’s how it all came about! Interesting . . .
It’s hard to believe that Christmas Eve is only 9 days away . . . thank goodness I bought a s-lode of bags from the dollar store this year. Makes wrapping a whole lot easier!
I’m interested in your Japanese ginger beer. My grandfather used to make a drink for me called a Shandygaff, which was half ginger-beer, half real beer. (He was from the part of England (old Basing) where kids and pregnant women drink beer!)
I make Shandygaff sometimes in the summer, or when I make vegetarian Indian food.. It’s hard to find good ginger beer in the States, though. Some of the organic ones are quite repulsive (they taste like they are made from spoiled ginger!). I’ve heard Stewart’s makes a good one.
Sorry to ramble . . . all I meant to say is that I like ginger beer and hope the Japanese one is good :o)
I was tasty, although it had a very odd flavor-kind of refreshing with a hint of ginger. It was Hitachino Nest Beer, apparently produced by these fine folks:
http://kodawari.cc/engpage/kodawari/html/hitachino.htm
Although the ginger beer that I tried didn’t show up on the website. Hmm. Still, it was very interesting, and I think it would go very well with a different food combination-I had it with beef, I’d be interested to try it with seafood, like shrimp or salmon. Tasty, though! One of these days, I’d like to try this Shandygaff of which you speak!
::grin:: I have all of my holiday shopping done, but I haven’t even begun my wrapping. That’s a whole other story, I’m afraid.
Ah, and rambling? Ramble on, dear rose. Speak freely! ^_^