FKhats B-Log Adventure

Where are you going, and how do you get there?

Where are you going, and how do you get there?

Good Afternoon & Happy Thursday from Cubeland!

I hope everyone had a wondrous Holiday!

         I didn’t get my word count yesterday.  The muse had a story in her teeth but she needed some more input.  I found what she needed, but I also found some very interesting conspiracy theories out there.  Wow, the amount of detail and material some of these conspiracy theory people produce is amazing!
         One of the projects I am working on is a money making blog. 
         I know, I know, sounds so smarmy doesn’t it?  Maybe money-grubbish?  But it’s not, not really. It’s practice.  You see, when I decided to change my career and reorder my life to move forward instead of coasting along the bottom.  It is much harder than it sounds and can be quite painful to pull it off.
         To get anywhere though you need to do some soul searching.  First you have to know where you are at and where you are going.  Going nowhere faster, isn’t progress no matter how much it feels like it.

         1.  What do I want? 
         2.  What would it take to get from here to there?
         3.  Will it be worth my time, effort,  and money?  Will it still be a good idea years from now? 10? Will it still be fun?
         4.  Do I want to work for someone else and the illusion of a steady paycheck or strike out on my own in free fall?
         4.  What am I missing?  What am I not doing now that I wish I could?

Goals: 

1.  Be home more! 
Life, cats, and Husbands take more than a minimal amount of care and attention.  I feel like I am never home.  Never get to do the things I want.  I commute over 30 miles one way just to get by.  It wears on you after a while.

2.  Act instead of React:  I want to stop being chased around by outside “necessity”. 
This includes bills, chores, dependents, pets, etc.  Rush, rush, rush.  From the time I get up and rush to work, until I rush home, and rush to bed.  I am chasing money, spending time.  I rush to get the money, and rush to get the money to the creditors, and I find faster and better ways to rush the food to the table.  I don’t sleep or sleep well because of all the rushing.  You can see me stumbling off the bus downtown with all the other Starbucks zombies.

I used to raise guppies when I was a kid.  The first batch I got three of them, two pretty blues and a red.  They did fairly well… Until I put in a couple of neon tetras in the tank.  Those 5x little tetras were vicious.  Before the week was out they had harried the guppies a little mouth nip at a time until they had no fins and died!  Sometimes, I swear I feel like those guppies sometimes!
The only sure fire cure for this?:  Consciously plan and prepare….everything!  Stop and think about what you are doing instead of just doing.  Be stubborn.  Your family and friends mean well, but they usually don’t stop to ask why they do things either, they are just following along to.  It is some serious effort to order your world if it doesn’t come as a natural part of your personality, but without it you end up with no fins!

3.  Sustainable. 
Can I make enough money to cover my bills and keep the cats in food and litter?  What if the economy tanks and leaves us in the crapper and we run headlong over a fiscal cliff like lemmings?  Can I still put bread on my table? Food in the bowl?  How about next year with no raise?  5years?  Ten?

4.  Give Back.  I want to be in a position to give back and pay forward.  To make the world a better place.  There is so much ugliness and darkness in the world. Human beings have spent hundreds of thousands of years in barbarism, preying upon their neighbors, the tribes, clans, families, villages, etc. run by the biggest, baddest, and meanest.  Sometimes the cleverest, but not usually, and not for long.  (Do notice there are different words for sly cleverness and intelligence in almost every old language). 
Depending on which school of thought you harken from, humans have been around for tens and more probably hundreds of thousands of years.  How many of those have seen any semblance of civilization?

Two thousand years ago we had what many still think was a golden age.  The Roman Empire stretched across the globe, and lasted for a thousand years.  One of mans greatest achievements and “civilized” accomplishments.  Some of what they did, what they discovered the thought up, we are still trying to figure out! 
And we are still living in its giant shadow today!  But if you read between the lines, look under the gold leaf, check behind the glitter and gauze, it was one of the most brutal and vicious inventions of all time.  Built on lives, lies, flesh, brutality, and Mob rules. 

They had slaves and worse.  There were even Sewer Slaves!  (Slaves whose job it was to ferry up and down the rivers of liquid shit to ensure they kept flowing.)  This was the job for the lowest of the low to be replaced as they fell into the sludge succumbing to the poisonous fumes!  Their bodies sank into the sludge as another took their place, unless they were the one being dragged into the muck by their shared chains.  And there were always more slaves, more people to conquer, more lives to feed the machine.  If your family ran low, you could just buy more or BREED more or some extra coin.  (Or be sold as one if you didn’t pay your bills, or your husband, father, brother, or other patriarch didn’t pay theirs!) 

Everyone NOT roman was less.  Everyone not roman was a future servant of the empire. 

At one time, this was “civilized”.  The alternative was usually worse and shorter lived. 
This is a short step back for us from where we are, and an even shorter one into predator and prey.  We should all be helping us move forward one little step at a time, because if we fall, that ledge below us is much less civil, and the one below that even more, until we are all happily back to take or be taken, kill or be killed. 

Personally, as a free woman and potential chattel, I am all in for upward and onward, even if it is just a baby step or two.  Freedom is never free, and never forever.  We must continue the march and be ever vigilante.  The biggest, baddest, and meanest want their spot back!

5.  And finally:  What do I currently have that I could use to further my goals? 
This last question took me a while.  I was stumped.  I have a lot of skills, and varied knowledge because I collect both like Shinies.  But are they worth anything?  Can I market them as is?  Should I offer a service?  Product?  Ideas?  Find another J.O.B.?  Is there anything I do now, can do now, or create now that can make money, give back, and help keep moving me towards my goals?  What needs can I fulfill?  What knowledge can others use?  What tools have I made someone out there could use?

Fortunately for me Web Design and Web Development require lots of web play.  What I finally came up with as a starter project was a blog idea.  I decided on a little money making exercise I practice regularly myself.  This would allow me to practice my Web Development page building, and the content creation skills to populate it, and I get regular blogging practice to set the habit.  The blog itself would let me try out the various monetizing techniques I have been learning about, how to setup and maintain a blog, a site, feedback, design, comments, linking…the whole nine!  Woot!  I can give back, move forward, practice, and try my hand at indirect money streaming!  Even better its something I already do, I just don’t share!  It’s how I mine for ideas, so wont be a big stretch to come up with material!  That’s win win win!

What ideas do you have that can move you forward in your life?  Career?  Writing?  Or better yet…Writing Career?

Cheers & Write On!

~ Faith

WC: 1397
TODAYS WC: 2193.  Blog (1397 )+ The Kings Return (796)
Next:  How do you keep track of your stories?

PS:  Once my evil plan is up and running, I will announce and share. 
Until then:  MY IDEA! Mine!  Good Advice:  Never share ideas you plan to keep or use!  Poachers are always faster than we are!

Frequency: Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday
Personal WC Daily Goal: 1000+ words / Achieved + made up for yesterday!
BICHOK: (B)utt (I)n (C)hair (H)ands (O)n (K)eybaord!