*Phew* (and some other stuff) (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian
What a couple of weeks. 4 exams (highest grade in the class on two of the four!), catching up with old friends, paying off all credit card debt, fixing technical problems with my photo gallery and OnThePharm.
Still trying to figure out what to do with my life, though. However I'm starting to narrow it down, and I get the feeling that starting my own business is going to be one of the things I do regardless of whether or not I continue my education at the graduate or professional level.
Options on the table for after graduation:
- MBA: Relatively inexpensive, and not especially time consuming. Unlimited upside, and would teach me skills I don't currently have. Could go anywhere from here.
- PharmD
- Get a job: Thinking technical writer of some kind. Preferably medical stuff.
- Start my own business: Many options on the table here; I have two in mind specifically. One with David, and one more along the writing side of things, but that would require getting about three other people to go along with it.
- A combination: MBA + small business; PharmD + writing business; writer + small business; writer + writing business.
Who the hell knows. I feel like I'm starting to settle — there aren't quite as many possibilities up in the air at this point as there were 6-12 months ago. I like the idea of getting my MBA because it's relatively inexpensive, and it provides a good fallback point should the side ventures go awry. I have enough work experience to go right into it without needing to get a job first, which is fortunate. Thank goodness for in-state tuition…
I would also like to start writing for Ars again. Not daily writing, but something like a monthly feature article about something I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about. I have an outline for my first article already written. I just need to flesh it out which I hope to work on today.
NaNoWriMo
November is almost here, which means NaNoWriMo is write around the corner. (Tee hee) I've been writing character outlines off and on this week for a story that's been kicking around in my head for a few months now. Given its "supernatural"-esque flavor, I've been doing some new thinking about how people with extraordinary abilities might fit into and interact with an ordinary environment. No, not like Heroes, which is getting progressively lamer with the time-arc plotholes that are used WAY too often as Deus Ex Machina mechanisms. F that crap. You start messing with time travel, and you've created a recipe for a world of hurt as a writer. The possibility for plotline chaos increasing exponentially and just makes things… messy.
I'm trying to come up with some history that I can use as an invisible framework, and also thinking about words themselves. Take the word "telepath" for example. That's a relatively new word. What might someone with that ability have been called 300 years ago? What about someone with telekinesis? Before the "tele-" prefix, what did we have to describe spooky action at a distance? Witchcraft, obviously, but I think that's too blunt a word to be useful or interesting. And in a world with a rich history of physical and mental "superpowers," witchcraft probably doesn't apply because the supernatural would cease to be supernatural and instead would be entirely ordinary…
So these are some of the things I've been thinking about. I've participated in NaNoWriMo three times now in the last seven years, and I'd like to do it again, and I think I'm at a point in my life where this is a realistic possibility. I'm pretty excited, but I need to start working on a plot outline if I am to be successful.