Remodeling Efforts

Last year I promised myself I'd write a novel in this year-of-our-lord 2013.

Well, a lot of things have happened this year, but I haven't written that novel. Know what I did? I've written two! And you know what? I think I'm getting better at it.

So, two books huh? Woooooow, you're so cool I want to smudge this webpage over my special parts. Why don't you tell us more, jack?

Book #1

Hmm, in hindsight it probably wasn't worth the toil, the effort, the insane obsessiveness, driving to and from my day job, the weekends, every waking minute I wasn't focussed on "real work". The storyline is pretty solid, in a it-keeps-moving kind of way, but things only really get going about 15,000 words in. One critic said the pacing was fine, the other said - well, just that it was a little slow to begin with. But the rest was okay, I guess. If you like reading stuff that sounded like a very amateur (possibly mentally-ill) version of Agatha Christie, maybe in the 1930s.
But it gets there, eventually. Eventually. I don't like anything that gets there "eventually", and it's not just because I'm ADHD.
So, Book #1 was my two months of dipping my toes in water. It took me five weeks to write and a (wasted) month of editing.

Book #2

This one has been an enormous amount of fun. I've always liked the writing styles of Elmore Leonard, James Burke, Carl Hiaasen, et al, so decided I'd see if I can impersonate it, just as an experiment you know? Oh boy, and once I got going? Whoosh.
You know when you're working on something that doesn't feel like work at all? Yeah, that's what this one felt like. Now, uhm, to be 100% clear, it's not for everyone. In fact, it may be for no-one, by my definition of being someone. If you don't know what I mean, well, you probably won't get it either. Probably/maybe. Feedback so far? "This is something else", and "8/10" and "great hook".
Progress: 75,000 words and I hope to finish it this weekend.

But this feedback...I'm not convinced of its authenticity. For all I know, these "critics" would rate the back of a Captain Crunch or Coco Pops cereal box as 8/10. Maybe they were home-schooled, or maybe they still think "lip service" is an expression.

On the other hand, maybe they just like it.

Sacrifice (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Tolerate my Job)

Like most people, I hate my job. Maybe "hate" is too strong a word. "Dissatisfied", "disillusioned", "dismayed" may all be more appropriate. The absence of career opportunity or development, the lack of personal satisfaction, the very limited opportunity for advancement or incentives - all contributing factors which make me think "what the fuck am I doing here", every day?

I know I'm not alone. 

I once worked with a guy who abandoned his promising career in corporate finance to head up the R&D team of a highly profitable investment research institute in the UK. He loved it. They loved him. He made a shitload of money, and got to work on some really interesting and challenging engagements. Then his work visa ran out, and he went back to his homeland. He's pretty much where he started - a pencil pusher in the undeniably benign world of corporate finance and banking. 

Now this guy is super smart and could have chosen any number of avenues to further develop his career. Hell, he could have probably become a silent partner in any one of his clients' firms. Started his own consultancy. Invest his considerable savings into the money markets and become a full-time trader. Whatever. Instead, he decided to play it safe and return to a full-time role with a bank where his income is guaranteed. Why? 

I don't know. 

Maybe he's learned to curb his natural drive, and plan for the future. Think about it: he spent the last 7 years aiming for the top, and when he got there, he decided "fuck these people - I can do better than this". I'm not sure but I suspect he's probably sitting back in his cushy day-job and formulating his master plan for world domination. Despite his limited income opportunities at the bank, I have no doubt this guy will be a millionaire many times over before he's 40. 

"Sacrifice" is too laden a word for gifting a few years of your stale career in exchange for planning and implementing higher goals. 

Project X

When I started out as a career criminal, I knew (or believed) that key to my advancement was to be involved in as many projects as I feasibly could. I could use these as references for more project-based work in the future. And by Job, it did. After a couple of successful projects, I got referred, constantly. I was just starting out, so had loads of energy, and enthusiasm and commitment in spades - a 60-hour week to me was light. Then, in my late-twenties, I began to rethink the approach. Not because I was getting tired of it - I particularly enjoyed short-term project engagements - but because I began to question my success in these activities. Why? Because I'm not particularly talented. Because I'm not that intelligent. Because I was prepared to work past my paygrade and not ever question things. 

Gradually, I began to see myself as a gear in an insatiably hungry machine, mission-critically designed for one purpose: realizing massive cost-savings, or adding real value. I didn't really care which - I'd contributed to both - but it just didn't feel right - what was I achieving, personally? 

So I diversified - I became a peripheral component to successful projects by switching skillsets. And became a wallflower. Observed. And what I realized came as an epiphany - that everyone on a project was simply seen as a "resource", someone with a specific (or commoditized) skill set that could be applied to fulfill someone else's goals. I say "someone else's", because very little of the spend on these projects actually justified a real business benefit - rather, someone's ability to convince someone else that the project would, or could, deliver real value; the "business" people had no idea. NowI understood why project managers walked out of meetings visibly relieved they got the funding they desired. They bluffed, and got away with it.

But no one can deny the centrifugal force of being involved in a project environment - timeframes are tight, extreme highs and lows are omnipresent, and people can get very tense. Immensely challenging, but also immensely satisfying if it all goes to plan. It's simply inescapable - once you're in, it's difficult to get out. 

I've learnt this very late in life, but personal projects can also deliver a huge amount of satisfaction: believing in the goals you've set, fully committed and focussed to achieving them, and reaping the benefits you decided was worth pursuing from the outset. I hear people lauding their personal "projects" all the time: re-decorating, renovating, learning a new language, traveling, raising a family, whatever. Look at the smiles on their faces when they tell you these stories, perceive the satisfaction and realize - personal satisfaction is almost always more powerful than the collective outcome.

With that power, that belief, we could all be our own project managers. Or entrepreneurs.