It's been a strange day. Got a call from a marketing company saying that I stand to win a 4-day, 3 night holiday in Jamaica or 5-day, 4-night one in Hawaii (my choice).
All costs at the resort are included. It was a draw, they said, and I didn’t have to do anything or buy anything or enter a competition
So I said, sure, send me the details if I win and this morning I got another call announcing I was one of the lucky winners.
The person who called told me where to pick up the voucherstomorrow afternoon. All I have to do to pick up the voucher is to show up with my partner for a 60 minute presentation.
I’m not sure whether to be excited that I’m going on a paid holiday to Hawaii, or to be sceptical that the trip will happen.They tell me that their benefit is word of mouth advertising, and they are not selling time-share or holiday points.We’ll see.
In any case, I'd still have to swing the travel costs, so it's not entirely free, I would think. But lucky company, they chose a writer and blogger as one of their candidates, so if it all works out, I will write about it.
Hawaii sounds fantastic – I always wanted to go but never thought I’d get the chance.
I'll keep you posted, and maybe even name the marketing company and resort once I have a clearer idea of who I'm dealing with, whether their offer is for real and the making of travel plans.
I'll also have to brace myself and go to the Department of Home Affairs to apply for a passport. I got a temporary passport while I was in Barcelona last year, and I used it for my subsequent overseas trips.
But I never got a permanent passport, because I was not prepared to spend time standing in queues and there was no immediate reason to act.
Seems like I’m going to score from my geyser going on the fritz – insurance will replace it.
My house was built in 1932, and I’m not sure how old my geyser is, but it’s definitely older than I am.
And for this wonderful investment, my excess is minimal really.
So while we wait for the plumber to arrive, we’re using this home-made urn.
Essentially, it’s a 20 litre plastic paint bucket, with electrical wiring inserted into the lid and an old element on the inside of the lid.
A friend of mine made the plastic urn for me. I know the exterior looks old, but it heats up water real fast, and we use it to heat water for all purposes that don’t include eating and drinking.
Speaking of friends, Janet Riehl, an American blogger who I initially met online and who visited my family last year, phoned yesterday.
It’s been too long since we connected, and the 2 and a half hour conversation was really wonderful. That’s Janet and I: we clicked as soon as we “met” and never run out of things to say.
Janet she has been hectically busy this past year working on developing an audio product using her collection of poems, Sightlines her father's poetry and his music.
According to Janet, the story-poems in Sightlines stitch together the lives of six generations.
"The fiddles, mandolin, guitar, and songs weave memories of a bygone time with the crisp realities of modern life. It’s a poetic-musical duet capturing the humor, joy, and sorrow that create the weft of any family," she says.
Some time in July I’m going to host Janet here on my blog so she can talk about Sightlines.
Win a OneLove -T-Shirt
Work-related writing has been spotty, partially because there have been so many public holidays this month.
The most important thing I want to highlight is the launch of the OneLove Poetry Competition, which we launched last week.
The 5 winners will each get a OneLove T-Shirt, exactly like the one actor and musical sensation Zuluboy is wearing.
My biggest challenge is that we’re not getting as many entries as I'd like, so we’re going to extend the deadlines to give participants a chance to enter.
So please come on over and enter the OneLove Poetry Competition. Your poem can be serious, fun, quirky.. and it can be in any format.
In the meantime,I'm still on a blog promotion blitz. So feel free to invite me to guest--blog for you.
I write about HIV/AIDS, sexuality and relationships, information communication technology, parenting, women's issues and writing and I'm promoting numerous blogs and web sites.
Let's talk about love, sex, money and trust
If you are a small business owner, or want to start your own business, feel free to join me on the OneLove web site as we chat about some of the challenges young women face when they start their own businesses.
Watch an excerpt of Between Friends, a drama that is part of the UNTOLD series. Between Friends looks at 2 young women who start a business with financial back-up from the boyfriend.
No need to duke it out!
I’m also working on a feature article which argues that there need not be any discord between CMMI (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) and Agile software development methods.
This is part of a series of articles that are going into the May issue of the newsletter of the JCSE (Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering).
The article is based on "CMMI® or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both!", a report published by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Melon in the US.
Having loads of fun
So while I haven't done as much work as I would have in a normal work month, I've had loads of fun in the past week or so.
I'm watching Twilight (on DVD). I loved the book series, and have just finished reading Breaking Dawn. I'm not sure how I feel about the multimedia representation of my favourite characters, especially Edward.
Somehow, the Edward in my head and the one in the movie are not gelling easily. Not that I didn't like actor/acting, it's just takes time for the two to come together.
And I guess that's what always happens when you create a fictional character: if you do it right, your readers fall in love with him/her, and somehow, they start to visualise the person and I'm sure it's not a comfortable process for the scriptwriter, director and actor brings a new richness to the character while also pleasing book fans.
I'm also watching the Ghost Whisperer season 1 box set ( made up of 22 episodes). I love what I've seen so far......
OK. I admit it. I am whiner, and everything that is not directly related to writing (e.g. interviewing, writing, editing etc) qualifies as hard work in my opinion. But wow, blog promotion is hard work!
I spent most of the afternoon working online to promote the blogs where I work and my own blog.
Visiting forums that I belong to and posting links to stories that I think members would find interesting
I think the reason I find blog promotion so draining is because I prefer to spend time writing rather than promoting.
Also, unlike writing where I can see the results immediately (published article) promotion is harder for me because it takes longer before I see the results.
So no instant gratification, no byline. Just plain hard slog. But promotion is necessary for a successful writing project.
Got some marketing advice
I also posted on one of the forums I belong to asking for some tips. I asked the members, who are mostly work at home mothers who market their businesses through the Internet:
What are some of the marketing activitries that you do to promote yourself and your service?
What proportion of your work time do you spend marketing and what proportion of time do you spend on service fulfillment?
I do marketing when work is low or I get a gap, I rather do 10 minutes of online marketing then take a tea break.
If I get the chance with no work over weekends then I will most definitely sit and do marketing, its not so much for clients its more now to keep my name and the virtual industry in South Africa out there in the marketing place, so I do a lot of article marketing to specific places that I want to target, whereby I think by doing this I can make clients, aware of the industry, so mostly my marketing is target marketing as that works.
I do a lot of marketing to small business via the internet, I target specific network databases whereby I know that I can reach the clients that the VA industry needs.
There is specific networks out there for various businesses and this is where I target, example, the attorney's network etc). I find marketing relaxing as I don't have the pressure of looking for clients for myself.
Article marketing takes a while to reap rewards but I find it very worthwhile, especially when I've no idea when my article will be appearing in the various magazines and then sudden I get a call or email saying they found me at such and such a place.
Basically it depends on the volume of work that I have, but I do try to do a little marketing each day. Even if I'm very busy I'm always thinking 'what about tomorrow'.
On a slow day I can be doing 90% marketing and 10% work and then on days when I'm working 8am to 9pm or whatever, I'll break it up a bit by taking marketing breaks. But I count things like writing on my blog as marketing too.
As you say, labour intensive. But I think one of the most important things is to have a marketing strategy. I have a very loose strategy but it is there. You can't just go and one day go I feel like doing this, and the next day that, you have to set yourself a goal and focus on it.
Today I had my ideal writing day: the weather was cool and cloudy, so I could cocoon in my house and write with few interruptions.
The phone hardly ever rang, I didn't have a pressing deadline and I could focus on letting the words flow. Wrote 3 short blog posts for today, and 5 longer articles to be published on Thursday(tomorrow is a public holiday). Also made inroads in a series of profiles that I'm working on.
I was so zen the broken geiser didn't even faze me much. And in-between, I managed to cook a nice rice and chicken casserole meal to combat the cold.
Came across an advert from a new publishing project aimed at young girls aged 16 — 24 years. They say they need writers who are prepared to write short romantic novels. "We need writers who can produce compelling, realistic and believable stories with which the audience can identify."
Not sure I qualify given the requirements that they specified, but BOITSHOKO was a romance of sorts. And I am a writer, and read romantic novels voraciously. Surely that counts, even though my biggest claim to fame really lies in telecommunications?
One of my best friends since I came out of university, Ms Lona Lee Hart, has launched a blog dishing about her dating adventures.
She describes herself as "delusionally 39, pretty much been there and bought the T-shirt yet hope springs eternal."
In her first blog post, she says:
The challenge of being a single working mom is finding the time to meet suitable men. Hanging over the bar in a pub seems too seedy and standing in the intersection with a sign reading "Man Wanted" is just too needy. Did I hear someone whisper "on-line dating"? Well there is that, and believe me I've tried it - on numerous sites. Unfortunately despite the thousands of men all stating categorically that they are looking for either FUN or a SOULMATE, most seem more keen to keep on trawling daily rather than actually getting to know a real live person.
For those who think it could be the ugliness that is me, I refer you to the profile pic. Just an ordinary gal, not J Lo and not the Hunchback of Notre Dame either. For those who think it could be no personality or a tendency to bitchiness or downright meanness, I have contactable references!
As my 11-year old daughter is away visiting family for the school holidays, I spent a lazy, relaxing Saturday, trying to get as much rest and enjoy the moment as possible.
So I re-read a novel
Took pictures of my garden, and my dogs Edward and Hayley (Edward pictured below)...
And went to the park (P.S. pics of the park were taken last month, not Saturday.)
Then I uploaded them to flickr. You can check out the slide show, which has a lot more images than I posted here.....
I put in the long hours, even went to bed around 2am the night I changed the template of this blog. But the hours still don't add up to 10 000. Does that mean I'm not talented?
Today I was a refugee at the city library. Woke up to find that we'd had a scheduled power cut I didn't know about.
So no power, no hot water ( aka no tea to jumpstart my system), limited batttery life on my laptop to work on.
And as happens on days like this, something worse happened: my helper decided that today was a good day to wash the windows and curtains, and she promptly took all the curtains off the windows and soaked them, leaving me in a very unfriendly house.
So I took my grumpy self ( I am grumpy if I don't start the morning with a large mug of tea and can't work) to the city library, hoping that city centre was not affected by the power cuts. Thank God they weren't!
Managed to update the web site of the OneLove Southern Africa campaign and arrange two interviews before I got word that the power was back on and I could come back home.
Check out the interview I did for the OneLove web site with Xolile Maluka, who played Dineo on the TV drama series Soul City series 9 (seen in the picture on the left with Wandile Molebatsi, who plays Bulela, boyfriend on Soul City)
Xolile is a bubbly young lady and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with her.
And finally, I want to offer a BIG THANKS to Elsie van Rooyen from TAVASA, who stayed online with me until the wee hours of the morning, helping me to change the template of this blog without losing the design features.
The merrigolds that I planted about 13 weeks ago are blooming, giving me a nice view from my desk.
I liked them for their colour, and the fact that they are hardy and I couldn't kill them even if I tried.
I'm going to plant more flowers for Spring, so when I look up from the laptop I see a nice inspiring view. And it feels great to see something beautiful and know that you had something to do with its creation.
In terms of writing, I got an email from someone I respect asking to quote an article that I wrote in his next book. Now, that was just nice.
As a writer, it made me appreciate the fact that, long after I've written and published a piece, maybe even forgotten about, people still read it and find it useful.
I have a major gripe with hawkers and assorted people who go from house to house peddling something.
Here's the thing: ringing my gate numerous times even though I do not respond doesn't exactly endear you to me. The noise interrupts me from what my work or whatever household task I'm involved in, and being irritated by the time I answer the main gate, I'm not inclined to buy things from you anyway.
So yeah, I know you can see I'm home, cos the windows are open and the car is out front, but move along if I don't answer on the second ring.
The silence means I checked to see who was ringing my bell, didn't recognise you and don't want to talk to you. Or it could be that I don't even have the money to buy from you even if I was so inclined. So stop wasting your time beating a dead horse and go try peddling your goods elsewhere.
And now to our regular programming.
More creative writing
The creative writing initiative didn't go as well as I liked this week. I did manage to draft six poems for the Poem-A-Day challenge by Writer's Digest.
I don't expect to be able to meet the daily target, but I'd be happy to write 15 poems ( i.e half the number of poems I'd generate if I was more consistent about writing a poem everyday.
The novel writing didn't go well either. So far I've written only a couple hundred words more, which is much less than the daily target that I set.
That said, I take consolation in that things are moving along, however slowly. Eventually, I will finish this novel.
Join the conversation about love, sex, relationships
This is a Q and A I did with a PR professional who chooses to remain a virgin until she marries. She's 27, good-looking and not shy wall-flower either.
Long time no hear, neh? Sorry about that. I've been very quiet on this blog because I have been busy with client work and doing a lot of research and outlining for my novel.
The client work:
The OneLove web site is doing swimmingly well. Found the rhythm for the site, the people that I work with have been very helpful, and really, all we need to worry about now is publishing very good content and getting the people to come and join the discussions, take polls and quizzes and generally have a good time.
If you have a minute, join me on the OneLove web site, where I'm the resident hostess.
As you can see by the word meter at the beginning of this blog, I'm finally ready to talk publicly about my novel. That means, I'm now clearer about the story I'm telling, have finished the research and am now ready to write.
For a very long time I was afraid to speak about the novel. It seemed to me there was a huge chance I would fail - fail to tell an interesting story, fail to finish the novel, fail to publish the novel. And if that was the case, I did not want to do it publicly. So I did a lot of the ground-work so I felt on firm ground before I could speak publicly about it.
So now the plan is that, for the month of April, I write as many words as possible ( after the writing that pays the bills is done).
I don't expect that I will say much about the story itself, but I expect I will speak about the writing process.
This promises to be a great adventure. Thank you for joining me.
It's been a strange day. Got a call from a marketing company saying that I stand to win a 4-day, 3 night holiday in Jamaica or 5-day, 4-night one in Hawaii (my choice).
