Hey guys, sorry it took me so long to post this, but my blog now has a new location. I will no longer be posting to this website. Instead, all updates will continue at alisonverhalen.com.
I have my very own website! How cool is that? I figured, since I'm going out on my own as a freelance writer full time now, I would need a more official address on the internet so I had some awesome friends of mine set up that website for me. Once that was done, it just made sense to start putting my blog up there. As soon I start actually publishing those novels I've been working on, you'll be able to get updates on those from that website and even buy them!
Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you at alisonverhalen.com!
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
The Anti 9-to-5 Guide
Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube
by Michelle Goodman
I am so done with my day job. I feel pretty safe saying that here for a few reasons. 1) I'm pretty sure no one at work reads this blog. 2) I doubt they would fire me during holiday season. 3) I'm going to quit anyway, so who cares if I get fired? I have decided that I will work through the holiday season and then start off the new year on the unemployment line! I mean self-employment line!
Without getting into the details of my day job, I do want to say that it's really not that bad. I've certainly had worse. It's just the commute that I hate, and there are so many other things I want to do with my time that twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the phone to ring at work just is not cutting it for me right now.
So I read this book hoping it would give me some tips on what to do after I turn in my notice. Turns out, not a whole lot. Goodman quit her day job without even really knowing what she wanted to do (done) or getting any kind of client base (done) or even saving a little money (not quite done, but I have come up with a budget and ways to minimize expenses), so I'm already a few steps ahead of where she was.
That said, I still highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it's very amusing, as well as informational. Goodman has a great sense of humor and a conversational style that kept me reading. She also has a ton of information on how to go about quitting your job regardless of what you want to do. Thinking of starting a non-profit? This book has some excellent resources to help you get started. What if you still want a day job, you just don't want an office job? Or you want to work from home? This book still has you covered.
Goodman knew that her path to self-employment was not the only one, so she interviewed entrepreneurial women working in all sorts of fields and included their words of wisdom in this book. The result is a wealth of information that Goodman sprinkles throughout the book, rather than leaving it compacted in one interview section. Each chapter contains quotes and advice from women doing whatever you want to do, and I think Goodman did a pretty good job of covering all her bases. From self-employment, to volunteering, to working travel into your budget and schedule, to just spending more time doing what you love. She has advice on how to go about easing yourself out of the 9-to-5 lifestyle and into the kind of life you want.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to change up their work schedule. It left me more knowledgeable about what I'm about to do, more confident, and entertained me the whole way through.
by Michelle Goodman
I am so done with my day job. I feel pretty safe saying that here for a few reasons. 1) I'm pretty sure no one at work reads this blog. 2) I doubt they would fire me during holiday season. 3) I'm going to quit anyway, so who cares if I get fired? I have decided that I will work through the holiday season and then start off the new year on the unemployment line! I mean self-employment line!
Without getting into the details of my day job, I do want to say that it's really not that bad. I've certainly had worse. It's just the commute that I hate, and there are so many other things I want to do with my time that twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the phone to ring at work just is not cutting it for me right now.
So I read this book hoping it would give me some tips on what to do after I turn in my notice. Turns out, not a whole lot. Goodman quit her day job without even really knowing what she wanted to do (done) or getting any kind of client base (done) or even saving a little money (not quite done, but I have come up with a budget and ways to minimize expenses), so I'm already a few steps ahead of where she was.
That said, I still highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it's very amusing, as well as informational. Goodman has a great sense of humor and a conversational style that kept me reading. She also has a ton of information on how to go about quitting your job regardless of what you want to do. Thinking of starting a non-profit? This book has some excellent resources to help you get started. What if you still want a day job, you just don't want an office job? Or you want to work from home? This book still has you covered.
Goodman knew that her path to self-employment was not the only one, so she interviewed entrepreneurial women working in all sorts of fields and included their words of wisdom in this book. The result is a wealth of information that Goodman sprinkles throughout the book, rather than leaving it compacted in one interview section. Each chapter contains quotes and advice from women doing whatever you want to do, and I think Goodman did a pretty good job of covering all her bases. From self-employment, to volunteering, to working travel into your budget and schedule, to just spending more time doing what you love. She has advice on how to go about easing yourself out of the 9-to-5 lifestyle and into the kind of life you want.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to change up their work schedule. It left me more knowledgeable about what I'm about to do, more confident, and entertained me the whole way through.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Paper Towns
by John Green
I was kind of disappointed in this one. Until now, the only book I had read by John Green was The Fault in Our Stars and I kind of lost my shit over that book. I still have yet to see that movie, although I really want to. So when I heard that Paper Towns was going to be the next John Green book to be made into a film, I immediately put it at the top of my to-read list.
It was only OK. I can't say I loved it or hated it. Just that it contains more of the teenage whining than I can really handle. The Fault in Our Stars had a surprising lack of whining, despite the fact that it was about kids dying of cancer who totally have the right to whine their hearts out.
In Paper Towns, the whining might be warranted, but I'm less sure as to why. This girl (Margot) runs away from home (not for the first time) right before she's about to graduate from high school. The main character (Quentin) has always had a huge crush on Margot, even though they haven't hung out since grade school. So while he's trying to find Margot after she disappears, Quentin spends a lot of time wondering if he ever really knew her.
It's a valid question. How many of you have fallen in love with someone, only to realize that they are not at all the person you thought they were? Did they change, or had you been assuming they were what you wanted them to be? There's a lot to be said for the fact that they way we treat people is based on our perceptions of them, rather than how they really are, and I'm sure that goes double for self-centered teenagers. It's also why we tend to act differently around different people. Our friends expect us to behave differently from our parents, whose expectations are different from our teachers/boss.
So Quentin spends a lot of time learning about himself and other people and poetry. And whining. Because Margot has run off before and has been known to be a bit of an attention whore, everyone else pretty much goes back to resuming their regularly scheduled end of senior year. This upsets Quentin because he thinks everyone should care as much he does about his idealized Margot, even though you could probably argue that they know her better than he does by not worrying about her. If she wants to come back, she'll come back. If not, she can take care of herself.
I won't ruin the ending for you, but I will tell you that I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I kind of liked it. It was pretty romantic, but it was also unsatisfying. I think it was meant to be unsatisfying, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. All I can say is that Quentin probably did more growing as a character in the four weeks that we see him than he did in the rest of his high school career.
I was kind of disappointed in this one. Until now, the only book I had read by John Green was The Fault in Our Stars and I kind of lost my shit over that book. I still have yet to see that movie, although I really want to. So when I heard that Paper Towns was going to be the next John Green book to be made into a film, I immediately put it at the top of my to-read list.
It was only OK. I can't say I loved it or hated it. Just that it contains more of the teenage whining than I can really handle. The Fault in Our Stars had a surprising lack of whining, despite the fact that it was about kids dying of cancer who totally have the right to whine their hearts out.
In Paper Towns, the whining might be warranted, but I'm less sure as to why. This girl (Margot) runs away from home (not for the first time) right before she's about to graduate from high school. The main character (Quentin) has always had a huge crush on Margot, even though they haven't hung out since grade school. So while he's trying to find Margot after she disappears, Quentin spends a lot of time wondering if he ever really knew her.
It's a valid question. How many of you have fallen in love with someone, only to realize that they are not at all the person you thought they were? Did they change, or had you been assuming they were what you wanted them to be? There's a lot to be said for the fact that they way we treat people is based on our perceptions of them, rather than how they really are, and I'm sure that goes double for self-centered teenagers. It's also why we tend to act differently around different people. Our friends expect us to behave differently from our parents, whose expectations are different from our teachers/boss.
So Quentin spends a lot of time learning about himself and other people and poetry. And whining. Because Margot has run off before and has been known to be a bit of an attention whore, everyone else pretty much goes back to resuming their regularly scheduled end of senior year. This upsets Quentin because he thinks everyone should care as much he does about his idealized Margot, even though you could probably argue that they know her better than he does by not worrying about her. If she wants to come back, she'll come back. If not, she can take care of herself.
I won't ruin the ending for you, but I will tell you that I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I kind of liked it. It was pretty romantic, but it was also unsatisfying. I think it was meant to be unsatisfying, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. All I can say is that Quentin probably did more growing as a character in the four weeks that we see him than he did in the rest of his high school career.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)