Tag Archives: good days

Yes, America – THAT JUST HAPPENED

As a writer, I enjoy not only using language but also reshaping it.

“Businessing” is now a perfectly cromulent word at my office. I expect it to spread from there, like a virus or a fungus. You’re all welcome.

But I’ve been working on getting a certain phrase out there. I’ve been working on “hoop de doodle” for a couple of years now. My goal is to hear it in a major motion picture by the summer of 2014. (Joss Whedon, are you listening? Hawkeye needs a catch phrase for “Avengers 2″.) Continue reading →

Another Shot

I hated the fact that my team got laid off at the bank four years ago. Absolutely hated it. I loved that team. They were great performers and they were like family. When we left, I told them I’d come looking for them as soon as I could find someplace we could work together again.

One of them I missed more than the others.  I’ve developed and mentored a few people in my career, but she was a standout. So much potential: smart, creative, hard-working, and very eager to learn. She’s a Marine, and a little rough around the edges, but she could have been doing my job in a few years. And I was working on grooming her with that in mind. She was my go-to, my right hand. Continue reading →

Slightly Esoteric

I’ve had a number of moderatley unusual jobs in my life.

  • Church custodian
  • Pen buyer
  • Inventory auditor
  • Digitizer

But of all the things I’ve done for a living, my favorite is the odd little job I’m doing now.

The short version of what I’m doing is what I’ve done for the last eight years: I manage a team of call center reps.

The longer version is that I sharpen and guide the point of the spear. Sales organizations are on a constant quest to raise the bar and drive their performance higher. Much of that comes from constant coaching and driving their sales teams.  Continue reading →

What I Learned

I wrote over 4500 words today. That’s a new personal best, and puts me 300 words ahead of where I should be for the month. Kind of makes me think: if I could crank out 10k words in a weekend without pushing myself too hard, I could write whole novels in a couple of weeks. First drafts, anyway – what I have right now is good, but it’s in no way ready to publish.

I learned that pumpkin spice pancakes with some caramel apples on top are just about perfect this time of year.

I learned that composing on the iPad isn’t that bad with a wireless keyboard. I’m still not wild about carrying the keyboard around – sort of reduces the portability, IMO – but it’s about as small and light as they come. And it beats trying to do any serious typing on the screen.

I learned that one of my main characters is unexpectedly vulnerable. I got a little closer to unravelling my antagonist’s plot. I discovered that another of my main characters has a very deep dark side. I’m really seeing the value of doing this without a big master plan. I was spending too much time planning it all out. Now that I’m just writing as it comes to me and asking questions instead of imposing answers, it’s gotten a lot deeper and more interesting/surprising than I could have made it if I’d planned it all out. I might figure this writing thing out yet.

And I’m still having a blast. I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow to show him my ideas for completely redoing our training curriculum. My team continues to blow me away with their performance – they’re already outperforming the more experienced teams across the board, and I haven’t even gotten warmed up yet.

Good times, my friends. Good times. ;)