8 Ways to Sunday

Well, I finally did it. I started a blog. It was bound to happen eventually; an aspiring author and closet exhibitionist like myself could only resist for so long.

So what’s this blog all about? It’s about my work — both the things I do for money and the things I do for love that could one day turn into money. To wit:

Prospect Research. This is my “day job,” my paying gig. It’s a growing profession in the non-profit arena. I work as part of the fundraising operation at a small private college in the midwestern United States. My job is to help make sure the major gift officers (the people who ask for the big gifts) are visiting people with both the wealth and the inclination to make large donations. That way they don’t come to the door of regular folks like you and me asking for $10,000. I use a combination of data mining, analysis, reporting, and research via the internet and public records. Kind of like a private eye for philanthropy. Except that I don’t get to carry a gun or have a voice-over narrative.

As this site grows you can expect to see some posts and essays about my current projects, developments in the field, privacy and ethics, and quandaries and conundrums I could use some help on from other researchers.

Writing. I would love to make my living writing fiction. Unfortunately, most people anywhere who tell you “I’m a writer” mean it in a similar way to all the people in Los Angeles who claim “I’m an actor”: it really means you’re a waiter with a lot of time on your hands. Work in the arts is always hard to find, so I don’t pin high hopes on becoming a full-time author. It’d be very nice, however, to have some supplemental income and enough readers to feel that my work was being appreciated.

So what do I write? Some of it is kinda like science fiction, some of it is kinda like thrillers, some kinda like horror, and some is what I call “contemporary fantasy” (think Neil Gaiman). Some of it is all those things at once. Then there’s this blog thing, which I’m still figuring out. Check back later, when I plan to put selected pieces of writing up for the wide world to see.

Web Design. I did a little freelance web design work late in my college days, around ‘98-’99. I enjoy web design because of the way it engages both the “left” and “right” brain — it’s art and engineering rolled into one. I hadn’t done much in the area for a long time, but came back to it recently when I offered to help a friend design the site for her zine. I was amazed how much has changed. What I’d last known as nascent technologies, like XML and CSS, have become commonplace and I’ve had to learn a whole new skill set. I’m enjoying the mental exercise, however, and of course I’ve already got a long list of projects dreamed up. One of which is to replace the bland default template for this blog…

Photography. This hobby has crept up on me over the years. I’ve slowly started to become one of those annoying people who carries a camera around everywhere, prepared to document random moments. My friends seem to have reached a comfort level with this now. At least I sure hope so, since I’m going to be asking some of them if I can put their pictures up on my blog.

Very little else to say for now, except that I hope this little experiment in personal publishing works out well. Any advice from seasoned bloggers out there?