Feeling Professional and Learning About XML
The past week has seen a flurry of really positive activity:
- A web design company I’m helping sent me a payment
- I sent out two contracts to new clients
- I attended another Board meeting for the Writer’s Circle of Durham Region
- I finally gave in and joined Twitter (look for @cvasilevski)
- I reconnected with a former non-profit employer of mine and am in talks with them to do some volunteer work on their newsletter
After deciding to freelance about four months ago, I’ve realized that being successful requires baby steps. When I first purchased things I considered necessary, like an external hard drive or some software, I quailed inside about the money I was spending; now that there’s some money coming in (though I’d like a lot more!), I feel a little bit better about my choices. It’s funny, but ever since I decided to start doing this, I’ve found satisfaction in the most unlikely tasks: entering in transactions to a general ledger? Yes! Keeping a copy of my receipts? Yes! Tinkering with WordPress behind the scenes? Yes and yes!
I enjoy doing the busy work, and that’s tremendously encouraging. Networking is a more pressing concern, but I’m doing what I can, what with Sprouter and Twitter and attending events. Cold-calling is something I need to do more of, but again, baby steps.
In other news, my Production class at Ryerson is drawing to a close, and my final assignment involves working with XML. I’ve never done so directly, but the tutorial from class wasn’t too difficult. Luckily, I used to do a lot of work with HTML in high school, designing my own website, and the basic mechanics (open tags, insert information, close tags, keep it symmetrical) are the same. My last assignment garnered a seven out of ten – less than I was hoping for, but that just means I have to learn more about working with InDesign and Photoshop to really get what I want.
So, today will involve a lot of writing, and thinking, and errands. It’s a lovely list of things to do on a Saturday.
