Monday 4 February 2013

Projects Update

At the beginning of each month I've decided to give an overview of all the projects I'm working on. Whether it be updates, information on new projects, or letting one go, it's important to stay on track.

Also it keeps me kind of pressured to work harder on these things. Few things look worse than people who claims to be doing tons of stuff and only a few weeks later do you realize they stayed at home all day and looked at pictures of cats.

Or ridiculous pictures of dogs.

Project Pitch:

Yeah, I've hit a standstill with this one. 4 pitches, 3 rejections, 1 pitch still sitting in second level editorial. It's been sitting there for weeks and I'm not sure why the editors are ignoring it.

Unfortunately I haven't had time to research a new pitch to submit. It generally takes me about 2-4 hours to research enough content to submit one, and about another 1-2 hours to fix it up to the moderators liking so they can advance it to stage 1 editing. Also unfortunate is that stage 1 editing is where most my ideas go to die.

The most common advice I've gotten is that my ideas aren't outlandish enough, so I'll keep that in mind.

Project Derp:

Progress is going good in Phase 2. It's nice to see virtually instant proof that the work you're doing is actually getting results. That's one of the biggest motivators going for this project.

Unfortunately it's still not enough. I know I said I wanted to have moved onto Phase 3 of this project by the end of January but I realize that was unrealistic. I'd have to write ~1500 words a day for all of January to have achieved that. At my best I managed ~1000 words a day for a week and I was exhausted.

So at this rate I'm probably going to set my expectations to mid-March. Still need roughly 100 more hours of work to do before I'm satisfied.

Small estimation error on my part.

Project Vegas:

Oh boy. Good news and bad news. Quick recap, Project Vegas is me exploiting a loophole that Americans have in their system. Good news is that I've found the Canadian equivalent of said loophole. The bad news? I don't earn/spend enough to properly exploit said loophole.

Yet.

I have another reason to get Project Derp to phase 3. Don't worry, I'm not going to go broke or to jail for doing this.

Project Cold 2.0:

This a new project that I added. The idea was to expand on concepts learned from my Psychology classes, namely, persuasion. I needed somewhere to practice this AND I wanted to earn money at the same time. Unfortunately the original concept was borderline unethical and it wasn't working.

The new direction that I'm taking has 2 phases and I'm fairly optimistic about it. An added benefit is that I'm running around outside so yay, exercise.

At least, it'll be better once the snow melts.


Project Copy:

Another new project that I took up. This one is supposedly going to indirectly help all of the above projects. And if done correctly could help with other projects and have real world applications. This is also the only project at the moment that has cost me something and has no immediate monetary benefits.

But it's only an hour a day, practicing a specific technique for the next few months, 5 times a week, so nothing too strenuous. Will it work? I don't know. But for the amount of work put in for the potential skill gain, I'm willing to try it.


That's all for now. I've actually halted all work on projects for this week. Things will resume once midterms are done.

17 comments:

  1. It sounds like other than Project Pitch, you're actually making quite a lot of progress. Writing so much is definitely going to take a mental toll, if not a physical one. So stick to your new estimations.

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  2. Good luck with your midterms! It sounds like you're doing really well with all of your projects, keep it up! I could do with finding a way of earning some money.

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  3. Sounds like many are well on their way and at least you learn something with each one, curios on project vegas though.

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  4. None of these projects are criminal in nature, are they? Just kiddin'! *nervous laughter*

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  5. hmm Project Vegas sounds very interesting,
    keep us updated and good luck!

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  6. Well it sounds exciting, but not much of the new ones have any real explanation. Just outcome. Kinda mysterious for us readers.

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  7. Best of luck with all of these projects man. You're definitely right not to risk doing anything that would get you in trouble with the law during these projects.

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  8. All the best for the exams!
    Though you must have really good willpower to put all this interesting stuff on hold and go study...good for you!
    And Project Vegas sounds a teensy bit shady ya know!;)

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  9. Woah! That's a lot going on! I'm glad you're keeping yourself busy!

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  10. So organized and great to great the updates!

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  11. Busy man. Sounds interesting as hell. Good luck!

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  12. And you find time to eat and sleep when?

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  13. Good luck with all of your projects - especially the outlandish ones :)

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  14. Well good luck on your midterms.
    What's the technique you talk about in Project Copy?

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  15. What's this about a loophole? I love loopholes.

    Also, that advice about the outlandish topic thing is true. Remember, no matter what you write, chances are good a thousand other people have written about the same thing. The trick is to not only find the most outlandish topic, but also to make the article as unique as possible. Stand above the rest, don't just blend in with them. Good luck!

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  16. Your descriptions, while vague (possibly for good reason), are pretty interesting. Good luck!

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