Status Update

Last updated 4/4/11 @ 5:00pm.
Short summary and current status of all of Randy's projects.

The big prayer requests and praises
* It's past time for me to get a job.
* I'm as busy as I want to be doing my part-time short-term consulting gig with AimSourcing.
* I'm doing a second short-term consulting gig with a friend's company.  That's almost done.
* I have a couple of interesting job leads working slowly.
* I just finished a class to become a certified scrum master, which should help with the criticism that I'm "not technical enough."
* I'm thinking about reinventing myself as a programmer.  That would involve going to a class or two and spending some time doing some sort of coding project.  There are lots of software development openings right now, and doing that would get me closer to my dream job--Product Manager for a software product.
* I have lots of projects that I am "working" on.  My gut says that one of these will lead to income faster than a traditional job search.  But which one should I focus on?
-- Patenting some related ideas I've had for a new product, and trying to get funding to build a business.
-- A new ministry project based upon the Parenting Adolescents class that Christy and I helped lead last semester.
-- Pray with Friends
-- Evolving Democracy book (Democracy 2.0, needs a new name)
-- Fiction novels I want to write (Remember to Breath, The Eight Lives of Walta Sepatet, and How Now Brown Cow? being the three I am most interested in writing right now.)
-- A youth ministry guidebook.
-- Annual Day of Confession / Power of Confession book and website.
-- Establish my own publishing company.


Unemployment and Job Search
* For a long time I applied for every job that looked to pay anything near what I was earning before.  I never got a single call for even a phone screen for any of those.  The only things I ever got called for were:
- Basically exactly what I was doing at Journyx.
- One step below what I was doing at Journyx.
I have decided to narrow my focus and put more effort into just those types of jobs.  I have a new blog, resume, and marketing plan.  This is all on LinkedIn, now, and everything else has been removed.
* I'm monitoring several job boards and applying to everything that fits the above.  I'm not applying to anything else, unless someone contacts me and asks me to apply.
* I'm so busy with AimSourcing consulting work that I don't have time to write my blog articles or search for jobs.
* I am also looking for good ways to network with VC-types and entrepreneurial types, who should have need for someone like me.

---

Some of the projects listed above don't have blog entries or explanations anywhere.  So here are short descriptions of each of those:

Remember to Breath book
* I think this is the most marketable of the fiction books that I have fully plotted.
* I have an 84-scene outline and the biggest pivotal scene written.
* Currently at 17k words.  Looking to get to 100k-120k.
* A general-fiction novel about an oncologist who innovates a new treatment for cancer.  Think Tuesdays with Morrie or Same Kid of Different as Me.

The Eight Lives of Walta Sepatet book
* Fiction book with a full plot and storyline, and 45k words done.
* The plot has a gaping hole that I have to figure out how to fix.
* A fantasy novel that teaches religious-ish moral principles.  Think Job (I'm not saying Job is fiction!) meets Gulliver's Travels.

How Now Brown Cow? book
* Fiction book (or perhaps series of books) with most of a full plot and storyline, and several partial scenes written.
* I think this is just a working title, though it does have a tie-in with the story.
* This book is hard adult sci-fi (including sex, murder, and other adult themes) set in the distant future.
* The plot involves bad guys attempting to subvert a working Democracy 2.0 government.  Laying out that government is a big draw for me to write this book.
* Think Gravity's Rainbow (only in scope, not in style) meets Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Youth Ministry / Parenting Adolescents book
* Non-fiction book for youth ministers and volunteer youth workers.  That's a small market.  I can't imagine getting this published by a traditional publisher.
* Based upon the parenting adolescents class we're helping with and the teachings of Dr. Ken Wilgus.
* The idea is to get youth ministers engaged with parents in a constructive letting go of their adults in training.