Monday, August 1, 2011

The Bank Holiday Weekend

In Ireland, there's a certain air of excitement for some people when it comes to the bank holiday weekend. I think for most it's the day off and the extra chance to drink. I remained entirely sober this weekend (the weekend includes Mondays on these occasions, if you don't know already) but that didn't stop me having a good time. For once. Only that I had the time off work did I actually enjoy myself.

There's been some excitement for me over the past three days. To begin with, I got my 50K written by Saturday. That ended a massive writing spree that left me exhausted, but the weekend had only just begun. So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I started a new project. My novel isn't finished, of course, and I will return to writing it shortly, but I had some stuff to do.

Badge for my website!
Sunday saw the rise of my website. There's a fanciful link to it in the sidebar. I've written quite a bit of content for it already, but that's for the grand launch in a few weeks' time. But that story's already been told.

Today, I set up more sites to link to the blog. My official Facebook page was first to show up to the world. I was reluctant to set one up, because I thought it might seem pretentious, but Rebecca Woodhead set me straight. It's now there - and linked to in the sidebar - and thanks to the support from Rebecca, it's gotten over 25 likes already! It doesn't look like much, but I'm delighted. I'll be using it to ask daily questions (or at least only one question a day) and to link people to the articles and other content I post on my website.

To follow up on that, I set up a LinkedIn profile. This one terrified me. While a website was a handy way of spreading content that wasn't all just me-me-me, and a Facebook profile was something I was used to from experience, a LinkedIn profile is so much more. It's the professional side of my website, but in social network form. If you don't know already, it's where professionals go to meet and exchange contacts and connections and it's all extremely terrifying when you don't feel as if you belong. I'll see where it takes me.

The real fun of the BHW is something I'm not even sure I can tell people about yet. It's extremely geeky and exciting, and so far only four people know about it - two of them being my parents! Hopefully I can make that announcement soon. When I can, it'll be on my Google+ account, Twitter and Facebook, with an update in my positions on LinkedIn. Blimey, I feel so professional with all of this going on, now! I'm geeking out!

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