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OP you did a great job climbing your way up to a very good position within IT and networking and I would like to congratulate you on that.

One thing that I hope you gleam form this experience and pay close attention to is that technology jobs and the IT industry in general is quite cyclical and sometimes they are not that stable.

Since its the end of the year a few weeks ago there might have been some HR consultant that you have never seen or even heard off at your company looking over your position on some spreadsheet to determine whether you should go or you should stay followed by a meeting. I've been to those.

At your level you are expensive as IT is a money sink not a profit center.

So the question I would ask myself if I was in your position is "Can I sustain this earning level?" and more importantly "Can I scale and if so what will it take?". What is your goal? Another Cisco cert or learning Openstack isn't the long term answer regarless of what you think the next technology flavor of the day is. Shit like that changes regularly....first it was MCSE, then CISCO, then whatever now its Saleforce consultants and programing languages.

Getting better with some tech might sustain you at your current level or close to it as IT shifts focus but if you want to stay at where you are or go beyond in IT your option is either project/program management, department management (either middle management or an IT director or higher) or working for yourself as either a freelancer or starting your own company that specializes in whatever it is that you are passionate about. (I would recommend the self employment route).

As a senior network engineer you are pretty much topped off as far as salary is concerned and if not you soon will be and when that happens it won't be long until you are replaced by someone who is younger, hungrier, more educated then you and who looks better to the company PR/HR machine on paper even if he can only do 50% of what you can do, and who will do it for 25%-40% less.

There isn't that much more room for you to go and beyond where you are now without a college degree, and without that paper you will be passed on for promotion regardless of your experience. I have seen this happen over and over to good and hard working people who were 100 times better then the dumbasses who got promoted. Once you see this over time it might make you bitter and angry toward your employers.

A college diploma wasn't as important a few years ago but thanks to the recent downturn in the economy which made many people go back to school, a masters degree is the new bachelors and many even middle management positions or sr. level networking positions are increasingly just closed to anyone without at least a bachelors. Getting promoted to a management position from a non management position is hard within a company you work at, so the best option is to get one at another company but without a degree its equally difficult.

I have many friends in the same position as you who rose to pretty good Senior level Network Engineer, Network Admin, Architect or similar positions over the last few years and they naively believe that they will be there forever or that their skills are so awesome that they will instantly get another job that pays more and be able to sustain it for another 5-6 years. They are all in the $85-100k+ range at best. They do not realize that the world is changing and its not just the technologies but the hiring practices where there is now heavy focus on cost cutting, getting the most while paying the least, and hiring contractors instead of full time employees.

Unless they are Sr. level programmers in some stack that companies rely on like .Net or SQL/Database programmers they aren't making over $110-$130. Only other non manager people I know who make 130-200+ are Senior and Staff Engineers with for example a Masters in Electrical Engineering and 10-20 years of experience working at very bleeding edge companies like MS, Google, WD, Intel, etc. (bleeding edge as far as access to tech and resources).

Learning python and openstack can take you toward the development route but you are still seen as an expense and still as a support resource not really different from any of the other IT guys to people who do not know any better yet make all the decisions.

Anyone else that i know who makes good money in IT or long term money is some sort of an upper manager and 90% of them are pretty incompetent (at least until you get to the VP or CEO level and even then you find a sociopath/ or peter principle hard at work) but they know how to effectively use hard working people like you to get ahead.

Its a myth that the computer industry and IT turns dropouts into wealthy businessmen. The Michael Dell's of the world did not work in an IT department for years getting certifications and learning how to set up their Juniper or Cisco routers. They were salesmen or entrepreneurs or they said "fuck the establishment" and decided to do shit their own way after they tried to sell out and no one wanted their shit.

I have spent many years in all levels of IT and it is shit. The best thing you can do is work for yourself. Get your certs, learn your tools, and build your network on their dime and then take all that knowledge that you accumulated and start your own thing, or freelance as an expert in your field. Promote yourself and grow your brand. Tinker with some shit on your spare time and solve a problem that everyone has. Then figure out how to sell it to them. This is key.

The amount of money you are making in Networking is great and should be commended. Compared to many other professions its amazing and more then many families make together. In IT however where you are at could be a gateway for many other opportunities. Don't think in linear terms of just going up with more certs.

Think of how you can provide greater value and automate that value so that you can provide even more value to a greater number of clients or people. That is what will set you free.

Working for your company will eventually end in your dismissal unless you fast track a degree via some online program or show them that you are on that path by telling everyone how you enrolled in shool and you are doing it for them.

I know you are proud of your accomplishment and that is good but don't forget that by cutting you from the company org chart along with someone else that might be on the chopping block for whatever reason you instantly make some manager look really good to his boss as he just saved the company over $150+k. (you and someone else's salary included). Although what you do you feel is important it does not mean that the company feels the same way too.

Upper management has no clue to what you do and only sees maybe 1/5 or 1/10 of what you are responsible for. If they can figure out a way to save 100k they will and if its your bosses ass on the line vs yours, guess who will get laid off? What you do can be easily outsourced or given to several other people in your group until a suitable replacement is found.

Companies always behave in illogical ways and what you think will happen never happens the way you imagined. Stay on your toes. Put away as much as you can while you are making great money for the raininy day that will come sooner then later.

So yeah don't stop with the GED keep going and get your BS in addition to just learning more tech or look at starting your own business as then having a degree won't matter as much since none of your clients will care. (only investors will if you are looking for funding).

Good luck!

I've been trying to shift focus to help other language creators get work, but it's difficult. Hollywood likes to work with people they know, or people that are near at hand. It's hard for them to go to a group of people who are uniquely qualified and choose one without a guild or something equivalent. That may eventually need to happen, but it's not going to happen now.

You will probably be able to achieve this over time as a consequence of being the go-to person for studios for language creation in a similar way that Hans Zimmer was able to create Remote Control and his other advertising/TV sound company (is it Bloody fingers? can't recall) being one of the top go-to guys in Hollywood for film scoring.

It will require you to create either a separate company for language creation maybe for a specific niche like TV only, or a platform and some way to screen for quality or selectiveness once the number of projects that come your way exceeds the amount of time you are able to devote to said projects and you start turning away business as a consequence.

This way you will be able to farm this out to your subordinates and take on a more managerial role while also providing quality control and mentorship. This is basically scaling a business 101 right?

Your reputation will initially drive the acquisition of new projects and convince studios to give other talents a shot because you will be guaranteeing that you are supervising the projects. Over time as you get the kinks and processes sorted your brand name and company will just become synonymous with language creation and at that point, it will be much easier to hire or recommend uniquely qualified and talented people that may be underexposed.

Buy a midi controller, and audio interface, download REAPER Daw (Digital Audio Workstation) software (alternatively buy FL Studio or Logic Pro if you are on Mac if you don't want REAPER. If you want to get into game audio then learn REAPER).

Go to google and type "free VST synth" and download some free synths then, go to the Native Instruments website and download Kontakt Start, and then go to Spitfireaudio.com and download LABS. Install it all into the DAW and then fire it up.

Then go to google and type "Royalty-Free sample loop libraries" and download some free royalty free sample loops. Put them in some folder like "audio samples"

Open up Reaper and make like 5 tracks. Go to your sample folder and drag some of these sample loops into different tracks and try arranging them into a song. Have one tack for drums, one for a synth/lead, one for pads/drones/atmospheres, one for a bass etc. Then start experimenting until the magic happens.

Then watch some Youtube videos on music theory and basic chord progressions and the orchestra. Then look up some Youtube videos related to exactly what you are trying to make or have an interest producing.

Then go back to Reaper or whatever DAW you bought, open up a few Synth VST instruments (Software synthesizers) you downloaded and try experimenting some more with different sounds and chords using those instruments instead of samples. Hit record and play a few chords on your keyboard or open up the midi roll and try to write some notes.

Then go back to Spitfireaudio and fill out the survey so you can get Spitfire Discover Orchestral Library for free. Load it up and start experimenting with it.

That is how you get started in composing.

Everything starts with you trying to make a track and learning while doing.

Then learn all the theory or whatever classical stuff you want. Music is theory.

If you don't have a midi controller you can just use samples for now and the virual midi keyboard built into reaper. Good luck!

Question for you. Are you female or male writing under a female pseudonym? I've read a while back that many authors even those who are male and write romance or erotica write under a female pen name and from first person pov. (the female/main character pov) as that is popular in the genre or the norm I guess. Is this still true?

I'm a guy and I write sci-fi stories myself but I always wanted to try my hand at writing romance and the few times I did I wasn't happy with the results.

Writing from a female point of view or writing realistic female characters is challenging to me.

Maybe I have it wrong because its all fantasy or female fantasy but to me its challenging getting into the head of a woman. (maybe thats not even necessary?). Its not that I don't have experience with women its just that women think differently than guys. For example as a guy writing out a scene as a female I might focus on things that a guy would focus and not necessarily what a woman would be thinking or doing.

So I guess my question is how do you go about getting better at writing in the genre, from 1st person as a female or describing a intimate scene as to make it of value to female readers and creating compelling and believable female leads and characters?

I understand that this is a rather complex and broad question but I am just trying to get an idea on what resources, tools, or techniques I could use to improve on creating more realistic and compelling female characters for Romance or in my case it would be sci-fi romance.

Most of the time I write I draw inspiration from real life and take people I know or met and their personalities into my writing. However when it comes to romance or female characers in my stories I feel that I tend to stumble, and that they are not fleshed out enough so I am looking at ways to improve.

Do you have any advice in writing Romance and female characters in general or good resources to check out?

Thank you very much for the great advice. :) I really appreciate it. great point about writing what people want not what I want to write at least starting out.