My name is Diane Cox. This website is under development. For now, this page is the hub. I hope it evolves into the home of Diane Cox - Novelist!
A current passion
Cubberley High School Reunion - Class of '59My, how time flies when you are having fun.
I've been having a blast as webmistress of our reunion site. The software we are using is kick-ass! You can see it here - Class Creator
Writing
All my life I have wanted to write - but didn't. Like many who come to writing late in life, I didn't feel I had anything to say. Then out of the blue in 2007 a novel just sprang to life in my imagination. I rushed to write it down, spewing forth 350 words in a mere four months. You can imagine what a mess it was. I have spent the last year and a half, refining and re-writing, taking courses and getting back my long lost skills. I hope it will soon be ready to make the rounds to editors. I realize my timing isn't great - publishing is going through a lot of changes right now, but I am hopeful. I have a blog for this work in progress - Wiregrass Country. It has been fun adding images that go with the story and chronicling my efforts.
Photography
Last year I upgraded my camera to a digital Canon. What a treat! It is a fantastic piece of equipment. I enrolled with the New York Institute of Photography in order to learn better how to use it. However, I can just get so far without hands on instruction. I learn from seeing, rather than reading. I have taken a lot of floral photos with this camera, some of which like this cosmos will appear on this page.
Web Design
My desire to create outstrips a couple of things in my life -a) the time to devote to learn how to do what I want and b)the money to make it not matter how I am using my time! One of my goals is to learn to use Adobe Illustrator and create cool graphic designs of my own.
Jewelry
A few years ago I started fooling around with making jewelry. I was pretty bad at it to begin but eventually got better and have actually sold some pieces.
I have also donated two pieces for auction for charity. Now, I maintain a section on this web site where my jewelry is featured - Stone Blossoms.
Gardening
I am proud to say I was a pioneer on the web. I started a little gardening webzine in 1995 called the Atlanta Garden Connection. It was doing pretty well, but my other business was bringing in cash, so I closed it in 2001. What a mistake! My competitors at the time have since sold their sites for big bucks. Oh, well. I put it up again earlier this year, but now it's one of thousands and isn't getting a lot of traffic. I'll give it a few more months.
Coaching
During the course of my business career, I have had many occasions to offer advice to people and help them along their way. When I owned an executive search firm, I spent a bit too much time in this endeavor, but got quite good at it. When the rage for life coaching came about, I decided to take a course in coaching. I applied this skill for about a year, in addition to my regular business. All of us have things they are proud of in life, and I am proud of how many people I helped to find a new career, even out of their industry. My main source of income was really taking off so I focused on it instead. Recently I decided to start the coaching again. As you can see by this page, I am a multitasker! My coaching is geared toward small start up businesses - the name of this new endeavor is Create a Business. My intent is to help new business owners with the basic structure of a small business - employee manuals, operational structure, accounting basics, marketing, web presence etc. I have thirty years experience and feel quite certain I can be of help. My partner in the project has thirty plus years experience in employment law - an area all of us should know about. We both want to make our services available in small, affordable increments, in consideration of the high expense of starting any new business.
