How I became a Full-Time Creative
I became a full-time creative in 2005 and since then my art and writing have been internationally licensed and exhibited in public venues. At first I felt people might be thinking, “I hope she didn’t give up her day job!” I knew if I didn’t believe, no one else would. I had to give my art a chance – it’s what I always wanted to do! I came up with a system, and it really worked for me – not just for my creative dreams but even things as basic as being able to buy my own house, getting ready for a trip, organizing for an exhibition, keeping track of opportunities and follow-ups and commissions, even getting fit! The process is now a digital app, called Quest Master, and there is also an inspirational guide book called Achieve Your Goals!
I enjoyed being part of the team behind the Quest Master® achievement app – you will see my artwork and writing as part of the inspirations in this fun and useful app, and I am the designer of the logo and icons. As shown below, we actually used the color scheme of my Lake of Dreams artwork to create the user interface, logo, icons and website color scheme for the Quest Master® app!
Logo and icons: 
Lake of Dreams: 
You will find this useful Quest Master® achievement app in the Apple App Store – learn more at this link:
I also wrote the Quest Master “Achieve Your Goals!” book and my Sailing artwork is on its cover.
The Quest Master achievement tools help you:
1. Set and OWN the goal
2. Start taking a few baby steps towards your goal AND KEEP ON WALKING!
3. Be accountable to your goal
Currently, the Quest Master tools are:
1. Quest Master cell phone and tablet app:
Using our Quest Master® app, you will write down a few words to describe a dream that you would really love to achieve. An example of a dream might be to write a cell phone app, paint a great painting, take an award winning photo of the Grand Canyon, achieve $100,000 in sales, publish your first novel, visit New Zealand,collect some great recipes, track your baseball cards or garage sale hobby, or to lose 20 pounds.
Whatever your dream, we call this dream a “Quest.”
After you’ve identified your Quest, Quest Master® tools give you a place to input one or two tiny potential baby steps towards your goal and then a ‘magic button’ to track your progress in achieving your Quest, using media (photos, video and audio), notes, scheduling, contacts, expenses, income, and more, all in one convenient place. Important: Quest Master is PRACTICAL – you don’t need to be clairvoyant or spend hours planning for the Quest Master® app to work, and you don’t need to create an exhaustive list of every step you’ll need to take in the future to accomplish your dreams. In fact, all you need to get started achieving your dream using Quest Master™ tools is your dream and just one idea for a first step on the path towards your dream.
Here is a video showing how Quest Master works. While the examples shown below are generic, Quest Master was designed to work for creatives. Instead of planning a vacation or starting a business, your Quest could just as easily be to take a photo in the Grand Canyon or get your first license for your art.
Another problem that Quest Master solves is that with Quest Master, there will be no more hunting all over your mobile device looking for that one picture, note or old calendar entry – now you can find everything relating to your Quest in one place – simply by using this Quest Master™ app! You can also use Quest Master™ software tools to organize and save recipes, photographs, videos, audio, to track income and expenses, organize your new house or car search, keep track of daily to-do’s, and much more!
Why the Quest Master® tools worked for me:
I love the Quest Master® app’s super easy, convenient 
button!
With this one cost-effective Quest Master™ app, by simply using our unique ‘Add Your Progress’ button, you can:
• Track your progress and accomplishments, AND
• Access all your important related info in one convenient list for each Quest, AND
• Schedule events towards achieving your Quest, add photos/video/audio and notes for each Quest, identify key contacts for each Quest, and track your expenses and income relating to each Quest (very helpful at Tax Time!).
Quest Master® achievement tools are designed so that you don’t need to be clairvoyant or spend hours planning for the Quest Master™ app to work, and you don’t need to create an exhaustive list of every step you’ll need to take in the future to accomplish your dreams. In fact, all you need to get started achieving your dream using Quest Master™ tools is your dream and just one idea for a first step on the path towards your dream.
Quest Master® brand achievement software is designed so that you can see and track all your notes, media, events, contacts, income and expenses for a particular Quest. For added flexibility, we know that sometimes you might wish to see all your media together (or all your notes, income, expenses, contacts or events), so we’ve arranged for you to be able to do that too, at the push of one button. That means you can also see, regardless of what Quest you are in, all your media, notes, events, contacts, income and expenses – very helpful!
Since so many people and creatives are visual, the Quest Master® app also has a unique color-coded icon format to help you classify your progress at a glance. For example, the Contacts icon is predominantly orange and when you view your progress you will see that each Quest Master™ app Contact has an orange font associated with it. You can also see a color-coded list of your Events to show you at a glance the timing of Events. The full Quest Master™ app Color Chart is available in the User Manual (and it’s a full user manual – you can see it online at Quest.bz before you make that 99 cent investment!).
It is my hope that the Quest Master app will work for you the way it has worked for me – and that when you see how FUN and FULFILLING it is to see progress towards your dreams, and when you see how easy it is to track your progress, that you will accomplish many, many Quests with our Quest Master™ app! Fun tidbit: We even used a beta version of the Quest Master™ achievement app to help us create the Quest Master™ achievement app!
Quest Master™ Achievement App is now available for your Apple iPhone in the Apple App Store!
Feeling locked up and not believing in yourself? Take a look at the Achieve Your Goals! book, which is all about achieving your dreams.
Achieve Your Goals! in paperback:
Achieve Your Goals! in Digital format:
You can learn more about Quest Master at the Quest.bz website.
I really hope this helps you the way it helped me! Keep in touch and let me know how it goes!
-Nicole
M. Nicole van Dam
Travel well on your journeys
What you find cannot be guessed
What you leave cannot be known truly
Yet somehow between the unforeseen and the unknown
We meet.
In that meeting, swift or long
We make a difference in one another’s song
In that brief breath when the past says goodbye
When the future is a flicker ahead
We pause time
Thank you for lingering this moment in mine.
