Author Archives: Autumn

Back To Bad

I avoided opening e-mail this morning until after the boy and I came back from lunch with his grandma and he went down for his nap, and now I know why.

My consultant contract with the publisher isn’t being renewed. Not because they don’t like me, they have hastened to clarify, but because the imprint isn’t doing as well as they want it to (the titles aren’t as successful as titles aimed at basic intro level stuff) and so they’re putting it all on hold indefinitely. My services are no longer needed.

I also got the report on the hearthcraft book. It needs overhauling so that it’s more in tune with what they want before they can accept it and pay me for it. This is tied to the forced name change. Again I am assured that I am one of the best authors they’ve worked with and it just needs tweaking to be less like what I wrote and more like what they want to publish. This is going to delay my payment for another eight weeks. I was really, really counting on it to arrive next month.

No movement/news on the pagan pregnancy book yet.

And our original weekend plans fell through. I wish I was looking forward to the long weekend.

I am really, really not having a good month.

More 7/8 Nattering, With A Side Of Other Stuff

My principal cellist thinks I should get the 7/8. Of course she’s going to listen to critically in a couple of weeks when I take it home on trial, but she strongly endorses the lateral trade notion. She thinks the size and proportion difference will have a positive impact on my playing and comfort.

I am being enabled on all sides. People, you’re killing me! I can’t afford this for another month, assuming my second hearthcraft cheque arrives around the eight week post-delivery mark (which is not guaranteed). And on top of that I need to do about three hundred dollars’ worth of repairs on the cello I’ve got now. And somewhere along the way we need to do the new computer thing, too, although it’s not critical now that I’ve got the laptop pretty much set up for now. Neither is the cello, of course. I hate being in limbo about so much, work-wise and otherwise.

There is some good news today, however: the publisher with whom I set up the freelance manuscript review gig contacted me this morning and told me they’d pretty much settled after their move and were beginning operations again. So that’s less on hold than it was.

Work Of A Sort

I spent the day researching and looking for images to help inspire me for the YA orchestra novel idea. I alternated between that and writing a 2000 word essay for an anthology I was invited to submit to.

I’m late on the boy’s 35 month post; that was mostly drafted too, but half my photos are on the other hard drive and I hadn’t gotten around to backing them up to the external drive when the hardware failed. I think it’s going to be scant on photos this time around.

And a third random thing: The colour of the 7/8 cello is somewhat like the one of this page, only it’s shinier with a few more amber-caramel tones to it.

Off to get the boy.

Sigh

When uninspired, do research on the last project that interested you.

Which was frustrating on its own, because what I was researching didn’t appear to exist. Until I made myself step outside the train of thought, think tangentially, followed a different route, and discovered that it isn’t called what I logically expected it to be called.

Argh.

Also figured out that I’m going to have to set this book in Canada. Not a bad thing; just that unlike most of my other books, the idea for this one set itself in the US from the get-go. I can’t find enough information about the topic to comfortably set it in the States, though, so Canada it is.

Also, there is no chocolate in the house. This is ungood.

Grr

I cannot for the life of me settle down to work on something today. Part of my problem is that I’m not immediately in the middle of a project. And since there’s nothing I have to work in, I get to choose what I’d like to work on, and despite the list of in-progress-at-various-stages novels/novellas and so forth, none of them are calling me. I also can’t pick music to listen to, so I’ve just set my whole collection of MP3s on shuffle. Except now I’m hearing things I don’t recognise and hovering my cursor over the icon of the player to see what it is.

Another more significant part of the problem, I suspect, is that I’m very much in limbo. I’m waiting for word on the pregnancy book. I’m waiting for the editorial letter and first set of edits addressing the hearthcraft book. I’m waiting for the go-ahead from the gaming company to continue developing content. I’m waiting for the publisher for whom I’m doing the freelance manuscript reviews to finish moving and restart operations again.

I wonder if I’m somewhat burnt out. I want to be working on something, I do, because I feel irritated and useless when I’m not. I don’t like feeling irritated, because then when the day is over I feel very nasty about myself because I haven’t accomplished or advanced anything. It’s a stupid, stupid work ethic thing and I can’t shake it.

What I want to do is play the 7/8 again. I don’t want this instrument to eat my brain when I could be using those grey cells for something else. I spent much too much time searching for new hard cases that would fit a 7/8 on the internet this morning. (My old hard case is cracked and weighs a tonne, and my current large 4/4 doesn’t even fill it entirely; a 7/8 would rattle around dangerously in it, beyond what extra padding could do.) I experimented with possible names for it during one of my many wakeful moments last night. Nothing yet. This doesn’t indicate anything yet beyond the fact that it didn’t steal my soul the moment I played it.

I don’t feel like reading, either. Grr, grr, grr.

Parallels

Michelle West writes an excellent parallel between writing books and mothering here.

A belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. My day began very early, waking up with a jump at the crash made by a small boy dropping a play tea set on the floor next to the bed ( “Oh hi, Mama, I making you tea!”), moved through brunch with the Preston-LeBlanc clan (complete with smoked salmon, mimosas, a heaping bowl of fresh strawberries, and waffles), and ended with an afternoon with HRH’s parents and excellent steak.