I got bad news last night that the two elderly foxes at the EcoMuseum didn’t survive the winter. I feel odd – a group of friends got together and adopted one for me for twelve months as a birthday gift last year (quite possibly the best birthday present I’ve ever received – I can’t think of others which have thrilled me that much as this one did!). Rusty was my personal favourite, although Claudius had his charm. Now they’ve both gone to foxy-heaven where I am sure they will dance with mice before eating them whole, sun themselves, and play hide and go seek in long waving grass, striped with sunlight and shade.

The good news is that the EcoMuseum will be receiving fox kits as replacements! So I’ll have to go along and see them and pick one that I will cherish as my very own – at least until my last four months are up.

I�m feeling bit run over this morning. The editing job was wonderful, but would have made a whole day�s work on its own if I�d had the choice; as it is I did 5 hours of data work for the day job, then hit the computer again at 5.45 PM to start the freelancing. Tumbled into bed at 1 AM, got up at 5.30 for another appointment with my osteopath, dragged myself home and now am engaged in a very delicate reheating of a chocolate croissant as I contemplate my green tea. I think orchestra�s going to be dropped on my list of priorities tonight in favour of coming home and sleeping. Please gods, let this day be gentle.

On top of that, that fever which turned into a cold seems to have chosen my throat and only my throat as its victim. Swollen, sore, and my voice has dropped an octave. The rest of me feels fine. Go figure.

The one thing I don�t feel so good about is not being able to put that document away for the night and look at it again all the way through the 110 pages before I sent it back. I like to walk away from my work for a bit to see it with fresh eyes, just to be certain. It was a rush job though, and it was needed before a 9 AM meeting today, so off it went. All in all, I feel terrific about the editing. I�m good at it, I helped someone else, I made money doing it. Amazing.

I know times move quickly, but really! My dictionary appears to be out of date. My parents gave it to me at the beginning of my high school graduating year. I just tried to look up “web site” to see if it’s a hyphenated compound word or two nouns, and my dictionary doesn’t list it. It dates from 1987.

This helps me not at all in my quest as I edit.

Note to self: buy updated dictionary.

Argh. Just reread my post on that editing job, did the math, and realised that I have been in retail for eleven years.

It’s a wonder I’m not institutionalised.

(That is, “placed in an institution”, not “made established”.)

Someone save me.

I love reading other people’s blogs. When I read blogs of people I know personally, I can hear their voices. Like Ceri, for instance – I can hear her voice perfectly. Other blogs I read, those blogs written by people I’ve never met in my life, like Kat’s, are blogs where I get to imagine a voice speaking the post aloud. I have fun doing it. It’s so interesting to see how a personality can leap out of someone’s writing style and present you with a mental image of who the author is. Nine times out of ten, you’ll never meet the person so you’ll never know how close you were. That tenth time, though, you’re either validated in knowing they’re just like you imagined them, or completely thrown by how off you were! Ah, the anonymity of the Internet, where you can pretend to be someone else entirely…

Wow! Just snagged a freelance editing job. My dream jobs basically boil down to the following:

1. Writing.
2. Fixing other people�s writing.

The problem is, in my experience, as soon as something I love becomes my job, I stop loving it so much. For example: I loved children�s literature, so I worked at a children�s lit store for five years. I love SF and Fantasy, so I worked at a F/SF store for four years (RIP, Nebula� sigh). I�m Pagan, so when the F/SF shop closed I transferred quite happily to an occult bookshop. I�m coming up on two years there, and you know, it�s a way of life, all right, but coming home from work to settle down with the same books you sell daily just isn�t a mental respite from the 9-5 haul.

I�m reading more SF and Fantasy again, though. So it�s not a complete loss.

Anyway, my point is, if all I did was write or fix other peoples� writing, I might not enjoy it so much. I don�t know; I�ve never had the opportunity to find out. I�d like to find out. I do manage to do a lot of writing in my current job: communication sort of stuff, like press releases, info pamphlets, short articles on aspects of Pagan life, that sort of thing. (It occurs to me that if I did this freelance I�d be paid $20 more an hour. Hmm.) The main thing I have to deal with in my current job, however, is customers. Customers are my downfall � constantly interrupting the writing-type things I�m supposed to get done on the computer, calls pulling me away from the in-store customers interrupting those things which are waiting on the computer� you get the idea. Customers in a retail setting and clients for whom you complete writing contracts are not the same thing in my opinion, which automatically promotes freelance writing/editing to a higher position on my desire scale.

The only drawback to this freelance editing job is that I have 90 or so pages to get done on Tuesday night, since it’s being sent to me Tuesday afternoon, I don’t get home until 7.30-ish, and it�s due Wednesday morning. Ergo, my date to watch the video of The Gondoliers with the cast and crew to pick it apart has just been cancelled. This is sad. The paycheque at the end of it all will soothe the disappointment, though. I blow many kisses to Amanda for thinking of me!

I had a chat with the PoohBah last week about blogging. It�s an interesting pursuit. It�s sort of like a diary, only not, as you�re writing something that people will eventually read. Yet, it�s a solitary thing; you write for your own benefit (at least I do), knowing that there is a theoretical audience out there, but the actual writing is to satisfy something inside you.

Personally, I blog because it�s discipline. I�ve been a writer since I could hold a pencil. I�ve finished a novel. I�ve written for magazines. (Unpaid, of course. Sigh.) I have piles of stories and articles that no one else has ever seen. I�ve got a non-fiction book on the back burner, simmering away. (Blame MLG for that one too!) The one thing that successful writers tell people is to write for a certain period every day, even if you think you have nothing to say. (The other thing they tell you, of course, is to write what you know.) So posting to a web log is my way of disciplining myself. It�s easier to type the torrent of what�s in your mind than to write it out longhand. Although, I�m a fountain pen girl, and I adore blank books; when I do research I write everything out on paper, and then I undergo the frustration of retyping it all. I�m very slow at retyping. Voice recognition software is currently one of those things on my priority list.

Blogging is also a way to keep in touch, and to share my thoughts with people I don�t necessarily get to speak to that often. Of course, then you occasionally run into the problem of someone asking, �So what�s new?�, and when you start to tell them they say, �Oh yeah, I read that on your page�, so you have to change gears. There�s always something to share, though. I find that blogging helps me organise my mind, and gives me an outlet for things niggling at my brain. I write it down; it gets posted; I can move on. Whether you read it or not is immaterial; it�s out there now. Of course, having you read it is delightful too, and comments interest me as well.

Ultimately, I think blogging is a way of giving back to the world which sparks so many thoughts in my mind.