I sold my book! The hearth magic book has been accepted! They want to massage the title, but that always happens.
Details of the offer are being discussed. So technically I haven’t really sold it yet, as we still have to work out the offer and my counteroffer… but essentially, yes.
Let the (conditional) rejoicing begin!
(Also, I just realised that this will be book number five. Yikes.)
Liam woke up at 5:20 this morning, and because I have begun doing Clocks-Back-Math in preparation for Sunday (later bedtime, later nap, later getting up… the latter is still theoretical at the moment but the to-sleep times seem to be going well) it meant it would have been 4:20, and there was no way I was going to let that become a precedent. I got up and asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, and he did (the night-time diaper was only a teeny bit damp, too!). Then we went back into his dark room and I read him a quiet story, put him back in his bed, and said night-night. He played quietly until he fell asleep, and slept almost two more hours till 7:45. (Well, 6:45 if I carry the Clocks-Back-Math through properly.) The one good thing about the sun not rising till seven-thirty these days is you can tell a toddler it’s the middle of the night and he believes you.
He asked to wear his Incredibles shirt again today. I’m going to have to get transfer paper for dark colours and do a better one for him. I foresee a series of cool personalised shirts as treats, now that we’ve begun. There’s a Totoro one in his future, maybe with soot-sprites on the sleeves.
Newest cool word he uses: ‘dirigible’.
No more Hallowe’en photos as of yet; we didn’t get any more ourselves, but somewhere down the line there may be some from his caregiver. He had a wonderful time with his playmates there yesterday, bobbing for apples (he got one!), watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and reading monster stories. He even got a little loot bag from his caregiver at the end of the day; we tried to get him to say “trick or treat!” for it but all he managed was “Please? Treat?” When he opened it at home, it was hilarious to see him pull out the candy and discard it beside him, ignoring it in favour of the Hallowe’en pencil and eraser.
He asked me to draw myself with my cello today while we ate breakfast.
I’m sure some people are wondering when I’m going to get around to wishing the world a blessed Samhain. I’m one of those people who calculates the four fixed-date festivals astronomically, as the solstices and equinoxes are calculated, so my Samhain happens sometime next week; November 8 this year, if I remember correctly. (If you’re curious, they’re as follows: 0 degrees Aries – Vernal Equinox; 15 degrees Taurus – Beltane; 0 degrees Cancer – Summer Solstice; 15 degrees – Leo – Lughnassadh; 0 degrees Libra – Autumnal Equinox; 15 degrees Scorpio – Samhain; 0 degrees Capricorn – Winter Solstice; 15 degrees Aquarius – Imbolc.)
Right; back to work.
Extras by Scott Westerfeld
The Time Travelers (Gideon the Cutpurse) by Linda Buckley-Archer
Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould by Kevin Bazzana
Making Music for the Joy of It by Stephanie Judy
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Devilish by Maureen Johnson
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle (reread)
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle (reread)
Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie’s Song by Holly Black & Tony Tetrazzini
Extras, Devilish, and Twilight were, as I expected, consumed in one sitting each. I feel slightly bad for the YA writers I read, because I know how much work goes into crafting a book, and then I plough through it in an hour and a half.
Most of the month was taken up by the Bazzana book on Gould and the Judy book on adult amateur music-making, both thought-provoking non-fic.
This? Is fun. I like editing technical documents that I can understand.
I’ll have to work tomorrow night to make up for the half-day earlier that they want the document, and the half-day I lost today to a very slow file transfer, but it’s all hours.
I like work that is fun. It’s not exciting, but fun. Particularly in the not-insanely-stressful vein.
That Hallowe’en costume I said I’d do for Liam for his benefit?
It was a major hit with the boy this morning. We showed him the shirt and a small smile flitted across his face. He touched the logo gently and said, “Incredibles?” Then he enthusiastically helped take off his Nemo jammies and get the shirt on, and even was very interested in getting the ‘super-pants-socks’ on. Not bad for an iron-on transfer, a pair of black woollen tights, and a pair of red socks with the foot part cut off. It won’t win any prizes, but he adores it, which is what counts.
Perhaps there will be a better photo later. He wouldn’t sit still this morning. (Naturally!)
As I (cynically) expected, all is go this morning. The company accepted everything I quoted them, but silly me, I was waiting for someone to actually say ‘Yes, everything is fine, we’ll do this, thanks’. Nothing infuriates me more than a lack of response to direct questions to confirm a contract. My time is valuable. Even if I don’t have another immediate job lined up, there are other things I schedule into my days, and leaving me hanging not only screws up my week but other people’s weeks as well. I’m going to start using return receipts even if there have been no communication problems to date; maybe that will give me some peace of mind.
Good thing the imminent rewrites for the pregnancy book didn’t fall into my in-box yesterday with a three-day turnaround like I was afraid they would.
Apart from being irritated on principle, it will be good to feel productive for someone else and be paid for it rather than doing the whole future-investment thing of writing something uncontracted for myself. Now I’m just waiting for the link to the document to arrive, and then away we’ll go.
This has been what is known as a Bad Day.
The boy has been simply crazy. I have managed to make soup, and cupcakes, and bread all from scratch in an attempt to keep myself sane. I’m trying to find comfort in that. But there were laundry issues that threw my daily plan out of whack, and that potential client still hasn’t gotten back to me to confirm a contract that begins tomorrow. There has been no reply to my last two messages. The former outlined my fee and delivery bid; the latter reiterated the information and also courteously pointed out that I required confirmation, as I have the rest of the week to schedule. Still nothing. At this point, I am severely tempted to send them a polite message saying that as they have not replied to me I can only assume that they will not be availing themselves of my services, and that I have taken another contract that came up instead. (Granted, the other contract consists of paying work next week, but I may also be on the verge of selling a book; I’ll know tomorrow.) My week is in a holding pattern; their last communication was on Friday, to which I replied Monday morning. I am not a fan of freelancers being ignored until they’re suddenly needed yesterday. Particularly for a three-day deal with a ‘we must have it by this date’ deadline.
On the brighter side of things, HRH had good payroll news today: they’re treating each year of animation experience as equivalent work experience, and each year of education beyond the required level as two years. He just needs declarations of term of employment from his past employers. And once it’s all settled, he will receive a retroactive cheque to cover the deficit beyond the base salary the job offers. Very nice indeed.
The boy may have a Hallowe’en costume tomorrow, more for his entertainment than anything else. We shall see how creative I can be tonight. No stress, just fun.