Category Archives: Writing

*headdesk*

Today, I got last week’s manuscript evaluation back, with comments and requests for a few tweaks.

The good? I am, apparently, awesome. And looking at the few edits and changes the co-ordinator did in the evaluation, I am more than on the right track; I am in the zone. They love me. Virtual high-fives, everyone! I am an evaluating goddess!

The bad? I need to rework an entire section because I pointed out weaknesses and didn’t suggest solutions. I need this like a hole in my head. (Actually, maybe a hole in my head would solve the perpetual headache I seem to have.) When am I going to do this? Worse, how? I didn’t suggest solutions because I couldn’t see any at the time. [ETA: Oh good; they need it back tomorrow sometime, so I don’t need to turn it around in the next two hours.]

The other bad? I spent so much time making sure that this, my first official MS evaluation, was okay that I ended up diluting the per-project fee down to about $5 an hour. This extra bit is going to further dilute that. I know, I know, I’ll get better; I certainly won’t stress about it and poke at it so much in the future, now that I know the way I handle it is all right.

I need to go take a lot of Tylenol and lie down for a bit. Then I’ll come back to it and give it a shot.

In other news, I think I have a workable new introduction for the previously-known-as-hearthcraft-book, but I am having a lot of trouble facing the rest of the book to find places to insert title-associated information. I’m so disillusioned about it. I can certainly compromise and meet people halfway on projects, and have in the past about certain things, but this is a really, really bitter thing to swallow.

Floored

This is by no means a done deal — in fact I have no idea if I’ll do it or not — but:

I’ve just been invited to replace Laurie Cabot as a guest speaker at this year’s Hamilton Pagan Pride festival.

I haven’t said yes. I said “Urk” and “OMG” and “I’m honoured” and “Let me know more about what you expect out of a guest speaker before I decide, please”.

I’m wondering how desperate they must be for a replacement if they’re asking me. Apparently Brendan Myers gave them my name, gods bless him. I don’t know whether to thank him or hit him with a book when I see him this July.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been invited to speak at a festival or conference. The year the boy was born I was invited to speak at the Spirits of the Earth festival (which didn’t happen because, well, premature baby and green witch deadline, and the logistics would have been nightmarish), and I was confirmed as a guest for the 2006 Gaia Gathering but had to cancel because of family stuff and finances.

So. Yes. That’s what new in Autumn-land.

I’ve bashed out a new intro to the hearthcraft book intro to reflect the new title, and now I have to walk away from it before going through the rest of the MS and inserting appropriate references to said new title. Maybe I’ll play the cello for a while. After I take something for this headache that has crept up out of nowhere, that is.

Welcome To My Nightmare

I just sent in the final piece of material supplementing the first MS evaluation I’ve completed for the new company I’m freelancing for, an e-mail meant for the editorial staff alone summarizing my experience with the manuscript.

In which I misspelled the author’s name.

And this after countless warnings and admonitions in the piles of manuals and documentation I waded through that impress upon reviewers the need to be as professional as possible and as correct as possible, because authors don’t like it when you criticize their writing and make mistakes in you own. Which is perfectly reasonable.

I misspelled the author’s name.

I saw it just as my finger left the send button and couldn’t catch the message in time. I immediately resent it with the correct spelling and a brief note that I’d sent a draft by accident. And it was a staff-only e-mail, not something that was going to the author, thank the gods. But still. What a horrendous way to begin my working relationship with them.

This does nothing for the squirrels in my stomach and skull that are scrabbling away, wondering if I pulled it off all right. I only received three negative pieces of criticism on my test evaluation, but still, you know me; my inner editor is having a field day. In fact, it’s the one whipping the squirrels into a bloodthirsty frenzy. Because a real author is going to get my thirty-one page evaluation, and have to read it and digest it and see someone’s real-live opinion of what s/he has written, and I know what working through an editorial memo of a tech read is like. The point of editing is to show the author how s/he could make things better.

I have to let it go. It’s done. I wouldn’t have been hired if they hadn’t thought I could do it professionally enough.

But AUGH!

Monday

I worked all weekend. Saturday morning we went out and about for a bit, but I worked in the afternoon, chasing the end of an idea for the new YA novel and setting things up for the MS review. Yesterday was eight hours of freelance MS review, and I’ll be finished it by the end of today. Then I can turn to changing the hearthcraft book as per orders.

It’s Victoria Day and a holiday here in Canada, so HRH is home. I’m thankful because it gives me a day to work and I don’t have to pay a caregiver. The weather is rainy and cold, which is unfortunate. HRH and the boy went off to the EcoMuseum this morning but I’ve just had a call telling me that it’s pouring out there so they’re heading to an indoor playground instead. I made pretzels this morning and have already finished my second one. I need to have quick and easy food available to me in the mornings, and the granola bars I make to see me through the week disappear in a day or so, eaten as snacks. There’s a new loaf of bread rising too. Over the weekend HRH reset the vegetable bed, tilled our compost into it, and planted peas, corn, carrots, and onions. I forgot about getting seed potatoes, so maybe next year. There’s corn and sunflowers strewn along the side of the house too. We’ll see what happens. All my herbs are coming back, and we’re going to get peppers and lettuce and maybe some cucumbers. We always end up with one or two leftover tomato plants from other people, and I’m the only one who eats them in the house so there’s no point in planting our own.

One year ago today was the live dual-band gig. The year off has been good. I do miss playing, but I only miss the parts where it was going well. I don’t think anyone misses the time eaten up by rehearsals and travelling to rehearsals and home practice. Even if we’d been in the headspace to keep going, various health issues, work commitments, and plain old timetable incompatibility on everyone’s part would have forced us to go on hiatus anyhow. All those things logically preclude a reunion at this time. I am very much looking forward to being at Invisible’s upcoming show and not having to worry about conserving my voice or energy for our own performance.

Unless something miraculous happens (like an anonymous money order for fifteen hundred dollars arriving in my mailbox) I’m not going to have the new 7/8 cello in time for the Canada Day concert. I’m disappointed, but I’ll live. I suspect it will have been sold by the time I can buy it this summer, so I may not have one at all until this fall. I wonder if a home trial of this one is even worth it. I’m glum about it, because it was pretty much the one thing keeping me upbeat about things this past month.

Right. To work.

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.

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.