Category Archives: Writing

Present

Shock of shocks: I am actually at my home computer. Liam is napping, and I have a review to write, which is due… yesterday? — WHERE has the this year gone? I don’t get a chance to be here often; I don’t have the time in the mornings and I generally fall into bed directly after dinner these days, which in turn follows dinner for Liam, his bath, and putting him to bed. (I was asleep at 8:30 last night. Seriously.)

So naturally, I am hopping about on the net while I think about how to phrase things properly.

(Later: If you run the questionnaire and the daemon’s form shifts, do me a favour and let me know what it morphs into so I can track the changes? Thanks!)

It is very odd to be working with an ergo keyboard again, because of course, my keyboard at work is a regular one. Speaking of work, as of Friday I have been on this contract for one whole month (see above re. ‘where has the time gone’). I got to invoice for another very nice amount.

We did a $250 grocery order today. It feels very, very good to have a full pantry and fridge, and even overflow in the garage. And HRH has headed off to the hardware store to buy a French door for my office, because the cats have officially demonstrated themselves as untrustworthy in it and I’m tired of how dark it gets when the office door is closed, as it shuts away the light of one of the few windows we have. We’ve been talking about a French door for this room since we moved in; it will be nice to finally follow through on it.

The general feedback I’ve been getting from people is confirming my suspicion that the Shorter OED is more useful, so that’s the one I’ll end up buying. This is fine; it means that I can buy myself an older edition of the Compact for the geek factor at some point in the future as a completely unnecessary gift.

I have a babysitter for the gig night, which means both my parents and my in-laws can come to the show! (Thank you Sam, and thank you Scarlet for suggesting her!)

Back to the review. This is the first bit of writing I’ve done in, well, a month. (Yes, that means exactly what it says, for all of you who have asked for work from me. Full time work plus toddler equals no time for anything else.)

Cue the Carols

To quote t!: “I’m… dreaming… of a white… Victoria Day Weekend…”

This post-Easter snowstorm made my commute home absolute misery, starting with the hour and ten minutes I stood outside waiting for a lift that only arrived (of course) after I resorted to public transit. While I was cold and wet and miserable, the worst thing was not knowing where HRH and Liam were and if they were okay. Both parties got home within five minutes of one another, and Liam was surprisingly not insane from being cooped up for two and a half hours in the car. He even ate some dinner before bed. HRH was mildly spare, however, and I was completely unhinged of course, imagining horrible things. This weekend, I am buying HRH a cellular phone.

Work proceeds apace. True to Meallanmouse‘s prediction today, I was asked how much longer I thought the project would take me should my contract be extended. As I’ve already been separately spoken to by the two heads who hired me about the near certainty of said extension, we shall see what happens tomorrow. Apparently it would be all right if I worked at home two days a week, which makes life much easier because HRH is working out on the West Island Mondays and Tuesdays, and needs to be on-site by the time Liam’s caregiver opens shop, as well as requiring the car to get there (otherwise it’s something like a two-hour commute). This way I can drop HRH off, then Liam, come home and work, then pick them up. If I had to go in to work on-site I’d lose an hour and a half of work time, assuming I took the car. Working at home on those two days is simply more efficient.

I learn at least one new word a day on this project. And it turns out I have been misusing “pursuant” all these years.

On today’s lunch adventure, Mellanmouse introduced me to the best fries I’ve had since the Frite Pit changed ownership over twenty years ago. Yesterday, it was an awesome Greek pita in the company of HRH and Fearsclave. Who knows what tomorrow will be?

I read A Long Shadow earlier this week, and am now over halfway through Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III (astute and obsessive readers may remember this as one of the topics that popped into my brain last fall and began scratching at the windows, whining for attention, pining to be a YA historical).

There is more; I keep a scratch pad with ideas that occur to me as the day goes along, but I’m really tired and still cold from the damp, no matter how many socks and sweaters I put on. To bed.

Monday Morning, With All It Implies

It’s gloomy and overcast today. See how I am not drawing a parallel between the weather and the fact that it is election day here in Quebec.

I voted. I have never been so disinterested in an election before.

I have no idea what I’m working on today. I may open random in-progress files until I find one that looks interesting.

On the bright side, despite the two massive snowstorms in March, the snow has almost completely vanished, with a curious lack of commonly associated runoff.

Monday Morning

So very, very tired. Yes, it’s my default setting these days. That doesn’t make it any easier.

This morning I found some artificial flowers left over from a craft project a few years ago, twisted them into a bunch and tied odds and ends of ribbons around them, then hung them on the front door. Spring will be here tomorrow night, and I’ll be damned if I let the piles of snow continue to depress me.

We bought a new 18-gallon recycling bin yesterday, to complement our regular size bin. The new one is already full. (My life is exciting, is it not?)

Saturday night we had people over to celebrate Tal‘s birthday, and it was interesting to see that while we’d stated a late-afternoon start time to accomodate those with families and later engagements (of which we knew there were many), a surprising number of people not in those categories came earlier than we’d expected too. It was terrific to see so many friends again, most of whom I hadn’t seen in ages. Apart from the unexpected lack of birthday candles (later I remembered that I’d brought them to my mother in law for a party last year) the cake recipe I tried for the first time flew impressively well, although I somehow managed to unintentionally get all the way from one to ten o’clock without having a meal. I think all I consumed were two cups of tea and a bite of a bar cookie, until most of the guests had left and I made myself a sandwich. (That may have had something to do with the amount of desserts people brought to the potluck — holy cats!) I was very impressed by Liam, who went to bed only a bit later than usual and slept through the last four or five hours of the party. While HRH was reading to Liam in his room we sang Happy Birthday to Tal; the boy looked up and listened to the song, then applauded when everyone else did and said “Yay!” before going back to his book.

Today: more work, more outlining, more brainstorming, some research. The kind of thing that I know theoretically qualifies as work, but doesn’t feel as satisfying or as if it really counts as accomplishment because there aren’t words on a page. It’s been a while since I brainstormed random ideas for stories. It’s both more and less work than I remember it being. Sure, now I have a list of ideas, but no details spring to mind for any of them. Details used to pour into my brain faster than I could note them down. And the end of the Pandora book is going very slowly indeed.

Look, Shiny!

Yes, of course, what I really need right now is a shiny new story idea eating my brain, complete with a set of new research to be done and books to be bought, to distract me from finishing The Moments of Being Pandora.*

*headdesk*

On the other hand, I played some very pretty cello for half an hour this afternoon, firmly muted so no one could hear me.

—–
* Actually, what’s eating my brain right now is whether I ought to write it in first-person or third-person, and if the latter, then omniscient or limited?

Mailbox Joy!

Not one, but two cheques!

Payment for work done is a lovely thing. That’s one of the hard things about this business: you put in a lot of work, and only see a lump sum somewhere down the line. These aren’t large, but any money is good money.

Not as lovely was the parcel pick-up slip in the mailbox. The postman didn’t even bother to ring. It’s dated Friday, when I was home all day; the time is marked only “PM”; and the ‘other’ box is checked as the reason. At least s/he had the decency to not claim the delivery was attempted but no one was home. Likely s/he was running late and decided to drop the last parcels at the postal counter instead of actually trying to deliver them. Whatever — it is the lovely lovely black velvet Edwardian-style jacket I got for a song on eBay! Huzzah! I will pick it up tomorrow on a walk with the boy.

Full weekend: a thoroughly enjoyable show of The Mikado on Friday night, brunch out on Saturday with the Preston-Leblancs, brunch in on Sunday morning, psankya egg-decorating early Sunday afternoon, a great visit out to spend time with Karine, Adam, and boys late Sunday afternoon, and an excellent, excellent Sinfonia concert Sunday night. My view of the celli was blocked by the person in front of me, and I found I could appreciate the music as a whole more since I wasn’t watching what the cellists were doing. I wasn’t ‘working’, in other words. Now if I could just switch that analysis mode off at will when I’m reading books….