Category Archives: Writing

*sniff*

It hasn’t been an easy week. Today’s “I-can’t-believe-this” moments included the discovery that the author of this MS left out about fifteen pages of text and rituals here and there — just never wrote them. Guess who picks up the slack?

The good news is that they extended my deadline to Tuesday (because Monday is President’s Day!), and thank goodness, because I had no idea I’d have to get this creative. Someone’s evidently looking out for me on this project, because I have all Monday to do it now. All the impressive work I’ve been pulling off has garnered me a nice break. (Look — karma in action!)

Anyways, HRH just came home and handed me a Kim Possible valentine and a box of hand-made chocolates with a big grin. “You didn’t have to do that,” I said, melting completely. (First over the Kim Possible Valentine – you have no idea how much of a kick I got out of it — and then the chocolate.) “I know,” said HRH. “But you’ve had a hard week.” He knows how disgusted I feel about artificial celebrations like Valentine’s Day, which are pushed by commercial operators and socialise people to think that being part of a relationship is the Right Thing and expected of everyone. Spending money doesn’t make you any more special to someone. Sure, it’s nice to be spoiled sometimes, but I’d prefer to be spoiled on an occasion of HRH’s choosing. Although the laugh’s on me this year – apparently it’s fun to give me stuff when I don’t expect it, and since I don’t expect anything on Valentine’s Day, well…

In fact, I got two Valentines today. The first was from my goddaughter, which was simply adorable. I have both of them pinned up on my bulletin board.

Dress rehearsal for the Beethoven tonight. Let’s hope all goes well.

Deliberate Redundancy

One hundred and eighty dollars later, I now have new lenses in my second-to-last pair of glasses to use at home, and my last year’s pair will stay in my purse. Now I theoretically can’t leave my glasses at home next to the computer, which is what’s been happening.

Something’s wrong with my host server for Owldaughter; the control panel also seems to be rejecting my password so I can’t log in to find out what’s up.

Wrote my foreword for the first book being released by the new imprint yesterday, and sent it off this morning. They’ve already pulled a quote from it to use as cover copy.

Eep.

Update: Ah. My host is migrating servers yet again. It would be nice if they warned us.

Ow

Another day of burning brain cells on this manuscript. I’m just finishing up my foreword for it, after a long nap and some dinner. I’m exhausted. Tomorrow is more editing of the final chapters that came in this evening, as well as an optometrist appointment to make sure my prescription isn’t outdated, a second set of glasses, and a dress rehearsal for the Beethoven.

Ibuprofen and cat naps are my friends.

Less Funnies

If I find the phrase “you should” one more time in this manuscript, something dies. In a messy fashion, very likely.

The only things keeping me sane right now are Evanescence, Howard Shore, and a bottle of ibuprofen.

Still Fragile, Less Functional

The migraine is back. It was lurking.

Just sent off those chapters, and I’m taking a good long break before looking at the next ones. I currently have an aromatherapy jar with lavender oil going right in front of my keyboard, both for the headache and to counteract the smell of burnt eggs that’s been hanging around since a neighbour got off to a bad start this morning.

My cello strings still haven’t arrived, so I’ll have to play this weekend’s concert with my old ones. Not great, but not the end of the world; it’s the Beethoven next weekend I’m more worried about.

Fragile But Functional

After a migraine which removed me from the end of our weekly afternoon writing jam, and prevented me from the much-anticipated Changeling game last evening, I feel bruised all over this morning. Migraines creep up on me; they masquerade as regular headaches until about four hours later I realise that the multiples of Advil I’ve taken have done absolutely no good, sound is bothering me, and light is hurting my eyes. At that point there’s nothing to do but curl up in a dark, dark, quiet room and sleep it off.

Ceri, your pizza was fabulous, and just what I needed when I woke up from a nightmare of being attacked and unable to breathe or swallow. It seems that I fell asleep on my stomach and turned my face into the pillow at some point.

I had a warm bath with lavendar oil after I ate, and that helped a bit too. (That and drinking over a liter of water; but I digress.) Cricket ended up walking around the edge of the tub when I got out. She made one careful tour, and I complimented her on her elegance and dexterity and told her to get down. Naturally, being a cat, she ignored me, and started round again. Three-quarters of the way through, she slipped and fell into the four inches of water left in the draining tub. Being quick of mind, I slammed the bathroom door shut and grabbed her with a towel. I started to dry her, but she was a squirmit and insisted on being let down. I set her on the bathmat where she calmly licked all the wet parts I hadn’t dried off. She wasn’t freaked out, which makes sense; Cricket’s the one who flips the drinking dish to play in the water on the kitchen floor. She was probably more annoyed at breaking her tub-walking record than anything else.

So I’m fragile but functional this morning, which is a good thing because I only got thirty pages into the set of chapters I have to have edited by this afternoon, and there’s still ninety-six pages to go. I don’t know what it is with this author — it almost seems as if this is an old draft, because I know we’ve fixed some of this stuff before…

Time Flies

As of today, my imprint specialist contract should be in the mail. I’ll get it next week, sign it, and then somewhere along the next four weeks get a tidy US check to sink into my bank account to help chase away the winter blues. Half will go onto my Visa; the rest will sit and gather interest. And then, then I will go out and look at sewing machines. And a filing cabinet.

I took a look at the first date I scribbled down in my notebook that’s reserved for work with this publisher. On August 6 I had the first phone conversation with my contact, where we began to throw ideas back and forth and the position of series editor was brought up.

On Friday, it will have been six months since that day. I didn’t sign an official contract until October, but I started working with them before that.

Six months. Half a year.

Wow.