Category Archives: Cogging for Kibble

Finished!

Wow! Editing Goddess Moi strikes again. The zipped-and-yet-still-humongous file is currently uploading, my editorial memo is just waiting for the upload to be done so I can attach it to an e-mail saying as much to the recipient…

I shall have a cookie for this. Or a cupcake, anyway.

Every time I do an edit I think, Oh, I could have done better. What I always forget to add is if I’d had more time. And I really should stop thinking that way, because I did my best in the time allotted, and the product is improved. Sure, I have have missed a word that ought to have been capitalized, or a comma somewhere, but all in all, I did some good. And to be honest, I edited this at one and a half times my usual speed. Still, there’s that fretting and minor anxiety when I send something off. Is it okay? Did I screw it up? Did I misunderstand it completely and make it worse, somehow? (Answers: Yes, no, of course not.)

And as a note to myself: A deadline of noon means you have to factor in the uploading time, too. Duh.

I wonder who I should send my invoice to. Hmm. Although I’m going to wait till tonight to do that, as I’ve said I’d take another look at it after someone does the rewrites, if they’d like.

Huzzah, w00t, And Also Yay!

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.)

Yay!

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.

Of Course

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.

Gnarr

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.

Rumours Of My Demise…

… have been greatly exaggerated. In actual fact, what happened was that I sprained my right wrist, which made typing incredibly painful and life with a toddler remarkably difficult in general. I couldn’t pick anything up, hold a pencil, open jars, slice cheese or meat, put my arm through the sleeve of my jacket, sling my bag over my shoulder… it was challenging.

Lots of things happened in the past six days, including a wonderful play date with Curtana and Arthur; a fabulous dinner out Friday night with friends; a lovely few hours Friday morning and early afternoon spent with Rosy, her husband, and her dog (who loved the owly shoes even more than Liam does!); a fun but quick visit with t! and Jan; and dinner with the ADZO household. We also got our chest freezer and it is now happily full of organic beef and other goodies.

I know I’m missing things, but that was the week in a nutshell. Now I’m reviewing a technical document to determine a fee for editing it at the end of the week, and it’s nowhere near as bad as I’d expected it to be, which is wonderful — it means I won’t have to sacrifice nights and brain cells to it. And I’m still taking it easy on my wrist. The last thing I need is to wrench it back into an unusable state.

Not As Bad As All That

Lovely words to read when you open your e-mail client first thing in the morning: ‘Thanks for turning in a flawless proposal as always’. And she likes the new direction! It’s going right to the publishing board in two weeks, with no revisions.

*pats self on the back*

They’re doing the photo shoot for the cover of the pregnancy book today, too. I’m very excited to see the mock-ups for it when they eventually get to me.

I had to turn the heater on in my office when I got home from dropping the boy off at the caregiver’s house. Nights are flirting dangerously with the zero mark.

Orchestra last night was not the train wreck I expected it to be. Somewhere along the line I got good at this cello thing. Practising twice this past week may have helped too. (Wonders may never cease.) There’s lots of nice singing cello lines and only a few really tricky technical bits this time around. Or maybe I just think that because I did get better somehow. Whatever the reason, I’m not feeling over my head for once. Actually, I haven’t felt like that for a while, have I. Hmm.

I signed up for eMusic.com yesterday, following Curtana‘s lead. eMusic is full of great classical stuff, and I’m very happy with it so far. It’s already been invaluable: I downloaded a movement of the Weber clarinet concerto we’re playing with a young soloist at the upcoming concert, and said, “Oh, so that’s what we’re playing — I’ve heard that.” We’d tried to play it last week and it was such a mess that I couldn’t grab on to what the musical line was to identify it. It’s always harder to do it when you’re only hearing the accompaniment, because what’s missing is the melody itself. We really nailed the parts we played last night, though; proof that people practised, and also testament to the conductor’s clever choice of specific bits to practise instead of starting at the beginning.

I’m currently reading Stephanie Judy’s Making Music for the Joy of It, and I think it’s one of the reasons why I feel like practising more. Written for amateur musicians, it explores the drive to play music and the obstacles encountered (external and internal). It’s easy to read and it’s thought-provoking, too.

On today’s list of things to do: keep revising the complete YA book for submission. Also, taking Tylenol for the cold-associated headache. That would help.