Six years ago, when I gave my energetic cats a bedtime treat of a sprinkle of kibble with a spoonful of warm St. John’s Wort tea dribbled over it, I was alternately laughed at and accused of drugging my cats so I could sleep.
CatFancy magazine recommends chamomile to soothe your feline pals into a relaxed evening, allowing you a night of rest.
Nyah.
(t! would be proud of this post title. It’s the name of a song.)
I’ve been all over the place this week. From the heights of confidence to the depths of despair, from anxiety attacks to listless not-caring, I’ve seen it all. And it’s only Thursday morning.
While I made dinner and he washed the dishes, I asked HRH if he thought it was my body reacting to a reduction in the dosage of medication I’ve been on for a while and thus I was overreacting (let’s hear it for hormones!), or if things were understandably wonky in my life. He pointed out that while the medication adjustment probably wasn’t helping, not only was I writing a book to deadline for the first time ever, I was teaching, preparing for a concert in two weeks, dealing with the Zombie Manuscript from Hell (now with Shifty Author!), suffering from a lack of sunlight, and had struggled through three colds in succession. He’s also of the opinion that losing my computer has thrown me harder than I think it has. (This is probably true, although it’s oddly liberating at the same time. Of course, I’ve lost all record of log-in info for my website, but that can be remedied by contacting my host and telling them that I’m an idiot and forgot to write things down.)
You know what’s really gnawing at me about the Zombie Manuscript From Hell? The fact that I’d finally reached a point where I was confident about it. I was happy with it, proud to have my name on it as editor. I was confident that it was a solid, saleable product with excellent information delivered in a sophisticated and accessible fashion to the intermediate practitioner.
Of course the info is good. The author had already published it elsewhere.
Argh.
I have no idea where this leaves us. This was supposed to be the lead title to launch the series. Part of me wants to punish the incredible dishonesty of the author by canceling the book. We’ve put so much time, money, and work into it, though, that we can’t. Think of all the rewrites, repeated edits, more rewrites we’ve done. Another option is to do an emergency rewrite on the pages and pages of plagiarized information. I certainly wouldn’t trust the author to do it, so I would likely do it instead, which puts the screws on my own book written for my own deadline.
I shouldn’t worry about this until I’ve heard what the company’s legal recommendation is. I’m creating more stress, which I really don’t need.
My contracts, which were mailed out April 14 but still hadn’t arrived as of yesterday, apparently ended up Returned to Sender because of a mistype on the address label, so they’re being mailed back to me today (and yes, the address has been corrected). It’s frustrating, because half my fee is disbursed upon signing. That means when they get the signed contract back, it goes into the 4-6 week bureaucratic process before the cheque is issued and mailed to me. It’s now delayed by an extra three weeks, which means I’ll get it mid- to late June. Then the bank will hang onto it for a month, which means I’ll finally have that money mid- to late July. The second half of my fee is issued upon delivery of the manuscript, which is due July 1. When you do the math, that means I’ll be handing the dratted thing in before I see a penny. Mind you, it also means that I’ll have the second cheque finally landing in my account mid- to late August, which is nice to count on. And sometime between now and midsummer I’ll see my editor’s fee for the second book, and the first book (if it gets published).
On top of it all, I’m restless, but I don’t want to go out. Just call me an enigma.
Some of you know I’ve taken to costuming fashion dolls, after my stunning success of creating a Morrigan Barbie for a certain cougar last Yule. At the moment I have rough sketches and a few nekkid Barbies in a box, upon whom I’ve been practicing my painting skills to further customise them.
My second secret project is now well under way. Tal saw it last week, and when I said I was in the midst of repainting the eyes, he said, “No you aren’t,” which was incredibly satisfying because it meant he couldn’t tell the difference. What once was a purple-eyed Barbie showing her little white teeth in a plastic smile is now a dreamy green-eyed lass with a demure close-mouthed smile. I’ll let her finish drying and then varnish the paintwork to seal it. Then, ah then, I costume.
I checked the prices of sewing machines at Sears this afternoon; the mid-range model with fourteen stitches and a hard case is $249 on sale till Saturday. Hmm.
Painting and blending the exact shade of natural lip colour was precisely what I needed after alternately wanting to cry and tear things to shreds this afternoon. Writing a severe memo regarding the plagiarism issue made me want to shake the author until her teeth flew out of her head. I can’t write in this mood, but apparently I can paint.
Guess who just discovered an extensive case of plagiarism?
Lord of the Rings CD Specials
Howard Shore, the composer for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has announced that the soundtrack from the films will be released on a nine-CD set. The first eight will include the soundtrack from the films with the ninth CD containing previously unreleased music.
That means approximately two and a third CDs of music per film. Just think of all that delicious music we heard in the theatre that wasn’t on the albums, and of the new music scored for the extended release DVD sets! And an extra CD of music that didn’t end up being used, too? Oh, it’s too much happiness…
Howard Shore was interviewed back in 2001 and mentioned that the album releases were condensed from the longer musical cues in the films. Those of us who listen to music closely in films know this. To be able to hear the entire musical story from start to finish, with all its developments and revisitations of motifs and themes, is going to be an incredible gift.
(via the SF Site News. Anyone have a release date?)
UPDATE: Here’s the original exclusive interview Shore did with Empire. A snip: �The plan is that we would feature all of the music in the theatrical cuts of the films,” said Shore, talking exclusively to Empire. “Currently, two discs for [the first], three each for [the second and third films] and a ninth disc of rarities with host of rare, unreleased music from the films with commentary from me.� Looks like there’s also to be a two-disc release of the symphonic version of the LOTR music Shore’s been touring about the globe. As for a release date, all we know is “next year.”
Turns out that it was the motherboard that fried when Skippy wired the old hard drive in to transfer my marooned data. We’re looking at Tuesday as the ETA for the new one, complete with new power supply, processor, and RAM.
Get this: the power supply will be red. How cool is that? It goes perfectly with the new system’s registry, which is GGS-ZOOM.
I woke up with every intention of having a wonderful day, and bit by bit it trickled away from me. My cold got worse, I had to deal with a frustrating phone call which involved an elderly gentleman assuming I had taken over a project I’d never been asked to handle, and I only got 1K done on the book when I thought I’d done at least 2K. That last was really the kicker. There are times when I think that what I know wouldn’t fill up even 30K of this book, which is inversely proportional to how I feel when I’m teaching this subject in a live workshop.
I also missed last night’s improv workshop t! whipped up for actor friends because my voice kept cutting out and I couldn’t stop coughing, which annoyed me because I don’t get the chance to do theatre any more. HRH persuaded me to go out for a nice long walk after dinner and took me to the Dairy Queen for ice cream, which was just fine by me. We bought more cold medication on the way home too.
Last night’s dreams were an odd blend of orchestra rehearsing in church basements (courtesy of theatre-associated thoughts, most likely); large sedate toy/department stores which sold beautiful aquariums near large displays of Harry Potter books; Virginia Woolf memorabilia which transported me to being VW as a child when I held it or put it on; fish chained in the aquariums so they couldn’t get out; grocery shopping during the break at orchestra, and not being able to get back in time because I was driving in the sun on the West Island and the car clock was wrong. My dreams have been quite vivid lately. What they mean is anyone’s guess. What on earth do second violins trying to sit with the cellos have to do with VW, or me showing my dad the chained fish crawling out of the aquariums?
Well, well; the radio news is reporting that according to StatsCan, if you make it to your fifth year of marriage, you’re more likely to stick it out in the long run. I take it that the statistics indicate most contemporary marriages dissolve in the first four years. Evidently HRH and I have about four months to save ourselves from a lifetime of loving companionship and intelligent conversation.
Now that our bills are paid and we have groceries, I intend to pick up the new Diana Krall album on my way into the store today. I am determined to be in a good mood, or at least in a better mood than yesterday. I think I’ll pick up the VW biography I put down a few months ago too.