Monthly Archives: January 2009

AUGH!

No, no, this is good. This is good of such magnitude that I can’t encompass it.

I have just been given not one but two of the Best Assignments Ever. This has nothing to do with the rush editing job I’ve been working on all day so far. No, this was a phone call setting up Something Big for tomorrow morning (okay, another rush thing, but I can handle it), and something Even Bigger for next week.

I’m so freaked out that I’m shaking. It’s a good kind of freaked out, but still, there’s an awful lot of panic in there.

Okay. I am okay. But I am a geek. And terrified that I’m not grown-up enough to pull this off.

Repeat after me: Professional writer. Professional writer. I am a professional writer. With tons of experience in the associated areas. How long have I been in the book business? Also, I am a geek, which counts for something when all’s said and done, really.

Professional writer. Professional. I am professional. (If I say it often enough, maybe I’ll believe it or it will finally sink in or something.)

Okay, it might actually be working, because I’m calming down. Or maybe it’s the rapid pacing up and down the hall between typing sentences that’s doing the calming.

Non-disclosure agreements dictate that I can’t share these until I’m told I can share. Trust me, when I’m allowed, I will shout from rooftops. In the meantime I will be over here in a quivering mass, nibbling at my fingertips and mumbling to myself.

I would say that I love my job, except right now I’m eyeing it with a certain amount of disbelief and suspicion.

ETA: And now, an hour later, I am completely exhausted from vibrating at levels of Unbelievably Awesome and have a headache. Yay for extra-strength Excedrin. Also, despite caffeine being the last thing I need right now, I am treating myself to a latte-from-a-packet, because we don’t have enough milk to make hot chocolate.

So Much For Resolution

I just got that rush editing project. One month to do an insane amount of work. Soliciting anthology submissions, editing them, organizing them, and the final steps before publication.

Goodbye, Orchestrated.

*headdesk*

ETA: Four hours and a crazy-intensive burst of work later, and I’ve done all I can for the moment. I’m going to take a quick pass through the manuscript, but apart from that, I’m waiting. So… I might as well keep plugging away on Orchestrated.

Orchestrated Update

I’ve been struggling to get back into the flow of Orchestrated. I’m so close to the end, and it’s frustrating because things are moving at a snail’s pace. Not the actual story, but my execution of it. I worked on it January 5, then it lay untouched (other work with deadlines, small child at home) until last Thursday when I got just over six hundred words down in it. Today, I ground out a more respectable amount of work, but it still feels like pulling teeth. I hate having to leave things aside for more than a day; I lose the flow and the mindset and the sense of what’s happening. The longer it’s aside, the longer it takes me to get back into it.

Orchestrated:
New words today: 1,588
Total word count, Orchestrated: 60,840

I didn’t even register that I broke 60K. As that had been my arbitrary target word count for the completed project, I’m going to have to revise that to something between 65K and 70K. I’d like to wrap it up in 5K, although it will feel rushed. What I need is a completed first draft, though, so I can go back and start doing the subtle stuff instead of trying to put the subtle stuff in as I go. A first draft is too clunky for that, especially in the wrap-up part. Get the skeleton down, then flesh it out; that’s what I should be thinking at this point.

To that end, I will write brief one-line descriptions of what scenes need to happen between here and the end, then expand them one by one. We’ll see how that goes.

Boy’s Post Up, Plus A Brief Weekend Review

I finally published the 43-month post for the boy, and backdated it. It had been sitting there for quite some time, only missing photos. So that’s done.

Other than that, well, I finished knitting my slippers and had fun felting for the very first time. The slippers fit my feet fine around the foot, but ended up two inches too long and pointy instead of rounded. I suspect I misread part of the pattern that said ‘knit till 22 cm long;’ I measured from the start of the piece instead of from the last increase, thereby missing about three or four inches of knitting. I’ll try again with the different measurement to see what happens. In the meantime they are warm, which is what I wanted, and after cutting two inches off the not-supposed-to-be-pointy toes and seaming them shut, they’re fine for home use. Although I took them to my cello lesson yesterday and my teacher thought they were great, and has asked for the pattern. So. Also, the machine felting was much more exciting than it should have been. (I take my fun where I can get it.)

I still have the 7/8; I called to make an appointment for the adjustments and the evaluation of the slice/scratch/cut thing last Saturday and the people who I needed to look at it weren’t there. I’ll call them at the Montreal store this week and make an appointment with them for Friday night. Rental is $75 per month for a cello for at least two months, and 70% of the rental fee goes toward eventual purchase of whatever, which is good news. I had a very frustrating cello lesson on Sunday, which I would like to think means I’m plateauing and am about to make some sort of brilliant breakthrough, but I suspect only reflects the general fatigue and frustration of the weekend. We’d been invited out for dinner Saturday night but had to decline due to a previous engagement, which ended up being cancelled by the other person involved two hours before it was supposed to begin, which didn’t do much for my mood this weekend, either. Especially since we’d had a second invitation for Saturday night that we’d also turned down.

On the other hand, the boy had his first official pagan playgroup session yesterday morning (which he is already calling ‘circle’) and had a blast casting the circle with singing and instrument-playing and marching, talking about spring and the return of the sun, planting seeds and making Brigid’s crosses out of pipe-cleaners, then having a snack afterwards. I suspect that he would much prefer something more frequent than once a month.

I’ve finally downloaded iTunes to test-run it as a possible alternative to WMP and purchasing music via eMusic. Other than that, I am generally exhausted, and have had not-nice headaches the past three days. But I ate a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast. So there.

In Which She Apologizes


Dear new guest conductor,

I’m really, really sorry for panicking about the second bassoon part you asked me to play for the L’Arlesienne suite two nights ago at rehearsal. I agree that it was really needed so we could fill in the missing bits, and I was willing to give it a shot on the cello until you handed me the music. I was having a really bad day, and all I saw was multiple flats and tenor clef, and I knew I couldn’t sight-read it. Thank gods for M, who was willing to give it a shot (and pulled it off creditably, too). I’m pretty ashamed of myself, especially because it turned out that I could have done it as the crucial bit she ended up playing in that exposed part was in fact in bass clef and nice relaxed eighth notes. But her intonation while sight-reading is probably more reliable than mine anyway.

Just wanted to say I was sorry. And I should apologize to M again too, who was almost as flustered as I was about the music, even though I probably already apologized to her too many times during and after the rehearsal. I feel awful about it.

But hey, how about that sight-reading of the third movement of Scheherazade? Pretty good, hunh?

Sincerely,
the cellist in the second chair

Sigh

Why, snow-clearing crews, why must you always plough a snowbank across the end of my driveway ten minutes before I plan to leave in the car?

ETA: Oh, hey, wow; the machines are actually going by and removing the pile of prepared snow like they’re supposed to. I’m positively stunned at the efficiency of today’s operation. Usually the pile of snow gets left for half an hour or so.

Done

My latest assignment has been handed in, and I’m exhausted. This one really drained me. I’ve told them that I need to take a couple of weeks off to work on my other stuff; I can’t keep juggling it all.

I can’t face opening Orchestrated right now. I need to walk away from the computer for a bit. I’d start messing about with the lightsaber pattern but I don’t have the correct size DPNs or yarn. I’ll work on my slippers instead.

I wish I could muster up some enthusiasm for orchestra tonight. All I want to do is have a hot bath and go to bed. I’m having a lot of problems managing my energy levels these days, which is mostly fibro-related, and somewhat connected to the weather and the season as well.

Hrm. Taking a couple of Tylenol might help, too.