44 posts tagged “writing”
As in, thought I'd died and gone to.
So the kids have all decided to do Tae Kwon Do, and the local place has all their little classmates so we went there too and they offered us 3 free trial lessons. They've all had their first free lesson this week.
Eldest Son is in a program for kids 8 & up (Karate for Kids), while Precious Princess and Littlest Brother are in Tiny Tigers (for ages 4 - 6).
You see these little guys in there, holding up their little fists and piping out "ai-YAH!", fierce little scowls on their adorable muppet faces, and it's just about the cutest thing you ever saw!
And they're all hooked. And I think it's gonna be a good thing. (I was a little worried about it, for various reasons, but, I think it's gonna be a good thing.)
Actually, it looks like so much fun, I want to sign up myself!
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So, I'm gradually getting clients. I'm on my sixth one now, and one client gave me repeat business already. Good feedback on the jobs board. Still, it's not reliable enough to be able to hire a regular nanny, even part time. (Because, dear Punkinshell, I only get to hire the babysitter when the hourly rate I'm getting can justify it!)
Most of what I'm writing for pay has to do with business, marketing in particular. And, in doing the research for these pieces, I'm actually getting a lot of ideas for what I need to do to get my own little business off the ground.
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I'm also still working on my fiction. Keep The Dream Alive!!!
I've got to get back to my novel outline. Outlining Is Your Friend. At least, it's mine. Once I've got a good outline, things practically write themselves. It's the getting to a good outline that's the challenge. :-)
...are the last to be shod.
Which explains why I have been neglecting my own poor blog.
I've actually been paid to write!
Not my first love, speculative fiction (sorry D.H.), but still.
As a matter of fact, I've actually been paid to write blog posts.
I'm a professional blogger.
What a weird world.
It's been fun, but after I've pounded out 22 articles on Lean Six Sigma in 5 days, well, just got no juice left for my own blog. (Hi, M.S.! It was fun, and I'll get right on those edits...)
So far I've managed to get really great clients. This week I worked on a fun little script for a series of training videos. (Gosh, I love the Internet! The Internet is a writer's BFF.) And my hourly rate on that job was actually enough to pay the baby-sitter! Woot. I'm really hoping and hoping that this client picks me up again, because I had a blast & it's just about the amount of work I want to do these days.
Honestly, I really think this work suits me. I like working at home (no commute), the researching and writing is fun, and when I can actually get a decent hourly rate it makes me feel like I'm on Cloud Nine. (What does that mean, anyway??? On Cloud Nine??? Maybe I'll Google it.)
So, those of you who know (or are) my family will have realized this a while back, but...
I'm turning into my dad.
That's not a bad thing, just not what I expected out of life. (When I was a kid -- by which I mean, up to and beyond college, in fact into the early days of my marriage and grad school -- I always assumed I would turn into my mom. Over the past few years I've made my peace with the fact that I didn't, haven't, and won't... but it's still a surprise when I realize that I'm turning into my dad instead.)
My dad is a self-employed free-lance writer who sits in his home office typing all day, and nowadays almost never even meets with clients in person. (The Internet, y'know.) I'm so totally turning into him it's not even funny.
But honestly, it does suit. And in a couple of years, when Littlest Brother is in school, I won't even need to pay the baby-sitter, much.
So. Gotta go. Have to write 2 articles for my music blog client, and revise 2 articles for my Lean Six Sigma client.
Toodle-oo.
So today I mailed off my three entries to that writing contest. It's the same one I entered last year and got to "finalist" status.
I'm not totally sure this year's offerings are actually any better, although overall I think I have made progress in my writing over the past year.
Well, we'll see.
Two of my entries wanted to be longer stories and I cut them forcibly to get to the 3500-word limit. So if I cut too much, then they won't make sense. And I didn't have time to get the cut versions thoroughly critted by my crit buddies. So, hm, I don't know.
The other was a piece of flash fiction of only 700 words. I'm never sure if my flash-fic is densely-packed enough. Sometimes it strikes me as just too glib or simplistic. So I dunno.
Welp, just have to wait and see.
(In case you don't know what gnif-gnaws are -- I can't recall now if that's a bit of family dialect or I first heard it at work, my old work back at Auto Company B, or C -- they are little miscellaneous grimbly bits of this 'n' that.
Pronunciation: the g is silent. I suppose you could just as easily spell it with a silent k, but I prefer the g, b/c it's like, "gnats" and "gnomes" and like that. Little things like that.)
Today's Gnif-Gnaws Are:
- Precious Princess and Littlest Brother now DO have secondary infections. Ah well. I don't think I do, yet. This virus is hanging on forever, though. I actually think it might be the flu; we all aren't lying flat on our backs in bed, groaning, only b/c we had the flu shots back in the fall. I've heard that sometimes with the flu shot, you still can get the flu, but a milder case. Anyway, it's taking forever to get over, so it seems worse than a regular cold.
- The counters are still a mess, but, I actually think I may hit them today. After the dishes and the laundry. Later this week, I've got to tackle the computer room table. Grandma gave the kids her old computer, and we need a place to set it up.
- PS, I hate feeling pitiful! Gah, I hate coming to the blog and whining! (That's part of why I haven't been blogging much, lately...)
The last few months, I've just gotten so tired of putting up a brave front; I do that everywhere I go in person these days. Because, honestly, most people really do not want you to burst into tears and crumple up in a heap on the floor when they ask you how you're doing.
Speaking of emotional energy, it takes a lot of that to put up a brave front everywhere you go. And if you think that everywhere you go you might make contacts who could put in a good word for you if they hear of a job opening, or might hire you for freelance work (which is true), you can't go around looking defeated. If YOU don't have confidence in you and your abilities, then why should they?
I HATE failure. HATE, HATE, HATE it!! I hate LOSING. I don't always have to WIN (there are lots of activities in which nobody wins unless everybody does), but I hate to LOSE.
The only way to be SURE of not losing, to be SURE of not failing, is never to try. You won't WIN, either, you won't SUCCEED, but at least you won't fail.
That's very tempting, actually, very tempting. I have never been tempted by that course of action (or rather, inaction) before, but I am now. In the aftermath of the events of January, I felt -- I still feel -- trampled. Eviscerated. Smashed flat. In that state, it's very hard to face the possibility of new failures.
You know, some of those Mechanical Turk activities are so easy a trained wombat could do them; very difficult to fail at those. So it's easier to plug away at those for an hour or so than to fill out yet another job application that you know in your heart is going to hit the circular file.
So.
What I HAVE done, what I've FORCED myself to do, bracing myself to bear up against the (at this point, seemingly inevitable) failures to follow:
- Over the past month, I have submitted 6 different short stories to various publications. About half of them have been rejected already, and I've turned around and submitted them elsewhere.
- I've set myself a goal of applying to a minimum of 2 jobs per week until I get one. I did apply for 2 jobs yesterday, so check that off for this week.
- I've set myself a goal of getting up and running at several reputable on-line freelancing boards. I identified several that have good ratings at the Better Business Bureau (and a few that don't, which I will be avoiding). So, check off that accomplishment.
- I completed my profile yesterday on one of them, so check that off for this week.
- I'm ready to start submitting bids on that freelance board. I can submit 10 bids this month (that's the level of my subscription there) and I fully intend to use up ALL of them. That means I need to prepare 5 proposals this week and 5 next.
- I've also set myself a goal of contacting at least 2 former professional colleagues per week, to let them know I'm looking for work and ask if their employers have any openings. Haven't done that yet this week.
So.
Failure is only temporary.
Now for those counters.
10 Things I'm Grateful For Today:
1. Dear Husband
2. Roof over our head and food to eat (okay, 2 things in 1 -- so what??)
3. Sunshine (wan though it may be -- it's still better than gray gloom)
4. Girl Scout Cookies
5. My little Girl Scout, Precious Princess
6. Eldest Son
7. Littlest Brother
8. That our virus this week hasn't gone into secondary infections for any of us
9. School science fair (was this week for Eldest Son)
10. Local Public Library
So, sometimes you just have to list the things you're grateful for. You just do.
Lately I've become addicted to Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Even though you can't exactly make a living on the earnings, still, it provides an easily accessible way to feel like you're accomplishing something.
You can track my state of mind by the state of my countertops. When I'm feeling confident and capable, I keep them cleaned off. When I feel defeated and empty, stuff piles up.
You can also tell by the food I prepare. When I'm feeling confident and capable, I fix meals of more than one ingredient that don't come from the freezer or a box (even if the kids DON'T like it!). When I feel defeated and empty, well, can we say, Kraft Mac'n'Cheese? Or maybe frozen pizza?
Well, of course, correlation does not equal causation; perhaps both phenomena are caused by the same underlying factor, as yet unidentified. Or perhaps I've got the signs, and therefore the causation, exactly backwards.
There's something to that.
But, it's easier to go to Mechanical Turk and just label some pictures, than it is to clean off the countertops.
(And the simple fact is, I do not get anything like the feelings of accomplishment I crave, from doing anything relating to housework. I have tremendous respect for those who DO, and who do a good job of it, because I know how hard it IS; but the fact is, for me personally, even when I do accomplish it, I just don't get the emotional bang out of it.)
It comes back to the matter of emotional energy, like I said last summer.
If I have enough emotional energy, I can brush off the kids' dislike of food that *I* want to try. If I'm feeling empty already, that's one conflict I just don't feel like fighting.
If I have enough emotional energy, I can wage war against the clutter. If I'm feeling empty already, I look at a pile of miscellaneous papers and think, "Oh what's the bloody USE??? There'll be another blasted pile there tomorrow! Why not save steps and just leave it be???"
So. Today I'm grateful for the 10 things I listed above. Maybe if I think about them enough, I'll refill my empty emotional buckets.
Then I can tackle the counters.
Had an interview today, which was encouraging.
Jeez, friends are great.
Also, trying to get a piece whipped into shape for this year's version of that contest I entered last year & managed to final in. I had a piece that I thought fit well with this year's theme, but when I brushed up the draft it turned out to be 7800 words in length. Whereas the contest has a word-count limit of 3500 words.
Crikey.
Can I really cut this concept down by more than half, and still say what I meant to say?
Well, I'm giving it a shot.
That's the beauty of computers, y'know; I still have the previous version on file, if I don't like the results after the cuts.
For last year's theme, I came up with 3 all-new concepts and liked them all, managed to write up 2 of them within the word-count limit, and the other one grew so far beyond it that I knew it wasn't meant to be. But this year no new pieces on the theme are popping into my head, so I feel like, if I'm going to hit it at all, I need to cut this one piece down 'cause I've got nothing else right now.
Heh, well, getting back to it.
Cheers.
So I've got 3 pieces "out there" now, so we'll see.
I've got another one that I think is close.
I've finished reverse-engineering my favorite author's latest novel -- just to learn how the master did it. From that exercise I've boiled down an outline or template of novel-writing. (Well, it worked for her...)
Now I'm going to take a couple of my bigger pieces (that seemed to want to balloon out well beyond the 5000-word limit of most short stories, and try as I might, I couldn't stuff them back in) and try to map them onto this template. And then see if I can't develop a working outline and then crank out a real novel or two. Or three. Or four.
And moreover, I've had a few encouraging conversations over the past few days from people who want to try and hire me, one way or another (either as direct staff or as contract employee thru my marketing communications firm). And in the end nothing may come of those efforts, but just having those conversations brightened my life considerably.
And Eldest Son made a very responsible choice the other day, for which I was quite proud of him. He's not supposed to chew anything hard and crunchy or soft and sticky, lest he break his appliance (rapid palatal expander). So when the barber offered him his choice of Tootsie-Pops... HE TURNED IT DOWN. He actually chose not to get a Tootsie-Pop, in order to live up to a rule. Wowza!
So. Stuff's okay, today.
Cheers.
Things are getting normal around here again.
(Thanks, you guys...)
Writing:
I submitted one short piece last week, I'm submitting another one today, and I think I can get another one ready before the weekend is out. And I've got three more that I really want to finish and I think have a lot of potential. I feel ready to move into longer pieces -- novellas and novelettes. 10 - 20K, or 30 - 50K. And I've got three or four of those I want to bang out, too.
Home:
I've begun to get my house more organized. The piles are off the dining table and counters (AGAIN), I've cleaned up Precious Princess's room so that you can actually close the closet doors and see the floor, and I've restored one laundry basket to its intended purpose (from stashing place for piles of miscellany). Friday: Tackling Eldest Son's bedroom. (This will be a bigger challenge.)
Kids:
I've gotten my child to at least try his medication, at least until we see the doctor again and he can talk to her about it. (Lengthy conversations around our house that go something like: "I don't like how it makes me feel." "How's that, honey?" "It makes me feel happier." "And why don't you want to be happier?" "Dunno, I just DON'T!" "Why do you think it's the medication? Maybe you just had a good day." "Because I've never felt this happy before!" "But why don't you want to be happy? I really want you to be happy -- for your sake." "I just DON'T!")
Work:
I've gotten two websites up and running, one for me as an author, one for me as a marketing / communications consultant. I've registered my company name with the county. I need to take more active steps to drum up business, but, per Dear Husband's support, I don't feel pressured to do so yet. (Though if anybody NEEDS some marketing advice or business writing, let me know, 'kay?)
Marriage:
This Friday will be our 16th wedding anniversary! Yipes. If our marriage were a kid, it could drive. Which reminds me, I need to see if I can't find a baby-sitter and make some dinner reservations.
Weight Loss:
Ohhh, shucks. Back to my bad old ways. Which reminds me, I need to jump on that treadmill, right now.
Bye.
We're getting lots of snow.
Sparkling, fluffy, cold, and needing to be plowed off the driveway and shoveled off the walk, sometimes twice a day.
It's just so wonderful, until you get sick of it.
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Took Eldest Son to his orthodontist appointment today, in which he received his first "appliance" and I got this nifty little pointy gadget with which I (or Dear Husband) must turn a tiny screw in the appliance once a day for the next month. Very weird little system, I must say. E.S was quite the champ in the chair, too; the whole thing went so much better than it might have gone a year ago, I'm flabbergasted.
He really is doing better.
Going to have his kid party this Saturday, at the local inflatable bounce palace. They love that! A place where it's okay to bounce off the walls! (Good God, a riot of 8-year-old boys hyped up on cake and ice cream, bouncing off the walls. Somebody save me!) :-)
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Sold Girls Scout Cookies with Precious Princess for the first time; that was fun. How it brought me back!
"On my honor, I will try, to serve God, my country, and mankind, and to live by the Girl Scout Law."
At least, that's how we said it back then; it's a little different now, but recognizable.
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Littlest Brother is starting to seem four now, so much more grown up than three! He's Just So Cute!! He's got his little opinions now, and can express them with remarkable acuity. And he's doing great on the pottying. Occasionally he has "issues" with unfamiliar pant-fastenings, but never an out-&-out accident where he just forgets or neglects to go. He has dunked his bottom once, but in general almost doesn't need the potty seat any more either.
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Last week I saw & approved a proof of my first story to be accepted for publication (the one for $5), which means it really will appear somewhere, sometime in the near future. That was encouraging!
I don't have any stories out for consideration at the moment, but I mean to change that in the next week or two. One of my more recent ones I feel is really promising (made one of my first readers cry, and she's no sissy), I just hafta polish it up a bit more.
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Dear Husband has been a rock, an absolute rock, and I could not ask for a better friend and partner in life.
Sweet Sixteen coming up in a couple of weeks! (Hard to believe, that!) (Seems like just yesterday I was writing up our fifteen-year anniversary...)
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Cheers, all.
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PS, Also lost 8 pounds in the past two weeks! I guess that "no desserts, no booze thing" is paying off...
Yes! YES!! YESSS!!!
pub cred, pub cred, pub cred
One of my short pieces actually got accepted by a publication! Not a pro mag, but progress.
Allow me to quote from my "Goals for 2008" from early in the year: "Get a piece published, for actual money (no matter how paltry), in an actual publication (no matter how obscure)."
CHECK.
Check, check, CHECK!!!
Well... I'm not gonna quit my day job just yet. (um, paltry... check) Let's just say I hope to break into the low two figures with my next sale. But, I am far, FAR from complaining! I am THRILLED!!!
It beats rejection by a long shot.
And, weirdly enough, it wasn't one of my speculative-fiction pieces, but a Christian piece -- which is not my usual genre. (Hmmm... )
But, it's a pub cred. Now the next time I submit something, ANYWHERE, I can put in the cover letter, "My short fiction has been published in BLANKETY-BLANK MAGAZINE." And right there, that's something I couldn't say last week. It's one more step up that ladder.
Eh, there's some debate as to whether one should list one's non-pro and semi-pro publication credits, as it makes you look like small potatoes when you're pitching to the pro pubs. But, I don't care. I truly do not give a hoot. So I am small potatoes; so what? Last week I wasn't even that. Last week I was dirt. Small potatoes is a step up from that.
WOOT.
