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roadrunnertwiceI still haven't really done a this-is-my-life-now post! I MAY NEVER. Been busy, yeah. What with? Well.
I am Commuting. If you add up the walking and waiting and trainrides both ways, it comes to about three hours a day, which seems kind of mad for only eight hours of work? I think that once I settle in some more, I may gently inquire about working four tens (or nines) a week. Which would entail some Ass-Crack-O-Dawning, but it miiiight be worth it. Certainly it'd be easier to go to bed at an early hour if I had three days to do as I pleased. We'll see whether the workweek will even permit dropping a day; the stream of tasks is fairly steady.
I'm not completely wasting those hours, though. I've been—get this shit—writing. Longhand.* I'm finally putting that notebook Polly and Amanda got me to good use, and am—where doing it man, where MAKING THIS HAPEN—writing Lulu and the Constellations, the first book of Lulu and the Wine-Dark Sea. Slowly, but considering I just finished a chapter today, I may be able to get away with calling it "Shirley." (I've never understood that idiom. Who the hell is Shirley?)
But so yeah, woooo! Next: NaNoWriMo? (JESUS FUCK NO AAUGH.)
What happened to The Cheaters? It's just not ripe. Neither is Lulu, really, but that one's the sort of unripe that reveals itself as you write, and it's a type of story that will react a lot better to some liberal seat-of-pantsing. Cheaters is the sort of unripe that just has to simmer, and forcing the issue hasn't been accomplishing jack shit. I'm a much different person than I was when I started that book, and it's simply not going to come together until I can bring the fundamental underpinnings of it into line with the head and heart as they currently be. And I've finally decided that the conscious brain can't do that, and I need to get out of the unconscious's way for a bit while it does its thing.
It'll be back. The thematic material is killer, and I'm still convinced it'll be an awesome book someday. I absolutely can't write it this year.
And work, right. So I'm working for a place called Quiktrak, which inspects shit. (You're a bank, you're loaning some bakery 30k for a new oven: you want to take a look around and make sure the up is on the up, because that's just good business. Baker's two states away from corporate, flying there = pain in yer ass and you don't have time for it anyhow, and alas, you don't have a vast network of freelancers who know how to do this shit. So you dial someone who does, viz. Quiktrak.) I'm in the editorial dep't, where we receive freelancer reports, sanity-check and edit/re-write them, and output bullet-points and comprehensible text in the appropriate corporate-speak.
That's right: I am a third-person narrator.
Things:
I am Commuting. If you add up the walking and waiting and trainrides both ways, it comes to about three hours a day, which seems kind of mad for only eight hours of work? I think that once I settle in some more, I may gently inquire about working four tens (or nines) a week. Which would entail some Ass-Crack-O-Dawning, but it miiiight be worth it. Certainly it'd be easier to go to bed at an early hour if I had three days to do as I pleased. We'll see whether the workweek will even permit dropping a day; the stream of tasks is fairly steady.
I'm not completely wasting those hours, though. I've been—get this shit—writing. Longhand.* I'm finally putting that notebook Polly and Amanda got me to good use, and am—where doing it man, where MAKING THIS HAPEN—writing Lulu and the Constellations, the first book of Lulu and the Wine-Dark Sea. Slowly, but considering I just finished a chapter today, I may be able to get away with calling it "Shirley." (I've never understood that idiom. Who the hell is Shirley?)
But so yeah, woooo! Next: NaNoWriMo? (JESUS FUCK NO AAUGH.)
What happened to The Cheaters? It's just not ripe. Neither is Lulu, really, but that one's the sort of unripe that reveals itself as you write, and it's a type of story that will react a lot better to some liberal seat-of-pantsing. Cheaters is the sort of unripe that just has to simmer, and forcing the issue hasn't been accomplishing jack shit. I'm a much different person than I was when I started that book, and it's simply not going to come together until I can bring the fundamental underpinnings of it into line with the head and heart as they currently be. And I've finally decided that the conscious brain can't do that, and I need to get out of the unconscious's way for a bit while it does its thing.
It'll be back. The thematic material is killer, and I'm still convinced it'll be an awesome book someday. I absolutely can't write it this year.
* (No, the hand's still not anything better than Vile Scrawl. Haven't yet had the stomach for drilling, and I'm not entirely convinced it would help much. Besides, uh, train?)
And work, right. So I'm working for a place called Quiktrak, which inspects shit. (You're a bank, you're loaning some bakery 30k for a new oven: you want to take a look around and make sure the up is on the up, because that's just good business. Baker's two states away from corporate, flying there = pain in yer ass and you don't have time for it anyhow, and alas, you don't have a vast network of freelancers who know how to do this shit. So you dial someone who does, viz. Quiktrak.) I'm in the editorial dep't, where we receive freelancer reports, sanity-check and edit/re-write them, and output bullet-points and comprehensible text in the appropriate corporate-speak.
That's right: I am a third-person narrator.
Things:
- Scrapbook page: Baby's first corporate job!
- It turns out to not usually require corporate drag. Sometimes I dress up just for the hell of it, though.
- Also, the first job to put more than an eighth or so of my degree to use. (I mean, it's sorta textual analysis, although we're allowed to fall back on authorial intent and call the inspector back.)
- Also, it entails being entrusted with a lot of medium-sensitive information, which is interesting.
- And it's surprisingly full of stories: mostly stories about business, and they always start in media res and fade out without a real ending, but I'm seeing and reading about a lot of stuff I've never dealt with before, and when it's not irritating or depressing, it's fascinating. I am Seeing America Right. Kindasorta.
- I could use some more ergonomics. (Finally got my home computer setup just the way I wanted it, but apparently that doesn't mean I can retire from desk-tweaking. More's the pity.)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-29 06:24 am (UTC)May I ask, as someone fairly new to this conversation, what your degree is actually in?
no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 04:17 am (UTC)"Unemployability Studies," I usually quip, but I don't regret it in the least. There're always classes I should have taken, classes I should have worked harder at, and classes I should have skipped altogether, but I still consider a B.A. in written and sung literature to've been a good call.
And besides, there are equally valid fields whose graduates have a much tougher go at it than lit nerds, so it would probably behoove me to shut up about it.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-29 08:51 am (UTC)And yeah, I've been commuting for about three hours a day for several years now.... it definitely cuts a lot out of the day... ToT
no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 03:57 am (UTC)You'll settle into the commute, however you end up wrangling it. After a while it becomes automatic (though with how WES is behaving, maybe not).
WES just won't stop eating dirt! I dunno what's up with it.
Date: 2009-10-30 04:22 am (UTC)Blooper reel: I just found out yesterday that writing in a tightly bound book results in Problems when it's time to transcribe; the thing's pretty much impossible to keep open and readable without using your hands. (Although didn't Schwern have some ridiculous coathanger/spring contraption hanging around the house for this purpose? I should ask him about that.)
Re: WES just won't stop eating dirt! I dunno what's up with it.
Date: 2009-10-30 05:29 am (UTC)My problem ends up being making time to type what is written.. You have this enforced working time while commuting that becomes a bubble of whatever you make it. Remembering things outside it can be a bitch.
Re: WES just won't stop eating dirt! I dunno what's up with it.
Date: 2009-10-30 05:53 am (UTC)Guess I'd better go questing this week. Or just go to the Dollar Tree over in Lloyd like a sane person. :/
Questing, battling the dragon which spews 90% post-consumer paper goods
Date: 2009-10-30 06:03 am (UTC)