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Waving your guns at somebody new
Sep. 18th, 2010 11:14 pmBeen a long time since I posted. I keep thinking of things to say, and at night when I hit the pillow, I have these lengthy meta and review posts in my head, and they sound fantastic, but then the next day I have no desire to actually post anything.
In the past couple weeks I've been busy finalizing some freelance editing jobs, one of which was really difficult because the author couldn't be arsed to actually get anything done even remotely on time. I confess I just don't understand it -- getting a book published, for something you created and devoted your recent life to, is the dream come true of thousands of people. Yet he acted as though it was some kind of bee buzzing around his Pepsi can or something. But I also got to copyedit a friend's novel, which was awesome, and then I've been doing something I loathe, taking editing tests to try to get on with more publishers. I hate them so much. Thirty years in this field and I still have to take fucking tests. The two I've had this past week were heinous, too, and one I should have returned on Thursday, but I'm still not done -- I think I'm just going to finish up the editing part without a lot of work, and do a cursory whack at their two pages of notes and two pages of bibliography and send it back and tell them, essentially, that I have too much work at this time to take a 20 page editing test plus four pages of citations, so that should give them an idea of my abilities and they can take it or leave it. I'm just really tired of it all. I know I shouldn't be so cavalier about potential work, but...
I have another self-publishing author book coming up soon, anyways, and one of the tests people got back to me right away and want to add me to their freelancer pool. Hopefully something good will come of it, I don't know. They have the most convoluted system I've ever seen, but I guess if I can get consistent work, that will be good.
Because... I really do want to get a puppersons. That is my overarching desire right now. I have a feeler out about a cutie pie I saw online, but I haven't heard back... I didn't last time, either, so I worry that somehow these rescue folks aren't getting my mail. I know the kitties are going to go ballistic. But it's gotten so bad with both of them -- Olive won't even eat anywhere near him because he often bullies her away from her food -- that I don't know that adding a dog into the mix will be any worse. I don't know if cats go through terrible twos, but Blues sure has gotten worse and worse the past year. He's officially three now, but... sometimes he can be so awful I just don't know what to do with him. And I lose my temper with him really easily when he's bad, because he's just soooo bad and so recalcitrant about being good, which never helps.
Olive has been smelling like pee lately all the time, and I finally found out why yesterday -- at some point, she must have peed on her bed, which is an old egg-crate foam neck pillow I had someone make a cover for and the only thing she will deign to sleep on, and it's been sitting there moldering for I don't know how long now. When I took the fleece cover off to wash it, it was so revolting... and I threw it all out, but she's unhappy because it won't be for a few more days now till I get a replacement, and even longer before I get a new fleece cover. I discovered on Etsy that you can ask for custom things to be made! This is news to probably no one but me, but I was excited... and lots of people put bids in on the cover so I'm going to get one made for her.
Today I started working on a Justified vid. I'm so disgusted with myself -- I cannot figure out how to make the kind of effect I want to make, and I've googled and read and watched but still can't find anything like what I want to do. I know I'd have to use Motion, which is... really hard for me to understand, but if I could find anything like what I want to do, then I would at least have an idea of it. These are the times when I wish I had a pal with AfterEffects training or something. Curse my crappy personality that I have hardly any friends, let alone friends who know AfterEffects. ;-)
So it won't be quite what I want it to be, but I just want to make it anyway. I love looking at Raylan, and thinking about Raylan, and isn't that what makes the agony of vidding worth it? I'm working on an unusual POV for the vid, which I think will either be interesting or annoying to people, but I kind of like it... and it makes it a bit more of a challenge from a narrative perspective. Timothy Olyphant is so expressive, it's a joy to work with his acting. And also, he is teh sex.
And let's see, I guess that's it largely. I've just been really busy, having lots of trouble sleeping, trying to exercise more and lose some weight but not having any success, spending time with Dad, and planning some classes I'm going to teach this fall and next spring.
Oh, I finally bit the bullet and got a Blu-Ray player, but of course, I have no Blu-Ray discs to play. Got Avatar from Netflix though and watched it (man, that is a rant I will spare people, but boy, did I post a long diatribe about it in my head). I'm kind of pissed, though, in that both Panasonic and Netflix advertise being able to stream Netflix movies with this player, but nowhere do they tell you that if you want to use your wireless network, you have to buy a USB adaptor thingie that costs at the very minimum $70. Fuckers. I was so angry when I realized I had to buy that thing, so no Netflix streaming for a while until I either buckle to the pressure or get a different player. Guess that's why it was so much less at Costco! It's not really any skin off my nose to get the discs in the mail.
What are you up to these days?
In the past couple weeks I've been busy finalizing some freelance editing jobs, one of which was really difficult because the author couldn't be arsed to actually get anything done even remotely on time. I confess I just don't understand it -- getting a book published, for something you created and devoted your recent life to, is the dream come true of thousands of people. Yet he acted as though it was some kind of bee buzzing around his Pepsi can or something. But I also got to copyedit a friend's novel, which was awesome, and then I've been doing something I loathe, taking editing tests to try to get on with more publishers. I hate them so much. Thirty years in this field and I still have to take fucking tests. The two I've had this past week were heinous, too, and one I should have returned on Thursday, but I'm still not done -- I think I'm just going to finish up the editing part without a lot of work, and do a cursory whack at their two pages of notes and two pages of bibliography and send it back and tell them, essentially, that I have too much work at this time to take a 20 page editing test plus four pages of citations, so that should give them an idea of my abilities and they can take it or leave it. I'm just really tired of it all. I know I shouldn't be so cavalier about potential work, but...
I have another self-publishing author book coming up soon, anyways, and one of the tests people got back to me right away and want to add me to their freelancer pool. Hopefully something good will come of it, I don't know. They have the most convoluted system I've ever seen, but I guess if I can get consistent work, that will be good.
Because... I really do want to get a puppersons. That is my overarching desire right now. I have a feeler out about a cutie pie I saw online, but I haven't heard back... I didn't last time, either, so I worry that somehow these rescue folks aren't getting my mail. I know the kitties are going to go ballistic. But it's gotten so bad with both of them -- Olive won't even eat anywhere near him because he often bullies her away from her food -- that I don't know that adding a dog into the mix will be any worse. I don't know if cats go through terrible twos, but Blues sure has gotten worse and worse the past year. He's officially three now, but... sometimes he can be so awful I just don't know what to do with him. And I lose my temper with him really easily when he's bad, because he's just soooo bad and so recalcitrant about being good, which never helps.
Olive has been smelling like pee lately all the time, and I finally found out why yesterday -- at some point, she must have peed on her bed, which is an old egg-crate foam neck pillow I had someone make a cover for and the only thing she will deign to sleep on, and it's been sitting there moldering for I don't know how long now. When I took the fleece cover off to wash it, it was so revolting... and I threw it all out, but she's unhappy because it won't be for a few more days now till I get a replacement, and even longer before I get a new fleece cover. I discovered on Etsy that you can ask for custom things to be made! This is news to probably no one but me, but I was excited... and lots of people put bids in on the cover so I'm going to get one made for her.
Today I started working on a Justified vid. I'm so disgusted with myself -- I cannot figure out how to make the kind of effect I want to make, and I've googled and read and watched but still can't find anything like what I want to do. I know I'd have to use Motion, which is... really hard for me to understand, but if I could find anything like what I want to do, then I would at least have an idea of it. These are the times when I wish I had a pal with AfterEffects training or something. Curse my crappy personality that I have hardly any friends, let alone friends who know AfterEffects. ;-)
So it won't be quite what I want it to be, but I just want to make it anyway. I love looking at Raylan, and thinking about Raylan, and isn't that what makes the agony of vidding worth it? I'm working on an unusual POV for the vid, which I think will either be interesting or annoying to people, but I kind of like it... and it makes it a bit more of a challenge from a narrative perspective. Timothy Olyphant is so expressive, it's a joy to work with his acting. And also, he is teh sex.
And let's see, I guess that's it largely. I've just been really busy, having lots of trouble sleeping, trying to exercise more and lose some weight but not having any success, spending time with Dad, and planning some classes I'm going to teach this fall and next spring.
Oh, I finally bit the bullet and got a Blu-Ray player, but of course, I have no Blu-Ray discs to play. Got Avatar from Netflix though and watched it (man, that is a rant I will spare people, but boy, did I post a long diatribe about it in my head). I'm kind of pissed, though, in that both Panasonic and Netflix advertise being able to stream Netflix movies with this player, but nowhere do they tell you that if you want to use your wireless network, you have to buy a USB adaptor thingie that costs at the very minimum $70. Fuckers. I was so angry when I realized I had to buy that thing, so no Netflix streaming for a while until I either buckle to the pressure or get a different player. Guess that's why it was so much less at Costco! It's not really any skin off my nose to get the discs in the mail.
What are you up to these days?
