This is really a nervous time for me. I have to move tomorrow. It’s nothing permanent, but as of this moment, here in Northwest Indiana, we are under a winter storm watch, we may get 3 to 6 inches of snow today, and I gotta do some running and loading.
I already got enough stress in my life I don’t need more.
Today is the classic “calm before the storm” moment, and I though I’ve know this moment was coming, I’m not all that thrilled by it. I’m off to the Undisclosed Location, where I will very soon have my Internet hookup and very little else. (I may have it so fast that people won’t even notice an interruption in these personal rantings. Aren’t you lucky?) That’s okay, because I don’t need much; I’ve lived out of hotels in China for months, and I’m looking at this move as if it were one long, extended hotel stay.
As I’ve already stated, IT is not where I want to be anymore. I’m creeping in on 55, and having been out of work for 3 years has not put my head in a good place in terms of thinking I have a great deal of security in the corporate world. Businesses have always been run by jags (well, enough jags that they easily fall within the limits of Sturgeon’s Revelation), and most of them I can do without, as I do in my regular life.
But I’m going to do this because I need to. It’s bill paying time, and you do what you must. I will have my little things to keep me happy, and I’ll preserver.
I’ll keep writing, because that’s where it’s at for me.
Something happened yesterday that put me in a good frame of mine. Yesterday I met my editor.
This is for the erotic story I sold last month. The publication of said story is coming up in May, and while the story is good–hey, I wrote it, right?–I’m sure it’ll need some work, some looking over, maybe even some rewriting.
And the person who is going to edit my story PMed me over Facebook. She introduced herself and told me how she likes to work, and that things were going to be really peachy, that we were going to have a great time working together.
For my part I let her know that I would keep the ego in check, and when she had ideas I would listen. While I said this my stomach did a little bit of a flip-flop, because I know how I can get . . .
There was something that happened during the month we who write like to call NaNo Month, aka November. I had Trusty Editortm look over the first chapter of my NaNo Novel so they could tell me what they thought. It was good, they say, but . . . there was one part they didn’t much care for, because in trying to show just what a geek my main character was, I slipped a little too far into Geek Speak and lost them.
I bristled because I thought what I’d written was fine, but Trusty Editortm came back and said the passage in question was just a little too esoteric, and if they felt they needed to look something up in order to know what it was they were reading, they’d drop the book.
I bristled a little more, and that was when I got a little slap to the ego. ”I’m telling you this because you need to hear it,” they said. ”Do you want this to be good, or do you want it to be the best? Put your ego behind you and listen, because I’m trying to help.”
I did as they said, because I trusted them, and I wanted what they wanted. I rewrote the part in question, and when they saw it the next day, they loved it.
The lesson was learned. At least it was then. We’ll see what my new editor has in mind for me.
Perhaps this is the start of a beautiful friendship . . .
Cuffs and whips optional.
