I'm starting to get a feel for this job. :)
I'm the supervisor to a lovely editorial assistant; our in-office relationship already feels similiar to working in my former attic attic with Rebekah studying and completing homework in the adjacent bedroom, all the while talking back and forth to each other as needed. ("Mom, can you look at my grammar?" "Rebekah, can you crop this photo?") The only real difference is that our conversation revolves more around AP style (hers) and needing help with basic--really basic-- technology (mine).
Yesterday, she was moved closer to the main entrance to give the equally lovely front desk woman some help, and THAT move felt similiar to when Rebekah spent six weeks in Raleigh with Sarah two summers ago. I reassured my assistant that we would still communicate often (because we need it to get the job done, even if she can no longer physically hear what stories I'm currently working on), listed the advantages of walking back and forth to each other's desks (more exercise, etc.), and confidingly shared how we will wear a hole in the carpet. She meekly submitted to the move, unconvinced, and I'm already missing her.
All my hard work starting in Thanksgiving through now with no break, except the day I worked on Cornell Dyer and the Missing Tombstone, finally halted me in my tracks on Saturday, and I finally spent half a day or so on fiction. Here's what happened.
I exchanged my four day "immerse myself in fiction and ignore the world" Thanksgiving weekend for story piling, so I could take off a block of time at the end of December. The idea was that I would enjoy the holidays with my family and hang out with my nineteenth century characters in the prequel that often feels decades away to completion, much as Bryony did for many, many, many years, after I had conceived the idea in January nineteen eighty-five.
Instead, on Christmas Eve, I learned The Herald-News, which received the bulk of my freelance features work, was sold, and that I had to submit all outstanding copy no later than the first week of January. I had nine stories in progress and three An Extraordinary Life interviews scheduled. At the time, I did not mourn the break, as as cloud of horribleness hung over me: I might very well get a very long break.
So I worked on those stories like crazy and submitted them. The deadline was a Thursday night. Friday morning, normally a wild "Don't speak to me until late afternoon" day, greeted me in a somber and disquietingly quiet. My inbox was empty. My appointment book for the next week was blank. I had no deadlines to meet. Nothing.
Nothing.
I realized the bulk of my job might have come to a dead stop. I worked on some other pushed to the back burner assignments and tried to ignore the hovering, sickening dread of permanently saying, "Farewell" to the only paid work I felt called to do: write about people.
Then a colleague noticed the job posting for features editor at The Herald-News; its description of duties read like the ones I'd been fulfilling, albeit on a independent contractor basis, for many years. So, I wrote my first resume, attended my first job interview, and, to my great surprise, received the job. I took a total of one day off--Cornell--and went to orientation sick, sick, sick, and worked that full week sick and too stressed, and sick, to sleep.
As I said at the top of this post, now that the virus has passed, and I'm getting (some) sleep, the job is (starting) to come together for me.
Hoping to get my story count built back up, I worked straight through last weekend and kept going. My goal was to do the same THIS weekend (and I did work most of it), but after I returned from a several hour fiction writing workshop type meeting (On Saturdays, I'm mentoring two fiction writers that asked for classes and coaching), I felt too fired up with my own fiction to send that unfulfilled muse back to its lonely cage.
Instead, I took a walk in the bitter cold, which had slightly warmed up from the brutal cold (only my phone felt the brunt, as the battery kept going to sleep, leaving my headphones annoyingly silent) and then headed to my computer for an evening in Munsonville and to re-read Staked! one last time to check for typos. Thus refreshed, I spent Sunday composing newspaper assignments (in the cold, because my mother's furnace had temporarily
gone out) and praying that NEXT Sunday's weather would not prevent a forty mile trip to our church.
I'm still feeling productive (and a little tired this morning, SIGH!).
Moving forward: my story count is slowly building up; I should have a budget for freelancers very soon; I'm supposed to be trained today on how to plan the remaining features pages; and I'm interviewing Tommy James this afternoon, as he will be appearing at the historic Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet on Valentine's Day.
Saturday daytime is full, but I'm planning on spending Friday night, early Saturday morning, Saturday night, early Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon in Munsonville, switching off from the prequel to the final reading of Book Three, as Sarah has been hard at work finishing the cover.
Caaaaaan't wait! :)
I'm the supervisor to a lovely editorial assistant; our in-office relationship already feels similiar to working in my former attic attic with Rebekah studying and completing homework in the adjacent bedroom, all the while talking back and forth to each other as needed. ("Mom, can you look at my grammar?" "Rebekah, can you crop this photo?") The only real difference is that our conversation revolves more around AP style (hers) and needing help with basic--really basic-- technology (mine).
Yesterday, she was moved closer to the main entrance to give the equally lovely front desk woman some help, and THAT move felt similiar to when Rebekah spent six weeks in Raleigh with Sarah two summers ago. I reassured my assistant that we would still communicate often (because we need it to get the job done, even if she can no longer physically hear what stories I'm currently working on), listed the advantages of walking back and forth to each other's desks (more exercise, etc.), and confidingly shared how we will wear a hole in the carpet. She meekly submitted to the move, unconvinced, and I'm already missing her.
All my hard work starting in Thanksgiving through now with no break, except the day I worked on Cornell Dyer and the Missing Tombstone, finally halted me in my tracks on Saturday, and I finally spent half a day or so on fiction. Here's what happened.
I exchanged my four day "immerse myself in fiction and ignore the world" Thanksgiving weekend for story piling, so I could take off a block of time at the end of December. The idea was that I would enjoy the holidays with my family and hang out with my nineteenth century characters in the prequel that often feels decades away to completion, much as Bryony did for many, many, many years, after I had conceived the idea in January nineteen eighty-five.
Instead, on Christmas Eve, I learned The Herald-News, which received the bulk of my freelance features work, was sold, and that I had to submit all outstanding copy no later than the first week of January. I had nine stories in progress and three An Extraordinary Life interviews scheduled. At the time, I did not mourn the break, as as cloud of horribleness hung over me: I might very well get a very long break.
So I worked on those stories like crazy and submitted them. The deadline was a Thursday night. Friday morning, normally a wild "Don't speak to me until late afternoon" day, greeted me in a somber and disquietingly quiet. My inbox was empty. My appointment book for the next week was blank. I had no deadlines to meet. Nothing.
Nothing.
I realized the bulk of my job might have come to a dead stop. I worked on some other pushed to the back burner assignments and tried to ignore the hovering, sickening dread of permanently saying, "Farewell" to the only paid work I felt called to do: write about people.
Then a colleague noticed the job posting for features editor at The Herald-News; its description of duties read like the ones I'd been fulfilling, albeit on a independent contractor basis, for many years. So, I wrote my first resume, attended my first job interview, and, to my great surprise, received the job. I took a total of one day off--Cornell--and went to orientation sick, sick, sick, and worked that full week sick and too stressed, and sick, to sleep.
As I said at the top of this post, now that the virus has passed, and I'm getting (some) sleep, the job is (starting) to come together for me.
Hoping to get my story count built back up, I worked straight through last weekend and kept going. My goal was to do the same THIS weekend (and I did work most of it), but after I returned from a several hour fiction writing workshop type meeting (On Saturdays, I'm mentoring two fiction writers that asked for classes and coaching), I felt too fired up with my own fiction to send that unfulfilled muse back to its lonely cage.
Instead, I took a walk in the bitter cold, which had slightly warmed up from the brutal cold (only my phone felt the brunt, as the battery kept going to sleep, leaving my headphones annoyingly silent) and then headed to my computer for an evening in Munsonville and to re-read Staked! one last time to check for typos. Thus refreshed, I spent Sunday composing newspaper assignments (in the cold, because my mother's furnace had temporarily
gone out) and praying that NEXT Sunday's weather would not prevent a forty mile trip to our church.
I'm still feeling productive (and a little tired this morning, SIGH!).
Moving forward: my story count is slowly building up; I should have a budget for freelancers very soon; I'm supposed to be trained today on how to plan the remaining features pages; and I'm interviewing Tommy James this afternoon, as he will be appearing at the historic Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet on Valentine's Day.
Saturday daytime is full, but I'm planning on spending Friday night, early Saturday morning, Saturday night, early Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon in Munsonville, switching off from the prequel to the final reading of Book Three, as Sarah has been hard at work finishing the cover.
Caaaaaan't wait! :)
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