It Must Be Time for a General Update!
Aug. 9th, 2009 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthWell, I've been meaning to write a general update on my life, because I haven't really given one since the middle of July. I kept forgetting or getting too tired, though, but today, well, it's 11:15 in the morning and I'm already too tired for anything worthwhile, which means that I might as well do this. :) You'd think the first day I slept til 8 AM since (I think) my trip in May, I'd feel, ya know, well rested. You'd think...
Work has been the main thing I've been doing of late. I'm on a collision course with August 31st, when I have 6 Annual Progress Reports due. Unfortunately, I feel like I've been sending e-mails into black holes; because it's summer and the folks I work with are all school employees (okay, not all), I've been waiting days and sometimes weeks for responses to simple inquiries. Despite this, I've had enough to do on most days to keep me busy for the current minimum amount of time I've been making myself work, and the upside is that I've gotten at least something done on basically each of the projects.
Also problematic is that all of these APRs require evaluation information gathered from the participants, who are almost all teachers, and therefore on their summer vacations. It's astonishing how hard it is to get these people to take 20 minutes to fill out a survey, even though they knew they'd have to do it, and have been compensated extensively as part of their participation in the program. It makes me crazy, is the truth of the matter. So all of you reading this? Please remember that surveys aren't just done for the hell of it! They're important! So be a sport! Take pity on the poor idiot who is trying to get the data cause they actually, seriously need it...
Of those 6 APRs, I've got one which I've done a complete first draft, one that is about half done, one that is a third done, one that's somewhere between a quarter and half done, and two that I've hardly been able to do anything at all one. Most of them won't take more than about 5 to 10 hours each, with the exception of the one that's between a quarter and half done - that's the big one, and the most important one, and I've been working on it a lot but still have a lot to do. If it weren't for Gencon, I would feel like I've got everything pretty well in hand, but as it is, I'm feeling pretty stressed out.
Oddly, as so often seems to happen, when I get busier with work, I manage to get busier with other stuff, too, because I just use my time better in general. As such, I've spent a lot of days working four or five hours in the morning and then going out into the world and doing stuff - which is to say, going to museums and such. I've gone to the Museum of Natural History, the Met, Intrepid, and the Museum of Art and Design. This way of spending time has the added bonus of being completely free, in that I've already paid for my metrocard, and I can get into the museums for nothing.
I've also been exercising, though not as before. I dropped my gym membership, just cause I couldn't get it together, and I'm going to be busier and busier this month and then away in September, and then hopefully moving to Skyview, where there's a gym. Instead, I've been walking large distances, which left me pretty stiff the first few days but now I seem to be about back to where I was last fall - as in, ready to walk a half-marathon, though not without feeling it the next day.
I also made it to a baseball game at the beginning of the month, and though I'd love to go to another during the next homestand, I just don't think I'll have the energy or money.
The money problems, of course, stem directly from the efforts to buy a house. This is currently in another period of waiting. I got the signed contract back from the Seller, so he's good with stuff, and now I have to get approval from the Co-op board, but before I can do that, I need my underwriting approval from the bank, which I don't expect to have for at least another week. In the meantime, I've been putting together the materials that the Board needs, many of which are the same as those the bank needed, but some of which are different.
I know I'm over stressing about the money, but I've decided to err on the side of conservatism. Then again, this week is Gencon, which I'm looking forward to despite the "omg I won't be working for five days" nerves, and I've decided that even though I'm broke I'm going to budget some credit card money so that I can still get some art, cause I think not doing so would simply depress the hell out of me. I've been trying to force myself to settle on a single number that will enable me to get nice stuff without making me cringe, though, and that hasn't been going that well. Stupid money!
As I also was talking about last month, I've been trying to sort through my varied interests to try to figure out what I want to do as my next career. I haven't been doing that much with this, actually, because I came out of mid-July with a pretty solid fix on an idea, having found the geology/paleontology option very, very appealing. With three weeks of letting that "settle" and percolate in my brain, I have to say that I still find it very appealing - in fact, one of the things that I'm waiting for in the middle of the month is for the SUNY Stony Brook application to come out - if I apply before November, I can potentially begin school there in the winter/spring semester. Though the thought of doing this causes a knot of stress to form in my stomach, at the same time I can tell that despite that I still want to do it, which is a good sign.
I'll definitely be giving this more time - I won't possibly submit my app until after the trip to Europe, which gives me more than 5 more weeks to think about it - but right now? I think it's gonna happen - assuming they accept me. :)
In addition to all of the above, I've been steadily working on my writing. After resuming my efforts to finish the Golden Age novel in mid-June, I first read through all 120k words I had at that time (and, in the process, cutting about 10k of them), and other than one week when company meant that I didn't really get anything done, I've been putting in a lot of time; such that since that resumption, I've added over 60k words to the manuscript, including over 10k this week. I would really, really like to have the manuscript finished by the time I leave for Europe, because I would love to print out a copy, shove it in a binder, and rip it to shreds with red ink - which is to say, I want to revise it while I'm away. ;) Unfortunately, I remain a terrible judge of just how much writing is left, and though I estimated that the final manuscript would be between 180k and 200k, that's not looking so good right now. In the current chapter, I have maybe 7.5k words left, and then I've got a bridge scene that'll probably be around 2.5 to 4k. That'll put me close - it'll leave me with a small fraction of one chapter, and then the climactic chapter, and then a couple little bits at the end, but I can't imagine getting out of that closing stuff without at least 20k words, which'll put me over the 200k mark. And for those of you who aren't writers? That is really, really fucking long. As in, 250 words is about 1 double spaced page!! That means my manuscript will be topping 700 pages, pretty easily - it's already close to or over 600! That's horrifying...the only thing I can say to defend it is that the ultimate fate of this manuscript will be division into a trilogy, and that's not that unreasonable a length for a trilogy...
Anyway, as I get closer to the end, I've been writing more and more cause I just want to FINISH; the capstone on this was on Friday, when I wrote about 5k words...but I've been over 2k most days in the last week or two...all I can say is...getting so close! But I'll have much more to say about this when it's actually done, which will hopefully be soon.
Meanwhile, I'm continue to puzzle over what to do with the Civil War novels, and just what I'm going to work on next. I need a bunch more time before I can really have the research done for those, and of course I'll be tackling the revision, which if I'm doing it right should preclude doing other writing for the day, but I think that I'll probably go back to playing with Mastermind until I'm ready to do something else, cause it's 25k in already, and it's just fun to write. I mean, who doesn't love stories about supervillains suffering from amnesia? I know I do...
The other random thing I've been putting time in to is keeping a Dream Journal, which actually only takes about 10 minutes, and now I'm also trying to keep an accompanying sketch book, which takes much longer.
Fortunately, there are baseball games, when I curl up on the couch with the laptop for writing and the sketchbook for drawing, and spend pretty much the whole game doing nothing else. :)
Well, that's me. I'm gonna stop now - I've nearly managed to make it to lunch time at noon, and that'll be nice...hope folks are having a nice summer!
I can't believe I'm leaving for Europe in...er...17 days...and just how much I have to get done before then...that's terrifying...but it's full steam ahead until Aug. 31st, when everything is due, and then...I get to leave on vacation the very next day, which ain't so bad when you think about it. ;)
Work has been the main thing I've been doing of late. I'm on a collision course with August 31st, when I have 6 Annual Progress Reports due. Unfortunately, I feel like I've been sending e-mails into black holes; because it's summer and the folks I work with are all school employees (okay, not all), I've been waiting days and sometimes weeks for responses to simple inquiries. Despite this, I've had enough to do on most days to keep me busy for the current minimum amount of time I've been making myself work, and the upside is that I've gotten at least something done on basically each of the projects.
Also problematic is that all of these APRs require evaluation information gathered from the participants, who are almost all teachers, and therefore on their summer vacations. It's astonishing how hard it is to get these people to take 20 minutes to fill out a survey, even though they knew they'd have to do it, and have been compensated extensively as part of their participation in the program. It makes me crazy, is the truth of the matter. So all of you reading this? Please remember that surveys aren't just done for the hell of it! They're important! So be a sport! Take pity on the poor idiot who is trying to get the data cause they actually, seriously need it...
Of those 6 APRs, I've got one which I've done a complete first draft, one that is about half done, one that is a third done, one that's somewhere between a quarter and half done, and two that I've hardly been able to do anything at all one. Most of them won't take more than about 5 to 10 hours each, with the exception of the one that's between a quarter and half done - that's the big one, and the most important one, and I've been working on it a lot but still have a lot to do. If it weren't for Gencon, I would feel like I've got everything pretty well in hand, but as it is, I'm feeling pretty stressed out.
Oddly, as so often seems to happen, when I get busier with work, I manage to get busier with other stuff, too, because I just use my time better in general. As such, I've spent a lot of days working four or five hours in the morning and then going out into the world and doing stuff - which is to say, going to museums and such. I've gone to the Museum of Natural History, the Met, Intrepid, and the Museum of Art and Design. This way of spending time has the added bonus of being completely free, in that I've already paid for my metrocard, and I can get into the museums for nothing.
I've also been exercising, though not as before. I dropped my gym membership, just cause I couldn't get it together, and I'm going to be busier and busier this month and then away in September, and then hopefully moving to Skyview, where there's a gym. Instead, I've been walking large distances, which left me pretty stiff the first few days but now I seem to be about back to where I was last fall - as in, ready to walk a half-marathon, though not without feeling it the next day.
I also made it to a baseball game at the beginning of the month, and though I'd love to go to another during the next homestand, I just don't think I'll have the energy or money.
The money problems, of course, stem directly from the efforts to buy a house. This is currently in another period of waiting. I got the signed contract back from the Seller, so he's good with stuff, and now I have to get approval from the Co-op board, but before I can do that, I need my underwriting approval from the bank, which I don't expect to have for at least another week. In the meantime, I've been putting together the materials that the Board needs, many of which are the same as those the bank needed, but some of which are different.
I know I'm over stressing about the money, but I've decided to err on the side of conservatism. Then again, this week is Gencon, which I'm looking forward to despite the "omg I won't be working for five days" nerves, and I've decided that even though I'm broke I'm going to budget some credit card money so that I can still get some art, cause I think not doing so would simply depress the hell out of me. I've been trying to force myself to settle on a single number that will enable me to get nice stuff without making me cringe, though, and that hasn't been going that well. Stupid money!
As I also was talking about last month, I've been trying to sort through my varied interests to try to figure out what I want to do as my next career. I haven't been doing that much with this, actually, because I came out of mid-July with a pretty solid fix on an idea, having found the geology/paleontology option very, very appealing. With three weeks of letting that "settle" and percolate in my brain, I have to say that I still find it very appealing - in fact, one of the things that I'm waiting for in the middle of the month is for the SUNY Stony Brook application to come out - if I apply before November, I can potentially begin school there in the winter/spring semester. Though the thought of doing this causes a knot of stress to form in my stomach, at the same time I can tell that despite that I still want to do it, which is a good sign.
I'll definitely be giving this more time - I won't possibly submit my app until after the trip to Europe, which gives me more than 5 more weeks to think about it - but right now? I think it's gonna happen - assuming they accept me. :)
In addition to all of the above, I've been steadily working on my writing. After resuming my efforts to finish the Golden Age novel in mid-June, I first read through all 120k words I had at that time (and, in the process, cutting about 10k of them), and other than one week when company meant that I didn't really get anything done, I've been putting in a lot of time; such that since that resumption, I've added over 60k words to the manuscript, including over 10k this week. I would really, really like to have the manuscript finished by the time I leave for Europe, because I would love to print out a copy, shove it in a binder, and rip it to shreds with red ink - which is to say, I want to revise it while I'm away. ;) Unfortunately, I remain a terrible judge of just how much writing is left, and though I estimated that the final manuscript would be between 180k and 200k, that's not looking so good right now. In the current chapter, I have maybe 7.5k words left, and then I've got a bridge scene that'll probably be around 2.5 to 4k. That'll put me close - it'll leave me with a small fraction of one chapter, and then the climactic chapter, and then a couple little bits at the end, but I can't imagine getting out of that closing stuff without at least 20k words, which'll put me over the 200k mark. And for those of you who aren't writers? That is really, really fucking long. As in, 250 words is about 1 double spaced page!! That means my manuscript will be topping 700 pages, pretty easily - it's already close to or over 600! That's horrifying...the only thing I can say to defend it is that the ultimate fate of this manuscript will be division into a trilogy, and that's not that unreasonable a length for a trilogy...
Anyway, as I get closer to the end, I've been writing more and more cause I just want to FINISH; the capstone on this was on Friday, when I wrote about 5k words...but I've been over 2k most days in the last week or two...all I can say is...getting so close! But I'll have much more to say about this when it's actually done, which will hopefully be soon.
Meanwhile, I'm continue to puzzle over what to do with the Civil War novels, and just what I'm going to work on next. I need a bunch more time before I can really have the research done for those, and of course I'll be tackling the revision, which if I'm doing it right should preclude doing other writing for the day, but I think that I'll probably go back to playing with Mastermind until I'm ready to do something else, cause it's 25k in already, and it's just fun to write. I mean, who doesn't love stories about supervillains suffering from amnesia? I know I do...
The other random thing I've been putting time in to is keeping a Dream Journal, which actually only takes about 10 minutes, and now I'm also trying to keep an accompanying sketch book, which takes much longer.
Fortunately, there are baseball games, when I curl up on the couch with the laptop for writing and the sketchbook for drawing, and spend pretty much the whole game doing nothing else. :)
Well, that's me. I'm gonna stop now - I've nearly managed to make it to lunch time at noon, and that'll be nice...hope folks are having a nice summer!
I can't believe I'm leaving for Europe in...er...17 days...and just how much I have to get done before then...that's terrifying...but it's full steam ahead until Aug. 31st, when everything is due, and then...I get to leave on vacation the very next day, which ain't so bad when you think about it. ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-09 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-10 01:17 am (UTC)Thanks for the continuing support. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-10 09:58 pm (UTC)I'm still keeping my fingers crossed on the house thing. And hooray for 2 vacations!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 11:56 am (UTC)Both cutting stuff and adding stuff can be very difficult. Once it's down on paper, it's often surprisingly easy to fall in the trap that it's necessary and needed, which can make figuring out what to cut tough, especially if you don't quite remember why you wrote it in the first place. :)
And thanks! ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 12:34 pm (UTC)