It wasn’t ALL bad. I had a birthday. My age is now a palindrome. Since this only happens one year out of every eleven, I feel it should be celebrated.
But that was about it. I shipped WAY too much chocolate, mostly due to stress, and the remaining part to do with now being addicted to chocolate again. *sigh* I’ll break it. Eventually.
Also found out it is impossible to top up one’s benefits with casual work here and there, which is apparently all I can find right now. Actually, I haven’t even found that. I’ve found the possibility of it. At some point. Maybe. And if I do get it, anything I earn will be deducted from my benefits, cos hey, £70 a week is plenty, right?!
Wrong.
I’m not even qualified (according to the employer, anyway) for a part-time sales job in a stationery shop. Yay.
This is why Naliara the space-going dragonfly and you, her unexpected (and totally untrained) rider, did not make an appearance last week.
I know I should always be positive and happy joy joy, particularly here, on my blog, my (supposedly) professional shopfront to the world, but last week, my ability to give a shit took a hike. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t do any work. I wrote about 15k last week on The Project Which I Previously Hated But Have Since Come To Feel Some Affection For. Which was good. And it’s mostly done, into the editing phase now.
I just stopped caring about non-work stuff. Which sucks because part of this whole self-employed, writing-as-a-career thing is that you have to give more than you get. I feel that way, anyway. That if I’m not constantly being here and visible and at least somewhat entertaining, the world will forget about me and go elsewhere.
Which is quite possibly a really stupid thing to think, but there you go. I’m a sucker for the approval of others. And constantly getting rejected through the job search process means I pull back from the rest of the world on here because of feeling totally unworthy, etc, etc, and thereby feel even more unloved and unworthy and blah blah blah.
On the plus side, some good stuff happened over the weekend.
My aforementioned birthday was on Saturday. I ate crap the entire day. It was awesome.
Tales of Eve, the anthology I edited on women creating their perfect partner, has gone to the formatter. I did the introduction. Apparently it was good. Never done an introduction before, so bear that in mind while rolling your eyes. If you end up reading it, that is, which you really should cos the stories are AWESOME. Ten authors, six male, four female (I’m particularly proud of the (more or less) gender parity) – there’s Adrian Tchaikovsky, Juliet McKenna (writing sci-fi, not fantasy!) and Suzanne McLeod. There’s Alasdair Stuart and Paul Weimer, who do a lot of non-fiction writing, reviews and such, and should really write more fiction because they’re BLOODY GOOD AT IT. There’s Ren Warom and Rob Haines, whose stories made me cry. There’s Colum Paget who is officially an award-winning short story writer (I’m sure some of the others are too, but I remember his win because he got it the week before I met him). And there’s Fran Terminiello and Andrew Reid who are just…well…brilliant.
It’s got science-fiction and fantasy and every wee grade in between. I can’t believe I know these people. I can’t believe they said they’d contribute. I can’t believe they actually did. And have you seen the cover art?
I love it. It perfectly captures the vibe I was going for. Which is (in case you’re wondering) a combination of power tempered with compassion. That sometimes inexpressible combination which makes up the female spirit, if you like. Not easy to pin down, but Daniele Serra has managed it, I think. Oh yes, that’s right. We’ve got an award-winning cover artist, too. Fox Spirit does things right!
Oh, and if you’re curious, you can read Ren’s story, Unravel, here. As a free taster, if you like.
And I got the last of the feedback on Night Shift. So first I get to edit the story I just finished drafting. Then I get to edit Night Shift.
My life is full of yay.
Thank God I’m starting the next Scent story (The Scent of Goodbye, the follow-up to The Scent of Freedom). Having something new to write is what’s going to keep me sane, I think.
