The author, overworked
Monday, September 1st, 2008 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniIt's being one of those days where all the things I must do, Real Life, have gotten in the way of the other things that I must do, Writing Life, and my mood is none the better for it.
One of the things that I must do is make the SRM accounting and other related office-type work less of a time-sink. Much less of a time-sink. Steve and I are pretty evenly divided in our strengths and weaknesses, and I'm strong -- by training, if not necessarily by inclination -- in Stupid Office Stuff: bookkeeping, filing, and the never-ending etcetera.
Silly as it is, Office Stuff takes time, so I've spent a couple hours this morning trying to figure out how to streamline some of the tasks I've been doing by hand -- which was fine when we were a little company, mailing out maybe 200 chapbooks of a Yule season. The same system is Not So Good when we're mailing upwards of 1100 preordered chapbooks.
The good news here is that I'm within ames-ace (yes, I know, but my grandmother used to use it to mean "reallyREALLY close;" it stuck, and I can't get rid of it. It's a Family Thing.) of figuring out how to streamline the whole order-recording system so that I can get receipts and labels out the other end with a minimum of hassle and pain.
After that's well and truly nailed down, we can move on to figuring out how to make the order fulfillment process less of a nightmare for Steve.
The bad news is that the things I Must do, Writing Life, have not Done Themselves while I've been screwing around with spreadsheet systems.
Those things include:
*Finalize Fledgling: due at Baen September 15
*Finish writing my story for Eidolon: due on October 15
*Go over the CE for Longeye: sometime around November, I'm guessing
*Finalize Saltation: due at Baen December 15
*Write The Book With No Name: due at Baen June 1
Then there's the day-job.
Oh, and I hear that other people have lives, too. Can anyone speak to that? Truth? Falsehood? Pernicious Rumor?
After lunch, I'm back to the Fledgling rewrite. Sigh.
Pretty day out... Too bad about that.
One of the things that I must do is make the SRM accounting and other related office-type work less of a time-sink. Much less of a time-sink. Steve and I are pretty evenly divided in our strengths and weaknesses, and I'm strong -- by training, if not necessarily by inclination -- in Stupid Office Stuff: bookkeeping, filing, and the never-ending etcetera.
Silly as it is, Office Stuff takes time, so I've spent a couple hours this morning trying to figure out how to streamline some of the tasks I've been doing by hand -- which was fine when we were a little company, mailing out maybe 200 chapbooks of a Yule season. The same system is Not So Good when we're mailing upwards of 1100 preordered chapbooks.
The good news here is that I'm within ames-ace (yes, I know, but my grandmother used to use it to mean "reallyREALLY close;" it stuck, and I can't get rid of it. It's a Family Thing.) of figuring out how to streamline the whole order-recording system so that I can get receipts and labels out the other end with a minimum of hassle and pain.
After that's well and truly nailed down, we can move on to figuring out how to make the order fulfillment process less of a nightmare for Steve.
The bad news is that the things I Must do, Writing Life, have not Done Themselves while I've been screwing around with spreadsheet systems.
Those things include:
*Finalize Fledgling: due at Baen September 15
*Finish writing my story for Eidolon: due on October 15
*Go over the CE for Longeye: sometime around November, I'm guessing
*Finalize Saltation: due at Baen December 15
*Write The Book With No Name: due at Baen June 1
Then there's the day-job.
Oh, and I hear that other people have lives, too. Can anyone speak to that? Truth? Falsehood? Pernicious Rumor?
After lunch, I'm back to the Fledgling rewrite. Sigh.
Pretty day out... Too bad about that.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-01 06:29 pm (UTC)From the above deadline list I see 'Saltation' is due this year? Wow, talk about stress! Even if there are not many more chapters (since I'm still waiting for the action to start I hope that's not the case, grin), that puts first draft finished some time in the next two months, which will leave very little time for rewrites! Especially compared to 'Fledgling' for which you had about a year, if I remember right. Is this self-imposed or Baen required?
I'm all for having more from my favorite authors and it's occasionally frustrating when new stuff is not forthcoming as fast as one would wish, but I'd much rather have sane authors who can write 1 book a year than one who's burned out and stops writing altogether.
Good vibes.
P.S. I finally got the Paypal thing under way, but forgot to add 'Sasha' to the payment so you'd know it's me! Brain still being sneezed and coughed out, obviously!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-01 07:11 pm (UTC)Boy, I wish you could, too! Feel better soon; my cold is Just About, Almost Entirely gone, but it did hang around much longer than was strictly necessary.
Especially compared to 'Fledgling' for which you had about a year, if I remember right. Is this self-imposed or Baen required?
Well...no, not exactly. What we've been doing since Fledgling was declared a draft was finishing Duainfey and writing Longeye. Then we traveled, bad authors. So, Fledgling...not a year in the remaking, no.
The deadlines are Baen's. Fledgling will be out next September and they want Saltation to follow as quickly as possible.