The Trouble with Vacation

I just had nine days off in a row. And the best part? I only had to use 3 vacation days to make it happen. It was a blissful break, and one much needed and well earned. I ate a lot of great food, rested hard, rocked the family time, and got a decent amount of writing done.

The problem is that this morning I arrived at the office to find 1500 emails waiting for me (that is not an exaggeration). Funny thing is, I'm actually glad to get back into the swing of things.

Happy Monday, QQQEers.

Workplace Psych, by Alexa Thompson

This post has been removed at the request of the author.

Blog Chain: Writing Desk

Apparently this is the last blog chain of the year. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, this chain's topic was decided on by Tere, who asked us:

What conditions do you need to get your best writing done? Closed door, crowded coffee house? Computer or notebook? Can you just sit down to write, or do you need to wait for the time to be right?

Before you read my response, go visit Sandra, whose link in the chain comes before mine. Tomorrow, you can visit Kate, whose link comes after.

So, now to my answer, if you can call it that.

I've only been writing seriously for a few years, well, depending on what you consider serious. Seeking publication, I suppose. When I first started, I was very uptight about where and when I wrote. I had to have a desktop computer, with two monitors (one for research, one for drafting) and it had to have a big, clicky keyboard. I always did my best writing first thing in the morning, and tended to have more success revising in the afternoon.

Since then, I've come to realize that writing is a lot like time. You can't always find it, so you have to make it. I'm not sure that analogy makes much sense written down like this, but my point is, you're not always going to be able to find the perfect circumstance, so you have to just make do. I've got two kids and a rowdy dog, so writing at home is difficult, but I do it, when I can, because I have to, even though I can't stand writing on a laptop. I also have an annoying, soul-sucking day job, but I get some writing done there as well, even with phones ringing all over the room, managers walking around pretending they matter, and people talking at me all day long.

All that being said, I would kill for a cabin in the mountains, with a window on the world, and a nice old typewriter on a roll top desk. Oh, that, and the time to enjoy it.

Where do you get your best writing done?

Great News!

So guess what? Human Resources, after checking with the Department of Labor, has determined that the ridiculous schedule my job had me working was illegal! I know. Crazy, right?

I mean I know the schedule was cruel and unusual punishment, myself, but I had no idea such things were illegal in this society. I can't say I'm the least bit upset. So the great news is that I'm back to my regular 9 to 5, which is actually 6 to 3, but I'm going to be able to be a real blogger again, not to mention a writer and critique partner. You might think I would have gotten more done with more time off, but you'd be wrong.

I've never been much of a morning person, or anything like that, but I definitely am more productive when I'm up in the morning, with a plan of action, and out of the house where the urge to just chill is too great.

So there you have it. I can finally read your blogs again!

Also, more good news: since I joined a gym a month ago I've lost 15 pounds. I still have a beer-muscle the size of the Hindu-Kush, but I'm working on it, and things are going well so far.

Thanks for all your support through the rough times, but I'm glad to be back.

Several Announcements

::BEGIN FOOTBALL TALK::

I do have several important things I need to update you all about, but before we get to that I want to talk about the Minnesota Vikings.

I know most of you don't care about the NFL, and I'm okay with that, basically because I don't care whether you care or not.

Point is: I'm extremely worried about my team this year. I'm really happy with the Donovan McNabb pickup, for several reasons, but mostly because the Vikings are known for resurrecting the careers of black quarterbacks. We picked up Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham; won with Duante Culpepper even though he was young, and are now set to define the twilight of another hall of fame black QB: Donovan McNabb.

Those are all good things.

But I'm worried about this season because as much as I love and respect McNabb, he doesn't have the weapons that any QB would expect to have in order to succeed. I realize the only major free agency loss we had this off season, when related to Donovan, was Sidney Rice, but the best argument I can make to that is this: our number one deep threat receiver is now: Bernard Berrian. Bernard Berrian, y'all.

::END FOOTBALL TALK::

Anyway, I've probably said way too much about football by now, and I should move on to more important and relevant things.

The next announcement, as you probably already know, if we're friends on Facebook, is that I just finished what I'm calling the umpteenth draft of Warrior-Monks. It's taken me over two years to get here, and I've had to cut it from 477,000 words to 160,000 but now it is finally out with some writers I trust to help me polish it to a nice finish, and I honestly have to say: I don't know what I'm going to do with my days.

Write the next story, I guess.

Finally, and this is bad news in some way, but I'm also still undecided, my day job has asked me to move to a new shift. It's call the DuPont schedule, and it's probably unlike anything you've ever heard of. I'll be working 12 hour shifts, 4 day shifts the first week of the month, then three days off. 4 night shifts the second week of the month, then another three days off. Then 6 shifts, 3 night and 3 day, followed by 7 days in a row off. There are some major advantages to this shift, like getting 7 days off every month without having to use any vacation time, but the thing that worries me the most is that I've gotten into a great routine with my writing and blogging, and I'm concerned that this change is really going to affect that.

In particular, I will no longer be able to blog every weekday at 7 AM EDT. I would love to write a bunch of posts ahead of time and schedule them for the mornings, but that's just not me. I'm an off the top of the head kind of blogger, and though I may schedule a post ahead of time every once in a while, it won't be happening on a regular basis.

Hopefully things will settle in soon enough, and I'm sure I'll be able to adjust (especially since they're offering me a VOIP phone and a laptop so I can do my night and weekend shifts from home), but it's going to take some time to get used to, and I just don't know what kind of blogging presence I can expect to have, yet.

I'll do my best to keep you guys up to date.

I'm Here

I'm here today. I had to stay home this morning to get the kids ready for school because Kelly is out of town. So I just got to work at 8:15, leaving me no time to write a proper post.

I'll be back tomorrow. For now have a great Monday!

Technical Writing

I won't really be blogging today because I have to author a few process documents and workflows for the client who is in town. BO-RING.

It's not that I hate it that much, I mean I AM a writer. But creative writing is so much more fun than technical writing. I mean yes, it can still be work, and it should be, really, if you're doing it right, but it still can be fun too. Technical writing? Not so much. At least not for me.

I might feel differently if I were being paid to be a technical writer, but no, this is just another responsibility they're heaping on top of my normal duties. That's business for ya ...

... sorry to depress you all. I don't intend to leave you feeling that way. I want you to have a great weekend, so I'll just leave you with this:

Homotion

So I'm sure some of you have noticed that my posts last week got much shorter. You also may have noticed that I've had less time to read and comment on your blogs than I would like.

Part of it is because of being out of work on Monday and dealing with the Frisky situation but mostly it is because of work. I found out on Friday that my company is homoting me again. If you don't know what that means it's probably because I made that word up. A homotion is like a promotion except your employer is treating you like a ho.

Essentially I've been asked to handle more responsibilities and duties for the same amount of pay and benefits: a homotion. I'm not complaining, lord knows I'm happy to have a decent job in this economy, but what this means is that I'm going to have to cut back on blogging; especially on reading and commenting, even though I wish I didn't have to.

I am going to post 5 times this week because I don't want to give traffic any excuse to decrease when I have such an awesome guest blogger being featured this Friday (see above). I will have to decrease the amount and length of posts in the near future though, so please be prepared. I will never stop doing the guest posts on Friday, unless I run out of volunteers. Speaking of which I have no one scheduled on my spreadsheet after this Friday so if you want to volunteer please send me an email, or if you know a blogger you would like to see featured drop me a line and I will email them myself. I also don't intend to stop posting my examples of bad queries, at least not until I run out of them, though I may have to start putting those posts together on weekends because of the length of them.

In the meantime if you have a particularly awesome post that you would like me to read and comment on, please don't hesitate to let me know, because I will now only have time to read about 10 blogs a day rather than the 50-100 I am used to.

Please be understanding and stick with me and perhaps one day this will all turn around (when I get published, become super rich and famous, and can quit this dreary day job)!

Night Shift

So I was asked to work the overnight shift today because my help desk is expecting a high call volume because of a corporate snafu earlier today. So I am working from 12 midnight until 8AM. I already worked my normal shift on Thursday. Anyway it's not that big a deal. At least I get Friday off.

The reason I'm blogging about it is because Michelle is still going to be doing her guest post this morning, but it won't go up until later than normal because I wasn't able to prepare it. I wanted to write this mini post so you would all have something to look at and so it would be clear that she and I are still doing the guest post.

Okay, it's really mostly her.

So that picture above is me as kid on the deck of our family home on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. Yes that's my underwear.

This one here below is after my big sister Em dressed me up. Our mom was a TV actress. Those are her boots.



Anyway this is only up here temporarily, please check back a little later this morning and Michelle and I should have the guest post up soon.

Thanks!