brain droppings

Gosh, where have I been? Head down on SurfGirl, mostly, and dreaming up a fantasical magical fantasy novel.

Seren's new catalogue popped through my door, and I want…all of it. But especially the Mabinogion retellings. Another idea that I never quite followed through on. Literally cannot wait for the Niall Griffiths one! (I am determined to make it to his Ty Newydd workshop.)

Death of the iBook is also making life difficult. I dream of a backlit keyboard and unibody, 13 inches and 250GB of Apple goodness…

Headline Analyzer

"What is the Headline Analyzer?

This free tool will analyze your headline to determine the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score."

Cool huh? I must be a pretty poor copywriter, because I'm not getting very high scores! And I'll admit, I was actually looking for a headline generator. When your editor has decided that a good title for an article about Europe would be, er, 'Europe' and you have to think something up at the last minute, boy would a headline generator be useful. I'll keep looking…otherwise I might have to use my brain, and it's not co-operating today.

Oh this is fun too - word association. I had it passing after 105. (Why do my threads always turn to filth after about 20? Hmm.)

In a nutshell

These are the things that drive me mad every single day…wish I could send Grammar Girl to all the offenders!

You're Versus Your
"You're" means "you are." "Your" is the possessive form of "you."

It's Versus Its
"It's " means "it is" or "it has." "Its" is the possessive form of "it."

They're Versus Their Versus There
"They're" means "they are." "Their" is the possessive form of "they," and "there" is usually a place.

New opportunities

I have taken on the role of Secretary of the new Cornwall Surfer Girls club (and Treasurer - which is a laugh!) as well as working on PR and sponsorship for Surfstock. While I don't get paid for either (well, not directly), both are going to earn me lots of contacts and opportunities, and be a lot of fun!

While both will showcase my writing, they are also taking a lot (a LOT) of time to do…leaving my more creative writing to take a back seat. This situation will be rectified once the madness of summer has calmed down a bit! I miss my morning ritual of walking the dog, yoga then an hour's writing, but I love the excitement, possibilities and cool new people appearing!

Almost a room of one's own

Utterly strange and utterly wonderful, this art/craft/technology/commentary 'Body Technology Interfaces - Laptop interface for privacy, warmth, and concentration in public spaces' from Sternlab is, I reckon, just what I need when trying to work in my busy office or shut out my elephanting housemates. If it was lined with something that blocks wi-fi, I reckon it would be the perfect procrastination killer.

12 Reasons I Hate The Phone

Many freelancing advice sites/blogs/forums give you advice along the 'Be bold!' line. And that's great - they gee me up to tackle things I would otherwise put off, and give me courage to pitch to people I am in awe of.

But I am quite shy, and I hate the phone. I really, really hate the phone. I've always struggled with this, and I think I always will.

At least it's good to know I'm in good company. Very good.

Here are some of the reasons I hate calling people (for business and 'pleasure'):

1. Everyone in the office/room can hear what I'm saying.
2. I hate the sound of my own voice (I think I sound posh - I'm not posh) and I often get an odd echo in my head of what I've just said. (This may be some sort of mental disorder, I don't know!)
   
3. I always feel like I'm interrupting something.
   
4. These are not always people who are keen to talk to me in the first place, either that or they don't know/trust me/care.
   
5. I can't see if you're loving or hating what I'm saying. No visual clues at all.
   
6. If wherever I am gets suddenly noisy, I lose words. That sounds unprofessional. (Currently, there are people with airhorns shouting outside in the street. Tourist town!)
   
7. Taped phone conversations are painful to transcribe - hissy and faint. I hate all the tape, batteries, leads gunk. Give me my iPod, iTalk and a couple of comfy chairs any time.
   
8. I'm bad at talking to strangers anyway, let alone faceless ones. It's just harder to connect.
   
9. I'm always wanting something or putting you on the spot. It seems rude. I'd rather meet in person and buy you a coffee, or better still, a fat chocolate muffin.
10. I can't do my obsessive-compulsive checking for sense and meaning (the sub in me) when I'm talking. I'm not what you'd call lucid.
    
11. I take a long time to reason things out, research and think about solutions and answers. I never piped up in Uni seminars because I could so see both sides and all the grey areas in between. Doesn't mean I don't have an opinion, I'm just not good at spitting it out after having had about three seconds to formulate it.
    
12. I can't show you anything, like the file I'm working on, the image I'm talking about or what I mean when I say 'drag it over to…' (I'm unpaid tech support for a few people!).
    

I could probably go on for about five more.

And some reasons I hate being called:

1. People who do the Anonymous Call thing. Let me know who you are. I have to pick up in case it's Mum on Skype (she can't or doesn't know how to change that) but I hate it.
2. I'm usually being interrupted.
3. If you leave a message, I have to pay (and navigate the Orange answerphone menu) to listen to it. Dammit, you wanted to talk to me, why do I have to pay for it? (Yeah, I'm cheap!)
   
4. I can't help trying to multi-task, especially when it's a 'just a chat' call. I can't do them. Just can't.
5. I feel put on the spot.
   

So for the moment I'm not going to worry about my fear of the phone. If and when it's necessary, (my NHS consultant's secretary, I am thinking of you) I will pick up the phone and give them hell. And often, I put the phone down and think, well, what a lovely person. (Not that secretary, mind you.) But email, IM, Skype videocalls, hell, a good old-fashioned letter - I'd rather be able to let the recipient decide when and where to deal with it.

If I end up having to revise this reasoning…I'll let you know.

Creativity

I've been querying like mad, but I've hardly written anything! I have some great ideas, but I'm worrying more about pitching them than actually getting on and writing them. If they're that good, I gotta write them anyway.

So I love this: 8 ways to recreate childhood creativity

I think this is what Julia Cameron would term 'filling the well'. I especially like the napping and eating points - I am good at those.

Less business, more writing, more creating.

2008 Inkthinker Query Challenge

I might be mad, but I've signed up for the above. Basically, it means I will try to send out ten queries a month. I think I can manage that; I've just applied for two via Guru.com. I think it'll help me keep a record of what I've done, plus it's really interesting to see how other people fare, especially in the rejections area!

Just Keep Chasing Payment

I finally received royalties for a book I finished in 2003. It's very nice to get the money, but I doubt I'll see any more unless I want to go through the same amount of hassle again.

Next time remember to:
Read the contract very carefully.
Keep a copy of it safe - I can't find it now! (In my defence, I was living and travelling in a camper van at the time.)
Don't give up easily.
Get others (legal, fellow authors) in to help. (I think that's what eventually got me somewhere.)

Chasing payment:
Thomas Higgins
Better Payment Practice

And now, my current thinking…what to charge! I have read an awful lot of posts about this, but I always find them very frustrating. They say things like, find out what they expect you to charge. How? And how do you quantify your experience, how does the scale go up? And of course, a lot of them are US-centric.

I do have some idea, as I already work for a magazine. Here are two other sources of useful info so far:
NUJ Rate for the Job (almost the only one you need, I think)
NJ Creatives Network - US, but a start
And checking the job boards (read trawling) to get an idea.

I didn't get any reply from the 'perfect client' which is a shame, but I've got others to apply to. I'm going to the Dominican Republic for two weeks on Sunday, so I won't be updating, although I will be writing (and surfing) a lot.

The Perfect Client

What to do when you've found the perfect people to freelance for, and you know you're the perfect candidate? Send them a cracking CV and cover email, of course. At least, I hope it's cracking. I kept it really short and sweet.

But what if they reject me? I guess it's like the pitching-articles/sending a book out advice - forget about that one, and get on to the next (hm, that goes for men too). But this is actually my first pitch of the new push into freelancing, so my already nervous stomach (damn sickness bug) is really jumping.

I might bug them in a few days if they don't reply.

Perfectly Put

I was having a hard time wondering how to keep my rambling personal blog (and other personal ephemera) on my surfergrl site when I wanted to start writing more about writing and my progress with freelancing.

So I have revived Perfectly Put, the freelancing business I started to set up in 2002. It's time I showed how serious I am about writing for a living, so this shiny new blog will chart my progess, discuss the writing life and...well, who knows. Blogs are pretty organic, and I like that.

(p.s. I am still happily employed at CARVE, just branching out!)