Fri. April 8, 2022: Listening and Learning

image courtesy of El Caminante via pixabay..com

Friday, April 8, 2022

Waxing Moon

Rainy and chilly

I managed to get my email Inbox down to something manageable, dealing with over 500 emails yesterday. I also wrote three pages on the psychological ghost story radio play. I have to figure out a “why” for one of the characters, and then the rest will fall into place.

I attended the first day of the Buddhist summit. The sessions were interesting, and I learned a lot. I learned some new meditation techniques, very different from the way I’ve worked before. Because I’m not tied to one particular school of meditation, I think it’s easier for me to flow between techniques and try new things than for some others who have had years of intensive training in a single, particular school. There was a session of Tonglen training, a technique completely new to me, and that kind of turns some of the other techniques inside out. Always good to expand one’s practice. There’s a lot to think about, and to wrestle with in terms of taking the practice out into the world. I think many of the tenets are naïve, when we are in a situation of fighting the evil we currently face.

The sessions were short talks, followed by practice. I liked that the workshop leaders led us into the practice, and then let us sit in silence. Too often, in group meditations, the teacher talks all the time. I like to be led into the silence and then left there for the remainder of the session.

Choreographer Arawana Hayashi’s session resonated the most strongly with me, and I look forward to exploring and experiencing more of her work, both as a choreographer, and in meditation. Pema Chödrön’s talk was both funny and gave me a lot to think about.

I’m looking forward to today’s sessions.

I still turned around a script coverage. I grabbed two more to read today, which gets me where I need to be, money-wise this week. I hope I can grab a script or two to read tomorrow, since I’m taking Monday off, post-vaccine. I’ll have to read on Tuesday no matter what, once I get back from the mechanic. I got out 4 LOIs, although one responded immediately with a demand for unpaid labor. So they are off my list of potential clients and on The List I’m keeping of red flag companies.

Knowledge Unicorns was fine. We spent a lot of time discussing the Supreme Court.

I am absolutely over the moon that we now have Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court. I was terrified during the entire vote, worried that the racist GQP would somehow derail it. I was surprised that Susan Collins kept her word and voted for her. I’m glad Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney did, making Kirsten Sinema’s drama queen bid for attention irrelevant. It’s about time Sinema and Manchin were both made irrelevant. I cried with happiness when the confirmation went through. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson give me hope.

Now, we need to get the seditionist’s husband, the beer-swilling rapist, and the handmaiden off the Court.

Read the latest issue of THE NEW YORKER as my treat at the end of the workday. I’m glad I’ve resubscribed.

I have writing, script coverage, and the summit on today’s agenda. The summit continues through the weekend and through Monday. I hope I’m feeling well enough after Shot 4 to at least listen. I also want to get ahead on next week’s work today and tomorrow, so I don’t have to stress about taking Monday off post-vaccine, and needing to take at least a half day on Tuesday at the mechanic’s.

We had an intense storm last night, with driving rain and high wind. The power flickered, so I turned off the laptop. Took 25 minutes to boot it back up, which makes me miss the Macbook all the more. But it’s working, and that’s what matters.

Got a lovely email from the place where I pitched for the summer radio gig, and I look forward to more conversations with them.

Made cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning. Just the Pillsbury ones, not from scratch. I want to make a batch from scratch, and I want to compare them. I remember the first time I learned to make cinnamon rolls, in either 7^th or 8^th grade Home Ec. I also sewed my first skirt in that class, and discovered I liked making my own clothes.

Anyway, breakfast and then back to the page. I need to do a library run and swing by the fishmonger to see what’s fresh today. Have a good weekend, and we’ll catch up next week!

Thurs. April 7, 2022: Websites and Politicians

image courtesy of 200degrees via pixabay.com

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Waxing Moon

Rainy and chilly

Things are growing, and there’s news over on Gratitude and Growth!

Yesterday was another of those days where I felt like I didn’t get anything done when, actually, I did quite a bit.

I wrote a bio and uploaded it to the “About” page for the scriptwriting website. The tone is more of a story than typical market-speak bio, but the scriptwriting is a storytelling format, so the tone fits the site and the work.

I also updated the Fearless Ink site, based on conversations last week in the Freelance Chat group. I hadn’t realized that I needed to update my location; I thought I’d fixed all of that last July when I updated the resumes and put the address changes in everywhere. But I hadn’t.

I took off the social media packages. I no longer want to run social media accounts for clients. I’ll supply copy, but I don’t want to do the graphics, the scheduling, the uploading, and the interactions. It’s not where I want to put my energy. I also added, per the chat last week, a list of some of the things I don’t do, for which I keep getting emails, and/or which clients keep trying to sneak into their scope creep. This is why a strong contract is so important.

I need to update my contract with COVID protocols, too. Since on-site meetings are being pushed again, I’m adding in a clause that I will only attend on-site meetings if all parties are vaccinated and masked. Frankly, I don’t need to be onsite for business clients. ALL of that can be done virtually. The only clients I’d need to go onsite for are museums and performance venues, and they’re all vaccinated and following masking protocols anyway. It’s only businesses who are lax. And those are not businesses with whom I want to interact. I’m also thinking of adding a liability clause – if I get infected, the business is responsible for paying for all COVID care. Since funding for testing, etc. is being dropped, I think that’s important. And, since I won’t book onsite meetings closer than typical quarantine times, it’ll be pretty easy to trace where I got infected, should I get infected.

They can avoid all of that by simply keeping everything remote.

Speaking of reduced funding, as soon as the Republicans blocked the additional funding for vaccines and research yesteray, I was contacted to move up my 4^th shot. I’d planned to get it at the end of the month, or early in May, because when I tried to book it at the same time I booked my mom’s shot, I was told it was too soon for me. But now, they want to do it as soon as possible. There was an opening on Sunday afternoon, so that’s when I’ll get it.

It also means I don’t have the luxury of prolonged side effects. The mechanic appointment that it took me over a month to get is on Tuesday morning, and I can’t change it. So I have a day and a half to recover It’s Pfizer, so here’s hoping. My mom only had slight fatigue for about a day. My 1^st Moderna shot took me down for 4 days; the 2^nd Moderna took me down for 6; the Pfizer booster took me down for 2 or 3. Let’s hope 1-1/2 works.

And, it means I have to finish my taxes on Saturday. I’ve figured out my quarterlies, so it’s just about filling out the slip and writing the check. But I have to do last year’s mess.

I don’t write a lot about the regular interactions I have with my elected officials, although it’s several times a week. Writing about every interaction would be like listing every time I brush my teeth, because it’s that steady. Generally, I try to keep on top of whatever votes are happening on local, state, and federal levels, and weigh in. They can’t represent me if they don’t know how I feel about something. I don’t expect them to vote my way every time, but I do expect them to listen. When I have a concern about something, I express it, AND offer potential solutions. The response to that is either pointing out the flaws in the argument, or asking for more information, because it sounds interesting. When it’s the latter, I work on a detailed proposal, including how to fund it, and send it off. After back-and-forth with various aides, some of it is actually incorporated into legislation, although that can take months or years of regular contract. But that’s how I do it. There’s quite a bit about which to be concerned right now, so I do spend quite a bit of time on political activism, but not in the way a lot of other people are doing it.

It’s when people complain, but aren’t willing to do anything to change it that I lose all patience.

I didn’t get any work done on any of the plays, or The Big Project, or CAST IRON MURDER. I did turn around two script coverages. I have one more script in the queue. I need three more this week, so let’s hope something comes up. I might read Saturday, too, and take off Monday instead.

I need to get out some more LOIs, too. I hated the design for the marketing postcard, so I trashed that and will start again. I need to do some promotion for content and copywriting, along with the scriptwriting.

Turned down a script gig yesterday where the pay was mediocre and the demand was to write “at least 1500 words a day.” I can and do write more than that a day, but scripts aren’t judged by word count, but by running time. So companies that talk about scripts in terms of word count are Big Red Flags. Next!

Early this morning, the neighbor across the street was taken away in an ambulance. I hope he’s okay; he’s a good guy. Hospitals are still on COVID protocols, so his partner couldn’t go along.

Meditation group this morning, then to the page, then some time at the Buddhist summit, then script coverage and other work. I need to make sure I work ahead, so that the beginning of next week, post-shot 4 is as stress-free as possible, even with the car repair.

Have a good one!