Fri. July 3, 2020: Die For Tourist Dollars Day 46 — Finally, Productivity

Friday, July 3, 2020
Waxing Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Mercury Retrograde
Saturn Retrograde
Neptune Retrograde
Cloudy and humid

We’re going into the long holiday weekend, and I just feel like the clock is running out for me on way too many fronts.

Yesterday was actually a fairly productive day. I popped into my client’s to launch an ad – the financial information was at the office. That didn’t take long, and the client is pleased. Let’s hope it converts into actual sales. I’ve got some SEO tweaking to do on the client’s website next week, which should also help.

Swung by the bodega (ahem, convenience store) on the way back to pick up eggs. It just wasn’t worth standing in line to get into a grocery store for eggs. The only people wearing masks around here yesterday were the locals going into the post office and the convenience store.

Clumps of tourists are clomping around, not wearing masks, not social distancing. The bridges were backed up for hours.

We’re going to lose all the progress we made against the virus, and it’s disheartening.

Got home, full disinfectant protocols, and made it to the first session of the Freelance Writing  Success Summit. Attended all three virtual sessions. Got some good information. Some of the sessions are for people earlier in their careers than I am, but they’ll get a lot out of it.

It turns out a lot of best practices for SEO writing were what I do instinctively. That’s good to know. It helps me frame SEO conversations moving forward, especially because I am committed to quality content over SEO word salad. Since Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing anyway, it gives me a stronger position when the companies push back about using keywords that aren’t supported by content.

Got out some LOIs. Refused some reach outs from “recruiters” who want me to do work in which I’m not interested nor is my focus, for lower than my regular rate because I should be “happy someone wants to hire you in these hard economic times.” A) I’m working; B) What you offer is not in my area of expertise OR interest, so find someone in that field; C) I’m not 20 begging for my first job. I’m a seasoned professional and I’m worth my rate.

Freelance Chat was a lot of fun.

Finished reading a book of essays by someone who is a good writer, but her brand of crazy is too much for me right now. And yes, in her case, it’s definitely part of her “brand.” My emotional energy needs to be elsewhere right now, because there’s not a whole lot of it.

My doctor sent me a survey on how I’m feeling, emotionally. Um, I’d be a bit of a sociopath if it was all flowers and rainbows in the middle of a pandemic. No, I’m not sleeping well, I worry a lot, and I have post-anesthesia brain fog. I just had two surgeries in 4 months during a pandemic, for goodness’ sake!

I’m a little fed up with all the forms and the surveys and the tests. I’m tired and I’m worried and I can’t heal if I’m filling out forms all the time.

Got some work done on the promotional TRINITY OF TEASERS package, but exporting text from system to system and having it actually do what I want is frustrating. But I don’t want to rekey over 100 pages of text, either. I need to get back to work on the new editions of the Topic Workbooks, too. I thought I’d be farther along by now.

I thought I’d be farther along on a lot of things.

Didn’t get the reading done for my language class, so I’ll have to get that done today.

Did do some work on Book 4 of the Gambit Colony series, because I craved it. Really shouldn’t be working on it now, but it calms me and soothes me and gives me creative fuel for other projects.

The dickheads with their illegal fireworks were in full force last night. These are the same idiots who won’t wear masks because “fweedom” asLilith St. Crow put it the other day in her blog. Their freedom to terrorize the neighborhood exists, but ours not to be infected by their stupidity does not. We obviously know for whom they voted and where they get their news. About 20-30 minutes, at least 300-400 fireworks (I trained in pyro when I worked rock and roll, I know these things). I was on the floor, beside Tessa, who was terrified, putting my body between the direction of the noise and poor Tessa. Willa and Charlotte ignore the noise, but it absolutely terrifies Tessa.

At least I had a good night’s sleep, for once.

Working on THE BARD’S LAMENT this morning – hoping I can finish fixing that huge plot problem. I can’t believe I was that stupid.

Dashing down to the library for a curbside pickup this morning. Excited to return books and get some new ones. Will also read the book for review this weekend.

Sent out a bunch of cards to people yesterday, and have some more that need to go out in the next few days. I ordered a bunch of new notecards from Peter Pauper Press (one of my favorite suppliers), so it’s time to use them!

I’m actually almost looking forward to the weekend. I have to battle the bindweed, weather permitting, but I’d like to read and write and not deal with any human beings outside the household.

I don’t feel there’s a lot to celebrate this year, but I am looking forward to some downtime.

Have a great holiday weekend, friends!

Thurs. July 2, 2020: Die For Tourist Dollars Day 45 — Optimistic With the Work

Thursday, July 2, 2020
Waxing Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Saturn Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Neptune Retrograde
Hazy and humid

The latest on the garden is up at Gratitude and Growth (including some pictures). I am so grateful to have that space.

Yesterday was tough. I was up early. Didn’t feel great. Pushed myself to go onsite for a client, and burned out within two hours. I left before anyone else had arrived, leaving a note and what I’d done and was going to do from home. And being upfront with them about what the doctor said, because it could affect them. Not as much as the COVID test potentially could have affected them, but still.

Stopped at CVS on the way home to pick up one of my mother’s prescriptions. My primary care physician’s office called. We set up a Zoom call for next Tuesday afternoon (since I’m doing a podcast interview in the morning). That adds a huge level of stress, instead of removes one, because I’m worried she’s going to want to send me for more tests, and I’m out of emotional resources at this point. Plus, I can’t keep taking off work. I need to earn a living.

Home, disinfectant protocols, back to my desk, shaky as I was. But I’d rather be shaky at home, where I can lie down when I need to, then somewhere I can’t.

A couple more hours for the client. She approved the ads I did, so I’m going to start running them.

Remote Chat was fun, as it always is, but I was suffering from Anesthesia Brain, was fuzzy-headed, and misread some stuff badly.

Attending a virtual conference on freelance writing, The Freelance Writing Success Summit.The SEO training session was useful. It gave me some ideas how to up the game for this one particular client. Well, I can apply the concepts to all my clients, but I got some solid ideas to help one in particular.

I attended several sessions, and got a lot out of it. Will attend more today and tomorrow. Shoutout to Michelle Garrett, who hosts the Freelance Chat every Thursday, and told me about it.

Then, I switched over to Miracles of Human Language and finished watching the videos for the week. Absolutely fascinating. I printed out the reading, and will do that later this afternoon. This class helps me in the artificial languages or dialects that I create for built worlds, and will help me as I go back to study languages and get my French back up to speed, and, hopefully, add in a few more languages. I refuse the idea that I’m too old to learn new languages.

I just have to work harder.

The native speakers who are part of the teaching modules (called “informants”), showing us different uses of languages and dialect, all seem to speak at least four languages. I wish the US emphasized being multi-lingual, instead of having languages as electives. We should all speak, at minimum, English, French, and Spanish here. One of the informants is a Turkish woman who also speaks French, Dutch, English, and Japanese in addition to her native Turkish. I love the excitement about learning languages that all these informants demonstrate.

A couple of interesting playwriting opportunities crossed my desk, via Women in Media Arts. I wonder if I can spin anything out quickly enough and well enough for these companies? I will let ideas percolate.

Also got my 2022 contract fromLlewellyn. My piece is due in early September, so I will get to work on it next week. I’d like to get it to my editor sometime in August.

The contract cheered me up quite a bit. I was feeling rather in despair. The state of the country, in relation to the pandemic, the treason the highest elected officials are committing daily for personal profit, and the economy all weigh heavily on me.

I decided I’m not doing the Target run until next week. There’s too much traffic, too many germy Maskless Morons and Sliding Mask Skanks out there.

Bill paying today. Plus, I’m going to run in to the office for a client so that I can put out the first of the ads – the financial information is at the office, not with me.

I’ll do some more work for that client later today, then do my reading for the class and take my end-of-week quiz.

I intend to take tomorrow as the start of the holiday weekend. I need to work on the basement and in the yard, plus fix BARD’S LAMENT and read my book for review.

It’s the right kind of busy, and I hope that will improve my outlook. Because I’m struggling, and only part of it is because I’m taking longer than I’d like to come back physically from the surgery.

Have a great day, friends!