Thurs. March 4, 2021: Die For Your Employer Day 286/MA Vaccine Distribution Fail Day 36 — Trying to Take A Breath

image courtesy of Renan_Brun via pixabay.com

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Waning Moon

Windy and cold

Yesterday was stressful, on multiple levels.

There’s a short post up over on Gratitude and Growth. Unfortunately, there’s not much to say.

I was up very early, because I needed to do a revision on my article, fitting in the new quote, and get it off to my editor before we had to leave the house at 7 AM. I did it, and I’m pleased with it, so that’s a good thing. The quote really does make the piece stronger.

Drove my mom to Quest Diagnostics over in Osterville for her blood work. They tried to charge her for it. No. She’s never had to pay a co-pay for bloodwork. Tufts raised her premium this year, so she’s damn well not going to start paying for stuff they’ve always covered, when they’re charging more in the first place.

Got her back home, and headed over to my client’s. It was the day where several of us overlap in person, which is stressful enough, but this particular client thrives on chaos, which causes even more stress.

But we got through it.

Got home, and, before I even decontaminated, had to get to the computer to try and book my mother’s second vaccine dose. They’d sent me a “special link.”

Talk about even more unnecessary chaos. I wrote in detail about the steps on a long Twitter thread. The site is a failure in web development AND writing, not to mention execution.

The “special link” sent me back to the main virtual waiting room, with wait times of 30 minutes or so. The wait time kept lengthening, then came up as “over a day, come back later.” I was, again, competing with first dose seekers. As I sat there, shocked, it catapulted me onto the site just for the appointments (at the Orleans dump again, next week). I grabbed the first one I saw.

I got the message that the slot would be “held” for 15 minutes while I finished signing up.

Only I had to re-enter ALL the information, including insurance information, that I had to enter for the first shot. Which takes more than 15 minutes, especially when the screen kept freezing and dropping the information I entered.

I finally got all the pages and pages of information entered, and hit “submit” – only to be sent BACK to the virtual waiting room, competing with first dose seekers. The message was that the wait was over a day, and I should try again later.

I burst into tears.

There is NO REASON for this signup chaos, other than exceptionally poor design on the part of the web developers and writers.

While I was in tears, my Gmail pinged, and I received a confirmation for the appointment.

So why was I getting a message telling me to “try again later”? Which message is correct?

I sat on the site, thinking maybe I’d try to book the caretaker’s shot. I was catapulted back into the search portion of the site – only the Orleans site isn’t even listed. So it’s ONLY for second doses.

Which is great, but why not have a sensible design that simply sends you to the second dose site instead of sending you around in circles giving conflicting information?

We have no idea if we’ll actually get the dose, but we are showing up, with the confirmation printed out, next week. And hope for the best.

By the end of it, I was a complete wreck.

There is so much unnecessary pain and suffering connected to the signups. There is NO reason for any of it. It needs clear information from the Governor’s office, and it needs a clean, sensible design and writing on the part of the web developers.

Neither of which exist.

But, it seems the second dose appointment is booked and confirmed, so we’ll hope for the best.

My mom is worried about me not being able to get vaccinated yet. We are simply going to hold the protocols until one month after I get my second dose. As of April 1, when I am eligible, I’ll start my own daily cage fight.

Decontaminated and grabbed a bite to eat.

Remote Chat was fun. It was great to virtually hang out with everybody. But I needed a long session on the acupressure mat afterwards.

On a happy note, a contract came through for an article, and payment for two articles I wrote for a different publication showed up in my bank account. Someone told me about a company looking for something within my wheelhouse, and I sent them an LOI.

I hadn’t planned to purge any boxes, so I didn’t need to feel guilty when I didn’t.

Finished the book for review. Have to think about it before I write the review today. It worked structurally in some aspects, not in others. I liked the characters, but I was not the book’s audience. However, I want to write a fair review FOR the book’s audience. I read across genres, so I’m the audience for quite a few types of books, but not this one. But it definitely has appeal to a different audience. However, the blurb and initial structure makes the real theme of the book feel like a bait and switch – luring the reader in with the promise of one type of book, and then it becomes a different book. I felt lied to, and I don’t like that. It didn’t feel like a wonderful discovery, as it could have; it felt like a lie.

Working on a magazine pitch to a different publication today. I have to do some client work, and realized I don’t have the file I need, so I have to swing by the client’s office to download it (no one will be in today, so there’s no one to send it to me).

I’m really looking forward to the online meditation group this morning – I missed it last week.

Certain pressures are now eased slightly; although there are still others, I’m hoping, in the next few days, I can regain some equilibrium and make some decisions.

Tues. Feb. 9, 2021: Die For Your Employer Day 265/MA Vaccine Distribution Fail Day 13 — Ice Boulders

image courtesy of Jill Wellington via pixabay.com

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Waning Moon

Mercury Retrograde

Snowy and cold

Busy few days.

Friday morning, got some writing done on GAMBIT COLONY. Then did a grocery run to Trader Joe’s and a curbside pickup at the library.

Home, decontaminated.

Sent off my review and invoice. Got paid. Got out a few LOIs. Got out a couple of pitches to an editor.

Caught up on box purging, so I was where I hoped to be by the end of the day.

Spent way too many hours trying to get my mom a vaccine appointment. Every other area of the state has appointments to spare. Here, we have nothing. On top of that, there was a secret “pop-up” clinic here on cape, but you had to know someone to get an appointment. How is that equitable? It’s not.

 I’m tired of Baker smirking and lying. He says Walgreens is giving vaccines. Multiple Walgreens locations are up on the state and county websites as vaccine locations. Only “no appointment available.” You know way? Walgreens ISN’T GIVING VACCINES IN THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. So why are they on the state and county website?

Baker says CVS is giving out vaccines. Multiple CVS locations are on the state and county websites. Only “no appointment available.” You know why? There are only THREE CVS locations giving vaccines in the entire state and NONE of them are on Cape Cod. So why are Cape Cod locations on the state and county website?

On the location list is the Hyannis Stop & Shop. Not only has the website been down for nearly two weeks, now that it’s sort of up, it states that no vaccines are being given at that location. So why is it listed as a location on state and county websites?

The delays are not the issue. The lying and misinformation are.

And if there are so many open appointments in other locations in the state, why aren’t those doses being sent here instead, where there are NO appointments, and a huge population of seniors?

FFS, I could do better using Google Docs to set this up than the state has.

Saturday, up early and did a dump run. Still couldn’t fit all the recycling into the car, but I crammed in as much as I could. Swung by the other grocery store to get a few things before the incoming storm.

Got some work done on GAMBIT COLONY.

Did my quota of box purging.

Found some old love letters. Re-reading them, wow, I’m glad I’m not with any of those guys. One, who I though was so wonderful at the time – reading the letters back, he was extremely manipulative and emotionally abusive. He died a couple of years ago, and I was sad at the loss and remembered the good times. These letters give me a more complete picture of reality. Another, wrote beautiful letters. I’d always thought of him as “the one that got away.” But when I reconnected with him a few years ago, he’s gone all evangelical religious, and we have nothing in common anymore.

I made the right decisions not to be with them. Which is good to know.

Found some more really cool stuff. Threw out a ton of stuff. I’ll be doing another dump run next week.

Read AUNTY LEE’S DELIGHTS, by an author from Singapore named Ovidia Yu. I loved it, and ordered more of her books. She’s also a playwright, and has also been to Edinburgh with her plays, so I’m even more eager to read her work.

Found a bunch of my old articles that aren’t digitized. I will scan them and put them into my clip files and portfolios.

The Goddess Provisions box finally arrived, after sitting in the postal facility in Arizona for over a week. It was worth the wait.

The coffee shipment, that was supposed to be here on Wednesday, made it as far as Westboro, and then went back to CT for some reason. By the time it arrives, it will be stale.

The Wolferman’s order arrived. I had a problem when I ordered it with the promo code. The customer service rep promised to put it through and adjust it. Instead, they CHANGED THE ORDER to something cheaper and sent me what I didn’t order. Not only that, it’s something I WOULDN’T’ have ordered, because it wasn’t what I wanted. I have to find my original paperwork and squawk. It also makes me less likely to order from them in the future, because who the hell knows what will show up?

In other words, Mercury is very retrograde.

Heard back from 365 Women – I’m going to write a Kate Warne play for them this year, AND they’ve accepted the proposal for DAWN AND DOROTHY IN THE AFTERLIFE (I wasn’t sure it would be their thing) AND a play on Marie Collier. So I’ll be busy.

The head of the group just got my email about a quote for the articles – that were published over the past two weeks. She told me I should contact her via Facebook Messenger. I don’t use FB Messenger because of the hacking issues, so. . .it’s an issue. Besides, the articles are up. I’ll be sending her PDFS of the clips – at the email address I have.

The incoming storm on Sunday gave me a huge headache.

But I did write the opening of DAWN AND DOROTHY IN THE AFTERLIFE. It’s kind of weird, but I like it.

Also worked on a grant proposal that has to go out in two weeks. Hate everything I wrote for it. I have to create three 250-word pitches within the proposal. I think I need to write my kind of treatment or Writer’s Rough for each project, and then distill it down. Starting at the blurb doesn’t work. It’s reading flat. So that’s on the agenda for this week: Three treatments.

Got in my quota of boxes on Sunday, too.

The snow started around noon and was so pretty! Lovely, big flakes. We had a fire in the fireplace. The power flickered, and went off once for a couple of minutes, but held pretty well otherwise.

Sunday night into Monday was rough. I woke up every hour or so with intense pain in my knees. I know I’ve been working them hard, carrying boxes up and down from the basement, but this was intense.

Then, I find out, overnight Sunday, the plow guy packed ice boulders into the bottom of my driveway and they froze there. It took me FIVE HOURS to shovel the driveway, get the ice boulders cut down, and the front walk. There was an ice crust, so I had to take the hoe and crack a section, shovel, crack a section, shovel. After twenty or thirty minutes, I had to stop and rest. I’m not twenty anymore, and I spent the past year sick. I can’t, physically, do this anymore.

For the ice boulders, I had to take the hoe and hack at them until I broke them into pieces I could lift and toss.

It was not fun.

My neighbor across the street watched me struggle for five hours (he’s about thirty years younger than I am). As soon as I went inside, he got a bulldozer out of his garage and cleared his own driveway in about five minutes. Really? He could have said, “I see you’re having a hard time; I have heavy equipment and can clear it out for you for fifty bucks.”

It’s not a surprise, though. This is a guy that hasn’t worn a mask once during the entire pandemic.

It’s a far cry from when we first moved here, and all dug each other out. Or the year where we had a series of snowstorms and the town couldn’t be bothered to plow us out, so after nearly a week, we all got our shovels and dug out the street ourselves.

Anyway, after five hours of this, I was wiped out. Funnily enough, my knees were fine, but the left leg and hip that’s been bothering me for the last few weeks were in bad shape, along with my arms.

I spent the afternoon reading contest entries instead of purging the basement.

I managed to get some client work out in between shoveling sessions, so at least it wasn’t a total loss.

Still no vaccine appointments on Cape Cod. Other areas have open appointments and are worried about expiring doses. Why aren’t they being re-routed to the Cape? I’m on EVERY list to learn about when appointments open, and. . .total silence from all of them. Why is the county listing sites as locations that don’t have appointments or doses? The only sites that should be listed are those actually offering appointments. New ones should be added as they go live. That’s basic organization.

But the state and county information remain incorrect. Nobody is fixing anything, or getting anything better organized. Governor Baker is pulled a Jared Kushner on us, and just continues to let us die. He doesn’t give a damn – he hasn’t, or he wouldn’t have reopened back in May, and kept us open when our daily virus numbers were double and triple what they were when we were shut down last spring. I’m sick of it, and I’m at the end of my rope.

My editor at SCRIPTMAG assigned me two more articles. So I’ll get the interview requests out today and get going on research.

I’ll send off my “personal update” for the class reunion later, do some client work, get out some LOIs. Work on the first treatment. I already got a little bit of work done on GAMBIT COLONY this morning, to settle me.

I might sneak in another curbside library pickup this morning, fi the next storm hasn’t started by the time the library opens. Because yes, we’re getting another storm today.

More shoveling.

And, this afternoon, I have to scrub a section of the basement floor, let it dry, and then place some boards down so I can restack the newly packed boxes. That way, once we know where we’re moving, it’s just a case of loading boxes.

It feels good to let go of a lot of this stuff, and the stuff that’s kept is being integrated into the household, even though it will have to be packed again soon.

I’m just so, so tired on so many levels. I’m burned out to a frightening extent. I know there won’t be any rest for me until after the move, but once we’ve moved, I HAVE to take some time off. I just hope I can keep going until then.

Tues. Oct. 20, 2020: Die For Your Employer Day 153 — Evolving Process, Screw Your Customers, and Cats (not the musical)

image courtesy of Gerd Altmann via pixabay.com

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Waxing Moon

Neptune, Uranus, Mars, Mercury Retrograde

Red-streaked clouds

Evolving Process

I keep feeling like I’m not getting anything done, but when I look back, I actually did a bunch of stuff. The emotional reality and reality don’t always coincide.

Friday was pretty much a lost day. I made raw apple muffins early in the morning, and puttered around some, but I couldn’t get focused on anything. There was nothing in the creative tank. It was as though I spent all my creative energy on the baking, when usually baking fuels creative energy for other work.

I read, I tried to write. I had a couple of stories percolating. One, I think, will be novel-length, or at least novella-length. The other will be a short story. Both are ways of exploring rage I feel at two different situations.

Friday night, I listened to the HAMILTON Broadway cast recording all the way through. There’s a lot of cleverness in it. I’d forgotten that Jonathan Groff, with whom I worked on SPRING AWAKENING, originated King George. He’s a delight, on and off stage. Terrific actor and even more terrific human being.

Awake way too early on Saturday. Wrote the first 1500 words on one of the new pieces, even though there’s other stuff I should be working on. I don’t have a title for it, but the protagonist is Nell Dunbar, so for now, I’m calling it “the Nell Dunbar piece.” It’s part literary fiction, with elements of suspense and romance in it. It was originally going to be straight-up romantic suspense, but it doesn’t want to be stuck in that genre box.

Not sure if it will go under the Devon Ellington byline or the Christy Garnet Miller byline or something completely different.

Once that was done, I felt like I could actually cope with the day. I changed the beds, did six loads of laundry, changed out some of the yoga blankets and batiks for fleece on chairs and sofas. Now I actually have some yoga blankets I can use for yoga over the winter. Vacuumed, mopped, tidied up, did some rearranging in the basement.

Vacuuming always causes Kitty Trauma, but at least there were enough catnip bananas to go around, and everyone calmed down pretty fast.

Spent too much time doomscrolling (and it WAS doomscrolling, not hopescrolling). I need to break myself of that habit.

Read a bit in Hal Prince’s memoir, and also started the book I have to read for review, which has way too much backstory/info dump that’s obscuring the spine of the piece.

A friend and I exchanged the short stories we each wrote and submitted to a contest that a third friend is blind judging (so we’ve been careful not to publicly talk about details, because that’s unfair to the friend who’s a judge). Anyway, each of us fell in love with the other’s story and prefer it to our own! I love the possibilities in hers, and how she turned tropes inside out for something fresh and clever that has legs. I love the simplicity, yet she doesn’t overexplain. She loves all the tiny descriptive details I researched and integrated. So we can cheer for each other to win even more loudly than for ourselves!

Received a check for the two articles I submitted last Monday, which was a lovely surprise. The editor had told me it would be “a few weeks” and I expected at least 30 days. To get it in 5 days was lovely.

Listened to the original Broadway company recording of COMPANY in the evening. I was never as enamored of the piece as many friends and colleagues, but it’s such a part of my theatre history (even though I’ve never worked on a production of it) that I wanted to refresh my ears on it.

Was exhausted and went to bed way too early, which meant, yup, on Sunday, I was up again way too early. Had all kinds of weird disturbing dreams that kept waking me up. Puttered around, letting stories percolate. The longer I do this writing life, the more use I find to sit and percolate before I write. I used to just spit out first drafts – and I can still write the first draft pretty quickly, once I have it set in my head. But I find myself percolating and writing in my head in much more detail now than when I used to. It makes the work more precise earlier when I finally write it down.

But that’s the beauty of process – it evolves as you gain experience and work on craft.

In writing classes, I always find the unpublished writers the ones least open to trying new techniques, claiming it interferes with “their process.” I believe you need to shake up your process regularly, and part of the beauty of taking a class is to learn new ways of doing things. That way, when your process fails and you get stuck (which WILL happen), you have other tools and techniques to pull on to get going again.

Businesses are Determined to Sabotage Themselves, Aren’t They?

Contacted Crystal Bar Soaps for an update on the order I placed on September 26, and got a vague non-answer about how busy they are and how happy they are to have my order. Well, honey, then SHIP IT.  I responded that I hope I receive the order by Oct. 29, for my mother’s 96^th birthday, which is why I placed the order in the first place and ordered it on SEPTEMBER 26. For items that are supposedly in stock. I’m a big fan of their products, and I believe in supporting small business/independent artists. But the shipping delays have gotten out of control with this company. Using the pandemic as an excuse doesn’t work anymore, especially when you announce on social media that you’re hired more employees (which is great).

I’m re-thinking my plan to do holiday shopping with them, because even if I order the day the merchandise goes live, there’s no way to be sure I’ll get in time for the holidays. That’s additional stress on top of the whole trying-not-to-die and keep-a-roof-over-our-heads stress.  

I’m glad they’re doing well, and that their business had grown and not tanked during the pandemic. At the same time, I need to feel confident that my order will be processed in a reasonable amount of time. Because once it ships, then there’s the shipping time involved, which is about a week, except when it’s longer. They use USPS, which is far more reliable than either UPS or FedEx, but it’s voting season, and everything takes longer to get where it’s going. We’re into the fourth week now since the order and it hasn’t yet shipped.  I don’t find that reasonable for items that are in stock. If things were made-to-order, it would be understandable, but then give us a realistic time frame. This is either the third or fourth time I’ve had to chase down shipments, because I ordered – and paid – for something and then heard nothing until I contacted them to find out where it was. I’m tired of it. At least, previously, I got an actual answer on the status of the order, rather than this fluffy “happy” I ordered and maybe they’ll ship it “someday.”

I contacted them AGAIN this morning, asking for specific information on my order instead of platitudes and vagueness, and, once again, reminded them I ordered it back in September, and I need it by next week.

Yesterday, I risked ordering from a local restaurant. The only other time I did this, early in the stay-at-home – the entire household came down with food poisoning and the restaurant shrugged it off. So, I crossed them off my list.

So, yesterday, I ordered from a restaurant of whom I’ve been a regular customer for years, even before we moved to the Cape, and at least once a month, often more, pre-pandemic. I decided to go ahead and spend the money and order several meals’ worth of food. Cut down on my cooking this week, support a local business. All good, right?

I called in the order, REPEATED THE ORDER, had them REPEAT THE ORDER BACK, and set up a time for curbside pickup.

I get there, about five minutes after the agreed-upon time. They hadn’t even started preparing it yet. And it’s not because they were busy. There were three people in the restaurant, and the phone wasn’t ringing. But they greeted me by name as they always did, and said it would just be a few more minutes

Thirty-five minutes later, they bring out a big bag, thank me, tell me it’s good to see me, etc.  They KNOW me there.  I added a 50% tip on top of the order, because, you know, it’s a pandemic.

I had to stop at CVS to pick up a prescription for my mother and a couple of other necessities. There were register issues, but we went back and re-entered and did what we had to in order to process the order and the payment. It took five tries, and I felt so bad for the poor woman at the register. She was so apologetic, and I kept telling her it wasn’t a problem, and we’d just keep trying until it worked. And we did. Patience and persistence. I felt bad for the other people in line behind me, but CVS should have also put a second person on a register when the line got long.

Dropped off books at the library, picked up what was waiting.

Got home, unpacked things, decontaminated.

Find out the order from the restaurant is wrong. Not only is it WRONG, most of it is stuff I can’t eat, because I’m allergic. They KNOW I’m allergic to these things. I’ve been eating there for 15 years. I ordered one appetizer and two meals. That’s what I paid for, along with a 50% tip. I got three appetizers. One of which I can’t eat, because I’m allergic (and yes, I remind them of the allergy every time I place an order).

I call them. Just a “hey, I picked up my order, got it home, and instead of X & Y, you gave me C & D, some of which I’m allergic to, and the prices on these items are less than half of what I paid.” I didn’t mention the tip, because that’s tacky.

They think it’s funny.

No interest in making it right. They deliver, so they could have sent out a corrected order. No interest in refunding even a portion of the order.

The only option was to go back and BUY IT AGAIN.

I can’t go back. It means going out AGAIN (in a pandemic, assholes), after I’ve already decontaminated and put everything into the wash. And why would I go back, since they aren’t interested in giving me a corrected order unless I BUY it again? So I’m now supposed to pay double because THEY screwed up? When I already gave them a tip of 50% of the price of what I already paid for that I can’t even eat or use?  I’m supposed to blow next week’s food budget, too – and I GUARANTEE you they would put in the wrong order AGAIN.

That’s what I get for supporting a local business and giving a big tip.

Screwed.

There’s the food budget for the week gone.  It’s actually more than I would have spent for the week, because it was supposed to be 3 days’ worth of dinners, at a much higher cost than if I bought groceries and cooked the same thing. I’m a freelancer. A fellow small business.  It’s not like I have so much extra cash lying around IN A PANDEMIC. I won’t starve – I’ll live off the stockpile I’ve been putting aside for the next shutdown. But I blew my food budget for the week to support a local business who couldn’t be bothered to fill my order or fix their mistake.

I’m upset. I’m frustrated. I feel betrayed, that this company with whom I’ve done good business with for 15 years thinks it’s funny and okay to screw me.

I don’t want to hear ONE WORD more from the restaurant industry about how they’re struggling when this is how they treat their customers. I talked about this on social media and was surprised how many DMs I got about people telling me stories about how the restaurants can’t be bothered with the customers trying to support them.

As a consumer, I’m frustrated. Businesses are crying that they’re suffering, but they treat their customers like crap and then want them to spend even more? No.

Give us what we paid for in a timely fashion OR communicate that you can’t clearly and why and set a new timeline. OR, when there’s a screwup, work WITH us for a mutually beneficial solution.

Because I am NOT going to continue to give money to businesses – be they large corporations or solopreneurs – who treat me like shit.

Don’t tell me to “support local business” when they won’t fulfill their part of the transaction.

As a consumer, I’m frustrated.

As a marketing person, I am appalled that these businesses think they can keep getting away with screwing their customers.

Maybe, just maybe, some of the businesses that are going under are doing so because they’ve betrayed their customers often enough that the customers have walked away.

It goes with what I talked about for months pre-pandemic. This area has a non-reciprocal economy. I’m a small business, and a skilled worker. But I’m supposed to take a job that’s not in my profession for a fraction of my rate because “we don’t pay for that” meaning my profession.  But when I go further afield to clients who appreciate my skills and pay me for the value I bring to my work, I am told I’m not “supporting the local economy.”

Even though my very presence puts money into the local economy by paying taxes, shopping for necessities, shopping for gifts and whatever non-essentials I can afford at any given time, etc. I put money into the economy regularly, but I am not supposed to receive money for my skills. The only reason I CAN put money into the local economy is because I have clients who live FAR AWAY who pay me for my skills. If I was only earning minimum wage in one of the local shit jobs that aren’t in my profession, I’d have even less to spend locally.

And why shouldn’t it be a two-way street? It’s not like my skills aren’t needed. But they don’t want to pay for them. Yet I’m supposed to pay and pay and pay but not BE PAID.

That’s not a sustainable model.

It’s one of the reasons the local economy was a mess even before the pandemic.

Cats and Stuff

Yesterday, Willa stole Charlotte’s catnip banana, so then Charlotte ran upstairs and stole Tessa’s catnip banana, and then Tessa ran into the other room and stole Willa’s banana. Everyone still had a catnip banana, but it was the WRONG catnip banana, so there was hissing and yowling involved until we got them all switched back.

So much for peace by catnip banana.

Tessa has decided she really likes my grandmother’s rocking chair (which is by the window and the heater in my bedroom).  She has decided she will now reign from there.

The landlord came to look at the newly installed furnace. Now he’s telling me the bank from whom he got the loan wants copies of my utility bills. I think that’s inappropriate. I’m not the one who applied for the loan. On top of that, I had months where I had to give up work to have various “estimates” come in from different companies, and we were supposed to get new insulation, a new fridge, and a new washer as part of this furnace upgrade deal — NONE OF WHICH IS HAPPENING. I’m not giving my financial information to a bank with whom I don’t do business. They’ll get copies of the bill — with my name and information and account number blanked out. They can see the final amount, but not personal details.

Today, I have client work and article work and LOIs to focus on. Let’s hope it’s a productive and creative day. I’m just exhausted physically and emotionally and sick of everyone. I got my check from Llewellyn for the 2021 annual, which was a nice lift to my day.

Normally, in a Mercury Retrograde, these purchases would be easy-peasey. But with the Mars retrograde layered over it, everything is a conflict and a problem. Add the Neptune retrograde (creativity slowed down, especially for Pisces) and Uranus retrograde (the need for economic and political change), and this period of time sucks.

I’d rather just make like a Victorian and take to my bed today, but that is not an option.

Hope you have a good one, friends.

Mon. April 3, 2017: Difference Between Review and Evaluation

Monday, April 3, 2017
Waxing Moon
Venus Retrograde
Sunny and mild

This will probably be the only sunny morning we have all week. So much for getting any yard work done!

I can’t believe another weekend flew past. I did some work on POWER OF WORDS. I did research for NOT BY THE BOOK on corporate espionage. The research was very depressing, especially in light of everything going on in the world today. It makes me glad I turned my back on corporate work (except for the temp jobs until I earned my way into full-time theatre work) as early as I did.

I did a lot of work on contest entries. I finished the preliminary read of the print books in one of the categories I’m judging, and moved on to the next one. Once I’m done with all the print entries, I do the digital entries; then I go back and take another look at both the “yes” and the “maybe” piles in each category. I re-read, if necessary. It’s usually just a case of a point or two difference in the top contenders, and I want to make sure I weigh everything fairly. It’s a lot of work. I put in A LOT of time. Which is why I only take paid gigs of this kind at this point.

Although I turned down a paid judging gig a few weeks ago; I’d done it last year, and not been happy with it. The pay was low, and they dragged their feet paying (it was per entry). The entries were the weakest I’ve ever read in ANY contest. Most of them were first-draft quality, and shouldn’t have been entered ANYWHERE, much less called themselves published books. But to me, the unethical part of it was this: The entrants were told, when they paid the entrance fee, that they would get reviews they could post as part of the contest. BUT THE ORGANIZERS DIDN’T TELL THE JUDGES. Instead, we were given a 92-word limit to evaluate the manuscript. First of all, a thorough manuscript evaluation often runs for pages (when you do it correctly). Second, there’s a difference in the way one critiques if it’s for publication, or if it’s a private edit/evaluation letter to a writer. Third, if I’d been told that the entrants expected to have a usable review (often for material that needed far more work), I wouldn’t have agreed in the first place, because that’s just WRONG, in my opinion. Reviews and evaluations are two entirely different animals. They come at different parts of the process.

To me, one of the most important aspects is that: AUTHORS DO NOT PAY FOR LEGITIMATE REVIEWS. That includes not paying the publication for the review (several publications have lost their status, in the eyes of the industry and of librarians, because they now charge for reviews, which makes them suspect). The publication pays the reviewer. The reviewer’s ONLY obligation is to do as fair and thorough a review based on the quality of the work.

In addition to the dozens of requests I get daily to review books by individual authors for free (there are plenty of authors whose work I’ll read and host on BIBLIO PARADISE, and I’m not paid for that, but I usually have some sort of relationship with them first, even if I’m hosting fellow authors from the same publishing house, or authors I’ve met in my travels), I get frequent requests from authors who want to pay me for a review. And I say no.

While the bulk of the reviews I do are paid, I am paid BY THE PUBLICATION. The author (or the publisher) sends a request w/media kit to the publication. The review editor decides if it’s suitable for review by the publication. If yes, the book goes in to the publication and is then assigned to the reviewer. The reviewer reads the book (I usually read it at least twice, sometimes three times) within the two week period of assignment, and writes a review. It goes back to the publication. It is fact-checked (all references have to have attribution), and edited. Then it goes into the publication queue. I usually invoice the publisher for every three or four books reviewed, and I’m paid within two to three weeks of invoice, depending on where I fall in their accounting cycle.

Being paid by the author throws it out of balance. The author needs a good review to post. By paying a reviewer directly, it takes away the objectivity — the author is paying for a service. Let’s face it, no matter how much they claim to want “an honest review”, they want a GOOD review.

And, as I said, a REVIEW is different than an EVALUATION. An evaluation (for which I DO accept money from an individual author) is done prior to a book’s publication, often prior to its acceptance. It’s about story, structure, and all the things that need to be fixed BEFORE publication, and, most importantly, BEFORE it goes out for review.

An EVALUATION helps make the book better (one hopes) BEFORE it is sent out in the world to rise or fall on its merits. A REVIEW is the judgment of whether it meets the standards set for engaging, strong, POLISHED work.

Evaluations are critiques; reviews are the criticism of the finished work. Each type of read/comment comes at a different stage in the process. Both are valuable, but for different reasons.

Reviewing is a specific skill, whether it’s literary, art, music, theatre, etc. A reviewer MUST know the protocols of the medium in which he/she is reviewing. It’s not just about “liking” or “not liking” something, although that is one of the many factors. It is an understanding of genre, craft, and the finished piece.

Genuine reviewers/critics, who knew what they were doing (even if the result wasn’t always what people hoped for) are: Kenneth Tynan, Frank Rich (believe me, I have many a bone to pick with him), John Simon (likewise), Pauline Kael, Virginia Woolf (read her COMMON READERS — they’re a revelation), David Denby, Edmund Wilson, George Jean Nathan, Mel Gussow, Walter Kerr, Brooks Atkinson. If you want to learn about the genuine art of this skill, read their work.

What some random reader posts on Amazon or Goodreads, complete with spelling errors, may help, as part of sheer bulk, get you higher in their matrix, but it’s not actually useful to your craft. Of course the opinions of individual readers matter. However, reviews are different than opinions (although they include opinions) and are an art form unto themselves.

I do very little reviewing anymore. Part of it is that, far too often, the word count is so small (often less than 300 words), it’s difficult to do the book justice. Part of it is that most publication don’t pay a whole lot, and, in order to genuinely write a well-crafted piece, I need to read the book being reviewed several times, I need to read the writer’s other work (unless it’s a debut novel), I need to be able to pull other references within the genre. That takes time. What most publications pay covers about 15 minutes, when it’s more likely to take the equivalent of 25-30 hours or more to do it truly well. Often more. When you read Virginia Woolf’s diary, and you see how long she took to do a review, and how much work, time, and thought she put into it, it suddenly makes sense, and you see how this modern model causes more harm than help to authors.

I judge fewer contests, too. I also, now, have learned to ask more questions about the expectations, before I say yes. It’s not that I think I’m so brilliant, or know so much more than everyone else or that my own work is perfect; it’s that I want to make sure the organizers are dealing with both the judges and the entrants with integrity.

Hop on over to the GDR site. I have a very simple list for April. There are things that need to be dealt with that prevent me from loading the list as much as I’d like.

Tomorrow, I’ll have an essay up on BIBLIO PARADISE about my first re-read for National Poetry Month, Susan G. Wooldridge’s POEMCRAZY.

Have a great week!

Wed. Nov. 13, 2013: Submission Catch-Up

Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Jupiter Retrograde
Snowy and cold

It snowed most of the day yesterday, so I stayed home and worked. Glad I got so much yard work done the previous day!

Didn’t get enough of my own work done, although I did some work in the development notebook, got out a few submissions, and found a few interesting submission calls. I’ve been focused so much on other people’s work that I feel drained when it comes to my own, and that has to change. My own work must always come first.

Got paid for a piece by someone I’d written off; always a good thing. Still waiting for a project that was promised nearly a month ago — no communication, no project. This is why I’ve started to ask for a non-refundable booking deposit.

Errands to run today, and tomorrow I’m out the door very early for an NMLC Board meeting.

I need a vacation, but there’s no chance of one anytime soon.

Devon