Wed. July 22, 2020: Die For Tourist Dollars Day 63 — That 90’s Energy

image courtesy of Broesis via pixabay.com

Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Waxing Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Saturn Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Neptune Retrograde
Stormy and humid

Hop on over to Ink-Dipped Advice,where I talk about deciding what you want and need from work.

Blood draw wasn’t too awful yesterday. The tech hit the vein the first time, even though it splattered everywhere and hurt. But it’s done.

Home, changed out of the clothes I wore to the very busy lab. Scrubbed down, but not full disinfectant protocols. Ate breakfast, then headed to Trader Joe’s. Very busy there, too many people in the store. Everyone was masked, but not enough distancing. Spent more than I meant to, but stocked up.

Home, full disinfectant protocols. Which means yes, I wore three sets of clothes before 10 AM.

Client work, email, social media, LOIs.

Nice lunch of lox and reading The New Yorker and feeling like I had some of my 90’s life back.

More client work in the afternoon, and then polished three old flash fiction pieces that I still really like. Submitted them to fresh markets. We’ll see.

The copies of the 2021 Witches’ Companion that has my earthing article in it arrived (it’s under the Cerridwen Iris Shea byline). It looks really good. I’m excited to read the whole almanac. I also have to immediately put it in my clip file.

The extra candles Yankee Candle sent as an apology also arrived. I appreciate the gesture, but it doesn’t solve the issue.

Haven’t heard back from Amazon. Guarantee they will charge me again. I rarely buy anything but eBooks from Amazon, but maybe I should disengage from buying on that platform completely.

The spices I ordered from Atlantic Spice Companyin Truro arrived – packets much bigger than expected. Their quality and price is unmatched. I’m sorry I didn’t get to go there in person – I love going to their store. But it’s not safe. No matter how carful they are in the store, the other customers aren’t. It’s not worth the risk.

The note cards from Peter Pauper Press also arrived. I have lots of card-and-letter writing in my future.

Cleaned out a box from the basement. I know, I know, it was only one. But it took more time than I expected. Tossed about 50%. Re-filed a bunch of the rest. Found some old manuscripts that I pulled out. I will decide if I need to toss or re=key into the computer or file any of them. I bet some of them are still on floppy disks. It was emotional to see that energetic woman, involved in getting shows over to Edinburgh, pitching to organizations in the US, having meetings with film producers, line producing a friend’s film, working off-Broadway and starting the transition to working on Broadway, communicating a mile a minute with ideas and plans and projects.

It made me tired! In a good way.

It also made me glad that I didn’t make a long-term commitment to any of the men with whom I was involved with at that time. They demanded that too much of my energy be diverted from my projects to fuel theirs, with little in return.

Have to go in to my client’s today and get a few things solved, and then I can do an email blast for her. The second ad didn’t play as well as the first one, which is disappointing, because it was a better ad, overall, I thought.

Remote Chat is this afternoon, which is always a pleasure.

Then, more writing, coursework, and at least one more box.

I need to get that clearing-out energy in motion!

We’re supposed to get storms and then more humidity again. I have the fans going, to try to get it cooler in here. We’ve been lucky. It hasn’t been too bad yet this summer.

A baby bunny ate his breakfast in the yard while I had my first cup of coffee on the deck. It was adorable!

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!