Thurs. May 25, 2023: Using the Census for Research

image courtesy of  Clker-Free-Vector-Images via pixabay.com

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Waxing Moon

Pluto Retrograde

Partly Sunny and cold

The latest on the garden is up over on Gratitude and Growth.

Today’s serial episode is Legerdemain:

Episode 88:  Jed Smythe’s Apartment

Who’s so tidy? The victim or his kidnapper?

Legerdemain Serial Link

Legerdemain Website

Yesterday felt like a somewhat fractured day. I did more research on the Playland Painters. I think I’ve located the boxes of information I need in the Archives; now, I have to plan a trip down there. I polished, uploaded, and scheduled next week’s episodes of Legerdemain. I submitted comments about the hazards of the machine gun range the military wants to build on Cape Cod – destroying 170 acres of forest, along with creating hazards in the aquifer. I may not live there anymore, but I don’t want to see it destroyed. Enough is being destroyed to appease tourists.

I did a library run. More books than I expected showed up. I’m looking forward to getting some pleasure reading in this coming weekend.

Did the social media rounds for Angel Hunt and for Process Muse.

Wrote the episode log lines for Legerdemain, did the episode graphics, converted to Insta format, and also did the TikTok videos. Might as well do all of that at once. Today, I will upload/schedule what I can for the promos.

Did only one client project, and another came in, so I have two for this afternoon. I’m fine, deadline-wise. I hope something comes in for tomorrow, and then I can take Monday off without fretting.

I meant to look at the 1930 census for “just a minute”. Three hours later, I’d gone through the 1930 census for my hometown, page by page. I have a lead or two that might be a couple of my Playland Painters. There’s also no reason to think they all lived in Rye, but I figured I’d start there, and work my way out. There’s no way to search by term within the census (at least not in the version I could get into without paying for), so I went through it, page by page, focusing on the “occupation” line, and working from there. I took a lot of notes, including notes about anyone who worked at the park, because maybe I can trace back from that.

I also took notes on interesting people and patterns, such as the theatrical manager and his theatrical secretary wife who lived in the building where I grew up! There was also St. Benedict’s Home for Colored Children – how did I grow up in the town and not know this? There were a lot of butlers, cooks, maids, gardeners, and servants listed, as working for “private family” without naming the family. I noticed that the butlers were usually English, German, Southern (Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri) or Japanese, while laborers and other servants were usually Italian, Irish, Nova Scotian, and there was a group from Iceland.

Moving on to the 1940 census, there were more listings for “artist”, both men and women. There was also an uptick in men listing their profession as “copywriter for advertising.” There were also women listing their profession as “novelist” or “fiction writer” or “writer” and I even recognized some of the names. That shouldn’t be surprising; my family moved there in 1966, which wasn’t that far removed from the 1940 census. And more people by then were involved in professional radio.

I found more amusement park workers, although not necessarily painters. There was also the dress model listed as a “lodger” with the “head of household” a woman with her own dressmaking business, and the other lodger a nurse. There’s a story there. There was also the Irish chef and the Polish gardener who listed their place of employment as “insane asylum.”

So many stories.

Some of this may add texture to whatever I write about the Playland Painters. Others may earn their owns stories.

I have more 1940 census sheets to go through today. Those sheets are not just from my hometown, but also surrounding towns. In the 1930 census, I have to go back and go through the other sheets for the other towns.

I also have to make sure that I don’t neglect other work because of this. But I’m tired and grumpy and discouraged, and the research makes me feel as though I’m DOING something.

My hometown library is encouraging me to come down and read what they have that isn’t available for lending, and also will help me coordinate with the historical society next door. They’ve even offered me a “study room.” So I might combine that with the trip to the Archives (which is in a different town).

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about going back to visit, even with a purpose. I have a rather complicated relationship with my hometown. And yet, a lot of it is positive, so why not focus on those aspects? Most of what’s tied to negative memories no longer exists there.

I had a blasting headache by the time I was done. Read a little at night, caught up on the WGA strike. So, HBO merged with MAX to become HBO/MAX and now drops the HBO part, which is the recognizable part of the brand? And, on top of that, they stopped listing writers and directors in the credits, calling them “creators”? Then, they backpedaled, claiming it was a “technical glitch.”

Bullshit. It was a test balloon to see if they could get away with it, and then split hairs in the contract so they would have another excuse not to pay people hired as under the writer or director banner.

At least it lit a fire under the directors, and they are showing up on the picket line, even if DGA won’t let them carry DGA signs (which is bullshit, too, but probably part of their negotiation agreement).

Tina Turner died, which is sad. She was truly an extraordinary human being and talent.

The Florida Demon announced his candidacy for President – on Twitter – with technical difficulties. Serves him right. He’s a dangerous fascist, and must be stopped at all costs.

What’s on today’s agenda? Meditation. Drafting new episodes. Making the rounds to promote today’s episode of Legerdemain. Returning my residency contract for autumn. Two client projects. Hopefully, uploading/scheduling the next 8 episodes of Angel Hunt (which then means loglines and videos, but I’ll wait on the videos). Maybe finish painting the wind chimes, so they can go out, and we can set up the Enchanted Garden on the back balcony. It was in the 30’s overnight with frost warnings again, so we haven’t been able to do much.

Somewhere in there, I’m sure I’ll spend more time on the census.

Oh, yeah, and I’m out of frigging ink again!!!

Have a good one!

Thurs. July 21, 2016: So Much To Do!

Thursday, July 21, 2016
Last Day of Full Moon
Neptune Retrograde
Sunny and warm

Who knew being unemployed/partially employed could be so busy?

Hey, anyone who does 8 shows/week.

The confidentiality agreement prevents me from talking about the theatre job, but all is good, and it’s only until September 3 anyway.

The writing is going well – I had some additional changes to make on the book, and my new agent is sending it out.

I’m deep at work on scripts, and, especially, INITIATE, which burns my soul lately. I love these characters so much, I can’t stand to be separated from them.

Three new stories/sets of characters are burning within, too. I hope they are for novellas, not novels, or I’m in trouble!

And, of course, dealing with the intricacies of trying to get the unemployment benefits I earned, but they don’t want to pay. Because, hey, all they want to do is have people jump through hoops and take jobs in anything to get them off the rolls, not actually help people find jobs to better their lives.

I resigned from the Board of the National Marine Life Center, which broke my heart, but was necessary. I can’t give them what they need right now, not without sending myself over the edge. They asked me to move to the Advisory Board, and I’ve agreed to that.

We went to the Glasgow Lowlands Scottish Festival in central MA last Saturday. It was so much fun! Everyone was delightful, and we had a wonderful time, in spite of the heat. I was able to help a young man with his kilt emergency, thanks to still carrying safety pins. Of course, help one guy with his kilt, and suddenly they all want a hand!  But it was all in good fun. Caber toss always cracks me up. I got some great ideas I can incorporate to stories, though. It was a delightful day.

It was hard to get back over the bridge, but we managed.

I get to see an old friend today – we were tight in NY, and I haven’t seen her for at least 10 years She’s down for a few days doing a reading, and I can’t wait to see her.

If I don’t get back on wordpress tomorrow, have a great weekend! I am, of course, in shows.

Devon

Thurs. April 7, 2016: Entries & Covers & Incoming Snow

Thursday, April 07, 2016
New Moon
Jupiter Retrograde
Sunny and milder

They’re saying we will get snow again on Saturday. I really need good weather on my days off so that I can do yard work!

Yesterday was a long day, but fine. I did PR for upcoming programs, and put out feelers for some programs I’d like to book. I did my reports.

The version of MOBY DICK from which we are doing readings at the end of the month came in. I copied out my pages. I thought there would be a kazillion holds on it, but there aren’t, so I’ll hang onto it for a few days and do some background reading around my assigned pages. It’s been years since I read MOBY DICK.

Worked on contest entries, and did some work on Nonfiction #1. Did some work this morning updating some Topic Workbook covers and on upcoming Topic Workbooks, so I can get those out.

I need to sit down with a calendar and come up with a realistic re-release schedule for the short pieces. I also need to get new cover designs for some of them, and a new cover design for “Too Much Mistletoe”.

I’m on the fence about whether I want to do the two short stories that would need to be finished by the end of the month. I have to weigh the time necessary to add them in to the potential payout (which encompasses both financial and career placement). Something to think about this weekend.

Long day today, and then back to the contest entries. Every time I pick up an entry, I want it to be wonderful. And then we go from there.

I also have to do some replanting. Some of my seedlings need more room, and I need to start the next batch.

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Devon

Wed. Sept. 19, 2012: New Article Up & Television Musings

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012
Waxing Moon
Neptune Retrograde
Uranus Retrograde
Rainy and warm

In spite of the migraine, I had a very good day of edits on OLD-FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK. I’m starting to feel good about the book and how it sets up the rest of the series, as well as standing on its own.

Also did some notes to shut up a character who’s been yapping at me the past few days, in a built world. I’ll be writing from a male POV, I think, this time,which will be fun.

Got work done on the opening of the marine life mystery.

Re-sent some invoices — I want to wind up completely with one client and be done, buh-bye, and the other wants more work from me, but the payments have to be on time, or it simply won’t happen.

My article on “The Renaissance Writer” is up on WOW-Women on Writing here. It was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Didn’t get enough housecleaning done yesterday, so I’ll have to make up for it today.

Planning on staying in today, writing, writing, writing.

Forgot to mention that I watched the pilot of REVOLUTION on Monday. I hadn’t particularly liked the promos –to me, they came across as jumping on THE HUNGER GAMES bandwagon. But Billy Burke has one of the leads, and I like his work (although I had no idea he was involved in the TWILIGHT franchise, because I haven’t bothered with the movies). I also wanted to see Giancarlo Esposito’s work — I liked him a lot in both BREAKING BAD and ONCE UPON A TIME.

I was pleasantly surprised. I LOVE the production design — sets, costumes, et al. The attention to detail is great. Again, though, I’m glad not to be doing wardrobe on it, because they’re outside a lot! Continuity with dirt is not easy! It uses archetypes from the Hero’s Journey nicely, although I hope they deal with the fact that one of the lead characters is a young woman. The heroine’s journey is, by nature, different. The writing was much better than I expected, and I thought the actors committed fully in a really wonderful way. One of the reasons I like Billy Burke’s work so much is that he is such an active listener. He is unafraid of stillness, and he listens completely and responds to what is actually said and done in the moment. He does that in interviews, too — there’s never a sense that he’s skipping ahead, thinking about what HE will say next. He’s very much a partner in whatever scene he’s in, not trying to take all the focus with the underlying, “Look at ME!” that so many actors (especially in leading TV roles) insist on. I’m interested in seeing how the show evolves.
However, if it starts messing with the audience just to mess with them, the way I felt LOST often did — I’m outta there.

Going back to the active listening and partnership in a scene, I’m already struggling to continue watching a different show that an acquaintance of mine is on. I like HIS work a lot, and he’s good at the give-and-take, but he’s a second lead and the two lead actors are very much in the “I’m the show’s star” mode in a way I feel hurts the overall show. Sometimes it’s the number of close-ups; sometimes it’s screen time; sometimes it’s not letting one of the other actors have a moment that makes more logical and organic sense. I continue to watch because my acquaintance and I dissect every episode after, in terms of writing and character development, and I’m loyal to him; but I’m finding it more and more difficult to watch.

Okay, I need to get back to the page and get a bunch of other things done today, too. We had a bad storm last night — we didn’t have too much damage, other than overwhelmed plants.

Back to work!

Devon

Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010
Waxing Moon
Mars Retrograde
Sunny and pleasant

I’m back home, for a couple of days. Weekend gig was good, but busy. I could only get online via the very slow PC, so all I did was check messages and tweet occasionally. The essay I busted my ass so much to get in on time — still not up. Typical. Last time I take a quick turn-around demand from them seriously.

Didn’t do much work on ANGEL HUNT. I’ve gutted chapters 10 & 11. I’m going to combine them in the current draft, and I think I’ll write most of it from scratch without looking at the earlier draft, and then fold in anything that’s still relevant. Right now, by trying to revise what’s on the page, I’m getting caged by it, when what I need to do is take the literal meaning of the work and Re-Vision what purpose the chapter needs to serve and how to get there. I won’t be able to take the hard copy with me to Philly — I’m not hauling around several hundred pages of manuscript — so I won’t do much work on it while I’m there.

Besides, the conference starts on Friday — I’m teaching two workshops for an entire week AND doing a live chat on Sunday afternoon. That will take up the bulk of my time.

Made some notes on a few other pending projects, worked a bit on the short stories. I’m trying to gear up and get back into the headspace for the commissioned plays, but the light humor isn’t coming through. I need to get on the ball with those — the producer has to plan next season, and I want to be a part of it.

I did start another play, a much more serious one. that just sort of came to me out of nowhere, and wrote the first two scenes.

Reading-wise, I finished THE SWAN THIEVES. I liked it, although I felt the end was a little anti-climactic, and there were questions left unanswered (not directly related to the main plot) that I needed answered. In a way, it reminds me a little of AS Byatt’s POSSESSION, which is one of my favorite novels (never saw the movie).

After THE SWAN THIEVES, I needed something light and completely different. I read Michael Thomas Ford’s JANE BITES BACK, which is quite clever and funny, riding the Austen and the historical figure re-creationist wave while also poking fun at it.

I also picked up another book that I loathed. I won’t bash the writer here — it’s too hard to make a living doing this. Let’s just say that, after 50 pages, I was so furious, and the fury gained when I skimmed it, that I took it back to the store and swapped it out for something else. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. It was unrelenting, unnecessary gore, and unrelenting violence towards animals, which is one of my personal “don’t cross” boundaries. In the first 50 pages, a horse was brutally slaughtered in detail AND a supposed favorite pet dog was handed to a character to be eaten alive — no way. And that’s not even touching what was done to people.

Elegantly sparse prose can communicate horror much more effectively, in my opinion, than the verbal equivalent of a slasher film. And that’s what this was. Not for me.

I picked up something that looks far more interesting. I stuck it in my bag to serve as my travel book to Philly later this week, and, if I like it as much as I hope, I’ll write about it.

Watched the Olympics nearly non-stop. I don’t think I’ve ever had the television on so much in my life. The US Women’s Hockey Team continues to thrill me. I just can’t get enough of them. The US Men’s Hockey Team has come together nicely, as evidenced by their 5-3 win over Canada last night, which was a great game. and goalie Ryan Miller is obviously one of the unsung heros, until now, of the sport. These Olympics will change all that. Earlier in the day, I’d called the game as going 4-3 to the US, but they got that extra, empty net goal. The Russia-Czech Republic game was also great, although I expected at any minute, they’d start ignoring the puck and go after each other swinging. Yes, you can’t have physical fights in Olympic hockey, the way you can in the NHL, but you could tell they REALLY wanted to!

One of the things I like about the snowboarding is how much individuality the participants retain. Watch someone do a run once or twice and you don’t need to look at the screen anymore to know who it is — the style is that distinctive. I hope that doesn’t get sponsored out of the sport.

Watched a lot of the skiing, the aerialists, the ski cross (first year for that). I’m annoyed that the Olympic committee won’t allow women to have a ski jumping event — they do it, why not include it? Watched the speed skating and short track — so glad for Apolo Ohno. As I said before, it’s wonderful to watch him really grow into himself. Delighted that Bode Miller’s doing so well, and loved his interview about his definition of success and basically telling everyone who tries to force him to define himself in their terms to F*&k off. I totally relate, since I live by my definition of success in my field and am constantly attacked for it — especially by those who can’t earn a living at it. He articulated what I feel very well.

I love that fact that Julia Mancuso wore a tiara to the medal ceremony. She’s my favorite of the female skiers. And tiaras and cookies make everything better, in my opinion!

Good for Evan Lysacek, congrats to him. I felt Johnny Weir’s program was underscored, though, because it was gentle instead of flamboyant, and he should have gotten third or fourth.

I know I’m forgetting some of the fun moments, but I didn’t write them down, so, oh well.

Research books were waiting for me when I got home, including one on taxes (since this is the year I start the whole self-employment tax thing), the Mac, and the new WRITER’S MARKET. I started going through the WM. So far, I have 15 pages of single-spaced notes on markets to which to pitch articles. ARTICLES, not fiction or anything else. And that’s just the list that covers topics with which I’m familiar and don’t have to spend hours or days in additional research. So, when some wanna-be who defends content mills and getting paid for pennies starts up that there’s no work out there — if I can have 15 pages of notes on well-paying markets just on topics where I can pitch myself as experienced — there’s well-paid work out there.

More fuel for my live chat on Sunday on making a living as a freelancer.

I’m reworking my workshops a bit, tinkering to make them the best they can be for this group, and will post Welcome messages hopefully later today.

The next few days are filled with practicalities, admin, pitches, errands. I leave later in the week for Philly, and every duck has to be in a row before that. But it’s a good busy, so I’m going to enjoy it.

Devon