Devon Ellington's Blog, page 16

Wed. March 12, 2025: Back to Reality

image courtesy of  Alinka via pixabay.com

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Sunny and pleasant

Hello, hello! I’m back, and facing a mountain of email to get through.

Yesterday started well, with good sleep and good early morning yoga/meditation. We had smoked salmon Benedict for breakfast.

The day was quiet, and I just did whatever I wanted. Read a bit, wrote a bit, puttered around the house. It was too windy to spend much time at the lake, but it was nice to be out. I considered going to one of the museums, but instead, enjoyed reading on the porch. It was restful, not rushed. I received lots of birthday greetings and messages from those near and far, and that was much appreciated.

It’s been delightful to watch the neighborhood emerge from cabin fever on these few sunny, warm days. Everyone is letting their inner child out and just running around having fun.

Picked up dinner, enjoyed my cake, had a quiet evening. Nothing flashy for the day, just quiet and restorative.

Today, it’s back to reality. I have lots of email to do, some paperwork that came in for this and that, some writing, a book review to write and submit, some client material to go over, some LOIs to send out, preparing for tomorrow night’s meeting, and teaching tonight. It’s a good, steady workday. I’m still a little fuzzy from the time change, so I’m not pushing myself too hard, and prioritizing and re-prioritizing throughout the day.

There’s nothing exciting to share, but I enjoyed my day, and that’s what is important. I didn’t fall into the usual birthday blues I hit (feeling like I hadn’t made use of the previous year, and time’s running out). I didn’t rush around, trying to make the day worthwhile. I just enjoyed my day.

Tues. March 11, 2025: Taking the Day Off for My Birthday

image courtesy of y Arise Peter M via pixabay.com

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Sunny and warm

And we’re back to another week. Posting this (which I may do on Monday night) is the only time I plan to be online today. I’m celebrating my birthday instead. I may hop onto social media now and then, but I’m trying to stay offline as much as possible today to enjoy the day.

If you haven’t checked out the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, you can do so here.

Friday seems so far away! I took care of a bunch of administrative work. I did a library run to drop off/pick up books. I swung by the post office to get more stamps, and told the clerks how much I appreciate them, especially in the midst of all this chaos. The line for passports was enormous. Mine is good until 2030, so I’m out of that fray for the moment.  I got to do more homework for the library cohort: someone in line at the post office mentioned they were researching their family tree, but couldn’t afford Ancestry. I pointed out that the library has it, and one can go and research for free during open hours. This person hadn’t had a library card since childhood – so I went back with them and got them all set up. Ran a couple of other errands. Came home, did some work, then gave myself an early start to the weekend, although I did some tidying up.

A birthday present arrived on Friday afternoon, and it makes me happy.

The weather was kind of all over the place. I tried to make some first Friday stops, but the weather was miserable. I managed to complete my library homework when I ran into someone who wanted a book from the other side of the state, and didn’t know about Commonwealth Catalogue. So I got them set up on their phone, and the book is on order (they already had a library card).

And then I went home!

I did not feel like dealing with laundry on Saturday, but with the time change, I knew things would be mucked up all week, so I hauled myself out the door early on Saturday morning and got two loads of laundry done. I will try not to do that again on a Saturday; too many people, and two machines out of order. But I got it done, and hauled everything back home through a snow squall. In the car, fortunately.

Got everything  folded and put away, did the usual Saturday household chores, switched out some fabric and decorations for Ostara. I’m going to leave them up all the way through Easter, since the decorations are appropriate.

I had planned to go out and check out a colleague’s new café, but the weather was so miserable, I decided not to. I have to walk (there’s no parking nearby), and I didn’t feel like tromping through a snow squall.

I did some work on the textile/text piece, but mostly I rested and read and played with the cats. It was nice. As far as the textile/text piece, I’m at the stage where I’m now sourcing fabric for the central portion of it, and then I’ll work background and borders, and then I’ll embellish. I’ll ponder text as I stitch, and make notes, and then turn the text into something coherent further down the line. It’s a different way of working, so it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

I did some work on the contest entries. That will be pretty steady from now through April, since I have them all, can rate them first individually, and then comparatively, to make the top choices in each category.

Cooked dinner leisurely, and enjoyed an evening reading and listening to music.

Got an email from a group with whom I’ve been eager to work with a few years, but there are a few red flags. We will see if we can work them out this week. If not, that’s the way it goes. I started the negotiations on Monday, and they seemed to go well, so it looks like we will work together. More on that below.

Moved the clocks ahead before bed. Woke up in the middle of the night, but who knows what time it really was? Managed to get back to sleep, and was completely disoriented when I woke up, much later than usual by the clock, although my body insisted differently. Got the cats fed and stumbled around with my coffee, disoriented. It takes me a few weeks to settle in when we “spring forward” although I have oodles of extra energy when we “fall back.” The pendulum clock by the silversmith in my office didn’t need adjusting; it has a hissy fit if I do so, so I just leave it, and now it shows the right time.

I thought they promised to stop these shenanigans several years ago? Sheesh.

Had a few weird dreams in the night.

Did the community tarot reading for the week, and scheduled it to post. Gave me a lot to think about. I really do love working with the Midnight City Tarot and the City of Dreams Oracle.

I am so not looking forward to a full moon, an eclipse, and Mercury going retrograde all lumped together. But it’s not up to me, is it? Hate that (only being partially sarcastic).

Set up my out of office message on my email for today.

Read the script my friend asked me to read. Reading for an actor is so different than reading for a producer or a director or a contest, because there are more facets to it than just being a well-told story that is likely to engage an audience, or if it fits the parameters of the particular contest. Reading for an actor means taking into account whether it’s a role that stretches or repeats previous work; if this is a good career choice in this moment; if it’s likely to actually go into production, or be one of the thousands of projects that goes into turnaround every year; if it’s a group of people that will likely make it a positive experience, no matter what the commercial aspects. Yes, an agent and a manager weigh in on these, but if I’m asked to read with an eye to a specific actor’s needs, then it means they want my input on these issues, too. The fact that this actor hesitates means the individual’s intuition is kicking in, on some level, and that’s always important. For obvious reasons, I can’t go into details, but there was a good, detailed ZOOM conversation about the script on Monday.

In the late morning, I trotted down to my colleague’s new café. I bought a piece of lemon pie to take back to my mom. I had the vegan/gluten free chocolate/orange almond pie. Both were very good, and the coffee’s nice and strong. They did a beautiful design job, simple but comfortable. It’s definitely a place I’d go hang out with a book or a notebook, or have a meeting over coffee. It’s nice to have an option other than Tunnel City Coffee over at MASS MoCA.

Read Kevin Kelly’s book about Michael Bennett. It’s disjointed, cobbled together from a bunch of taped interviews with a wide range of individuals. Definitely not as well written as the Riedel books, and I hate admitting it, because as a critic, I preferred Kelly to Riedel. But a theatre review is different than a book. It definitely pulled no punches on the man’s cruelty, and I’m glad I never worked with him, while still appreciating his contribution to theatre.

Still waiting for the formal announcement about the anthology so I can actually talk about it!

Tried to put in a wet food order at Chewy for Bea’s food, but they are out of stock right now. I hope it gets back in stock by tomorrow, or I will have to order something else.

It was supposed to snow on Sunday. Although the clouds looked a big grumbly now and again, it didn’t get cold enough to do so.

I managed to get the cat grass planted, but that was it. Dropped the ball there, since, according to the calendar, there are no planting days until the 17th.

Cooked an okay dinner. I tried a recipe that didn’t quite meet the mark. Because I’m judging cookbooks as one of the categories I’m assigned in the contest, I’m cooking from them as part of it to see how the recipes actually work. I do a handful of recipes from each book, and sometimes I’ll do a recipe more than once.

Went to bed early because I was tired (very early, if you look at the time pre-spring forward). Slept late on Monday, unless you look at the time pre-spring forward, in which case I woke up exactly on time.

It was sunny and milder, which made for a good start to the week. I got a few things done early in the morning, then headed out to pick up things for today, like my cake. Came back and tried to get some more work in before the library cohort meeting.

The cohort meeting was very good, and I feel like I learned a lot.

Took care of some other work in the afternoon. Did some background reading for a project. Realized I was reading the wrong book for review (a different one is due tomorrow), so I will course correct that today. Received more information from the ghostwriting project and birthday wishes. Which puzzled me, because I’m not expecting to move forward, but I’ll roll with it.

It was warm and sunny enough to spend some time out on the porch. The cats were delighted.

I am joining the literary committee for WAM Theatre starting at the end of this month, through the end of August. I’m looking forward to it. We’d discussed it at our meeting last August, but they’ve had a bunch of personnel changes since then, and I wasn’t sure what was what. We had to iron out a few details, but we seem to have done so. I will add those meetings to my calendar today.

The first meeting for the group show in August will be at Future Labs on the Equinox next week. I’ll need to work on my sketches some more this weekend, and make sure what I have to say about the piece is reasonably coherent. I will use the techniques we worked on in the library cohort session to hone it!

Heated up leftovers for dinner, read in the evening. Slept well, and through the night (what a surprise). Tessa chased Charlotte off the bed to start the night, but at some point, there was a shift change.

Woke up at the regular time this morning. Good yoga and meditation sessions and fun messages from friends. I plan to have a fairly quiet day, and will go out later to pick up dinner. It’s too much for my mom to go out to a restaurant at this point, so I’ll bring food in. If the weather is nice enough, I might go up to the lake for a bit. We have an alert because it’s been so dry and there’s fire danger; let’s hope it doesn’t come to pass.

I can’t believe I’m several years into my sixties! And then I do something physical, and my body reminds me!

I’m planning to enjoy my day, which means staying rather disconnected from the whole Fall-of-Democracy thing for the day, and then get back to reality tomorrow.

Have a good one, my friends!

Mon. March 10, 2025: Intent for the Week — Pay Attention

image courtesy of  fotografierende via pixabay.com

Monday, March 10, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Sunny and milder

This is set to be a busy week on multiple levels. Not necessarily a bad busy, just lots of details that need attention. My intent is to pay that necessary attention, and deal with each thing as it comes, instead of worrying about what might or might not come.

The Community Tarot Reading for the Week is up on the Cerridwen’s Cottage site, again using the Midnight City Tarot and the City of Dreams Oracle.

I have a lot to get done today, since I’m out of the office tomorrow. So I better get cracking, hadn’t I?

Have a great start to your week!

Fri. March 7, 2025: Finally, a Bit of Sun

image courtesy of Karl Egger via pixabay.com

Friday, March 7, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Sunny and cold

Another week gone.

I got several emails yesterday from people suggesting that I not tweak the course material specifically to the students, and the preparation should stand as it is, so the course can be used elsewhere. While I respect that, it’s not what I feel is best for the situation. The bones of the material don’t change, and this course was created specifically for this particular organization. While I may teach something similar elsewhere a year or so down the road (I have to check the contract), EVERY class I teach ANYWHERE is adjusted to best serve that particular group of participants. Rote teaching isn’t my thing. Pontificating at them isn’t useful for them. Sharing my experiences, both what has worked and has not, talking through possibilities specific to their work, gives them options to apply what works best for them.

As they say in the Assets for Artists Workshops: No one knows everything, but collectively, we know a lot.

It rained all day yesterday and was kind of mucky. The winds picked up in the evening, and are expected to be high until late this afternoon. Hopefully, we won’t lose power.

I did a bunch of admin work, contacted elected officials as promised, and put together the additional handouts for the class and sent everything off.

I gave myself the afternoon off, resting, and reading for pleasure. Okay, I looked at some grant application materials and figured out a few things. By evening, I felt much better.

Microsoft sent out an email that they are discontinuing Publisher as part of Office. Of course they are. Sigh. Why ever make anything better?

A birthday gift arrived a few days early, and I’m very pleased with it, and happy to be remembered.

Dreamed about Scotland last night, which was a nice escape for a few hours. It’s been far too long since I visited.

The cats have spring fever, and it’s sunny, so people will be cheerful when they are out and about today. I have some errands to run this morning, including library and post office. I’m reading a film script for an actor friend this weekend to analyze. She doesn’t really like it, but she wonders if she should do it anyway, because of some of the names currently attached (which doesn’t mean they’ll stay long enough to get it done), and her agent says there’s room to ask for rewrites. I plan to get some writing done this weekend, although I’m not sure on which projects yet, and I’ll work on contest entries. Depending on the weather, I might go out and about it little, too, and start the big spring cleaning. Having forced air heat means things get dusty quickly, so even with the regular daily/weekly housecleaning, the spring and fall deep cleans make a big difference.

According to my calendar, today, tomorrow, and Sunday are all planting days, so maybe I’ll put in some seeds. And then I’ll have something to write about in next week’s garden post!

Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up next week.

Thurs. March 6, 2025: Time To Take A Breath

image courtesy of butti_s via pixabay.com

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Rainy and a little warmer, but still raw

Good morning! You can read about the latest on the garden over on Gratitude and Growth.

I definitely will take some time with Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry work today. If you’re not familiar with it, you can read about it here. I find her Rest Deck particularly useful.

I decided to do my errands first yesterday morning, rather than the polish on the ghostwriting assignment. I picked up my mom’s prescriptions, and went to the grocery store.

At the store, I had a chance to do some of my library cohort homework! Our homework this week was to talk to three people out in the world about our library and listen to what they had to say. One of the employees at the store mentioned frustration with her streaming service. I asked if she knew she could stream some programs for free through the library’s Kanopy program. She did not. She pulled it up on her phone (she has a library card), and I talked her through it. She had no idea it was available through the library. Her work schedule means she can only go to the library on Saturday mornings, and sometimes not even then. I mentioned the extended hours on Wednesday nights, which she didn’t know about.  I also talked her through the Libby app, so she can borrow/read digital books without worrying about library hours. AND pointed out she can get an e-card from Boston Public Library and borrow digitally through them, too. She’s very excited. I will check back in with her next week and see how she’s doing.

The car was fine, and I stopped for gas. It’s the first time I’ve filled the tank since December (because the car wasn’t working), and the tank was just under half. Gas prices haven’t gone up much yet here, so it cost around what I expected. A half tank of gas usually lasts me about two weeks with a regular schedule, and I’m one of those people who fills it when I hit half, when at all possible. When I do storage runs to the Cape, I can make it there and back on a single tank (unless I’m stuck in traffic), so I fill up before I leave and then when I get back. Gas prices on that side of the state are usually higher, and on the Pike, even more.

One of my neighbors asked if we could switch parking spaces as of tomorrow, since he’s on call all weekend and has his truck, which will fit better in that slot. In other words, I get my regular slot back (his son has been in my slot all winter, and I’ve been in the other slot). I’m fine with it, happy to get my slot back, and happy to discuss things and be flexible. I’d much rather talk about it and work it out than have him just appropriate the spot. There’s still an overnight street parking ban this month, so we all need to have slots. I prefer to be in the lot (which is part of my lease agreement) than on the street all year anyway.

Hauled everything upstairs, put it away, took a quick break to catch my breath, and then dug in to do the polish on the ghostwriting assignment. I felt good about what I turned in, certainly much better than I did about the material earlier in the week. The team expressed enthusiasm to read it, and it will be 7-10 days before I hear back, as to whether they want me to expand it, or if we part ways. If we do move forward, a 4th person will be giving me notes, too. So we’ll see if I interpreted and applied the earlier notes in the way they want it or not.

If they do want to move forward, the big question I need to ask myself is can I sustain the blistering pace they need and deliver consistently within their formula? The weeks I work for them require double or triple my comfortable, steady, daily word count. If the pay scale works, and I can take rest breaks in between the assignments, I think so, provided I understand what they want within the formula, and they communicate changes as things evolve. I can only work on/integrate in based on the information I have. And, the reality is that I’m not in my twenties. I have more experience and skills than I had then, but I have to manage my energy differently now.

Am I getting old, or have decades of hyper-productivity finally caught up? Probably a little of both, so I have to adapt.

Thank you for your comments yesterday, Diane. You’ve been through this. You know what it’s like.

Once I submitted the project, I felt like absolute roadkill. So I gave myself a rest break for about an hour. Then I went back to go over the slides for the evening’s class. I cut some of them, wanting to make sure we had enough time to cover everything, to write, to ask questions.

The final box of contest entries arrived. I unpacked them, sorted them, and will dig into them this weekend. I’m looking forward to all of them, but the cookbooks in particular are enticing. And that means the digital entries should all be in the online dashboard, too. Time to roll up my sleeves.

We had an early dinner. I’d been told to go open the Zoom room early and an administrator would be there in case anything needed trouble shooting before the first session. I did so, and ran through the screen shares, which worked in the run-through. No administrator showed up, but I was logged in as host, so it was pretty straightforward. I do have to figure out how to grant permission for students to share screen. For some reason, it doesn’t work the same way logged in through the organization’s account as on my account. And, although I ran through all my shares before the session started, when I tried to share various PDFs that I’d pulled up separately in the actual session, I had to close out of Adobe completely, only open the single file I wanted to share and share that. So all the pre-loading, thinking I could just switch from screen to screen, which worked in the empty room, didn’t work during the session itself. I will investigate, and see if I can find a way to smooth that out.

The students are great. They want to be there, have great questions, are committed to the work (and the work they shared is strong). Now that we’ve discussed their specific projects, I can tailor the next sessions to be of direct use to those projects. Some questions also came up in the class that spurs me to create more handouts with resources specific to our discussion, in addition to the handout I planned. So that’s great. The more resources I can share pointed at their goals in addition to the overall resources already planned,  the more they’ll get out of the class. And this is about them, not about me.

I blanked out at one point on a script supervisor’s full title, having called the position “scripty” for so many years. Fortunately, one of the students jumped in with the full title. There’s still that moment of self-scolding of “how could I blank on something so basic?” and “are my cognitive skills degrading?” It happens, people blank, they make mistakes, it was fixed.

I was so worried I’d overloaded them, and we were finished in plenty of time, had time to write, and had time to chat. So that helps adjust next week’s session, too. Every group is different, and it’s up to me to organize the overall information to suit each group.

In one of the slides I talked about reading over 500 scripts per year in the analyst work. I looked back at my stats to make sure. Previous years were definitely that, even with the strike. Last year was actually a little more, since when the work was there, I took on more since they’d cut the pay per script, and the way it was spread out was more erratic. This year has had a slow start, so who knows? February only had 2 scripts (in a normal cycle, from one particular agency, I would have had 40-60). I’m grateful, on the one hand, because I was burned out from the volume and pace. But I also wonder where the profession is headed. I’m not sure how much is fallout from the strike, how much is economic concern due to the political situation, and how much is that contest entry fees put too high a burden on the writers, but I’m sure all of that factors in. I’ve seen, on social media, writers worried that contest readers simply run the script through AI. I know in my case, we had to sign agreements about not using AI in coverage (it had never occurred to me to do so. I’m paid to READ the script and give individual, specific feedback), and at least one agency has writers sign an agreement stating that they did not write the script using AI when they submit. But those worries, too, could factor in.

I stayed up too late reading for pleasure, the first book in a series by Gillian Roberts from way back in 1987. It was a lot of fun, and I’m interested in seeing what the next books are like, so I ordered them from the library. I’m surprised I didn’t read that series back in the day, when it first came out.

This morning, I am going to put together the additional resources we discussed (I made notes as things came up), so that I can email them the handouts by early afternoon.  Hopefully, I can figure out the ZOOM glitches. The students’ time is valuable, and I want things to run as smoothly as possible for them.

And, hopefully, I won’t have trouble switching back to my own Zoom account for the library cohort meeting on Monday.

No online meditation group this morning. The cats were impossible when I did my own morning sit, so I will try to do another one later in the day.

I don’t know how much writing I will do today. I feel as though my brain needs some rest, after an intense couple of weeks. Once I send the handouts, though, I want to ponder some of the grant proposals coming up. The absurdist commission is the biggest one on which I have to make a decision, since I have to draft and polish a few more pages for that before deadline. It would definitely stretch me, but is this the direction in which I want to stretch right now?

I also need to get back to work on VICIOUS CRITIC and on the ANGEL HUNT adaptation. While I have no hard deadlines for either, I am behind where I want to be.

Where I want to put my time and attention is back to adapting the poem I WILL BE DIFFERENT into the stage play. I’ve used the pages workshopped with Boiler House in several grant applications, and it reminded me how much I love this piece.

The farm where I have my CSA subscription asked me to do some advocacy for them with our state reps around pending budget cuts, so I will do that today (better today than on a Friday, where everyone just wants to go home).

But most of today, I think, will be about resting and regrouping from the ghostwriting project, at least once I get the handouts sent!

Have a good one!

Wed. March 5, 2025: Wrapping Up One Job, Starting Another

image courtesy of Hans via pixabay.com

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Rainy and milder

And we’re at the middle of the week!

Yet another good writer has migrated off Substack, and he talks about why here. He even admits he was one of their paid writers early on. He continues to support other writers on Substack. As a reminder, I do not read, like, or share anything connected to the platform. Every click gives them support, even if the writer claims they are trying to “change it from the inside.” Nope, nope, nope.

I had trouble getting going yesterday morning, in spite of a positive start to the morning with yoga and meditation. The morning yoga really helps.

I took care of a few things. Once I got the class roster for today, I sent out an email to the students to welcome them and give them a sense of what tonight is about. I will polish the slides one final time this afternoon, and add some links to the handout.

But almost the entire day was spent on the ghostwriting assignment. I polished and rearranged and layered. I got stuck a few times on the final turning point that leads into the climactic sequence. And the research takes a lot of time. For every five things I research, four need to be tossed. I look at writers like Elizabeth George, who put months of meticulous research into their books, and I feel the pressure of only having a few days with the expectations of just as high detail. Eventually, I figured it out, and it was done a little after 9 PM.

I will give it a polish this morning, and send it off some time today. There’s some solid work in it, and some that needs more attention. But I’m out of time, and I need some directional guidance on what’s there. Whether they think it’s worth investing more time/money in me and the notes is up to them. I put time, care, research, and energy into it, and either it fits their vision/formula, or it doesn’t. I have a feeling it won’t, and that’s just the way it is. At least we gave each other a shot. We both need to do what’s best for us.

I’m exhausted, and a little sad. I probably would have had an easier time of it if there wasn’t so much government chaos going on that affects my daily life, but who knows? This is the hand I was dealt, and I did the best I could with it. No matter what, I always feel I could have done better.

Once I got to sleep, I slept reasonably well, although the damned smoke alarm is malfunctioning again. It’s driving me out of what’s left of my mind.

On today’s agenda: polish and send off the ghostwriting assignment. Do one more pass/polish on the material for tonight’s class. Go grocery shopping. If I have time, work on some grant proposals and LOIs. I have some script pages to work on for some of those proposals.

I dropped the ball yesterday on marketing the Smashwords sale, so I have to double up on that today.

Better get my act together and get going then, hadn’t I? Have a good one.

Tues. March 4, 2025: Working Through

image courtesy of Satheesh Sankaran via pixabay.com

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Cloudy and raw

Peter Bowerman, of the Well-Fed Writer, is retiring. His work gave me the courage to strike out as a freelancer after I aged out of working in technical theatre. I am honored to be included in this tribute to him, found here.

You can find the Community Tarot Reading for the Week up on the Cerridwen’s Cottage site here. We are using the Midnight City Tarot deck and the City of Dreams Oracle deck this month, both very NYC-centric. I love Jackie Franco’s work, and adore these two decks.

Here’s a moving piece from someone who decided to leave 18F rather than submit to the illegal activities. It’s incredibly precise, well-written, and personal. I encourage you to read “Moving on from 18f” here. Thanks to the Mastodon colleague who shared this.

Friday morning, I put in my request for my next review assignments. The next John Hopkins survey came through, part of the long term COVID effects study, and I filled that out. I filled out a survey about revitalizing downtown.

I drove to the library – the car worked just fine. Maybe we really have fixed it. Dropped off a few books. Picked up a big stack of books that came in for me.

Hauled them home, got everything sorted out. Some research books came in for the ghostwriting assignment, some other background came in that I will go over in case the second anthology story needs some edits. The library asked people to fill out slips about what the library and its services/programs mean as they put together their funding proposal next year. I wrote practically an essay, detailing the different things they offer and how important they were to different parts of my life.

Basked in the sunshine like a cat for a little bit.

In the early afternoon, I attended a webinar on ZOOM for the Creative Capital grant and for their new State of the Art awards. It’s the same application for both. The Creative Capital grant is far larger, but there will be two State of the Art awards in each state, for 100 additional awards, at 10K. So yes, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring for both. (I can only get one, and it’s one-off, but why not try). These grants are fully funded already, and not dependent on Federal money that could get yanked at any moment. I have most of the materials already prepared for the project I want to pitch. All I have to do is update the work sample with new script pages.

A rush coverage came in, and I grabbed it. It was decent enough money to make it worthwhile, and it would cover the Chewy order I needed to put in. That took the bulk of the afternoon. Since I expected to be paid for the coverage by Monday (even though it was the only coverage for the entire pay period), I made that a priority over the ghostwriting.

Cooked a nice dinner and finished reading Michael Riedel’s RAZZLE DAZZLE, which overlaps SINGULAR SENSATION a little bit in the 90’s. A lot of the stories are from before I worked in theatre, when I was just a delighted audience member. Some of it was from my early career days, but I was still working off and off-off and off-off-so-far-off Broadway that I’d heard some of the stories, but they didn’t have the same kind of meaning to me as when I was working in the district. It’s still very interesting.

It’s good background and texture material when Nina Bell makes the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway a few books down the line.

Speaking of Nina, I got my Hoopla report for January, and that series is getting a lot of reads. Since I’m paid per read, it’s encouraging. Definitely motivation to get VICIOUS CRITIC done and out. Since I’m completely restructuring the end of CRITIC, though, it’s taking longer than I would like. Doing it well matters more than doing it fast.

Was assigned the next books for review.

The economic blackout for Feb. 28 wasn’t difficult. I mean, for the foreseeable future, until I land some more clients, I’m only buying essentials and paying bills. And doing things like renewing my driver’s license. People who claim it doesn’t matter can do what they want. I don’t buy that much nonessential anyway, except for books and things at a place like Wild Soul River, to support friends. And I happen to think books are essential, which is why I use the library so often.

The bad behavior by That Thing, Sidekick Cracker, and Secretary Spineless towards Zelenskyy was disgusting. It says to the world that not only are the people who claim they’re in charge untrustworthy and without the basic manners required for international diplomacy, but as far as they’re concerned, we are now an annex of Russia and put Russia’s interests first. Absolutely revolting.

A colleague sent an email about how disgusted she was and how comforting she found X,Y, Z posts on Substack. I responded with informational links and my reasons for not reading, subscribing, or sharing anything on Substack. She thanked me for the information and, a few minutes later, sent me another article . . .on Substack. Sigh.

No, I didn’t read any of them. What part of “I don’t read it if it’s on Substack because clicking and reading ANYTHING there, even if it’s not a paid subscription, means supporting their monetization of hate” is too hard to understand?

This person’s heart is in the right place (always, a truly wonderful human being), but our logics run on different tracks.

Several people whose work I would read if it wasn’t on Substack have moved in the past few days, and I’m subscribing as I find out about it.

Slept reasonably well Friday into Saturday. Woke up around 4:30, a big improvement over 1:30, and fell back asleep quickly. Got up a little later than usual, much to the dismay of the cats.

Bea taught Tessa to play with Bea’s favorite interactive toy, and they are having the best time together.

My mom’s social security cleared and is safely in the bank account, which takes a huge amount of pressure off me for the coming week.

An agent opened queries for the first 10 days of the month, so I considered pitching CAST IRON MURDER to her, since it fits her guidelines. It should have gone out on regular submission late last year, and I kept putting it off. I have the bits and bobs for the submission package; it’s just uploading them and tweaking the cover letter. That book is somewhat suited to traditional publishing, provided they don’t want to edit the COVID pandemic out of it, since that’s integral to the plot and the series arc.

Running errands on Friday, it was still coldish, but sunny, and smelled like spring. When I woke up on Saturday, it had snowed again. But the sun came out, it was supposed to warm up, then rain in the afternoon, then plunge back down into the ick.

I put in the Chewy order early on Saturday morning. Those little monsters eat a lot! They also have spring fever, are starting to shed, and are doing the semi-annual fur ball hurling contest. Fun times.

Wrote out checks for some bills and rent. It was easier to run errands on foot, so I hiked down to the post office to mail everything, and ran a few other errands on the way back. The sun was gone and it was raining pretty hard by the time I headed out. But it was still faster on foot than driving and parking and all the rest.

Just after I came home, it started to snow. The prediction was “little to no accumulation.” Ummm – it snowed heavily for hours. It stuck.

I read the Agatha Christie for the month’s book club – THREE ACT TRAGEDY. I enjoyed it, to a point, but I got a little too far ahead of it.

I had zero motivation to do any work.

However, I pulled up my socks, as they say, and went back to work on the ghostwriting assignment. I did a few hours of work on it, rearranging things a bit and working on the next section. At this point, I have absolutely no idea what they want, since the notes are so often in conflict. I ask questions, I integrate answers, then I’m told I didn’t follow instructions. It’s exhausting. Figured out how much more I needed to do on Sunday and Monday to give me Tuesday for a polish and get it off my desk on Wednesday, when it’s due. I’m sure they won’t want to go further, so then we’ll invoice, and they’ll pay me the partial at the test rate, and we both move on. They do a huge amount of work in a very short amount of time (the company’s put out over 150 books since 2019). They’ve got a well-oiled machine, and good for them. I talked to a colleague who worked for a different packager, and the experience was very similar: Tight deadlines, conflicting notes by the reviewing committee, them acting like conversations about specific points never happened. Par for the course, I guess. It’s been quite a few years since I did this type of work, and I had blocked out a good many of the challenges, mostly remembering the pleasure of the work.

Cooked dinner, read for pleasure in the evening.

Did not want to get up on Sunday, but did. After breakfast, I spent most of the day on the ghostwriting assignment, and got some solid work in. It doesn’t sing yet, but I’m closer.

I woke up on Monday to find they’d paid me for the previous assignment, so that’s a relief, in spite of the processing fee. I also managed to renew my driver’s license online, no muss, no fuss. I have the letter to carry in my wallet if the physical license doesn’t get here by my birthday next week.

Tinkered around with a few things before logging on to do the test of the Zoom account for Wednesday’s class. It did not work. The person with whom I’d set the appointment to sort it was unavailable (in spite of the appointment). Sigh. Yes, Venus is retrograde, and Mercury’s retrograde is coming in fast. But we got it sorted out in the afternoon. We hope!

Two “opportunities” landed in my inbox over the weekend. One for a scriptwriter who could guarantee everything going viral. Um, not how that works. AND this place wanted the first 10 scripts turned around in 24 hours. For absolutely insulting money. Nope. The other was another one of the book packagers, this time for romance, and the usual write 15,000 words in a week, but only get paid $150. No, thank you. That’s a penny a word, for an incredibly intense amount of work in a week. No.

I managed to get a query out to an agent. It was straightforward. I had all the bits, it was just uploading them properly.

I did the rounds of my elected officials – three times, on three different topics.

The library cohort meeting was good. I feel like I learned a lot. The other Berkshire member and I are going to figure out a way to visit back and forth in the spring, when the weather is better. We’re only about an hour apart.

The problematic client paid. Even though it wasn’t much, every bit helps. I also used up a gift card from another client to treat myself to something that will be here in time for my birthday.

Definitely hard to settle down and focus on work after such a busy morning!

I got out a requested script (my proposal made the first cut, now they want the script), and also got out the application to Creative Capital.

Then, it was time to settle into the ghostwriting. I didn’t get as far ahead as I hoped (I shouldn’t have started so late in the day). But I did rewrite a bunch of material and up the ante. I woke up in the night realizing I needed to add in something else early on, so I have to rearrange some more chapters today. I HAVE to finish it today, so I can polish it and get it off by deadline tomorrow.

Cooked a late dinner, and was too tired to read at night. Went to bed early, slept for 2 hours, was wide awake, finally got back to sleep, but woke up early.

I need to take care of a few things in and around the ghostwriting, but the bulk of the day will be about that, with a few breaks to tweak the material for tomorrow’s screenwriting workshop. I won’t be able to start attending tarot circle again until April, but I hope to stop by the store one day and buy a little something as a treat for me and to support them.

Somehow, it will all work, even if I’m vague on the details right now.

Later in the week, when the ghostwriting is out the door, I will tweak the rest of the class slides for the remaining sessions and work on some grant proposals, my next review assignments, the contest entries, and send out some more LOIs.

Onward!

Mon. March 3, 2025: Intent for the Week — Attempt Steady Progress

image courtesy of Petra via pixabay.com

Monday, March 3, 2025

Waxing Moon

Venus Retrograde

Sunny and very cold

The Community Tarot Reading for the week of March 3 is up on the Cerridwen’s Cottage site here. We’re using the Midnight City Tarot and the City of Dreams Oracle this month.

This week, I have a big deadline midweek, I start teaching the month-long class, I have to renew my driver’s license, and I have some grant proposals to get out. I’d like to do some other writing, but we’ll see how the week shakes out. Even if the progress is relatively slow, my aim is to be steady about it.

What’s your intent this week?

Fri. Feb. 28, 2025: Wish for a Restful Weekend

image courtesy of olga volkovitskaia via pixabay.com

Friday, February 28, 2025

Waxing Moon

Sunny and mild

Here we are, on the final day of February. There are consumer boycotts going on today. I wasn’t planning on spending money anyway today, although there are some bills (like car insurance) on autopay.

I’m ready for the door to slap February on the way out and prepare for a better March.

I see Justice Roberts has betrayed the country again. No big surprise there.

The Gene Hackman death was disturbing. He, his wife, and their dog are found dead and foul play is not suspected? Does that mean it was carbon monoxide poisoning? His work has always been a big part of my life, and he will be missed.

The online meditation group was good.

Spent a good portion of the morning making the devilled eggs for the evening’s workshare.

Set up time on Monday to test the ZOOM links for the screenwriting workshop. That way, we can troubleshoot anything we need to do. The next shipment from the contest I’ve been judging for the past 10 years went out, and should arrive on the 4th.

Still waiting for payment from the ghostwriting client.

The focus for the workday was in writing the reviews, submitting them, and invoicing. I prioritized that work because the client pays quickly. I was paid by the end of the day, and this morning, I will choose my next assignments.

In the early evening, packed the food, packed the serving dishes, loaded the car and drove, yes DROVE, to MASS MoCA. The car worked. Helped set up for the event. Enjoyed talking to people, seeing their work, hearing their passions. I think a lot of really great collaborations will come out of this group. You can already see the way they’re connecting with each other.

Helped clean up, packed up, came home. My parking spot was still free, yay.

Hauled things up the stairs, unpacked, heated up some leftovers, read for a bit.

Woke up at 1:30, worrying, but managed to fall back to sleep around 4 for a couple of hours.

On today’s agenda, I’ll choose the next book reviewing assignments, work on the ghostwriting assignment, attempt to chase down payment from them, get out some LOIs, do a library run (I hope to drive there and back), attend one of Creative Capital’s webinars on a new grant they have funded, and maybe get to work on one of the grant proposals.

I am not buying anything today, as part of the economic blackout. I might go to the Farmers’ Market over the weekend, but that’s it.

I mean, most of what they’re telling us to do is how I shop anyway – local as much as possible.

Tomorrow, Venus goes retrograde until April 12. Big sigh. Venus retrograde means examining relationships, finance, and self-worth. We are also moving into eclipse season, which means even more chaos. It’s supposed to be a good time to get money owed, so maybe that’s a point in my favor! Since Venus sits in my first house, the big caution is plan a new look, but don’t do it until Venus goes direct. Changing one’s look during a Venus retrograde often causes remorse. Since I am planning a big change in my look, I am going to just sit tight and do some research. I pretty much know what I want to do, but this is not the time to do it.

Over the weekend, I will work on the ghostwriting assignment (I honor the contracts, even when it’s not always returned), finish the slides for my screenwriting workshop, and do some marketing materials for the Smashwords promo next week. I’ve also been invited to another promo, with the caveat we can’t discuss it on social media, which seems weird to me. I also want to get some work done on various grant proposals.

The weather is supposed to be all over the place again this weekend, and it will get colder again on Sunday, possibly with more snow.

I hope I can also catch up on sleep.

Have a good one, and we’ll catch up early next week.

Thurs. Feb. 27, 2025: Cars and Snow and Words

image courtesy of Angelica Vaihel via pixabay.com

Thursday, February 27, 2025

New Moon

Snowy and raw

You can find the latest on the garden over on Gratitude and Growth.

There’s still space to sign up for my screenwriting tools workshop, on ZOOM, on Wednesday nights in March. Learn more about it here. Tell your friends! Join with a partner!

Finally! A new moon. Maybe we can get some momentum going in the right direction.

I took the rolly cart to the grocery store. Some of the sidewalks were fine. Others had several inches of standing water on top of the ice. But it was still better than last weekend.

Got to the store. They had several specials, and I bought more than planned (familiar refrain). Our freezer is quite stacked, and I have several meal planning options open to me, which is always a good thing.

Cooking usually relaxes me.

Humped everything home. I even got a good price on 18 eggs! And none of them broke!

Got everything put away. My neighbor and I worked on my car. I think it’s drivable again, and it was an easy fix. We will find out when I drive it tonight to the cohort meeting. But that definitely cheered me up. Even the possibility that the car is working properly again is helpful.

My back, however, is not happy.

A call for a residency proposal with stipend hit my inbox. I have a few months to put it together, and I will do so. The due date for the proposal is in July, although I hope I can get it in earlier. I’m still debating a couple of proposals that would need to be in by mid-March.

Wrote up and sent off a book review. Worked on the ghostwriting assignment, which went more slowly than I would have liked, but at least I enjoyed it. Enjoying the work always means the quality of the work itself is better. But I’m going to have to work on it over the weekend to make the deadline, because progress is slower than I’d like, unless, somehow, I’m able to make a huge leap today and tomorrow. I’m still waiting to get paid for the last assignment. It should have been paid latest by yesterday. If it’s not here by early afternoon today, I’m going to have to chase it down.

We coaxed Willa out of the bedroom and into the living room for some playtime yesterday afternoon. She spends too much time alone, and needs to socialize with the other cats more, so that she stops bullying Bea. Tessa, Charlotte, and Bea now hang out together most of the day, and I don’t want Willa to be left out. We had a nice 20 minutes or so of playtime, and Willa behaved. If we can be consistent with it, and expand it, she will start enjoying herself in company and that will make all of them happier.

Made a good pork fried rice for dinner. That recipe, with a variety of proteins, is becoming one of our favorite go-to meals.

Reading RAZZLE DAZZLE for pleasure, about Broadway a little before I started my theatre career. I have a feeling later in the book, there will be some overlap. It’s interesting, because it’s more on the business angle. Some of it I knew, just because career theatre people tend to pay attention and learn the history. Plenty of those passing through for a few years don’t, but plenty of us do. Anyway, it’s interesting, and fills in some blanks from things I remember hearing about, but didn’t know the business details.

Woke up to snow this morning, and was just about ready to cry. It’s not much, and it should be washed away by rain later on, but still. I usually enjoy snow, especially when I’m tucked inside, but the constant need to shovel out the car has been exhausting. We’re scheduled to have online meditation group this morning. Then, after breakfast, I will make the devilled eggs for tonight. The rest of the day is about writing up book reviews and working on the ghostwriting assignment. Late this afternoon, I pack everything up and (hopefully) drive down to MASS MoCA for the cohort meeting. That means Real People Clothes, but I will figure it out.

Tomorrow is the no-buy day. I’ve only been buying essentials anyway this month. I mean, that’s how I live most of my months, as a freelancer. I will have to put in a Chewy in the next few days, but the focus on March is paying bills and earning enough to do that while prepping for more federal chaos.

I’m hoping to harness some of the new moon energy to plot necessary changes, and then get them into motion over the coming weeks. Back to the career drawing board for me! Sitting here paralyzed by stress won’t solve the issue. Getting out there and doing something will.

Have a good one!