September's here again

Oh, David Sylvian. I wish I could listen to you but (horrors) Katie Perry's in my life now.

There. I just had to confess.  The guilt is eating me alive. I borrowed Rhiannon's i-pod Shuffle because mine died, and I've been running to her music. I think it's why I'm running faster. Also that horrible song 'Parlez Pas Americano' is great to run to. This is how the cosmos laughs at me.

So yeah. September. The last couple of years at this time, I was gearing myself up to make a big push on the writing. Tearing my hair to get at the computer after a summer of distractions.

This year I'm looking at a big stack of OU work due later this month. I've been doing well since I started in February, and generally I've gotten away with spending far less time on the courses than it says on the package--but I tend to take that for granted because I was always a quick study. Yeah? Really, Sullivan? My whole 'I can deal with it because I haz brainz' schtick is fucked out the window with the end of term approaching. The End-of-Module Assessments (EMAs) are HARD and SCARY and they come just when I'm weary of working on this stuff all the time.

Urg. Poor me. It's not like I'm entirely unfamiliar with hard work, just...this is more like a greased slide to humiliation.

I've been working on school seriously for the entire month of August; the only days 'off' I've had have been for family outings.  If you have a family you know how not 'off' those days are. There weren't many. This adds to my guilt. I'm not going to go into that here because it's a not-pretty collision of my hopes and expectations for their childhood running up against the reality of what Steve and I are able to actually pull off.

Here--look at this frog!




In other news, I ran a DVD sale off Steve's website to try to bring in some income since I've got no writing contract or nothing right now and we are always living hand-to-mouth. I've done this before and it's always a scramble but brings in customers. This time I was too lazy to change all the paypal buttons on the site so I ran it as a straight 50% rebate. We had A LOT of orders considering that our business fits in a shoebox. Many of them were from the US, which requires some mad conversion of the video files and international airmal (I always post and pack as part of the price). I have barely seen my computer for the whole month because it's been tied up burning and converting round the clock. A couple of times I accidentally clicked on Scrivener Beta when I'd meant to go into Nero and it felt like somebody grabbed my heart.

O Scrivener! I miss you!

Anyway, I brought some money in but it was a very small profit margin. I am writing this post on the laptop in between conversions. This is a laptop that Anthony the computer doctor told me was unfixable, past its sell-by date. It is held together by luck and the stickiness of my need. If it dies before I finish fulfilling my sale orders, I'm going to cry a lot. Don't die, sweetness!

On the other hand. When I checked my files the other day I did find some promising stuff, lurking. A few good projects. Unfinished, of course. There's the rub. Right now I'm just holding to the faith that it will all still be there when I get back to it. That it will remember me. I think it will. Writing's quite doglike that way. Maybe it will even be happy to see me.

As long as it doesn't sniff my butt.