Wed. May 29, 2024: Shuffling the Responsibilities with the Possibilities
image courtesy of Michael Schwarzenberger via pixabay.comWednesday, May 29, 2024
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Partly sunny and pleasant
I’m so confused as to what day it is.
Today’s serial episode is from ANGEL HUNT:
Episode 141: Layers of Angels
Angel politics annoy Lianna.
We’re on the last 5 episodes of this serial!
It’s good we’re winding up. March’s royalty payment (which paid out today) was abysmal. Vella keeps changing the payment configuration, while blocking ways to promote and draw in new readers that don’t put more advertising dollars directly into their coffers. They refuse us the room and necessary tools to reach a larger audience beyond Amazon. Then, we’re blamed for not doing enough to bring in new readers, when what they’re doing is blocking that ability.
So many of the authors think if they just “write harder” it will pay off, but it’s not just about consistent story posting; there are so many other elements involved, especially around the marketing. And Amazon blocks a lot of marketing opportunities unless those are paid advertising dollars to Amazon directly, which doesn’t translate into enough dollars in the royalty payments. Many authors who are paying those dollars are finding their royalties dropping even as their reader count increases.
Well, it was fun while it was fun, right?
And I got a bunch of writing done, and back into a flow. I’d struggled for the last couple of years, and writing to serial specs and deadlines got me to just sit down and do it without overthinking.
It served a purpose.
It has now fulfilled the purpose, so onward.
But reading free episodes, liking, commenting, and crowning will still help me in these last few weeks while the serials are up for binge reading. So if you haven’t read your 30 free episodes over the three serials yet, please do! In the next few months, the free reads won’t count, but in the next few weeks, those will still give me a few more pennies!
I adapted more episodes into TAPESTRY chapters. While it’s tempting to push until I wear myself out each day, I’ve limited myself to three chapters (however many episodes that contains). It was about 7K words yesterday, in a complicated section.
One of the people I’d talked with at the Business Expo had followed up last week, but the email went astray and only showed up as I was putting together the promised materials. Then, I had trouble getting the email to send from the right address, getting the materials to attach properly, but I finally got it all out. What usually takes 15-20 minutes took an hour and a half.
And got an out of office message that she’s on vacation. Which made me laugh. No wonder she wanted to get in touch before the holiday. Too funny!
Maybe we’ll catch up next week and, if she likes my materials, maybe she’ll throw me an assignment now and then.
Folded the laundry. I’ve somehow misplaced one pair of yoga pants. Now I KNOW I didn’t come home one day without pants, so that pair has got to be around somewhere.
Was assigned two new books for review.
Updated my profile/information on Aquent. They’ve been sending me such wildly inappropriate job postings I figured I better check out what they think I want. My profile is updated and looks good; we will see if that translates to anything. I’ve been very frustrated with them these last few months. What is the purpose of filling out all that paperwork/profile information when they act, each time I answer one of their pitches, like they have no idea who I am? Don’t waste my time.
A bunch of scripts landed in the availability queue – all marked as due within the hour! I contacted my handler. It was a glitch, it was fixed, I got enough scripts to keep me busy and paid through Thursday. Thursday needs to be a light client workday, since I have to be in Pittsfield for an early morning meeting (thereby missing meditation).
Turned around one small and one medium coverage, and started another before I ran out of steam and time.
Learned I did not land a residency slot for which I’d applied in early autumn. Although my ego wasn’t happy about it (because, you know, ego), I had already decided that if I landed it, I would have to decline. It bumped up too close to the Boiler House residency – as in, I would have had to drive from the other residency directly to the BHPC residency, without even an overnight in between. Which would have made responsibilities I have around the residency a little more complicated, although I could pull them off by being organized. I’d be tired, but I could pull it off. And then go into the residency tired, which I’d rather not do. I want to be energized. I suspect it would also be in conflict with the playwrighting cohort, although I don’t yet have a start date for that. On top of that, I would have had to hire someone to check on my mom regularly and pick up the CSA box while I was out of town. There were too many challenges in making that block of time work well so I could get the most out of my time at that particular residency (along with certain restrictions within the residency that made me raise my eyebrows and wonder why I applied), and now it’s not an issue.
As I learned the hard way over the past year, these things shake out for the best. Had I gotten the April residency I wanted so much when I applied for it last November, I wouldn’t have been able to attend the reading of my own play. Had I gotten another residency for which I applied, it would have conflicted with my current cohort, the July reading, the Make it at Market slot, and the collaborative poem.
So it all works out, and the right opportunities align.
I mean, there’s the ego component, but seeing how the right opportunities align soothes the hits to the ego!
Headed out to yoga. Got some more information from my friend about her family’s birthplaces and dates and some more names, which helps me research their Vaudeville connections. I made a connection about a brother-sister dance act, per the research I’d done on the photographs that delighted her. I’m looking forward to spending some time on genealogical sites to get some specifics which I can then plug into the bigger picture.
Gentle yoga was good. Fitness for yoga kicked my ass, but it was also good. I can see and feel the progress. And the data numbers show my improvement (i.e., my BP’s gone down 70 points since I started at this studio – yes, that means when I moved here, I was in the danger zone with those numbers). I’m not just skirting the edge of the range, I’m down to healthy numbers. Without medication, which is the way I like it.
My teacher is pleased, but pointed out that it’s not just doing yoga, it’s other lifestyle/eating changes and less stress.
Amazing how not being in a toxic work environment anymore improves overall health!
The plan is to maintain and build on this progress.
Got a notification that my storage unit monthly cost is going up. It’s gone from mildly ridiculous to more so. I have to figure out how to put together the resources to get everything moved up here to a local, more reasonably priced unit in fall. I don’t have the resources even to do the most basic of self-moves right now (not to mention lacking the physical ability), but I can hold onto the unit, even at the new cost, for a few more months while I put it all together. There are several types of options to get it done; I have to see what I can pull off financially (with all these other unexpected bills that have come in, and what’s coming due this summer) and then make decisions.
I also noted how much less trouble I have with sense memory stress when I’m not making storage runs during this time of year. Getting everything off Cape and up here will take off a huge burden not just financially, but the physical back-and-forth (it’s an eight hour round trip, plus all the moving and rearranging of boxes each time), and the emotional baggage connected to the unit. Then, maybe, I can, one day, enjoy the Cape again as a place to visit.
It looks like the gun range in Bourne will not happen after all (with the clear-cutting of 170 acres of forest). Our advocacy to the reps got the existing range better financed (off Cape) and the proposed range off the table. At least for now, until the other side makes its next move. I was involved in that, even as someone who no longer lived there (but used my experience as a former resident and a potential future tourist) to create my advocacy materials.
I’m hearing a lot of garden issues this year from people on Cape – boxwood blight, and cedar fungus and all kinds of things that are killing plants and shrubs. Not to mention the contamination from the banned pesticides that are being used on the short-term rental properties.
Anyway, today’s agenda is about head down working with writing in the morning, script coverage in the afternoon, prep for tomorrow’s meeting, and then tarot circle this afternoon. I have a friend’s script to read, which I might not get to until the weekend.
Onward!
