Before I begin, here’s a follow-up to my piece on Roger Ebert. It’s not just ass-licking. It’s a heartfelt story about the boy who followed in his footsteps, then foolishly betrayed his mentor. This week I’ve discovered the wonder of macros. What are macros? They are scripts that you can run in Word that can make mundane tasks simple. Convert all sentences to have two spaces after a period. Find all questionable words. Find sentences that begin with the same letter. If you know programming, like I do, they actually kind of fun. If you know VBA or VB Script, like I don’t, they can be frustrating when you don’t…
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There are no Employment Reviews when you’re a REAL Writer
After six months at my new job, I find myself under a performance review time, and I’m worried. Why shouldn’t I be? I haven’t quit a job since I graduated high school, and I’ve had quite a few since then. Plus we recently had layoffs (3% of the company) in response to the economic crisis. And my peer evaluations were less than stellar. Most of my negatives came from my interpersonal communication or lack thereof. Welcome to the problem that has persisted me all my life. And you know what, I’m sick of being told to change it. It’s just who I am. Get used to it. I am sick…
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Avatar is Free!
Avatar has been sent out now. I supposed I should be happy about that, but I know it’s going to take months before I get a reply, and it’s going to be a rejection. I know for a fact it’s not material Asimov’s is looking for – it’s too immature. I sent it because, well, I need to send it. Writing without publishing is like shouting into a canyon. The hardest part is asking the postal guy for the postage, because it’s a neatly complicated order – weigh this envelope and then put the postage on it, and this one I’m going to stick inside. I couldn’t figure out how…
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Not Writing at Work Anymore
Something happened. I don’t seem to be writing at work anymore. I don’t know why. I wrote Blood 2 at work just fine last Fall/Winter. More than 2,000 words a day. But nothing seems to be coming when I write at work. Maybe because I have too much drive to get my work done. Maybe I have too many internet distractions. Maybe I have too many things to read. Maybe I can’t get enough inertia going inbetween spurts to get a decent momentum of writing and flowage going.None of these are good excuses. But I have been able to write at home. Unfortunately, I also have no time there either.…