urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire The Journal of Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire 2009-04-09T18:58:40Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire:99148 2009-04-09T18:58:40Z 2009-04-09T18:58:40Z Brigham Young Acapella, 'Super Mario Theme.' I have spent my week being very, very productive, especially when you consider the fact that a) I just got a new kitten, b) Lilly didn't allow me to sleep for over a month during her "kitty go crazy" period, and c) the lack of sleep, followed by sleep's sudden return, has left me slightly sick and very definitely jet-lagged in my own body. It's exciting! But this week, I have...<br /><br />...turned in an essay for one of those exciting "smart people try to sound smart while talking about television" essay books. I'm excited! This is the first time I've been asked to participate in something like this, but I've always been a little envious of authors who get to go and sound smart while they talk about, say, <i>Supernatural</i> or <i>Buffy</i>. Hopefully I've managed to sound super-smart, because I'd love to do this again. I have a list of shows I'm just dying to sound totally smart about. Like <i>Fringe</i> and <i>Cupid</i>. Oh, and if there's ever a "smart people try to sound smart while talking about shows that were canceled before their time" book, I can corner the market on <i>Freakylinks</i>.<br /><br />...revised nine chapters of <i>Late Eclipses</i>, only to discover that one of those chapters needed to be combined with another to form a sort of, I don't know, "super-chapter," while another chapter needed to be cut entirely. On the positive side, I made these discoveries entirely on my own, without any outside assistance. Also on the positive side, this will help with my goal of getting the book down between 105,000 and 110,000 words. On the negative side, dammit, I already revised this part of the book. Damn plot. It's getting complications and fingerprints all over my stuff.<br /><br />...set up the landing page for the <i>Velveteen vs.</i> series, including a brief description of what the series is about, a listing for the stories in order-as-written, and a listing for the stories in chronological order (which will matter more as the JSP-era stuff starts getting posted). All the Vel stories are being cleaned up and revised before they're posted, which slows it down a bit, but also lets me take care of all those pesky typos and logic problems that people have been so very kindly pointing out to me. Behold! For now I wear the continuity pants!<br /><br />...submitted all my receipts, agreed to an estimate on my taxes, and confirmed that I'm ready to receive my extension forms, hence to turn my taxes in. Self-employment tax blows. The next time someone asks why I haven't quit my day job yet, I may pull out my tax receipts and a conveniently labeled graph. <i>SCREWING A WRITER IN FIVE EASY STEPS.</i> Step one: self-employment tax.<br /><br />...introduced Lilly and Alice to one another <i>without</i> bloodshed (either feline or human), and without any major emergencies, unless you want to count Lilly forcing her way into the bedroom during what was technically the isolation period. I rarely, if ever, close my bedroom door all the way -- the cats like to be able to come and go, and the litter box in my room is a relatively recent development -- so I had totally forgotten that Lilly knows how to work the latch, and <i>will</i> work the latch if given sufficient motivation. Like, say, being locked out of the room. But all's well that ends well, and this has ended well.<br /><br />What's everybody else's productive looking like?