Getting Organised

The Great Bookshelf Reorganising of 2011

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Reorganised Bookshelf

On Saturday night, around 4 am, I started reorganising bookshelves. It seemed like the thing to do, since I’d been studiously not-sleeping for five hours after going to bed.

Bookcases are one of the places where mess accumulates in my flat, largely because there’s so many of the damn things and I’ve developed a bad habit of taking things down, reading a couple of paragraphs, then putting them back somewhere else. What starts as a workable system quickly devolves over time, and every couple of years I have to start from scratch and reorganize the entire system.

The whole process tends to start around 4 AM, ’cause insomnia is my response to doing to much and thinking too much and generally feeling like things are out of control. Reordering shelves is my way of figuring out what is and isn’t important in my life, and everything goes on from there. It’s a mental reset, fighting back against my natural tendency towards entropy.

So far I’ve got two shelves down. There are many, many more to go.

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I mention this primarily because my friend Alan, and possibly my dad, were interested in knowing when the issue of Weird Tales with my story in it was available. And it now seems as though Weird Tales #357 is out in the world, and when all your friends are Lovecraft geeks this is about as cool as it gets.

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This has been doing the rounds of twitter and facebook recently, but for those behind the curve: a guy tries to sell “a story to topple Star Wars and Harry Potter” on ebay with a starting bid of $3,000,000.

There’s also a pretty good take-down of his sales pitch over at Bleeding Cool, but essentially what’s going on  is a new iteration of an old conversation that goes something along the lines of “oh, wow, you’re a writer? I’ve got a great idea, let me sell it to you and we can split the money it earns once you’ve written it.”

For those of you out there with a great idea: please don’t do this. It irritates writers and perpetuates the myth that ideas are somehow all it takes, rather than work and persistence and the occasional stroke of luck

Most writers will reply with something along the lines of “ah-huh, great, but I’m a little busy right now,” after which the writer walks away and mock you with their writer-friends, who understand that ideas are the cheap part of the equation and worth very little until someone builds a book/movie around them.

When you try to sell your idea on ebay for large sums of money, it just means you’ll be mocked in public. The internets are like that, sometimes. So are writers, really. I suspect we’re subconsciously bitter about the fact that our career is so frequently undervalued, both socially and monetarily, that the three million asking price is like a red cape to a bull.

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I tweeted this a little earlier this morning, largely ’cause I suspect there’s more gamers following my twitter/facebook feeds than there are following this blog, but just in case I’m wrong: RPGnow is raising funds for the NZ Earthquake victims. Folks who donate $20 get a bundle of over $320 RPG/gaming  ebooks donated by gaming publishers.

This is, as they say, a good cause worth supporting and the RPG ebook community has been very successful with such things in the past (and a tip of the hat to Melinda, who comments here occasionally, for giving me the heads up).

Swancon 36

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A few months ago I decided to do the sensible thing by my financial situation and give up any plans of going to Swancon 36 (aka Australia’s nat-con). It was the right decision back that – I was unemployed and broke and heavily in debt, and although there were all sorts of good reasons to go to Perth (Peeps! Ellen Datlow!) the money just wasn’t there. Admitting that fracking hurt too, ’cause occasionally I’d talk to Alisa over at Twelfth Planet Pressabout using Swancon as a rough launch date for Claw, and I do so love being around when a new book goes out into the world.

Several things have changed since then. For starters there’s no chance that Claw will be out by Swancon, largely because the recent mess of dayjob and parents having heart surgery meant I just wasn’t able to meet the original deadline*. On the other hand, Swancon still has a chance to catch up with peeps and Ellen Datlow as a guest, and my recent acquisition of a day job means there’s the possibility of being able to afford to go without crippling myself financially for the next three years.

I spent most of the week running numbers, just making sure that it was possible, and what it came down to is this: I can afford the flights, I can afford the membership, and I can probably afford to eat while I’m in Perth. What I’m struggling with is the attempt to find accommodation that’s within my budget and still close to the con site. Which means, should I commit to going, I’ll need to find someone to split a room with.

Which brings us to you, dear peeps – if there’s  anyone going to Swancon in April who’se looking to split a hotel room for four nights , could you maybe give me a shout?

*something I still feel bad about, for all that Alisa was understanding when I e-mailed. For all that “my dad just had a heart-attack/open heart surgery” is a reasonable excuse, I’ve learned my lesson – the possibility of an unexpected emergency need to be factored into how I meet deadlines from now on. Especially since 2011 has a *lot* more deadlines than I’m used to. For there are always going to be emergencies, and I dislike the feeling of not getting things done on time.

On the Appeal of Easy Targets

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So I’ve set myself some modest goals this week: 500 words a day of writing; three blog posts*; at least one day where I limit myself to two coffees**; buy one Christmas present so I don’t get stuck shopping during the evil December shopping crush. Thus far, I’ve failed horribly at all three, although I can at least make progress the first of my list by clicking publish. This is the curse of modest goals – it’s too easy to let them slide, figuring there will always be a moment later where you can get things done, but for the moment they’re a necessary evil because the immodest goals were just too damn intimidating for me. Monday was a rough day for writing; Tuesday was much improved, largely courtesy of a 3k night at write club, but today I’ve been letting the side down again, focusing more on planning than writing new words. Still time to rectify that before bed, just, but we’ll see how I go.

I keep reminding myself that the size of the goals isn’t important at the moment, it’s the routine I’m chasing. Figuring out ways to get things done, finding an hour or so to write when I need it, getting used to putting words on the page again. I suspect that none of the three thousand words I wrote yesterday are going to be used, but the frustration of the story failing to come together eventually served as the catalyst for figuring out what the story may well be about.

* this would be the second.
** upgraded from one coffee a day because drinking coffee at work is a necessary evil – I work downstairs and the rest of the staff are upstairs with the coffee alcove, so it gives me a legitimate excuse to see my workmates and let them know I’m off for the day.