January 22nd-23rd, 2014
I don't know if you recall me sharing this at least a couple of times, but burgers are my favorite food ever.
I heavily debated between getting a tuna burger and a kobe burger. Upon realizing that I'm in fact not a weak-willed vegetarian, but omnivorous, my boss says, "Oh good. I'm glad!" (It was not meant as a slight to vegetarians, but more of an entertaining quip to add when there's nothing else better to say. It worked because I chuckled.)
In housekeeping news, I updated some copyright files of 2013 which involved going on the server and making sure author, year of birth, and various addresses were in order and then pulling two copies of the book in question off the "extra" shelves. I imagine that one copy goes into the copywriters' storage to keep on file forever, but I haven't the faintest idea what the second copy could be for. Maybe someone over there gets to read it. That'd be interesting.
I also went through some recent contracts to write down how many comp-copies (complimentary) go to authors and their agents. More copies than I'd thought. My mom writes books--the literary ones about God, spirituality, and human interactions rather than what I'm working with at DAW--and whenever books come out suddenly her desk is wearing so many of them as a shield you can hardly see it's made of wood at all, but I was uncertain how many actually came from her publishers verses how many she contributed to part of her own salary form them. Now I have a general idea. She still contributes to her own sales because of all the people who help her do these studies and want their own "free" copy that's not included in the contracts, I guess.
Three Mercedes Lackey books had rights sold to make audio books of them. But, the computer didn't have the digital copies of the synopses on the back of them, so that's where I came in. I retyped them. I don't actually know if audio books read out the synopses or if the synopses are just printed on the back of the box, but whichever the case, I helped! It's like when you're five and your mom makes brownies but lets you stir the spoon. It's freaking exciting because you totally helped and those brownies are awesome.
Manuscripts and book reviews keep on coming (awesome), but in between them I also had a little sit-down with my supervisor to discuss my goals and expectations from the internship. I'll be doing some more of that on paper tomorrow (I have a nifty packet to fill out about it, needing signatures and everything!), but I believe some time in the future I will be sitting in on big-wig editor meetings about...stuff. Exciting stuff! Some of it might be like Madmen marketing strategies, but minus Joan's cleavage or the decanters of scotch.
Before I left, toting my new ID Badge swag, I also pinned a Game of Thrones cartoon at my shared desk for the Accountant. I will steadily add more and see if he says anything. He's a House Stark fan, so suddenly he will find the sigils of every other house on my rainbow array of post-it notes. Baratheon today, Arryn or Lannister tomorrow. Haven't decided.
At Torn Page I finally finished the notes for the script Clark gave me to type out, and I also officially met the cat. Her name is Bim; I pet her and we're now best friends if I keep doing it. I ended up sitting in on his wife's rehearsal for a 45 minute one-woman show. She only did part of it, but they were going to a show that night so I actually got to come back to the house early in time for tea.
In this weather, I get to wear my anti-peripheral jacket.
.JPG)
Neat, isn't it? I get to activate my full body swivel to look before crossing the street, and it has all the fashion of an Eskimo and a marshmallow. With their powers combined: I am warm!
My subway adventures also continue, and I am slowly attempting to master not only knowing which direction the train I want is going, but which direction I want to then travel upon reemerging from the earth.
And I got to experience a fire drill once I had intended to be cuddled warm in my bed (not that warm, as fire merits), so naturally the house lemming-ed outdoors, some only in socks. It was the fault of the Mysterious Burnt Popcorn Culprit! I doubt that anyone actually is going to own up to his or her domesticity-fail. The fire department with their trucks and sirens and fire-resistant gear were nice about it, though. Gave us some words of caution as to how best make popcorn in the future. Honestly, don't forget about it and you should be fine. 10 seconds between pops, is another method I'd heard. Otherwise 2 minutes, 30 seconds isn't gonna kill you to stand by. Setting the house on fire, however, might.
You're probably wondering if I'm actually learning anything here, too. You know. Like "school-learning" or classes. To answer your doubts and jealousy, sort of! It's a seminar once a week for six weeks, and I had my first one this week.
We talked about the elements of a short story--or any story, really--and how sometimes stories are broken up into three acts, or five. But ultimately it comes down to these ideas: action, background, development, complication, and end.
Western stories tend to be influenced by the cultural (and religious) model of sin-suffering-redemption. I'd never thought of eastern stories not having that in their story conventions. Clearly I need to familiarize myself with more of them. (Any suggestions?)
My favorite part of the seminar was breaking into two small groups. We pulled together a well known fairy tale and then had to defend the villain in a court of law, or at least explain how the villain could be misconstrued as such, and are actually innocents. The other group did Hansel and Gretel, and we did Little Red Riding Hood. I'm almost embarrassed how few people knew their fairy tales, even the Disney ones, let alone the Brothers Grimm stories. I will admit, however, that I was still entertained to see the realization on their faces that the non-Disney versions were much more grotesque. Spoiler alert: innocence is eaten in fairy tales, even though it is also praised. An unfortunate double standard, even if the victim does get saved at the end.
I've decided that this is a wonderful opportunity to enlighten you to a lesser known fairy tale because Disney hasn't done it: The Juniper Tree.
A woman dies in childbirth and is asked to be buried beneath the juniper tree that she'd prayed under to be given the child to start with, leaving a boy with skin as white as snow and rips as red as roses and hair as black as a raven (a male Snow-White, basically) with his father. The father remarries and that woman has a daughter, Marjory. The Step-Mother is a greedy and terrible person, but the kids grow up like best friends.
Father goes off for the day, and Step-Mother says "Hey boy, there's an apple in that trunk for you. Lean in and get it." He does, but she slams the lid on his neck and decapitates him. To hide her crimes, she ties his head back on with a scarf, and says "Hey Marjory, your brother has an apple for you. You should go get it." Marjory calls for her brother to give her the apple, and he doesn't answer, so she shakes him to pay attention to her. His head rolls off and she's like "OH GOD I KILLED HIM". Step-Mother says "Oh, honey. You messed up bad. Better hide it from Father so he won't hate you forever. We'll just cut your brother up and feed it to Father when he gets home."
They do this, and the Father's like "Wow, dinner's great! It's a shame my son who I love so much ran away this evening..." Marjory doesn't eat anything (because that's gross and she'd vomit anyway), and takes the left over bones to bury beneath the juniper tree and pray over it.
Somehow that transforms her brother into a bird that sings so sweetly, people keep giving it free stuff, like shoes and a gold necklace and boulders. Bird-Brother gives Marjory shoes, his father the gold, and when the Step-Mother is like "Hey you bird! I want free stuff too!" He drops the boulder on her. (Must have been an African Swallow. A European Swallow no way could carry it all by itself.) She doesn't get squished though, she just turns into smoke beneath it and is vanquished. By the time the smoke clears, the bird is a boy again and everyone who was nice from the start lives happily ever after.
Action: Brother is killed
Background: Step Mother is evil, jealous, and greedy
Development: Step Mother feeds the boy to his father and blames Marjory for it who is probably psychologically damaged for life.
Complication: Brother is turned into a sentient bird and forgives everyone but his Step Mother
End: Brother drops a boulder on his Step Mother who dies in a puff of smoke, turning him back into a boy.
See? It has it all! What a cheery, family friendly story! You're welcome.
I don't know if you recall me sharing this at least a couple of times, but burgers are my favorite food ever.
I heavily debated between getting a tuna burger and a kobe burger. Upon realizing that I'm in fact not a weak-willed vegetarian, but omnivorous, my boss says, "Oh good. I'm glad!" (It was not meant as a slight to vegetarians, but more of an entertaining quip to add when there's nothing else better to say. It worked because I chuckled.)
In housekeeping news, I updated some copyright files of 2013 which involved going on the server and making sure author, year of birth, and various addresses were in order and then pulling two copies of the book in question off the "extra" shelves. I imagine that one copy goes into the copywriters' storage to keep on file forever, but I haven't the faintest idea what the second copy could be for. Maybe someone over there gets to read it. That'd be interesting.
I also went through some recent contracts to write down how many comp-copies (complimentary) go to authors and their agents. More copies than I'd thought. My mom writes books--the literary ones about God, spirituality, and human interactions rather than what I'm working with at DAW--and whenever books come out suddenly her desk is wearing so many of them as a shield you can hardly see it's made of wood at all, but I was uncertain how many actually came from her publishers verses how many she contributed to part of her own salary form them. Now I have a general idea. She still contributes to her own sales because of all the people who help her do these studies and want their own "free" copy that's not included in the contracts, I guess.
Three Mercedes Lackey books had rights sold to make audio books of them. But, the computer didn't have the digital copies of the synopses on the back of them, so that's where I came in. I retyped them. I don't actually know if audio books read out the synopses or if the synopses are just printed on the back of the box, but whichever the case, I helped! It's like when you're five and your mom makes brownies but lets you stir the spoon. It's freaking exciting because you totally helped and those brownies are awesome.
Manuscripts and book reviews keep on coming (awesome), but in between them I also had a little sit-down with my supervisor to discuss my goals and expectations from the internship. I'll be doing some more of that on paper tomorrow (I have a nifty packet to fill out about it, needing signatures and everything!), but I believe some time in the future I will be sitting in on big-wig editor meetings about...stuff. Exciting stuff! Some of it might be like Madmen marketing strategies, but minus Joan's cleavage or the decanters of scotch.
Before I left, toting my new ID Badge swag, I also pinned a Game of Thrones cartoon at my shared desk for the Accountant. I will steadily add more and see if he says anything. He's a House Stark fan, so suddenly he will find the sigils of every other house on my rainbow array of post-it notes. Baratheon today, Arryn or Lannister tomorrow. Haven't decided.
At Torn Page I finally finished the notes for the script Clark gave me to type out, and I also officially met the cat. Her name is Bim; I pet her and we're now best friends if I keep doing it. I ended up sitting in on his wife's rehearsal for a 45 minute one-woman show. She only did part of it, but they were going to a show that night so I actually got to come back to the house early in time for tea.
In this weather, I get to wear my anti-peripheral jacket.
Neat, isn't it? I get to activate my full body swivel to look before crossing the street, and it has all the fashion of an Eskimo and a marshmallow. With their powers combined: I am warm!
My subway adventures also continue, and I am slowly attempting to master not only knowing which direction the train I want is going, but which direction I want to then travel upon reemerging from the earth.
And I got to experience a fire drill once I had intended to be cuddled warm in my bed (not that warm, as fire merits), so naturally the house lemming-ed outdoors, some only in socks. It was the fault of the Mysterious Burnt Popcorn Culprit! I doubt that anyone actually is going to own up to his or her domesticity-fail. The fire department with their trucks and sirens and fire-resistant gear were nice about it, though. Gave us some words of caution as to how best make popcorn in the future. Honestly, don't forget about it and you should be fine. 10 seconds between pops, is another method I'd heard. Otherwise 2 minutes, 30 seconds isn't gonna kill you to stand by. Setting the house on fire, however, might.
You're probably wondering if I'm actually learning anything here, too. You know. Like "school-learning" or classes. To answer your doubts and jealousy, sort of! It's a seminar once a week for six weeks, and I had my first one this week.
We talked about the elements of a short story--or any story, really--and how sometimes stories are broken up into three acts, or five. But ultimately it comes down to these ideas: action, background, development, complication, and end.
Western stories tend to be influenced by the cultural (and religious) model of sin-suffering-redemption. I'd never thought of eastern stories not having that in their story conventions. Clearly I need to familiarize myself with more of them. (Any suggestions?)
My favorite part of the seminar was breaking into two small groups. We pulled together a well known fairy tale and then had to defend the villain in a court of law, or at least explain how the villain could be misconstrued as such, and are actually innocents. The other group did Hansel and Gretel, and we did Little Red Riding Hood. I'm almost embarrassed how few people knew their fairy tales, even the Disney ones, let alone the Brothers Grimm stories. I will admit, however, that I was still entertained to see the realization on their faces that the non-Disney versions were much more grotesque. Spoiler alert: innocence is eaten in fairy tales, even though it is also praised. An unfortunate double standard, even if the victim does get saved at the end.
I've decided that this is a wonderful opportunity to enlighten you to a lesser known fairy tale because Disney hasn't done it: The Juniper Tree.
A woman dies in childbirth and is asked to be buried beneath the juniper tree that she'd prayed under to be given the child to start with, leaving a boy with skin as white as snow and rips as red as roses and hair as black as a raven (a male Snow-White, basically) with his father. The father remarries and that woman has a daughter, Marjory. The Step-Mother is a greedy and terrible person, but the kids grow up like best friends.
Father goes off for the day, and Step-Mother says "Hey boy, there's an apple in that trunk for you. Lean in and get it." He does, but she slams the lid on his neck and decapitates him. To hide her crimes, she ties his head back on with a scarf, and says "Hey Marjory, your brother has an apple for you. You should go get it." Marjory calls for her brother to give her the apple, and he doesn't answer, so she shakes him to pay attention to her. His head rolls off and she's like "OH GOD I KILLED HIM". Step-Mother says "Oh, honey. You messed up bad. Better hide it from Father so he won't hate you forever. We'll just cut your brother up and feed it to Father when he gets home."
They do this, and the Father's like "Wow, dinner's great! It's a shame my son who I love so much ran away this evening..." Marjory doesn't eat anything (because that's gross and she'd vomit anyway), and takes the left over bones to bury beneath the juniper tree and pray over it.
Somehow that transforms her brother into a bird that sings so sweetly, people keep giving it free stuff, like shoes and a gold necklace and boulders. Bird-Brother gives Marjory shoes, his father the gold, and when the Step-Mother is like "Hey you bird! I want free stuff too!" He drops the boulder on her. (Must have been an African Swallow. A European Swallow no way could carry it all by itself.) She doesn't get squished though, she just turns into smoke beneath it and is vanquished. By the time the smoke clears, the bird is a boy again and everyone who was nice from the start lives happily ever after.
Action: Brother is killed
Background: Step Mother is evil, jealous, and greedy
Development: Step Mother feeds the boy to his father and blames Marjory for it who is probably psychologically damaged for life.
Complication: Brother is turned into a sentient bird and forgives everyone but his Step Mother
End: Brother drops a boulder on his Step Mother who dies in a puff of smoke, turning him back into a boy.
See? It has it all! What a cheery, family friendly story! You're welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment