February 26th-March 7th, 2014 (March 8th and 9th will have their own post tomorrow)
...No time to say "I know, my bad!" I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!
Seriously though. I feel sorta bad for not having blogged over the course of the past ten days. So here it goes...the saga of my week and a half--and no, much like the Game of Thrones television series, it won't be in order chronologically.
I did watch at least some of The Oscars, and for those of you who didn't and were unaware of John Travolta's name-flub, he ended up introducing Idina Menzel (Broadway goddess and the voice of Elsa from Disney's latest Frozen, of which won a couple Oscars for being totally awesome) as "Adele Dazeem". Within 24 hours, there was already a name-generator site where you can enter your name and it will tell you how John Travolta would mess it up. I am Seonaidh Doon. Not a clue how that first bit is supposed to be pronounced, but regardless it does the job of absolutely not being my name.*
*Looked it up. Apparently it's been Anglicized to "Shoney". A Celtic water spirit or something. Them Celts, man. For not having had a written language, they sure troll the phonetics in the English alphabet.
Speaking of foreign things, Torn Page was overrun with Danes last week. Really nice Danes, too! Statistically it's the happiest place on earth, even though they have some of the highest tax percentages, too.
Normally there are only 2-4 actors in a class, but I walked in and there might have been around ten extra people in there? Clark had worked with some of them in Denmark once before, so now they were visiting and bringing friends. I got to act for the first time this week, too. Just int he last five minutes, but ti was a fun exercise. Just a few lines:
A: Where were you?
B: I was here.
A: You were?
B: I was.
A: You sure?
B: I am.
And we're given some scenarios, like your boyfriend is throwing a surprise party and you're suspicious. Or your sister is accusing you of...something. It's fun.
And at one point, every single one of these Danes--from generally chilly Scandinavia--all got cold enough in the building to put on scarves and sweaters during the break. They must have had a weird sixth sense, too, because the next day class was canceled because the heating broke. Oops. I do feel kind of boss not having put on my own sweater when our Scandinavian guests needed theirs.
Heh. The cold never bothered me anyway...
My new favorite Youtube thing is Idina Menzel singing "Let it Go" with Jimmy Fallon using children's toys as instruments. It's fabulous: http://bit.ly/1djJcvt
Last weekend, I ended up hopping a train to Rutgers to go visit friends and play an RPG (role playing game, i.e. Dungeons&Dragons, World of Darkness, Dresden, etc. Basically I make a character with a personality and a background and someone else gives me a scenario and with the created characters of my friends, we get to tell a story about how we deal with said scenario. It usually involves killing monsters or something). Since my friend has a quarter-free laundry machine and dryer, it was absolutely not beyond me to bring my giant laundry backpack and do it there while we watched a couple of Disney movies on Netflix. He'd never seen Atlantis before, and we both hadn't seen Aristocats in years. The latter used to be one of my favorite movies, and I still have it on VHS. Super old school, I know. We also may or may not have had a singalong to the Frozen soundtrack. I regret nothing.
Also got the chance while I was there to 1, see a friend from high school that I hadn't seen...well, since high school scenic design, and had a delicious but unfortunately priced brunch at Old Man Raffery's; and 2, had my first ever Rutgers grease truck experience!
It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A truck. Cooks with a ton of grease. Throws whatever it is between two slices of bread. Hands the heart attack sandwich to the buyer and the buyer leaves happy, if not a little bit fatter. Apparently the menus on the trucks are all the same, but it's the style of cooking it that's unique depending which truck you get. That could mean quantity of sandwich, could mean kind of bread, etc. Reminds me a little of Hoagie Haven in Princeton, though.
In DAW news, a bunch of things have been happening, even if it might not seem like a lot to most of you. I sent out packages of 15 different books to the judges of the Fantasy Awards this year, and the editors had a few straight days locked in an office organizing royalties for the past six months or so of books. It seems like some seriously arduous business given how battle-worn everyone looks when they emerge from the office for coffee. But it is a necessary thing. E'rybody likes getting paid the right amount they're owed.
I was also shown the makings of rejection letters. Surprisingly not as depressing as they sound. In retrospect, DAW publishes between 50 and 60 books a year. Half of those are reprints from hardcover to paperback, which means only 25-30 are actually new books, and most of those are new books in a series, and most of the remaining books are new from authors DAW has already worked with before. That means that new-author-new-books are much harder to get a hold of, and for a small company like DAW, the editors have to seriously weigh how much time they have to give to a manuscript verses how much they seriously want it. They've already promised their time via contract for X number of books from preexisting authors. And since they've only got two editors...well, yeah. It's rough. The silver lining is when there is no telling when these promised manuscripts will actually come in--editors don't want them until they're ready, so it leaves some gaps in the schedule. Like, for new authors, even if there aren't a lot of them.
Seanan McGuire came back into the office last week, too. The more I talk to her the better I like her, even though I've also determined that she's sort of awesomely insane. I'm talking the method actor of authors. She likes to know what things feel like so she can describe it...I respect that. A lot. But what that means for her is shoving her hand in an Australian meat eating ant mound to see what it feels like when they bite. Or signing a waiver to get bit by a bullet ant and stung by a Japanese hornet. Or researching which parasites don't kill you, putting it in your body for some days until you get the research you want, and then getting it removed. Twice because the first time it didn't take.
Given the nature of her books, specifically the InCryptid series, it makes total sense and when I read those I will take zero descriptions of violence and feelings of pain for granted because I'm sure she knows, but it's still insane. Badass, but...not for me. Ever. I hate bugs. And pain is just unfortunate.
She did buy us donuts though. Which was fantastic.
I also finished reading a couple of manuscripts--not even the 50-100 pages that I read before making a report, but the whole thing. Because I wanted to; I legitimately loved these manuscripts enough to keep reading. And because of that, I may get to practice writing a five minute pitch. If the editors have already nixed the books, then it's just practice. If they haven't...well, I might get a shot to say why these guys are some pretty awesome candidates if they want to take a second look at them before decision making time. Which is AWESOME. But nerve wracking. I can't wait!
One of the best parts of my week though, was a conversation with my supervisor about job hunting in publishing. She wanted to know if I was thinking about pursuing it, and you know, I think I am. Whenever I talk about it I get this stupid grin on my face--and maybe that's because I'm working with science fiction and fantasy (SFF) books, but I do think I love it! I had just worried that whatever jobs are open post graduation are ones that I'm not qualified for. She looked at me and said, "What do you mean 'not qualified'--you're super qualified!" And proceeded to Google search book jobs and found a handful that are all entry level (which are the key words for me to be "qualified") and there it was. She said "See? You already do a lot of this stuff now anyway..." There's hope for me yet!
In the meantime, I've decided that my final project is going to be a children's story! My current problem is that I'm about 500 words over the technical 2,000 word limit...but I'm working on it, and trying to make the language tighter, and I'm really excited about it. My goal is to get it at a place where I can submit it at the end of the semester somewhere. Fingers crossed!
...No time to say "I know, my bad!" I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!
Seriously though. I feel sorta bad for not having blogged over the course of the past ten days. So here it goes...the saga of my week and a half--and no, much like the Game of Thrones television series, it won't be in order chronologically.
I did watch at least some of The Oscars, and for those of you who didn't and were unaware of John Travolta's name-flub, he ended up introducing Idina Menzel (Broadway goddess and the voice of Elsa from Disney's latest Frozen, of which won a couple Oscars for being totally awesome) as "Adele Dazeem". Within 24 hours, there was already a name-generator site where you can enter your name and it will tell you how John Travolta would mess it up. I am Seonaidh Doon. Not a clue how that first bit is supposed to be pronounced, but regardless it does the job of absolutely not being my name.*
Check out what yours is: http://slate.me/1kPwk1H
*Looked it up. Apparently it's been Anglicized to "Shoney". A Celtic water spirit or something. Them Celts, man. For not having had a written language, they sure troll the phonetics in the English alphabet.
Speaking of foreign things, Torn Page was overrun with Danes last week. Really nice Danes, too! Statistically it's the happiest place on earth, even though they have some of the highest tax percentages, too.
Normally there are only 2-4 actors in a class, but I walked in and there might have been around ten extra people in there? Clark had worked with some of them in Denmark once before, so now they were visiting and bringing friends. I got to act for the first time this week, too. Just int he last five minutes, but ti was a fun exercise. Just a few lines:
A: Where were you?
B: I was here.
A: You were?
B: I was.
A: You sure?
B: I am.
And we're given some scenarios, like your boyfriend is throwing a surprise party and you're suspicious. Or your sister is accusing you of...something. It's fun.
And at one point, every single one of these Danes--from generally chilly Scandinavia--all got cold enough in the building to put on scarves and sweaters during the break. They must have had a weird sixth sense, too, because the next day class was canceled because the heating broke. Oops. I do feel kind of boss not having put on my own sweater when our Scandinavian guests needed theirs.
Heh. The cold never bothered me anyway...
My new favorite Youtube thing is Idina Menzel singing "Let it Go" with Jimmy Fallon using children's toys as instruments. It's fabulous: http://bit.ly/1djJcvt
Last weekend, I ended up hopping a train to Rutgers to go visit friends and play an RPG (role playing game, i.e. Dungeons&Dragons, World of Darkness, Dresden, etc. Basically I make a character with a personality and a background and someone else gives me a scenario and with the created characters of my friends, we get to tell a story about how we deal with said scenario. It usually involves killing monsters or something). Since my friend has a quarter-free laundry machine and dryer, it was absolutely not beyond me to bring my giant laundry backpack and do it there while we watched a couple of Disney movies on Netflix. He'd never seen Atlantis before, and we both hadn't seen Aristocats in years. The latter used to be one of my favorite movies, and I still have it on VHS. Super old school, I know. We also may or may not have had a singalong to the Frozen soundtrack. I regret nothing.
Also got the chance while I was there to 1, see a friend from high school that I hadn't seen...well, since high school scenic design, and had a delicious but unfortunately priced brunch at Old Man Raffery's; and 2, had my first ever Rutgers grease truck experience!
It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A truck. Cooks with a ton of grease. Throws whatever it is between two slices of bread. Hands the heart attack sandwich to the buyer and the buyer leaves happy, if not a little bit fatter. Apparently the menus on the trucks are all the same, but it's the style of cooking it that's unique depending which truck you get. That could mean quantity of sandwich, could mean kind of bread, etc. Reminds me a little of Hoagie Haven in Princeton, though.
In DAW news, a bunch of things have been happening, even if it might not seem like a lot to most of you. I sent out packages of 15 different books to the judges of the Fantasy Awards this year, and the editors had a few straight days locked in an office organizing royalties for the past six months or so of books. It seems like some seriously arduous business given how battle-worn everyone looks when they emerge from the office for coffee. But it is a necessary thing. E'rybody likes getting paid the right amount they're owed.
I was also shown the makings of rejection letters. Surprisingly not as depressing as they sound. In retrospect, DAW publishes between 50 and 60 books a year. Half of those are reprints from hardcover to paperback, which means only 25-30 are actually new books, and most of those are new books in a series, and most of the remaining books are new from authors DAW has already worked with before. That means that new-author-new-books are much harder to get a hold of, and for a small company like DAW, the editors have to seriously weigh how much time they have to give to a manuscript verses how much they seriously want it. They've already promised their time via contract for X number of books from preexisting authors. And since they've only got two editors...well, yeah. It's rough. The silver lining is when there is no telling when these promised manuscripts will actually come in--editors don't want them until they're ready, so it leaves some gaps in the schedule. Like, for new authors, even if there aren't a lot of them.
Seanan McGuire came back into the office last week, too. The more I talk to her the better I like her, even though I've also determined that she's sort of awesomely insane. I'm talking the method actor of authors. She likes to know what things feel like so she can describe it...I respect that. A lot. But what that means for her is shoving her hand in an Australian meat eating ant mound to see what it feels like when they bite. Or signing a waiver to get bit by a bullet ant and stung by a Japanese hornet. Or researching which parasites don't kill you, putting it in your body for some days until you get the research you want, and then getting it removed. Twice because the first time it didn't take.
Given the nature of her books, specifically the InCryptid series, it makes total sense and when I read those I will take zero descriptions of violence and feelings of pain for granted because I'm sure she knows, but it's still insane. Badass, but...not for me. Ever. I hate bugs. And pain is just unfortunate.
She did buy us donuts though. Which was fantastic.
I also finished reading a couple of manuscripts--not even the 50-100 pages that I read before making a report, but the whole thing. Because I wanted to; I legitimately loved these manuscripts enough to keep reading. And because of that, I may get to practice writing a five minute pitch. If the editors have already nixed the books, then it's just practice. If they haven't...well, I might get a shot to say why these guys are some pretty awesome candidates if they want to take a second look at them before decision making time. Which is AWESOME. But nerve wracking. I can't wait!
One of the best parts of my week though, was a conversation with my supervisor about job hunting in publishing. She wanted to know if I was thinking about pursuing it, and you know, I think I am. Whenever I talk about it I get this stupid grin on my face--and maybe that's because I'm working with science fiction and fantasy (SFF) books, but I do think I love it! I had just worried that whatever jobs are open post graduation are ones that I'm not qualified for. She looked at me and said, "What do you mean 'not qualified'--you're super qualified!" And proceeded to Google search book jobs and found a handful that are all entry level (which are the key words for me to be "qualified") and there it was. She said "See? You already do a lot of this stuff now anyway..." There's hope for me yet!
In the meantime, I've decided that my final project is going to be a children's story! My current problem is that I'm about 500 words over the technical 2,000 word limit...but I'm working on it, and trying to make the language tighter, and I'm really excited about it. My goal is to get it at a place where I can submit it at the end of the semester somewhere. Fingers crossed!
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