I hate having a night before something big is going to happen. Couldn't we just do it now and get it over with?
Why did I become an editor? What was I thinking?
Was the sum total of human happiness hitting dangerous highs, so I figured I'd better bring it down a notch?
Horrible, horrible, horrible.
I'm going to the printer first thing tomorrow morning with my adorable little PDF file of the first issue. I'm hoping to high heaven that their rates haven't gone up since I talked to them on the phone a couple of months ago.
They're going to ask me some question I can't answer and then look at me like I'm an idiot.
Even if they can print it without my having to mortgage my next child or run down to the naval base to scare up some extra cash, it'll take so long for them to finish that the few subscribers I've managed to collect will take their ball and go home.
My print run for this first issue is going to be pathetically tiny, but we're still over budget. I have postage to worry about, and more pages than I'd expected.
What if it's actually a terrible magazine?
All the pieces that seemed so heartfelt and passionate and stirring when I first read or wrote them are just random words to me now. And the allegedly funny bits would be doleful if they weren't so bland. You'd only laugh at them to be polite.
It's all typeset and ready to go. I can't make any changes to it now. And I’m sure I forgot something. Something really important. An ad. An article. Something.
I'm going to remember what it is at three o'clock in the morning and shoot straight up in bed, shrieking, the way I used to when I got those pregnancy leg cramps.
That's assuming I bother going to bed at all tonight.
And why should I, really? I'm just going to have horrifying, panicked dreams, and then wake up with that wonderful clench my stomach does when it decides that the world just isn't treating me right.
It doesn't even count as exercise. I'd have a nice toned four-pack if all those panic-clenches counted for anything but pain.
Is it too late to start drinking?
I think I was supposed to start that when I was just a writer. It'd be kind of ridiculous now. I mean, there's something kind of sexy about the picture of me sitting there with a bottle in one hand and a pen in the other, going back and forth between the two, tearing anguished prose out of my soul with the edge of a dirty glass.
It's something else to imagine myself squinting blearily at a page between shots of tequila, bawling out to anyone or no one, "Hey! Shouldn't you punctuate outside a parenthetical even if there's a question mark at the end of the last sentence inside it?"
So: editor equals no drinking. Which is good, since I always get a migraine if I so much as smell alcohol.
I'll just skip the gateway stuff and go right for the hard drugs, then.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
The good news is...not all there.
Looking over table of contents from first attempt at layout. Magazine is now running long, to the point where I'm seriously worried about what this might do to the budget in terms of printing and shipping costs. Typesetter says not to worry, but I prefer to stick to my strengths. Anyway, he's not the one who has to bite it if things go to hell, so I'm not giving him any extra points for possessing a Buddha-like fatalism in the face of problems not actually his.
Anyway. Have several sets of columns that run in pairs. One of them is a good news/bad news sort of thing. Noticed that only the bad news column made the cut. Looked frantically through all galleys. Good news is not there. Wonderful omen for our first issue, that.
Looked in files and found good news column. Very short, thank Shiva. Called typesetter and informed him that we have another seven hundred words to fit in somehow and I don't care who we have to kill to do it, as long as I get to do the killing. Am pretty sure he thinks I was merely being metaphorical, or referring to the editor's kill, in the sense that "killing" an article doesn't involve blood or bludgeoning. Odd that he wouldn't know me better by now.
Got off the phone and began constructively smiting own head with handy nearby heavy objects as a gentle reminder to remember, in future, important little things like sending all, rather than simply most, articles to typesetter. Also hoped to prod memory as to why I forgot this article, when I worked so hard researching and writing it.
On reading it over before sending it to long-suffering typesetter, noticed a sentence without any end punctuation. Read it and was puzzled, then alarmed, then suicidal. Now I remember why didn't send the article out. Hadn't quite finished the damned thing. That unfinished sentence just needed one tiny little incredibly clever analogy that I didn't have the energy to come up with after doing the whole rest of the piece. Remember very well now deciding wearily to give myself a little well-earned break and do the rest of the sentence another time, when I was rested and inspired and would just spin a perfect simile or metaphor out of the air after the manner of a spider throwing silk into the shape of a web or parachute.
I am never, never allowed to do that again. Ever. Once I've sat down to work, no getting up from the desk until an article -- or at least a crucial sentence -- is finished. Oh, I can wander out to the kitchen for a few minutes to seek inspiration in a cup of cocoa, or brew some tea, or take a hit of methamphetamine, but then I have to go right back and finish whatever it was.
That's too big to embroider into a handy little sampler to hang over my desk, but I'll remember it in my heart.
P.S. Yes, I did manage to think of something brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny with which to finish previously deformed sentence. Nothing canned or trite. It wasn't even that difficult to come up with, really, once I sat down and really set myself to it. In fact, I'd say it was as easy as
Anyway. Have several sets of columns that run in pairs. One of them is a good news/bad news sort of thing. Noticed that only the bad news column made the cut. Looked frantically through all galleys. Good news is not there. Wonderful omen for our first issue, that.
Looked in files and found good news column. Very short, thank Shiva. Called typesetter and informed him that we have another seven hundred words to fit in somehow and I don't care who we have to kill to do it, as long as I get to do the killing. Am pretty sure he thinks I was merely being metaphorical, or referring to the editor's kill, in the sense that "killing" an article doesn't involve blood or bludgeoning. Odd that he wouldn't know me better by now.
Got off the phone and began constructively smiting own head with handy nearby heavy objects as a gentle reminder to remember, in future, important little things like sending all, rather than simply most, articles to typesetter. Also hoped to prod memory as to why I forgot this article, when I worked so hard researching and writing it.
On reading it over before sending it to long-suffering typesetter, noticed a sentence without any end punctuation. Read it and was puzzled, then alarmed, then suicidal. Now I remember why didn't send the article out. Hadn't quite finished the damned thing. That unfinished sentence just needed one tiny little incredibly clever analogy that I didn't have the energy to come up with after doing the whole rest of the piece. Remember very well now deciding wearily to give myself a little well-earned break and do the rest of the sentence another time, when I was rested and inspired and would just spin a perfect simile or metaphor out of the air after the manner of a spider throwing silk into the shape of a web or parachute.
I am never, never allowed to do that again. Ever. Once I've sat down to work, no getting up from the desk until an article -- or at least a crucial sentence -- is finished. Oh, I can wander out to the kitchen for a few minutes to seek inspiration in a cup of cocoa, or brew some tea, or take a hit of methamphetamine, but then I have to go right back and finish whatever it was.
That's too big to embroider into a handy little sampler to hang over my desk, but I'll remember it in my heart.
P.S. Yes, I did manage to think of something brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny with which to finish previously deformed sentence. Nothing canned or trite. It wasn't even that difficult to come up with, really, once I sat down and really set myself to it. In fact, I'd say it was as easy as
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
My friend the dictator
Had a near-heart-attack moment as the first issue is about to go to press. Spoke to the friend who has been so supportive all through this ridiculously difficult project. Though she's been married for years, she only recently decided to change her last name to that of her husband's. She felt strongly about keeping her own; but that name is not at all unusual, and neither is her first name, and so she caught a nasty case of identity theft and decided that enough was enough. Since she was going to switch monikers at this point anyway, might as well take one from someone she liked. So now she matches the husband and kids.
I don't want to say what her last name really is, because God only knows she's put up with enough of my nonsense. Instead, I'll tell you what it isn't.
First, though, in my own defense, I want to say right now that I've been very tired and harassed, and had health problems and husband problems and child problems and problems with just the whole damned human race in general, especially printers and typesetters. Just really up to here with the whole lot. And I'm very, very tired. I don't know if I mentioned that.
So I saw my friend today, and as I'm still getting used to her new last name, I just wanted to double-check that I'd spelled it right in my editorial. Her real last name has three syllables and starts with a P. And I'm tired, damn it. So, I think fairly understandably, I said, "Now, you're not going by Douglas any more, right? It's Pinochet."
And then realized that the reason that name sounded familiar was not, in fact, because it belonged to my dear, dear friend. It belongs to someone who is not dear, dear friends with anyone except perhaps Beelzebub, and even he probably doesn't like to admit associating with that kind of nastiness. Beelzy may be all things evil and horrifying, but he does have some standards.
"Oh, good God," I said.
My friend just laughed. "Well, I am a dictator," she admitted gracefully. "But my domain is a little smaller than that."
(If you don't know who Pinochet is, please go look him up in Wikipedia or something, okay? Don't make me have to tell you. This is humiliating enough. And it almost went to press.)
Which really, really makes me wonder what mistakes I haven't caught.
Maybe I'll ask my other dearest friend, Colleen O'Hitler, if she wouldn't mind taking a look at an article or two before this thing goes to press. She's mentioned in the editorial, too; might as well make her work for it.
I don't want to say what her last name really is, because God only knows she's put up with enough of my nonsense. Instead, I'll tell you what it isn't.
First, though, in my own defense, I want to say right now that I've been very tired and harassed, and had health problems and husband problems and child problems and problems with just the whole damned human race in general, especially printers and typesetters. Just really up to here with the whole lot. And I'm very, very tired. I don't know if I mentioned that.
So I saw my friend today, and as I'm still getting used to her new last name, I just wanted to double-check that I'd spelled it right in my editorial. Her real last name has three syllables and starts with a P. And I'm tired, damn it. So, I think fairly understandably, I said, "Now, you're not going by Douglas any more, right? It's Pinochet."
And then realized that the reason that name sounded familiar was not, in fact, because it belonged to my dear, dear friend. It belongs to someone who is not dear, dear friends with anyone except perhaps Beelzebub, and even he probably doesn't like to admit associating with that kind of nastiness. Beelzy may be all things evil and horrifying, but he does have some standards.
"Oh, good God," I said.
My friend just laughed. "Well, I am a dictator," she admitted gracefully. "But my domain is a little smaller than that."
(If you don't know who Pinochet is, please go look him up in Wikipedia or something, okay? Don't make me have to tell you. This is humiliating enough. And it almost went to press.)
Which really, really makes me wonder what mistakes I haven't caught.
Maybe I'll ask my other dearest friend, Colleen O'Hitler, if she wouldn't mind taking a look at an article or two before this thing goes to press. She's mentioned in the editorial, too; might as well make her work for it.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Not that I'll live that long...
…but here are eleven things I'm going to do should I survive to see this first issue to fruition:
1. Stop pretending to myself that it's perfectly normal to have four digits' worth of backlogged email and spend a few days destroying the nasty stuff.
2. Write a letter that has nothing to do with business. Assuming there's anyone out there who still wants to hear from me.
3. Finish the Henry James novel I started last April and find out if that girl actually ends up dying or not, already.
4. Water my plants.
5. Throw out all my dead, wet plants and buy new fake ones that won't rot on me, only get a little dusty between showers.
6. Play a whole, entire game of Monopoly with my kid without giving in to the temptation to cheat so he'll win faster.
7. Declare a new, extremely localized holiday -- "You're Not A Journalist For Twenty-Four Sweet Hours" -- and write something entirely fictional, rather than merely fabricated, surmised, and/or stitched together from various mismatched sources.
8. Do weird household chores I haven't had time to do. Take the bedspread to the laundromat. Buy the lizard his favorite mealworms. Dust in places that I've been pretending for the past three months don't actually collect dust.
9. Apologize to Buffy and her tireless crew of slayers for not spending enough quality time with them, and attempt to redeem myself by watching the Halloween episode where everyone becomes whatever their costume is five times in a row.
10. Answer the phone every time it rings, and listen to whoever it is on the other end for at least one full minute no matter what they’re trying to sell me.
11. Not a damned thing.
1. Stop pretending to myself that it's perfectly normal to have four digits' worth of backlogged email and spend a few days destroying the nasty stuff.
2. Write a letter that has nothing to do with business. Assuming there's anyone out there who still wants to hear from me.
3. Finish the Henry James novel I started last April and find out if that girl actually ends up dying or not, already.
4. Water my plants.
5. Throw out all my dead, wet plants and buy new fake ones that won't rot on me, only get a little dusty between showers.
6. Play a whole, entire game of Monopoly with my kid without giving in to the temptation to cheat so he'll win faster.
7. Declare a new, extremely localized holiday -- "You're Not A Journalist For Twenty-Four Sweet Hours" -- and write something entirely fictional, rather than merely fabricated, surmised, and/or stitched together from various mismatched sources.
8. Do weird household chores I haven't had time to do. Take the bedspread to the laundromat. Buy the lizard his favorite mealworms. Dust in places that I've been pretending for the past three months don't actually collect dust.
9. Apologize to Buffy and her tireless crew of slayers for not spending enough quality time with them, and attempt to redeem myself by watching the Halloween episode where everyone becomes whatever their costume is five times in a row.
10. Answer the phone every time it rings, and listen to whoever it is on the other end for at least one full minute no matter what they’re trying to sell me.
11. Not a damned thing.
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