Time is inching ever closer to the house being done! While there are still some things that need to be done before done is done, we’ve gotten started on some post-house-completion plans…party plans, that is.
We don’t have too much planned yet–just a couple of parties, one for work/family and one for SCA friends–but I’m surprised at the sheer number of names that came up when we made the SCAdian party invite list. I didn’t even realize I knew that many people, let alone that many that I’d invite to my house. It’s kind of weird. Not that I’m complaining; I like that I have that many people that I’ve met and talked to in person among the numerous friends on Facebook (that’s where the invite list came from) whom I haven’t even met. Who I haven’t met? Whom? Eh. That’s what editors are for.
Still, there is much to be done both before and after done is done before we are ready to party. We’ve got to close on the house, move all our crap in, get some new crap so we have places for these people to sit and congregate, unpack crap, set up a rapier course (still planning on that; can’t wait for it, either!), etc. Y’know, the usual housewarming-party-preparation stuff.
For the work party it’s going to be much smaller and more controlled (with less swordfighting 😉 ), but there’s still stuff to do to get ready. I’ve got to get a flyer made to post up at the offices, gotta get moved in, get crap unpacked, etc.
It’s so weird finding myself to be social when I’ve been so socially awkward and inept for so long. Now? Now I have friends. People who are interested in at least pretending that they’ll maybe come to the event I made, people who are interested in inviting other people to the party…kinda nifty.
I guess I should get to flyer-ing or something. Be productive. Stop blogging nonsense. 😉
Category: Social Media
Stuck between a rock and a volunteer position
Burnout. It happens. So what do you do when your options are limited?
Here’s the situation: that drama I talked about? Well, the “resolution” that was agreed upon didn’t really resolve all that much, and it leaves me stuck. The person who was causing the drama is still around and, though they’re not supposed to directly interact with my husband, they’re still present–a proverbial thorn in the side, if you will.
This wouldn’t be too bad, save for one thing…I am beyond the point of burnout with the volunteer officer position I hold in our local group, but the only other person I can see willing to step up to the plate if I step down is–you guessed it–the drama factory. And since my position interacts closely with my husband’s position (yeah, he’s an officer too), I can’t risk this person taking over if I leave the position. I’ve been told by a kingdom officer that they will never again hold that position, but the risk is too great. It would open doors for them to passive-aggressively harass my husband, which I do not want to be responsible for.
I meant to talk to the kingdom officer in question during the war, but I just didn’t have the opportunity. She was busy, or I was busy, or I didn’t know where to find her in the ginormous site. Regardless of the why, I didn’t talk to her yet, though I feel the need to, and soon.
At this point, try as I might, I’m just paying lip service to the position. I didn’t even do anything with it throughout the war, which I know is bad, but I wanted to be able to enjoy my first Estrella War. I wanted to be able to experience as much as possible, and stopping to do X-Y-Z for this position would have hindered that.
Things are hairy in the barony as it is. Sides have been taken in this drama dispute, and it was clear by the hush that fell over the room when we walked into baronial court where most of the barony–at least those who attended baronial court at war–stand…and it’s not with us. Sure, we have our close friends who stick by us, but there are others who, for whatever reason, hold resentment towards us that is blatantly obvious. Sideways glances, or sometimes avoidance of glances, were all the indication we needed that we are no longer “welcome” in the barony we have called home. It’s a little disheartening, especially when the creator of the main drama has a known history of causing problems. Now, I’m not saying that this person is responsible for all the ill will…but they certainly exacerbated whatever issues may have been underlying.
That makes my wish to leave my officer position that much more difficult of a decision to make. If the majority of the barony, or at least the active members, are against us, then who would take over the position if I left and this other person was not allowed to come back to the position? I can barely think of a couple of people who might take on the position, let alone enough to have a pool of candidates. No, I think that for the time being I’m stuck.
I guess until I come up with a solution I’ll just have to keep trudging along, dragging myself through the muck and mire. I’m trying to hold up hope that things will work out, but I fear I’m going to be where I’m at for a long, long time to come.
A page in the life
So I manage a cosplay page on Facebook (that has stalled at the wayside as SCA overruns cosplay on the priority scale), a “fan” page for our cat, Rory, a page for my oft-forgotten Etsy shop, and of course the work I do for the Barony. So why did I add another page to keep track of?
Oh yeah, author Facebook pages are a thing. That’s why I did it.
You see, it goes something like this: I was typing up a scheduled post for Friday (keep your eyes peeled, folks!), and I realized that I haven’t had a proper page for my writing in years. I just keep losing track of what I’m doing and forgetting to post and then I ditch the page in favor of just using Twitter and this blog to promote moi.
Can’t keep doing that. People like having “fanpages” they can use to get updates on their favorite authors’ comings and goings. Granted, I don’t come or go much, but I do write, and I can write about writing. So off to Facebook I went to create a page.
Except I can’t get the damn URL to be custom. I guess not enough people like the page yet? Maybe that’s why…anywho, for now this is the URL: https://www.facebook.com/AJ-Mullican-143311953045804/
Yeah, you see why I want a custom one. I think if enough people like the page I can pop in and create that custom URL in a jiffy, but right now it’s the middle of the night and no one’s up to add it.
It should be interesting to see how the viewership of this blog changes with the new Facebook page. You see, I changed my Twitter settings so my tweets go to the author page, not my personal Facebook feed. Say what? Yeah, WordPress is cool like that; it lets you share to different social media platforms when you publish. So why does changing my Twitter settings change my WordPress posting? Okay, so Twitter does a cool thing, too: it lets you share your tweets to different social media platforms as well. So WordPress –> Twitter –> Facebook. Easy peasy. Or something. It’s worked so far; guess we’ll see how well it works now that the settings are tweaked. If worse comes to worse (or is it worst comes to worst? Damnit), I can just share from the page to my personal feed if I want my blog read by more friends and family. A P.I.T.A. to be sure, but eventually people will see that the author page is the original poster of the blog posts and thus go to the author page and like it and then everything will be swell. Or not.
Facebook, you see, is tricksy.
More tricksy than nots. What they have are these silly metrics things, which are apparently arbitrary and only to Facebook’s benefit. To make a long story short, if you don’t pay them monies to get your posts seen, even people who “follow” your page won’t see your posts. Lame.
So, again, why make the author page?
Because it gives my publisher a link to show people, that’s why. Yeah, it’s a new page and doesn’t have much content (yet)….it’s still something. And the more links they can give, the more exposure I can get once it’s time for Book 1 to get released.
Credit to the Oatmeal. Because that guy fucking rocks, and he deserves both exposure and monies for the work he does.
Seriously, though, as an author a little exposure can go a long way. I mean, if people don’t know I’m there or that my work is there, how can they be interested? Yeah, exposure itself doesn’t pay, but if people see the thing and want to read the thing, then (in theory) if they want it enough they’ll pay to read the thing.
Or maybe I’m just nucking futs at 1:30 in the morning, having very little sleep and being unable to either get to sleep naturally or take more sleeping medicine. (I already took my prescriptions hours ago…they worked to get me to sleep initially, but not to keep me there or get me back there.)
We’ll see how the page goes once people wake up and start liking the page and once I can update the URL and all that fun happy stuff.
Until then…to the writing board!
Survival mode…deactivated?
I made it through the week! It was touch-and-go there for a while (mentally speaking), but I made it. I even learned a new thing at work. My stress hasn’t completely evaporated–there’s still a slight chance that I might end up with some of the same stress piled back on me next week–but I’m not on Red Alert all the time now. It’s more like Yellow Alert…maybe a bit less.
There are still garments to make for Yule, a whole slew of events to schedule on social media, holiday presents to make for friends and family, and Gods only know what else I’m forgetting at the moment. So yeah, work-stress is lessened, life-stress keeps on trucking.
Overall, though, I think I’m feeling better. I don’t have the panic attack hangover I had yesterday, and I feel pretty calm. Is it a calm-before-the-storm kind of calm? I hope not. But I’ll take the calm feeling while I can.
Beatdown
I’m done. Done. Totally, completely, 1000% done.
Except I’m not. I have more to do, farther to go, deeper to dig. In other words, I’m shit out of luck.
Ok, let me back up a bit.
I’ve been covering for a co-worker who had surgery a week ago, and even though I learned how to do that position a little over a year ago, my training was quick and dirty. Basically, the only backup person for that position quit and I had to step up and dive in. Speed training.
Incomplete speed training.
Yeah. There are huge chunks of aspects of the position that are missing from my knowledge/experience base. Some of the things never came up during that speed training, and despite me pointing this out multiple times it has never been rectified. I literally am the only other person “trained” in this position, and as the past week has demonstrated I am not truly prepared.
I didn’t realize how much stress I was under this past week until this morning. My worsening insomnia, which I had been attributing to just me being me, has most likely been due to this sudden change in work duties. This afternoon, the buildup of stress and strain and pressure came to a head in the form of a massive anxiety attack. During the work day. Full-blown crying-my-eyes-out find-a-place-to-hide-from-reality anxiety attack.
It has been a long, long time since I’ve had an attack that bad while at work. I have to admit, I’m more than a bit ashamed of it. I thought I was past this kind of thing.
Guess not.
Now, work life isn’t my only stressor right now. I have other things going on that are probably not helping matters. Could I cut back on one or more of the non-work activities? Sure. I could. Will I? Probably not too much. Some of my private life things demand a certain degree of responsibility, and some of them involve dear friends who I do not want to disappoint or let down. So I’m going to plow through my off hours just like I’m plowing through the work stress. Will that mean more breakdowns? Probably… but hopefully I can keep any impending meltdowns to times when I can get away and hide my shame.
I’m not sure what I’ll do to destress aside from the date night that my wonderful husband has planned for tomorrow. Work will calm down eventually. I’ll get my personal life sorted to the point where I can function.
I just wish I could fast forward to this stress leveling off.
Soon, though, right? Please?
Shuffleboard
Life is definitely a strange game lately. As if things weren’t hectic enough, I am having to cover for a co-worker who had surgery last week. It’s only for a few more days, but it has been enough of a kick in the ass that I had to finally admit defeat and give up a job that I once really enjoyed. As of this morning, I no longer am working for Talk Nerdy With Us, either as a contributor or as an editor. It was a hard decision, but I just don’t have the time anymore.
There’s the paying work. There’s the volunteer work for the SCA. There’s the writing. There’s the sewing for the SCA. There’s the holiday season coming up. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the drift. I’m exhausted, and right now I can’t afford the kind of effort it takes for what, in the end, is a nonpaying job. I’ve got enough of those, thank you very much, and the ones I’m “keeping” are more satisfying at this point in time.
Now I have a few moments of break left before I’m back into the fray. I’m hoping to get a sewing project done by tomorrow morning and then I can start knocking out this mile high list of things to do.
Just in the neck of time
Almost (mostly) done. Just a few necklines to finish off, and the new tunics for the war in California will be finished. With, oh, 4 or 5 days to spare.
I might even get time to add some trim to another tunic or two.
A bonus is the extra time to add “war paint” to our fencing masks. Thanks to an airbrush, some paints, and a modicum of artistic talent (yeah, right), we can make ourselves more menacing on the field–or something. More visible targets? Yeah. Okay. There’s that. But still…I get to paint stuff.
There’s still a ton to get done social media-wise, but I think I can manage to wrap that up in the morning. Or something. I don’t even know what to do with that at this point. I may be in over my head, but I think once I get a rhythm down it will jive okay.
On the good-news front, I have a potential beta reader for when I have Book 1’s revisions done–thanks to Twitter. (See what I did there? Social media segue.) You see, just about every day I tweet a few lines from the WIP with various hashtags. These hashtags are kinda like weekly “looky what I can do” things, where authors get to show of nuggets of brilliance in the hopes of…well, I don’t know exactly what the point is, beyond gaining a few followers and maybe some readers when the book is finished. I think part of the point is the inherent narcissism that seems to be rampant among writers. “See how witty I am? Read my next book to see what I can really do when not under a 140-character limit!”
Speaking of narcissistic writers, I had quite the ego boost yesterday when my blog views shot up (relatively speaking) after that nonsensical post about not having anything to post. Who would’a thought? My deep, existential stuff often goes unnoticed, but write a few paragraphs of drivel and it gets devoured. Go fig.
I had something else I was going to say, something of moderate importance…but I got distracted by my own thoughts and whatever it was is now unimportant.
Into the ring
For the past several months I have been in a “deputy” position for a large volunteer/charity group. Last night, the opportunity came up for me to take the lead position in that department, and I decided to bite the bullet and submit myself for consideration.
I don’t know that anyone else would even want the position, because it’s a stressful one, but still, I’m a little nervous. I mean, I’ve only been with the organization for six months; kind of soon to take over a role like this. As far as I know, anyway. Everyone was surprised when I was made deputy after only three months of participating, so I’m guessing that six months is a little soon.
It’s going to be a lot of work, but I think I’m ready. I just have to get my lazy butt up earlier (is that even possible?) and get cracking every day. Pay more attention to the myriad of groups and pages and sites and events and … well, anyway, if I get the position, I’ll have my hands full.
Fingers crossed!
So a-mused
Finally! After months of next to no real inspiration on the novels I’m working on, I was blessed by my muse with nearly 1000 new words of prose (even with quite a bit of cutting) that I think add depth and clarity to the story. Things that I’d gotten some constructive feedback about, mostly in areas that weren’t clear enough, now seem better and the flow is improved. It feels great to be back at it.
Except…the new inspiration comes at the cost of other things I need to do. Yeah, I’ve got Talk Nerdy With Us work to catch up on, sewing to do, social media stuff to tinker with….I should probably be chiding my muse for her terrible timing. Haha.
Still, I’m glad to have her back. I guess even muses need a vacation every once in a while.
Public Displays
Responsibility can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
Remember that anthology I talk about every so often? Well, it’s in jeopardy now as yet another author has left the project…this time not due to lack of time to devote to the project, but rather due to a certain member’s public social media profile.
What blows about it is that I’m in a position of authority in the project so it’s partly my responsibility to see to the matter, because the now-former member has a point.
When you’re in a position like I am–like all of the authors in the project, really–you’ve got to think about the public face you put out for the world to see. This is a project involving authors from around the world, and the goal is trans-Atlantic publication. So yeah, it’s a lot to think about. How do you want potential publishers to see you? Do you have a profile that they wouldn’t want associated with their name, or is your public face free of blemishes?
I’ll freely admit that mine profile’s not 100% clean. There’s more than one reason I don’t put my day job down on Facebook, and the desire for the freedom to cuss every once in a while is just one of those reasons. Is it a profile that I’d be afraid to show publishers? No, because it’s who I am, and my writing reflects that–well, it generally reflects that. Obviously for the project I don’t write the same type of material that I write for personal things–heck, I even write differently here. But I try to keep from getting publicly involved in controversial topics and potentially offensive things (the occasional blue language notwithstanding). I also generally don’t add people under the age of 18 as friends or follow them on social media, not even family members, because I don’t feel that the things I post are appropriate for that age group.
Now, this isn’t something I had considered (as far as the project goes) until this was brought to my attention, but it is a valid point. Your public social media posts can come back to haunt you. Think about what you’re posting: Is it appropriate? Is it offensive? Is it excessively violent/graphic/etc.?
Think before you post, everyone. If you don’t have a problem with posting blatantly offensive or controversial, that’s all well and good. Just be aware that not everyone’s going to be fine with it and it could potentially cut off profitable avenues.