stuff

I did a minor redesign on cemurphy.net, and while I’ve always been happy with the design, I’m considerably happier with it now. There are some (generally minor) issues with it, particularly with IE, and I need to go through the quotes so I’m not spilling over on multi-lined ones, but it’s a nice sleek 3 column layout now, and anybody who at one time had trouble with the navigational drop-downs should no longer have problems. I thought the dropdowns were very sexy, but oh well. The fluid 3 column thing is very sexy too. Anyway, there’s still work to be done, pages to update and stuff, but overall it’s tidier than it was, I think.

Can’t afford the second inker I got in contact with, either. *Possibly* if I switched my page rate to euros I would be able to, but argh. Guess I’ll keep trying, and go back to the expensive good guys if I can’t get satisfaction elsewhere. This is making me pretty grumpy. :P

Actually, I’m feeling pretty crabby all around.

I spent a long time at Nook this morning, getting absofuckinglutely nothing done. I re-read QUEEN’S BASTARD, for two reasons: one, I thought, well, shit, there’s no point in having this many books under contract if I can’t go try to work on something else if I’m stalling out on one project, and also because I had a kind of half-thought that maybe some of what Matrice is looking for when she says “more sensuality” is lusher language, as she didn’t touch on the issue of sexual tension, which is what I dealt with in the last go-around. And TQB is lusher in language, so I thought maybe that was something to look at. As it turned out, I didn’t want to work on TQB either, because nothing that’s due before it is done, and I want that stuff done before I turn my attention to it. So so much for the multiple projects theory.

When I don’t want to work on a book, it means something is wrong. In this case, what I feel is wrong is the…language of the book, I guess. I’m satisfied with the plot and the pacing so far, but I don’t feel like I’m writing it correctly, and I *know* I’m going to have to do a huge revision with the writing the way it is, and bleh. That’s Wrong. So if I’m not getting any forward motion, there’s no point in saying, “I don’t want to do revisions until I’ve got the rough draft done,” because until I feel like I’m doing it right I won’t get the draft done.

Which means I get to do revisions this week. The more practical thing to do would probably be to do the PHOENIX LAW revisions, because they’re due first, and then do HoS and then write HoC. I suspect I’m going to do HoS, PL, and then write HoC. The former two things will, I expect, take up the rest of the month. The PL revisions, like I said, *pssh*. It’ll be work, but not overwhelming.

HoS…well. I think I might’ve hit on something with the lusher language thing. Ted and I were talking about it and we both kind of came around to that.

…just noticed she said “a shade” more sensual. One suspects the writer has been making mountains out of molehills here.

Excuse me. I feel very foolish just now. I can be SUCH A WRITER sometimes. “AUGH THEY HATE ME THEY WANT ME TO PLUCK OUT MY EYES AND BLEED MY SOUL ONTO THE PAGE, I HAVE NO MORE SENSUALITY IN MY SOUL, I MUST KILL MYSELF AND WRITHE IN AGONY OVER THE CHANGES THEY WANT ME TO MAKE TO MY DARLING BABY BOOK, WHY IS IT THAT THEY DO NOT LOVE IT THE WAY IT–oh. that’s detail work.” To quote the character in Stardust, ““fuck.”

*defensive look* ‘m still gonna read my new romances as research.

In non-whinging stuff, I got paid, which is always not only pleasant, but exciting, because one never really knows when one will get paid, as a writer. :) This job is not for the faint-hearted. :) *eyes her whining* It is, however, for the melodramatic, apparently…

asked if I knew “To His Coy Mistress”, to which I had to reply, indignantly, that I was an English major. *laugh* It hasn’t got the raw breathtaking strength of Tennyson’s “Ulysses” for me, but it does have one of the finest opening lines in poetry, I think. I need to read more poetry.

Mom & Dad’s day of filming went well, and they’re curious to see if they end up in the final cut for the scene.

We walked over to the Tivoli Theatre on Francis Street, which was the starting point for the call. I got into my costume fairly quickly – they line you up and you queue until someone can help you get into your corset, see. But then I waited a -very- long time on the hair thing. They decided NOT to put a wig on me. But they went looking for hair switches to match my hair and ended up using three to build … a bit of a mess. I got on the bus to go to City Hall, where we were shooting, and the woman behind me was apparently the Hair Boss. She had a fit because my hair colors didn’t match – wanted to know who’d done that to me, how much of that was my own hair, and wouldn’t let me onto the set in that condition. So eventually they redid my hair. And I got to go on set. And we did as we were told for quite some time – getting back to the Tivoli right around 2 for lunch.

We did have some of the stars in our midst at City Hall – Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, someone named Joe Anderson, and someone named Lucy Cohu. Anderson is playing Jane’s brother, it would appear, and the Lucy person may be playing his wife. McAvoy’s the love interest. Overall, I’d say McAvoy was the only one of them who behaved in a truly professional manner. The other three talked when the director had asked for quiet, didn’t stay in their seats when we were asked to, and Anderson must’ve left 40 times to try to grab a cigarette. Every time he tried, he got called back in within about 30 seconds. Tom says he thought they were demonstrationg that THEY knew more than the rest and that just because the director said something didn’t mean it was REALLY time for the cameras to roll.

It was like being at a very long dress rehearsal for a play in which you only have a very small role, but you need to stay there for the whole thing. It was interesting to see how directors and all their cohorts work. Tom now thinks it would be interesting to direct a film, but I think he wouldn’t like it much because it’s pretty clear that the director doesn’t have as much control as a stage director does, and he doesn’t like ceding power to even a choreographer or a vocal director. So. :)

Not much else to mention here. We watched a bunch of La Femme Nikita last night, including a couple episodes that made us stab ourselves in the chests with the augh factor, so despite the rough start, we’re enjoying the series very much. :) And once we’re done with LFN there’s more Alias to watch, so we will not be out of babealicious spy chix for a long time to come. Yay! :) (And ooh, hey, season 4 LFN out in June! Yay!)

‘k. I’m going to go read a research novel and, er, well, probably watch some more LFN and call it a day.

miles to Isengard: 38.5