Twenty-Nine: It's really important that you let me get to ten.

It really is.

I feel like all of today has been me slowly counting to ten and being interrupted every time.

(I mean it. Everything from the editing - my pen hates me, the authors don't seem to know their characters and can your phrasing not be awkward for, like, two paragraphs? Please? - to life in general - she was not out of line. You do not need to step in and apologise for her. - has just been... Yikes, you know?)

I think I'll wait until the end of the month for a response (a real response) to the email I sent. Longer than that and I start getting suspicious.

On the upside, this is giving me a lot of experience.

I'm kind of looking forward to NaNoWriMo just for a chance to get back to writing. There's a lot I want to do and I'm feeling like just want to jump in but, of course, I'm very tired by the time I get the chance to jump in and I don't want to wreck my sleep schedule. Again.

So.

I think I'm going to pack things up, laugh at people asking stupid questions (or just being funny) on the NaNo forums and then probably fall on my face. Mental work is often more tiring than heavy physical labour.

Bye for now, guys. (I really need to learn to start setting this stuff up earlier so I'm not so drug out when I'm trying to post.)

Twenty-Eight: *tears hir hair out*

Let me tell you about things that annoy me.

- Improper use of semicolons
- Missing periods
- Extra space
- Atrocious formatting
- Inconsistent atrocious formatting
- Not starting your first chapter on the correct page
- Using your usernames as your author names on the cover
- Not spacing your chapters correctly.
- Back and front pages are nowhere near industry standards
- Too many '-ly' words
- You gave him a name - f'ing call him by it!
- No. Show me.
- These are separate ideas - why are they in the same sentence?
- OMG with the commas!
- Really? You screwed up the apostrophe?

And that was episode one of Jezzy's Editing Exploits. And, honestly, I'm very glad to have these things on hardcopy because wow. I mean, the story is fine all in all it's just that the writing... yeah.

I'm hoping that they don't get ticked off just because I found a lot of stuff. Even if they do, I've gotten a lot of experience from the books.

(It's not like I hadn't read them before, it's just that I wasn't really writing things down and then I couldn't find my notes so I'm basically having to do it all again. And I'm finding a lot more this time. So, yeah. Ow. I just really hope this is appreciated and not seen as 'Well, we don't wanna work with you anymore because you're just being a bitch'. No, I'm not - I'm being a good editor. Which you clearly need.)

Anyway.

I'm getting worked up over something that hasn't happened and might not happen. So. That was my day, mostly. That and marketing ideas for things that aren't mine. And some things that are.

...

I'm basically planning on being JtHM when I'm older (Jezzy the Happy Mortician). Cannot stop laughing over how well that works out.

So... yeah.

As you can probably tell, I am very tired and I've only edited 32 pages today.

All in all, a productive and tiring day that has left me with a lot of work that I will be happy to fall asleep and ignore for a few hours.

Bye for now, guys. Sorry for the quick, slightly ranting update but, hey, NaNoWriMo starts soon!

Twenty-Seven: Headaches

It's just one of those titles that's just, like, a random word.

Do you ever have moments where you just hate yourself for no apparent reason? Just, like, suddenly everything's wrong?

I'm having one of those moments and it's really not fun.

In other news, I managed to find some very nice things in the mess the renter left behind. Among them:

A cute, short jacket
A Heritage computer bag
A Kenmore sewing machine
A pair of dress pants (that have apparently never been worn)
And a very nice tie.

There's probably more things I'd want in the pile of fabric that's currently hiding most of the dining room table, as well as the mass of left-behind items that are stacked under it but for right now, those are the main things.

The girl emailed me back about the editing work with some decent options for me to mull over. So that's good. I was really stressed about that for some reason. I think the first option (send her the books once the third one is done and have her send them back to me after they've transcribed the notes) might be the best one. That way I have time to make sure everything is legible and it doesn't cost me insane amounts of ink to print things out myself.

Of course, just having me use track changes would be easier on all of us, I'd think.

It might be weird but there's some part of me that likes having marked up copies of books around.

Well...

It feels way later than it actually is and I do need to get the book I've been reading done. I'm, like, two chapters from the end. Then I can (sleep first and then) go through the first two books again and see if there's anything I'd need to add or change. I marked quite a bit...

I'm kind of sub-conscientiously bracing for NaNoWriMo, I think. It's gonna be fun having to keep up with things for a full month but I just try to think of how much will be done and over with by the time the month is out and how much I'll have to work with.

That usually helps.

So, I think I'm going to scrounge up a red pen and a blue pen for tomorrow, get a notebook I haven't written in yet and just have things as ready to start as I can. Then all I'll have to do is stress over the email (like I always do, even with people I know well), finish reading that book, and go through all the mess in the dining room in case I want other things.

It'll be a rich, full day.

Bye for now, guys. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a little less stressful.

Twenty-Six: Beta Work and General Stress

Yes, I can't back out of it now...

(Just in case anyone didn't know, yes, I do offer editing and proofreading services.)

This is possibly one of the most awkward times but the beta-reading/editing thing is ready to start. I got an email this morning. (Technically, she said they're 'getting ready to get started on book three' so I'm not sure if she means starting writing or not. I kind of hope she does - that would give me some time to calm the hell down and read.)

I realise that this is a very good thing but still, kind of panicking about it.

Part of me is still kind of like this:

But the rest of me is pretty happy.

She offered to have me read and red line the first two books and mail them back instead of keep them so they could pay me for reading them and I might do that because, you know, money. I've made a lot of notes in the copies I have though, so if I could get new ones for that, it would be awesome.

Generally, red line editing just means going through and looking for things that would be underlined in red, like asdfghjkl;. It's basically proofreading. I'm not sure if that's what she means, though.

I also need to brush up my editing marks...

But that was the bombshell for today.

Along with everything else I was planning to try to get done.

I've also figured out that I need a cosmetology degree. Why? Because morticians who can also do hair and makeup (like, for open caskets) tend to be paid more since the funeral home doesn't have to outsource it.

Problem: It's eleven months and 8 thousand dollars.

So... yeah. I mean, you learn a lot but still, wow. 'Restorative Art' doesn't cover any of that or else I'd just do that and forget about it. (It's more about like mortician's wax and rebuilding facial structures - like, if you got shot in the face but you want an open casket. Neat, huh? 8D)

I also need a business degree, which really doesn't scare me - it's like almost any other college course. Thing is, if I'm taking the cosmetology course, I'll only have time for maybe one night class at the college and my schedule's pretty much full.

Then, it's four years (total) for a business degree and two years (almost) in mortuary school.

Stressful.

But that's were I am today.

I get the feeling that before too long I'll be all like 'Bring me my red pen'.

Because I'm stupid like that. (All I have to do is remember that all I'm looking for is flow and plot holes, basically. Their style is... not my style.)

So. I'm going to go and answer her email and see what she says. In the meantime, I think I'll go try to distract myself from the whole panic thing by working a little on that outline. The first couple chapters are starting to come together so I'm hoping that continues.

At least I can kind of plan in and around NaNoWriMo with all this. That's one good thing, at least. I knew I got that outline done early for a reason.

Things are slowly moving forward and that's a good thing. I'm actually really grateful for any work I can get like this - even if I am stupidly nervous. That's the thing though, I'm not perfect, but I've got a good eye. I know I do. Like with so many other things, I just need to start.

We'll be going to the rental house (the house we rented out) pretty soon to see what the damage is and start going through all the stuff they left behind so that'll be fun.

So, bye for now, everyone. I'm going to go write and try to figure out November.

*rolls away* *falls through trap door*