coming back

I took this photo during a run through the University
of Toronto campus yesterday. I liked the contrast of the glossy green
against the textured grey stone.


Yesterday, IT WAS MY FIRST ENTIRE WORKDAY WITHOUT USING VIAVOICE. I took a break every 15 minutes, which drove me NUTS but made sure my arms were ok. Because I wasn't using ViaVoice, I could PLAY MUSIC IN MY OFFICE...a huge relief after six months of only the sound of my own voice to keep me company while I worked.

Sent out several more queries, got two go-aheads from editors (one about NaNoWriMo, one about vegetarian restaurants in Toronto). This means that I have three articles due over the next four weeks, and I'm aiming to get more. Finished editing Chpt.3 and Chpt.4 of my novel; my goal is to have the mss ready to send to my agent by the end of next month. I've decided to pass on NaNoWriMo this November, sadly...don't want to push my arms, plus I'd like to finish editing the manuscripts I have already so I can send them out. Chris Baty (NaNoWriMo creator) had asked me to do daily cartoons for the site during November but I had to turn him down.

The revised edition of Moira Allen's Writing.com: Creative Internet Strategies To Advance Your Writing Career is now available through Amazon, and includes an article I wrote specifically for the book: "Author Showcases and Syndication Services".

Culled down my 1700 e-mails to 200 mostly by being heartless about dumping a lot of messages, many related to Market Watch that basically ignored my warning and asked me for advice about where to send manuscripts (some even sent their manuscripts as attachments), asking questions like "do you know if so-and-so is still editor at xxx?", and asking me to look up database information for them. I also prioritized some of the mail, answering urgent ones, leaving some to answer over the next few weeks. Hey, and I did the culling WITHOUT VIAVOICE.



Liked how the reflection of the clouds changed this
building into something out-of-the-ordinary.


Starting to run again, too. I had deluded myself into thinking that doing a lot of walking every day during the summer would be enough to keep me in shape, but I found out how wrong I was the first time I tried running again...walking is fine exercise for some, I'm sure (I say quickly before the walkers out there throw their shoes at me), but I think I need to push myself more. Walking certainly helped keep me sane during the worst of my tendinitis, though!

Learned some cool words during my German study, so want to share them with you:

Kopfschmerzen (headache) and Kugelschreiber (pen)

Must try to work these words into casual conversation at the first opportunity I have, which will likely be this December when Jeff and I go to Vienna for Scott's and Anita's wedding.

GUEST: "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" (Do you speak German?)

ME (brightly): "Wo ist meine Kugelschreiber?" (Where is my pen?)

GUEST: "Er...Wie bitte?" (Pardon?)

ME (ecstatically): "Ich habe Kopfschmerzen!" (I have a headache!)

I've also learned to be careful about applying grammatical structures in different contexts. "Mude" is "tired" and "Heiß" is "hot", for example, but where "Ich bin mude" means "I am tired", "Ich bin heiß" apparently means "I am sexually aroused" (!!). If I want to say that I feel too warm, I'm supposed to use "Ich mir heiß".

Hm. On second thought, maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut and do more listening than speaking. :-)

September/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ