Freelancer's Office

I have got some work done on the novel I am collaborating on with one of my friends, then got side tracked on working on a assignment by that same co-writer for a story specifically for her.

It is good, since it is a writing exercise that is being used to help me refine the skills and get the muses to relax and talk rather than my editor to think they have to hold tight rein on them.

Today, after working on that for a few minutes, I got side tracked trying to make an e-mail account work on one of my websites. It is not working for some reason, and after having spent the past few hours on it I am going to give up and move on to some work I need to get finished so I can relax after while.

Well, I am completely exhausted, but I am feeling good about the day despite how tired I am. Why? Because I have got caught up on my writing work.

It might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but you have no idea how mentally exhausted I am. I am doing good right now to type, much less get work that I know I did reasonably well done and turned in on time.

I have also managed to get some stuff done on catching up at sites like Writing.com and a few other places I do not visit nearly enough. So, yeah, I am feeling very good even if I do want to fall face first into my coffee.

I just want to scream! Arrrrgh!! Okay, so, I am working on this novel with one of my very best friends, right? Two of us have been at it for a while now, hashing out the world and getting the characters sorted out, even writing a LOT (and rewriting it and rewriting it……)… so anyway, we been working, and taking breaks and so on for a long while now.

Last night she tells me to be online on Saturday and ready to work on the novel. So, I promise I will wrap up my work and be ready to dedicate my brain to the task of the novel on Saturday.

Problem. I go to read over the notes we have and brain suddenly don’t wanna wait til she is here tomorrow, it has all kinds of thoughts on the subject *NOW* and I don’t has her here. :::pounds head on desk::: So, here I sit, writing away frantically with these ideas that sound GREAT to me, and at the same time wailing because I can’t get ahold of this gal I have nearly hourly contact with on any other day.

Co-writing can be sooooo stressful. :::sigh:::

So, I will just get all the muses out there, wrote down, and ready for her to look at when she is around to look at them. I just am so excited about the possibility a few might solve major plot issues we had going and I wanna know if she agrees. Arrrrgh!!!

I just got through buying a paper cutter that I have wanted for close to 10 years over on eBay. One of those nice industrial size jobs that lets you cut book thick stacks of paper with one clean cut.

I made a drastic mistake that I knew better than to make, and yet it worked out okay in the end. With reasonable time left on the auction for my fellow bidders to decide how bad they wanted the paper trimmer, and if they wanted it more than I did, I calculated out what it is worth to me, subtracted what I would have to pay for shipping to Alaska, and placed my maximum bid amount on the paper cutter.

Then I kicked back to watch the auction and wait for my coffee to brew.

And along came a competing bidder. Now, mind you, I don’t mind a bit of competition in it all, that’s what eBay is all about and I am of the opinion that if I don’t win an item I want to at least see that the person selling it gets a reasonable value on the item when they do sell it. So I bid competitively up to the maximum I am willing to pay for the thing. Then there are the people that want to make sure they get it at lowest possible cost to them and bid up in the smallest increments they can bid at a time.

I just watched one of them. I’m sitting here watching my bid be pushed up… and up… and up…a total of seventeen times. Each time by .84 cents to $2 bids. By someone that has a zero buying/selling history on eBay.

I knew I should have sniped it. That’s that they call it when someone steps in with under thirty seconds to go and bids just above what the high price is. That’s what happened to the guy that was driving me up. Someone with a buyer/seller score in the 300 range stepped in with seconds to go in the auction and dropped in the last bid before mine won it. So, That guy would have driven me up with his max bid anyway, so I don’t feel quite so teeth grinding about the fellow that chipped me up a bit at a time rather than just say what he was willing to pay and let it ride like me and the sniper had.

End result. I got the paper cutter. Nice one that can cut up to 400 sheets of 20 lb paper at a time. Exactly what I need for professional bookbinding and something I have been trying to get ahold of for, like I said, roughly ten years now. I’m happy at the moment, scheming to get to work sewing up more books so they are ready when the paper cutter gets here.

Lesson learned. Check bidders listing at eBay. If there is anyone with a zero buyer/seller score – BEWARE. They’ll likely bid you up and up and up in the last few minutes just to see if one more dollar will win it for them. It’s like Las Vegas slots. Can’t they just go play roulette and set their money down and let the wheel spin?