Not Dead, Just Temping

[itsallovernow]

Haven't been around much lately - partly due to the neighbors finally getting a firewall for their DSL:) Dial-up just bites. We are going to get DSL, but like anything involving technology and the phone company, the process is lengthy.

I'm still exploring the freelance options, but until October ( hopefully. Keep your fingers crossed for me) I'm going to be temping. It's admin work, not rocket science, but the people seem nice. It's at a publishing company, and even though I'm support staff for Sales, you never know. Could be contacts there. At any rate, it seems pretty mellow so far, and aside from having to work with a PC (fie on PC's, fie I say. Sorry. No offense to those who own and love them, but I'm a Mac girl and the keyboard is giving me fits. I like my wide curvy Mac keeboard. My option C to copy.)

I think this will be a good thing. A couple of months of saving and scrimping, of going to work and just being a tiny cog, having brain space to think about words again, to explore them, and hopefully it will be time enough to get some paying freelance gigs so that when November rolls around, I'll have some wiggle room, timewise so I can play with y'all.

The time off was good for me, mostly. Gave me some rest, some respite, some room for thought. All of a sudden, there are ideas again, words and phrases. I knew I was in a bad place when I was rereading some of my fic and hating it, hating the conventions, the phrasing, the deliberateness of the writing. It may have all of those factors, all of those flaws, but I wasn't looking at it critically in a good way, looking for things to work on and fix, I was looking for ways to hate my work, to doubt myself.

I also had one of those moments of sheer sensory appreciation, of looking around my space, my surroundings and just feeling everying. The texture of clean sheets, the smell of them, the way the wooden floor feels on the soles of my feet, the grain of cloth, the smell of my books. Part of that was taking a break from the Path of the Beam (hee - M. has The Dark Tower in his hot little hands, holding it and savoring it until he gets on a plane on Saturday), and rereading The English Patient.

It felt like coming full circle. I bought that book when it was released in trade paperback, and I was reading it when I went to work at Barnes and Noble which was the beginning of one of my best summers, a summer as filled with sense memory as the book itself. In part, I needed a break from the Dark Tower books because after four in a row, I could only write and think in that prose style, but I also needed a return to the purity of words that Ondaatje offers. I love his prose, the texture of his words, as fine and grained and curved as anything you can touch, as tangible as good silk, rough wool. He has this way of putting thoughts and words together, of things said aloud that resonate as thoughts as well as speech. I feel like his writing puts me back on track, shows me that the starts and stops are good. That the silences between words are good, that you can write in media res and have it work, have it be something beautiful.

And in some ways, I feel like I'm starting over, feel like I'm looking at something with 22 year old eyes, and 31 years of practice, of triumphs (small) and failures (large) and a lot of inbetween. So, I think, that's something.

I promise a return to fannish speculation, soonish. Really. But for now, go forth and write me some farscapefriday (It's Sensory Overload/BPAL week). Or write me some great Season 1 or early Season 2 fic. Some UST, some humor laced with heartbreak, the beginning of major changes for all of these characters and the flexes and bends that they all make to adjust, to grow and stagger and reach.

(I also wouldn't be opposed to some Vala fic, of any kind. And those of you so inclined, do me a favor, go write crankygrrl some decent Veronica Mars fic so she'll stop torturing herself with the Splendarific stuff that seems to be out there:)

Comments

[cofax7]

Oh, good, you're back. I was missing you.

And yeah, I'm with you on the temping. It's pleasantly brainless, and relaxing in many ways. No politics, no late nights, just do your thing and go home at the end of the day. I miss that sometimes.

Working on the Vala thing.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I've missed the lot of you:)

Yeah on the Vala thing. Vala from you would be lovely indeed:) (Or more Vala, I should say. I loved the Sam and Vala locker room piece:)

And yeah, I couldn't do this job long term, but for now, it's all good.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

*give you a sleepy hug*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hugs you back:) You're the only one prezzie free. Damned Canadapost!

[ropo.livejournal.com]

Hey you! I'm glad about the temping and the feeling-better-about-things.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thanks honey:)

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

sending you good thoughts and many hugs.

your paragraph about sensory appreciation is *very* fine.

*more hugs*

ps. i'm on dial up.....which oddly enogh is faster than my cousin's thingy...er, is it called ethernet? i haven't a clue. it's the cable modem doohicky.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

You know, a lot of the time when you just get in there and they see how smart and wonderful you are, doors start to open.

I am happy for you, as mindless work can be freeing for awhile, and not worrying about money as much even more so. *g*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thanks dear. It eases the money burden a little, as does me being more cognizant of what I spend:) The forces of finance work together nicely that way. And by nicely I'm being, you know, ironic:)

Hee:)