Saturday, Jun. 19, 2004 - 11:15 a.m.
I have been reading this Nielsen Hayden entry, which comments on the whininess of rejected authors. It makes a good counterpart to Liz’s recurring Query Letter of the Day series. The other publishing-related entries at Nielsen Hayden are good, too, especially this one about agents, which led me to this site that catalogues sketchy writer-targeted scams. I knew such things as vanity presses existed, and I knew about the print equivalent of the song-poem industry (“Send in your poems for our anthology!”), but I had no idea that the scams were so extensive. Neat.
After a month-long bout of machoness, last night I caved and turned on my AC. Perhaps this has something to do with me getting another freelance job that’ll start Monday – money! Ha ha! Stuff the money through the cracks in the walls! Make a money sweater and stand in front of the AC vent!
What I’ll be doing sounds not-so-thrilling: correcting word-for-words, which means comparing two copies of a text to make sure they match up perfectly. For eight dollars an hour. But it’s temporary, and it’s for a reputable scholarly publisher. It’s a good thing I live where the cost of living is very low.
The bike is still in pieces in my kitchen, which is getting a little old. Tomorrow I’m going to a friend’s house to fix up he bearings in the front tube and bottom bracket. Then I need to buy some Sturmey Archer parts – a trigger, a cable, and a control chain – and then the bike will be ready, I believe. Hooray for summer. Thank Jehovah for kung fu bicycle and Priscilla Presley.