Today I cleaned the kitchen. I fed the children. I did the accounting for 1 family and 2 businesses. I mailed a contract. Filled a schlock book order. Discussed layout for a picture book. Wrote over 1000 words. Washed 4 loads of laundry. and researched possible short story markets. Why is it that I feel like I didn’t get enough done?
I do have some niggling guilt because I didn’t require all the kids to do all of their assigned chores. Also I did not fold all of that laundry that I washed.
Summer days are long. I keep looking at the clock and thinking “Is it really only 2 pm?” Then I wonder what I am going to do with the rest of my day. I keep wondering that, until I look at the clock and think “Gah! How did it get to be 9pm? I’ve got to get these kids into bed!” These long afternoons are theoretically luxurious, but in real life they’re not. It is hard for me to revel in idleness when I have to get up every two minutes to mediate a quarrel.
I need to schedule some time for myself. During the school year I get breaks from the kids because they’re at school for large portions of the day. During the summer I have to schedule time to dump them in someone else’s care so that I can run off to find my fleeing sanity.
The good news from today is that I received a contract and payment for the short story I sold. I now have money to spend on important writerly expenses. Things like books, or envelopes, or new clothes to wear to conventions. But most of the money I intend to set aside because I am saving up to buy my very own shiny new laptop computer. The saving up is going to take awhile because short stories just don’t pay very well. They particularly don’t buy very much when you only have one sale. Hence the market research today.
I haven’t bought one of my 2 per year employee discount computers this year. If you need something on Hewlett Packard’s home store (www.hpshopping.com), it’s usually a 5-15% discount. Many companies allow these programs to cover friends and relatives of employees. Actually, I’m probably not the only schlockite that can do this, if you have friends that work at Best Buy or Comp-Usa, they can do even more.
This is a very kind offer. I may just take you up on it when I have saved up more than the $50 I currently have.
Also, Dell.com tends to have some very good deals fairly regularly. I recently got a desktop for quite $480, and I have friends with good computers who are quite jealous of it. I think I saw an ad for an Inspiron laptop for $750. I know, a bit outside your current price range, but definitely a good place to look.
>I now have money to spend on important writerly expenses. Things like books, or envelopes, or new clothes to wear to conventions.
*giggle* Boy, does that make me feel like I’m looking in the mirror. I love clicking buttons on Amazon and thinking, “This is a justified purchase. I’m doing market research.”
Re: short story markets, I presume you’re already aware of Ralan and Duotrope. There’s also a nifty site called Submitting to the Black Hole that’s useful if you’re wondering about response times for various markets.
Ralan is where I was doing the researching. I found enough there that I’m interested in that I haven’t done more than bookmark duotrope. Now I need to be working on stories rather than salivating over markets.
We are big fans of Dell. All our current desktop machines came from there. My Thinkpad did not, but that’s because it is so ancient that someone gave it to me.