bwerithjournal

i think i'm a baritone now

2008-12-08T04:41:40Z

This virus has hit me hard. I think I worried everyone when I forgot to eat for a couple of days, and apparently I'm paler than my sister, which is unheard of.

At least I've had cute animals to console me, thanks to Kate's boyfriend lending us Planet Earth, the complete series. Oh, those dromedaries.

Also I have finished another sweater. This one actually started out as a boxy, bat-winged store-bought sweater from the 1980s, but I ripped it up and made another. Slightly more flattering, I hope.

levelup

2008-10-18T18:34:07Z

Interesting article about progression in RPGs:

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/10/column_the_amateur_progression.php

Of course it made me think of Progress Quest... now I just wanna go to the killing fields and slaughter me some bacon elementals.

proofreading annoyance

2008-10-08T23:37:40Z

The new bane of my existence: printer drivers.

one job down

2008-10-06T21:24:38Z

Rearranging sections, rewriting a sentence here and there, pointing out areas where further work is required... I spent a month and a half on a single manuscript. After I finished, I was so nervous... I've never done anything of that scope before; what if I did it all wrong and wasted all that time?

But one of the senior editors read over my revisions, and (though she added plenty of comments and suggestions of her own) insisted that it was much improved. Phew!

Now it's been sent back to the author. I just have to wait and see what she has to say...

pigeon: no longer albatross

2008-09-14T00:29:05Z

Finally finished with the pigeon prototype:

It's only been, what, two years?

I'm seriously considering typing up the pattern and making a pigeon with a reasonable approximation of actual pigeon colours.

publication

2008-09-05T01:57:53Z

The books have arrived! Both Vafthradnismal and Collectio Toletana are finished: printed, bound, and ready to go. It's amazing, knowing that I played a part in transforming these works into finished books. Vaf especially, since I did a lot more work on that one. I can't help but smile whenever I see that goofy grinning Odinn on the cover.

buckler

2008-09-03T01:44:44Z

I saw a guy today with a gigantic belt buckle in the shape of a cross.

Guess he didn't want any vampires getting into his pants...

it's the humidity

2008-08-22T23:25:42Z

Yet another fire alarm today. Apparently each one costs the Institute several hundred dollars.

The project that I'm currently working on, that was so rudely – and loudly – interrupted, is the reorganization of 170 pages about medieval peasants. Sometimes I sit there for minutes, staring at a paragraph, knowing that there's got to be something I can add or rearrange to make its argument clearer and stronger... but the solution just doesn't come. A humbling experience.

doodle

2008-08-14T00:39:48Z

Well, I wouldn't wear it, but...

work and holidays

2008-08-06T23:26:14Z

This past Civic Holiday, I celebrated by... actually having a day off instead of working! Woo!

Some days at work I feel awful because of all the little details I seem to be missing... incorrect (but at least consistent) treatment of volume numbers... last-minute checks that should have been done weeks ago... I actually had trouble sleeping last night because random snippets of Old Norse kept running through my head.

But today was better. I ferreted out a trio of typos in and around the copyright page, did ersatz typesetting, and returned to editing the index for the Old Church Slavonic manuscript. It helps that PIMS really seems to want to keep me around, despite the mistakes I make.

so many mistakes

2008-08-01T23:00:08Z

It's kind of discouraging how many little things I missed on my first edit of the Old Norse manuscript... and now that it's in proofs and is tricky to fix, of course I spot a new problem on every page.

presenting

2008-07-31T04:07:06Z

Tonight was the last class in the Children's Publishing course, and that meant it was presentation time. I was second last and we were already out of time before I began, so I spewed out all my points in record time (nervousness helped).

This has been the most food-centric course I've ever taken. The teacher often brought treats for answering questions, and supplied us with a selection of candies to fortify us today. Though it was kind of sad: thirteen women in the room and we couldn't finish four little bags of candy... pathetic.

non-sequitur theatre

2008-07-26T19:15:09Z

Apparently, cassowaries can be quite vicious.

In other news, Earthdawn Diaries has been brought fully up to date. Will it be another six years before our next session? Stay tuned!

what do you mean, aristotle wasn't in old norse?

2008-07-25T23:07:45Z

I was all prepared to focus on citation styles for Aquinas and Aristotle today, when the Old Norse manuscript came galumphing back, needing checks and queries. The mental gear switch was a bit... tricky. But at least that's done and sent back to the author now.

Clinton's and crisis

2008-07-24T03:53:46Z

I'm happy I made it to redknot's do at Clinton's, but I have to apologize for being near-catatonic and unresponsive to at least one person who tried to strike up a conversation. Anyway, best wishes to redknot and may Burlington be an order of magnitude more awesome than you expect!

In the spirit of posting more often, here's today's crisis: after I was nearly finished editing the most recent manuscript, along came a new version of the file... seems the editor/translator didn't stop working on it after he sent it in. So there's a few hours wasted.

Spare time? What's that?

2008-07-11T22:58:26Z

This internship is great in terms of hands-on experience. I'm definitely feeling more confident about my editing these days, better able to assess a manuscript and articulate whatever flaws or issues it might have.

I've worked on four manuscripts so far, generally spending hours checking the bibliographies and notes, copyediting, and some formatting. But I've done a few more interesting jobs, including photo research for a cover image; it took me ages to find just a few pictures and in the end it seems we're not going to use any of them. Oh well, at least the author's interest was piqued and he's now actually participating in the image search himself. And I actually got to go down to the sub-basement at Fort Book today!

In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have continued to take classes this summer. Especially since the two half-courses ended up overlapping a couple of weeks ago, and I had assignments due for both of them at the same time. Not the most relaxing of Canada Day weekends, even more so since I'm still putting in a few hours a week at the gourmet food store....

pims

2008-06-21T03:14:46Z

Three weeks into my internship, and I've worked on three different manuscripts so far. Not always catching every little mistake the first time, or even the big mistakes (one author cited his own previous work incorrectly... twice). But I'm definitely learning as I go.

the life of an intern

2008-06-03T22:38:05Z

My first two days as an intern consisted entirely of reading (with a premature foray into copyediting). It's actually amazing how quickly the hours went by, compared to my retail job.

I was impressed with the manuscript; even though I know nothing about the subject (Old Church Slavonic literature) I found I understood what the author was getting at. Well, I'll be working pretty closely with this manuscript for quite a while, so I'd better have a good opinion of it!

internship

2008-05-30T17:25:21Z

I've got an internship! I'm starting Monday at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. So happy!

roleplaying

2008-05-20T18:30:06Z

In celebration of Saturday's dice-exercise session, I present the following:

Earthdawn Diaries

Too silly not to share!

robotics

2008-05-14T14:53:57Z

My mother just got a Roomba. It's noisier than I expected, annoying actually, but the way it repeatedly bumps into things (including the chair I'm sitting on) is pretty amusing.

annoyance

2008-05-05T17:14:22Z

The "Introduction to Design" course that I was looking forward to taking this summer has been cancelled. Arrgh!

Now I'm going on a two-hour walking trip to buy two-inch foam and work off my irritation.

lovecraft

2008-04-30T15:46:16Z

So you come across a horrific creature with a doglike face and a predilection for scavenging corpses. So what kind of sound would you expect it to make?

"Meep"?

"Meep"? Seriously, H.P. Lovecraft? "Meep" makes me think of muppets and the Road Runner. Whenever the ghouls were around in "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" I just didn't feel the gothic horror vibe you seemed to be going for.

I mean, seriously.

musings on fanfic

2008-04-28T16:03:41Z

During the Fanfic panel at Ad Astra, a young man asked a question which initially stumped us all. He wanted to know how one would go about creating a story that would invite fanfic.

At the time, the consensus was that if you write compelling characters, readers will want to spend more time with them. I did mention that if you leave some aspects of the story unresolved, or set up the story for a sequel and then never write it, some readers might want to step in and write that sequel themselves.

Now that I've been thinking about it a bit longer, if I could go back in time, I'd tell the guy that he should do some research on RPGs. After all, the entire point of their existence is to create a world that invites people to come in, muck around, and make their own stories come to life.

interviews

2008-04-24T17:28:54Z

Two interviews today, both at the same office. One for Knopf and one for Random House. And tomorrow, right back to the same office for an interview at Doubleday! I really hope I get one of these internships. All the offices were stuffed full of books; it felt like home.

In other news, my grandmother has found a "very, very nice young man, with work, and a car. I like very much! He want meet you!" Uh, thanks. But no.