Pilcrow

Speaking of Soulcalibur—which, if you don't know, is a fighting game that has the possibly unique focus of sword-based (or other melee weapon) combat, rather than the usual hand-to-hand martial arts—lately I've been feeling a lot like swinging a sword around again. Weapons training was something I particularly enjoyed when I was studying the martial arts, and it would be a very satisfying way of working out feelings of frustration or moodiness. The trouble is, I don't really have adequate space in my home to do that—at best I may be able to practice some basic cuts, provided my cat doesn't get in the way—and I don't really remember any of the forms. I also still don't have any funds to spare on taking lessons somewhere again, which is too bad, as there's a place up in north Seattle, the Chinese Shaolin Center of Seattle, that offers a combination of tai chi, kung fu, and weapons very similar to what I was last studying back East. Much closer to my home, there's a tai chi studio run by Karin Collins, who apparently first studied at Embrace the Moon, which I tried a few years ago. I liked Embrace the Moon, but felt their tai chi wasn't energetic enough for what I was seeking, so that's an argument against going to the Karin Collins school; however, Collins apparently does or will be offering classes in sword and spear as well, so it may well be more like what I'm looking for.


Hah, and I forgot that I already wrote about this back in April. Well, obviously I didn't pick up with the sword exercising I was thinking about doing. Heck for that matter, although I now have a bicycle, I haven't even been using that as much as I should be or want to. I need to make some changes here. Hmm, wait… sword-cycling? Hell, if shooting at stuff while cross-country skiiing can be an Olympic sport, I don't see why we can't have bicycling and swordplay. Anyhow, I'm not sure about the wisdom of exercising first thing in the morning before breakfast, when my energy reserves would be low, but I probably ought to be doing a bicycle ride first thing a couple times a week, as that'd ensure it was done for the day. As my breakfast is just a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice, maybe I could even eat that first and then do the bike ride. Doing that and alternating with some basic sword exercises a couple times a week would be a good thing. Of course, here I'm falling afoul of the problem I wrote about at the beginning of the month—making plans or goals public tends to result in them never happening. But I'm basically thinking out loud here, and I'm not going to now delete this whole entry just for that reason. Anyhow, I need to head for home, and make some dinner when I get there, so I won't have time to write another post before midnight.

Just a brief post tonight as I don't have much time left, and I'm at Bauhaus and need to get downtown to catch the bus home. 

I missed several days posting last week partly because LiveJournal was very unreliable, apparently suffering through yet another denial of service attack and then needing time to fix things. So LiveJournal was up and down a lot. But I was also feeling down a lot, and just didn't want to write anything. Same old problems, nothing new to say. As of Sunday I'm feeling in better spirits, basically just pulling out of the slump without having made any changes, but of course I still need to take care of things. 

I watched an interesting TED Talk recently in which the speaker pointed out that studies have shown that people who announce their goals tend to be less likely to work toward and achieve them; apparently there's a common trait that talking about plans creates a feeling of having done something, and as a result people don't feel as compelled to follow through with them. So that was interesting to consider in light of my monthly list of things to do. At least at first, listing them out did give that feeling that I was at least facing my tasks and holding myself accountable, but in practice it never helped me get anything done and ultimately I think just contributed even more to wanting to avoid them; the ones I least wanted to deal with poisoned the others that I felt weren't as important and therefore should be put off in favor of the important ones. 

There's a Frog and Toad Are Friends story in which Toad makes a list of things he's going to do that day, feels good about it as he crosses them off the list, but then he accidentally loses the list and is so despondent that he refuses to do anything else for the rest of the day, only feeling better at the end when he remembers the last item was "go to sleep" and he can still accomplish that. I think I'm being very Toadish. 

I need less list-making and less talking, and more doing. But knowing that and saying that hasn't yet helped me with doing that. Habits are hard to break. Fears are hard to overcome. And yet.

A couple days of work in the evening, running later than intended for no good reason, and I'm feeling pretty wiped out. Yesterday I was at least able to indulge in sleeping a bit later than planned, to make up the difference, but today I had to get up about an hour earlier than usual for my midday volunteer shift at the KEXP membership drive. When I got home this evening I crashed on the couch for about a half-hour, and then had to make a real mental effort to make anything for dinner. And what I ended up making was quite simple—just a pork chop seasoned with soy sauce, with some spinach sauteed with scallions and garlic, and leftover rice pilaf—but still, I almost didn't even do that much. I'm glad that I did though, it was tasty and made me feel a lot better than I would've if I'd just made a spinach-and-cheese-on-toast sandwich, which was the lazy option. 

I've now let reading the self-help book Feeling Good slide for about a week, and I need to get back into it; I think I can read another chapter tonight, actually. I'm letting several other things slide as well; although I have been busy with the KEXP volunteering this week and also have had some urgent work drop in my lap, I still feel like I should be able to manage to get more done than I have been. Another reason to get through reading Feeling Good, so I can see what the other two books have to say about getting things done. I know next week is going to pass very quickly as well, and suddenly I'll be staring at July and still at a loss for accomplishing things. 

Speaking of which, I was just reading Ryan Macklin's blog post about John Harper's module game Lady Blackbird and how it's functionally a primer on how to convey implied setting in a game. This is relevant to what I was just saying in two ways. One, it makes me want to get back to some more of my own game development work, whether the Chiaroscuro / Dungeon World: Cetak setting, the sha'ir class for Dungeon World, or the oracle game notes I jotted down last year—that last one being what I particularly wanted to pick up this evening as I started reading Macklin's post, but I wasn't sure I'd come up with anything in time to make a new post. Two, I do still want to have a Dungeon World dungeon prepared for Go Play NW, and that's only a month away now; I'm running out of time to sit down and prep something. Somehow I need to make that happen too, without neglecting the other important things I also need to be doing.

The list:

• Refresh contacts with agencies (Aquent, Comsys, Volt).
• Make new contacts at MAQ Consulting and Creative Circle.
• Update financial worksheet with past year+ of data.
• Spend (at least) 4 hours per weekday on work.
• Revise marketing one-sheet version of resume with general focus (editing skills, desktop publishing, other). STARTED
• Set up basic web page with information on professional services.
• Read self-help books that'd probably have already helped with personal issues if I'd read them already. STARTED
• Pick up with learning Objective-C for iPhone programming.
• Get a nice print of that graphic for that friend. STARTED
• Put the sink pedestal back in place (need someone to help with this). DONE (July 2011)
• Clean out hallway and bedroom closets, get rid of junk.
• Hang up artwork that's still sitting in closet and new art from Christmas.
• Get rid of clothes I never wear (donate if okay, trash if old and ratty).
• Get rid of old computer books and disks that are no longer needed or useful.
• Get rid of old broken DVD player that's not worth spending money to fix.
• Dispose of burnt-out CF bulbs.
• Dispose of that broken laptop.
• Get rid of old broken garbage disposal.
• Buy more underwear.
• Decide upon and start new series of exercises. STARTED (thinking about cycling, stretching, probably sword strokes, need to start and figure out some kind of schedule)

Concerts, dance nights:

• Stripmall Architecture at the Crocodile, Thursday June 16
• TRUST (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Saturday June 18
• Sweatbox: Off the Deep End (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Thursday June 23 (?—last month it apparently didn't happen, not sure about this month)

My original idea with the list was specifically to not prioritize any items. I figured that if I did prioritize them, I would get hung up on avoiding things that I had to do first—the items related to finding work—and end up never getting anything done. Instead, I thought that if I just posted all the tasks I had to do, large or small, important or not, in one single list, then I'd feel free to just complete whichever items as I had time, and because I'd feel good about marking any items done, that would encourage me to carry forward with doing other items. In practice of course, it did not work that way at all, because in fact I knew the work-related items were important to do, and items such as getting rid of stuff I don't need could be done any time and thus were easy to put off, and so I did neither types of tasks. 

At this point, with just a month left to the first anniversary of setting down a list, I am feeling more determination to get stuff done and off the list. With work still uncertain and insufficient, I'm also feeling the pressure to deal with those items in order to try to get more work coming in. Hopefully I can actually tackle these tasks rather than give in to feeling overwhelmed and hiding from them. Both the self-help book I've started reading about overcoming depression and the other two books I have to read about time management offer coping strategies, so hopefully that will make a difference. 

I am trying hard to buckle down and do as many of the items as I can in the next few days, because next week I'm going to be doing four shifts for KEXP's Summer Membership Drive, and the week after that I'll be working at KEXP auditing the data entry as usual, so I know I'm unlikely to deal with most of the list items during that time. 

Items I'm taking off the list:

• "Get up by 9 am regularly"—It hasn't made much difference having this on the list. I have been doing fairly well lately with 9:30 am, and with my KEXP work coming up I actually have to shift my time to 8 am anyhow.
• "Look into drafting bylaws for Go Play NW"—Still something we should have, but it's just not going to happen before this year's event.

The list:

• Refresh contacts with agencies (Aquent, Comsys, Volt).
• Make new contacts at MAQ Consulting and Creative Circle.
• Update financial worksheet with past year+ of data.
• Spend (at least) 4 hours per weekday on work.
• Update project list with 2010 work. DONE
• Revise marketing one-sheet version of resume with general focus (editing skills, desktop publishing, other). STARTED
• Set up basic web page with information on professional services.
• Read self-help books that'd probably have already helped with personal issues if I'd read them already. STARTED
• Pick up with learning Objective-C for iPhone programming.
• Get a nice print of that graphic for that friend. STARTED
• Put the sink pedestal back in place (need someone to help with this).
• Get up by 9 am regularly.
• Look into drafting bylaws for Go Play NW.
• Finalize budget for Go Play NW 2011. DONE
• Clean out hallway and bedroom closets, get rid of junk.
• Hang up artwork that's still sitting in closet and new art from Christmas.
• Get rid of clothes I never wear (donate if okay, trash if old and ratty).
• Get rid of old computer books and disks that are no longer needed or useful.
• Get rid of old broken DVD player that's not worth spending money to fix.
• Dispose of burnt-out CF bulbs.
• Dispose of that broken laptop.
• Get rid of old broken garbage disposal.
• Buy more underwear.
• Decide upon and start new series of exercises.
• Make sure there's space in storage closet for a bicycle. DONE
• Get a bicycle! DONE!

Concerts, dance nights:

• Junip at the Triple Door, Monday May 2 (KEXP VIP Club performance) DONE
• Zola Jesus at the Crocodile, Wednesday May 4 DONE
• Battles at the Crocodile, Thursday May 5 DONE and write a review for KEXP DONE
• The Psychedelic Furs at the Showbox, Sunday May 8 (possible) [SKIPPED]
• Peter, Bjorn & John at Neumos, Tuesday May 10 DONE
• YACHT at Neumos, Thursday May 12 DONE
• The Raveonettes and Tamaryn at Neumos, Friday May 13 DONE and write a review for KEXP DONE
• TRUST (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Saturday May 21 SKIPPED due to more important things.
• Sweatbox: Off the Deep End (dance night) at the Baltic Room, Thursday May 26 OFF LIST It didn't happen this month, or possibly was on Wednesday night instead, but I didn't find out until Thursday.

Changing the list format a bit—dropped the "off-list" section and dropped "new items" until I clear out more of the old ones. The only thing really new under new items was getting a bicycle, which is now an "old" item, and it didn't make sense to have just a big list of concerts as a single item under "new items". 

My month's starting off with a bunch of activities already on the calendar, so I'm going to have to really focus to get anything done.

That's a lot of shows, but I probably won't end up at all of them, and at least two of those events will be free. I'm hoping to cover at least one of them for the KEXP Blog as well, still waiting to hear back on that. I'm not putting the Sasquatch! Music Festival down either—I'd like to go once again to help cover it for KEXP, but I haven't yet heard anything about that either, and in any case as I still have to pay my own way for food and lodging, I probably can't afford to go this year.

Okay, let's try looking at things a different way.

First, as far as my week's gone, I'm clearly being pretty hard on myself. This is fair, for three reasons: one, it's an important aspect of my personal journal to critically analyze myself and make sure I'm aware of what I'm doing; two, as I mentioned, I have been continually neglecting to deal with work and financial issues, with the result that they've continued to slowly become more dire over time; three, it's another important aspect of my journal, as I've noted before, to simply vent about the things bothering me, so that instead of continuing to dwell on them I can set them down and then go do useful things. All that said, the week really wasn't as bad as all that; I was just upset by having just done my taxes and confronted myself with the stark reality, once again, that yes I've got problems I have to deal with. 

Now, about dealing with work problems. Let's look at my skill sets.

• I'm an excellent editor from proofreading to substantive editing levels. I haven't really done much in the way of developmental editing, which gets into project and author/client management—and I'm not sure whether I really want to do that anyhow—but when it comes to anything from quality control (proofreading) to improving a draft (substantive), I know my work is top notch. Most of what I do falls in the middle range of copyediting.
• Because of my eye for detail, head for organization, and speedy fingers for typing, I'm also very good at data entry, data verification, and content management.
• I'm a good writer. I feel that I tend to be slow at writing—maybe I'm not really slower than the average writer, but I wouldn't want to be the person called upon to do a couple pages of business writing in a half-hour, for example. I tend to agonize too much over getting it just right. Still, for at least some kinds of nonfiction writing, I'm very good, and some kinds I can write more quickly than others.
• I'm… not sure how to describe this skill set: layout technician? I'm not a graphic artist. I know the basics of graphic design, but wouldn't call myself a graphic designer. However, I can design decent basic layouts for documents, and I'm quite competent at placing content into a layout and adjusting things as necessary, whether using a predesigned template or one of my own layouts. I need to talk to John Harper about this, maybe he can help clarify how I should position myself.

All of these are things that I enjoy doing. If I were to choose one area to focus on for full-time work, it would be the editorial skills. I'm strongest at that, enjoy it a lot, and have the most professional experience with it already. But ideally I'd like to have opportunities to do work in all those areas, which suggests continuing as a freelance contractor on a project basis. I both enjoy the variety of work challenges and also believe making use of my diverse skill sets should give me more opportunities to find work.

What I'm not good at or strongly dislike:

• Searching for work and making contacts. This is why I should be paired with an agency, or even part of some kind of small consulting partnership or group in which someone with the business networking skills would be finding the projects and I'd be one of the people doing the projects. It's not even that I hate talking to people, but I do loathe having to make the initial contact with people I've never talked to before, for business purposes (personal or professional). 
• Office administration. You'd think that I'd be good at that, and I certainly have a lot of applicable skills, but it turns out I hate doing that kind of work. One reason I now shy away from the idea of seeking full-time editing work again is because I've now twice worked at small businesses which turned out not to have enough work to keep someone of my skills occupied full time, and I ended up having to take on office admin work, which quickly soured my spirits. And the thing is, I liked working at small companies; I'm not keen on working at a large corporation, and in any case it seems to me that editing jobs are increasingly scarce at large corporations because they can outsource them to contractors at less expense. This is another reason why I believe I should continue as a freelance contractor on a project basis.
• Project management. Technically this doesn't belong on the list; it's not that I'm not good at it or strongly dislike it, rather it's that I've done almost none of it. Whenever I've worked on any kind of a big project, I've almost always been a team member rather than a project leader, and because I've mostly worked at or for small companies, I've almost always been the only person involved in my part of the project, so I've rarely had opportunities to be a project leader. I've had a few projects in which I've had to do some kind of schedule and resource management and I've handled it fine, but it's so limited that I have no good idea whether I even like having that role, let alone how good or bad I may be in it.

So that's more detail on where I'm at, and why I'm still hoping and trying to make it as a freelance contractor rather than land some kind of full-time position. As I see it, my biggest challenge is finding potential opportunities and selling myself as a contractor; my second-biggest challenge, then, is finding some way to get others to do that for me. I haven't stayed in touch with the agencies (or still haven't contacted a couple agencies) as I should have; that's partly because the ones I've talked to before have themselves had few positions due to the economy, and partly because they've seemed to want to pigeonhole me as a Microsoft technical editor. I need to find ways to break out of that, but also I need to find ways to do more networking that can lead to getting projects. Really, that's all it comes down to: I've got a few clients that have been very happy with my work and will continue to send me projects as they have them, but it's still infrequent or inconsistent enough that I need to get several more clients. If I could just get to a steady 80 billable hours a month—that's only half-time work—I'd be able to stabilize my financial situation. I've been doing 20 to 40 hours a month more often than not, and that's not cutting it. Getting 100 to 120 or more hours a month? That would be fantastic. Getting there is the trouble.

I write a lot about being stressed over the many things I have to do and keep putting off. And while easily half the items on The List are unimportant things that can be done any time (and hence keep getting put off for that reason), the other half are things that really are important toward advancing my career, fixing my financial situation, or just generally making me better or happier.

That said: this afternoon, after cleaning the litter box and the bathroom as I planned, I spent a couple hours just lying or sitting on the couch, listening to KEXP, with Nimiel snuggling up to me. And it was nice, and relaxing. And I don't regret spending my time that way at all.

Then I went over to PCC Natural Market to pick up some things for dinner, and made and ate a nice dinner. After posting this, I'm heading over to the High Dive to see Hotels and dance. And tomorrow, besides doing laundry, I'm probably going over to Tony's to play a board game for the afternoon. 

Monday I've got work to do, I'm tabling for KEXP at the Dodos show at Neumos, and I have to take care of some car crash-related stuff. And of course The List abides, and I need to start tackling some of those important items as well as the ones I've already started. But this weekend, I'm mostly relaxing and not worrying about it.

The list abides…

I did actually complete a list item, that of posting concert write-ups and summaries for the rest of 2010. In fact I even caught all the way up to the present, so that feels pretty good. And I'm really happy with the reviews I've written most recently, for the February and March concerts, which included two KEXP Blog posts (Man or Astro-Man? and Warpaint), so I feel like I'm back in the game with that.

I also mostly did one of the old list items last night, creating the 2010 V:CD mix that I agreed to do last, umm, June I think it was. I may swap out a song, but aside from that I just need to burn three copies and get them into the mail, which I can—and will!—definitely do within the next few days. 

Okay, I just emailed someone for a little advice on another old list item, so I can take care of that soon too. (No, not the "buy more underwear" item. That one's just sitting there because it hasn't been urgent, but most of my older pairs are showing signs of wear so I really do need to take care of that soon.)

I was expecting a fair amount of work this week, which still hasn't started coming in. Regrettably I did not take advantage of the free time to get other things done. I think I need to start writing things down in the morning, or even the night before. Just one or two things that I plan to get done that day. Then maybe I can make some progress.

Aside from the list, it's been kind of a crazy month. It started off with the KEXP Spring Membership Drive, then I worked at KEXP every day the following week and had activities almost every evening that week. Then I got sick and was pretty much down the whole following week. I went to only one show I'd planned on, Pogo, but went to two other unplanned shows, tabling for KEXP at the last one. I had some good times with friends old and new, some planned and some not.

Oh and my journal posting was spottier than it has been. I missed the first three Fridays (out for KEXP social activities the first two, no good reason the third), plus a Sunday (the night I was coming down sick but had to get through some work first) and the past two Wednesdays due to game night. I'll have to try better next month.

Don't mean to keep missing days. Yesterday was a day of getting up late and puttering around until some expected work dropped on me, then I made a point of going out to Cafe Ladro to work, since I hadn't been out of the house all week except to fetch groceries on Wednesday. I ended up staying there until close, stopping at PCC to grab something quick to make for dinner, and getting home with just minutes to spare for posting, and I decided it just wasn't worth making the quick post. However, I don't want to miss two days in a row, so here I am making another quick filler post. At least today's excuse is better: more work this afternoon, followed by going to the Peltonens' for a "Food Club" dinner party, the theme being "green food". I had intended to make green tea ice cream and lime sorbet, but due to being sick this week didn't make anything. Fortunately I chatted with Amy yesterday, who said that there'd be so much food I didn't need to feel bad about not bringing something; the fortunate part is that that prompted me to suggest "green liquor?" as something I might bring instead, and Amy said yes, I should get midori for midori sours. I'd never had that before, and am quite pleased to discover they're tasty. And popular enough that we finished the large bottle I brought with me (there were quite a few people at the party, but still a bit surprising). Anyhow that was a good time.

I'm still feeling not quite back to health. It was relatively mild enough that I've been impatient about that and wondering why I don't seem to be fully recovered, which is silly—I'd have to check, but I believe that colds and flus are supposed to take a week or two to fully run their course, so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm not quite back yet. I am at least well enough to be out in public again and doing stuff, which is good as I've got work and more fun plans for this weekend, and I need to get back on to other important stuff, like further dealing with the car crash business. And I've actually managed to get one thing marked off the list—a relatively unimportant one of course, catching up on the concert reviews, but it's something, and now I need to take some time and get more things done.

Old items:

• Refresh contacts with agencies (Aquent, Comsys, Volt).
• Make new contacts at MAQ Consulting and Creative Circle.
• Update financial worksheet with past year+ of data.
• Read self-help books that'd probably have already helped with personal issues if I'd read them already.
• Pick up with learning Objective-C for iPhone programming.
• Get a nice print of that graphic for that friend.
• Make the V:CD mix and get copies sent out. STARTED (no, really!)
• Put the sink pedestal back in place (need someone to help with this).
• Get up by 9 am regularly.
• Look into drafting bylaws for Go Play NW.
• Finalize budget for Go Play NW 2011. STARTED, still in the works.
• Clean out hallway and bedroom closets, get rid of junk.
• Hang up artwork that's still sitting in closet and new art from Christmas.
• Get rid of clothes I never wear (donate if okay, trash if old and ratty).
• Get rid of old computer books and disks that are no longer needed or useful.
• Get rid of old broken DVD player that's not worth spending money to fix.
• Dispose of burnt-out CF bulbs.
• Dispose of that broken laptop.
• Get rid of old broken garbage disposal.
• Buy more underwear.

Off list items:

• Deal with business licensing. On hold for later.
• Learn about replacing thermostat with better / programmable one. On hold until next year after condo siding project is done.
• Make sure there's space in storage closet for a bicycle. POSTPONED due to wintry weather.
• Get a bicycle! POSTPONED due to wintry weather.

New items:

• Attend concerts: (maybe) Asobi Seksu at Chop Suey, Friday March 4 (SKIPPED in favor of the KEXP post-pledge-drive party); Pogo also at Chop Suey, Thursday March 10 (DONE); EDIT: Warpaint at Neumos, Sunday March 20 (DONE); Sarah Vowell (book reading) at Town Hall Theatre, Monday March 28 (SKIPPED due to Farida's birthday).
• Spend (at least) 4 hours per weekday on work.
• Update project list with 2010 work.
• Revise marketing one-sheet version of resume with general focus (editing skills, desktop publishing, other).
• Set up basic web page with information on professional services.
• Post concert write-ups/summaries for the rest of 2010. DONE
• Get a check-up and teeth cleaning for Nimiel.
• Decide upon and start new series of exercises.

Clearly one thing I should try is to just put some of these down on my calendar on specific days. I tend to be reluctant to do that, because I know that if any paid work projects come in, those will take precedence. However, because so many of these list items are things that can be done "whenever", I end up just never tackling them. So I'm going to have to assign them to some days.

First, however, I have some projects and events already scheduled on my calendar. I have three volunteer shifts for the KEXP Spring Membership Drive this week: this afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, and Friday afternoon. Next Monday I'm also doing the wrap-up data entry shift in the mid-day. Then the rest of the week and the following Monday, I'm working on contract full-time at KEXP, auditing the data entry. So, I may be able to schedule some of these tasks for this Thursday or the weekend, but otherwise it'll be a couple weeks. 

Right now, I have a work project to finish up before bedtime.