Fury

I am angry.

Actually, angry doesn't begin to cover it. I'm furious. Enraged. Spitting chips.

I am sick to death of an employer who tells me something must be done, then begrudges every moment I spend doing it. The attitude seems to be that if it can't be billed to a client, it isn't worth doing. Never mind that we have an infrastructure that isn't so much crumbling as crumbled, and that we're shipping way too many bugs to clients.

I am sick to death of being treated like a recalcitrant child whenever my priorities don't match the ever-shifting priorities of On High. Forgive me, but I am not the only human who has never managed to pass telepathy 101.

So, now that I've had my little rant, on with the show. My friend and pro writer Sarah Hoyt has restarted her blog and is updating her website again. Go read it - and enjoy her snippets. She's good.

Kate

An Achievement

Today, for the first time, I have 10 stories out at various markets. It's a strange feeling. I'm really, seriously pursuing my dream. I've managed - despite 50+ hour work weeks - to write a story a week for several weeks straight. I'm making progress (albeit slow) on two of five novel projects. All I need now is to actually sell something ;)

On the work front, life is hectic. A friend's analogy of a juggler with a limit of five balls trying to handle seven balls plus two knives and a running chainsaw comes to mind. Take this last week (PLEASE! Take it!)

I implemented a major upgrade to our company's work tracking tool. Naturally, it had problems. Most were the kind of problems that come when you try to migrate 10GB of data on a server that has less than 1GB free. Lots of data entry for me...

Then there were the unforseen hiccups - I used my login to the tool to test that the upgrade worked. I discovered later that mine was one of the handful of records that had migrated correctly. Lots of data massage.

Eventually got that all sorted out, and got to try to fix some other issues that had been put on hold due to lack of time, including detailed time estimates for new work for a client.

Some of next week's fun things include:

• Long email to the boss, with numbers, about how much just one license of the testing software I've been trialing will save the company. Will need to include ways it can integrate with the internal tool he wants to develop, but be in production much faster than said internal tool.
• Testing software on the client's staging server, to make sure everything is working correctly.
• Testing other software, and trying to keep ahead of the developers working on said software.

This job is a lot of things, but it's certainly never boring! And boy, have I ever learned a lot since I started there.

Kate

Life rolls on

And on. And on.

I'm frantically busy with my job (busy enough that after working 52 hours this week, I'm doing *more* work remotely as I type. Currently am waiting for a major file move operation to complete, so I can clear space on an overloaded server so I can migrate about 15 GB of data to an upgraded database.

In between all of this, I'm trying to write a short story each week, and send at least one short story per week to a publisher.

I currently have 7 shorts in circulation, with about 5 more that are fit to send out. This is the most I've ever had out at any one time.

If that isn't enough to do, I've started revising New Camelot, I'm working on the second of a series of three collaborative novels, and I've got the beginning of yet another novel waiting for me to somehow snatch some time for it.

I've got no sense of proportion...

Kate

Getting back into things

Well.

It's been way too long since I did this. Blame life. It jumped up and bit me again.

On the plus side, I'm writing again, despite not having any time to do anything. I just love my job... I'm the QA person for a small software development company. Said company has some fundamental issues with quality control and work flow. I'm trying to improve things, but... The 50 hour weeks and constant crisis management are wearing thin.

Writing wise, I'm in a story-a-week challenge, where the idea is to write one short story per week. It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be finished. I'm also making bits of progress on two novels. So, writing is good. I'm even submitting what I write.

Today marks a new record for me, with all of three short stories out. Sad. ain't it? I figure if I can send out a story a week as well as write one a week, I'll be doing okay. I can see my spreadsheet of stories out getting very complicated, since sooner or later I'm going to need to track what I've sent to which market and not repeat myself.

Oh, and I'm 'enjoying' one of those truly delightful viruses doing the rounds at the moment. This one features headcold symptoms and joint aches. Bleah.

Kate