Survery Jones: My Political Compass

It's been a while since I have updated this blog. I've been overwhelmed this summer. For most of the month of June, I was down with kidney stones, a sprained ankle and moving. Since I got better, I have been working my behind off trying to get the city house ready to sell (JUST in time for the housing market to go completely south). But, I was reading Crooks and Liars yesterday morning (as usual) and I came upon this nifty little political test.

The idea behind it is that there are two components to conservatism. There is an economic scale defined by the extremes of Communism (communalism) vs neo-liberalism (libertarianism) and there is a social scale defined by its extremes Authoritarianism (fascism) vs Libertarianism (anarchism). Put more simply: authority vs anarchy and communism vs unrestrained free markets. For example, here's how some famous world leaders rate on the political compass:



So, I took the test (I'd really love to see my neo-con friend Heather take this test. It's interesting!). Here's where I fall:





It appears I am just to the right of Gandhi, which I do not mind. I am a bit more liberal than I though of was, perhaps because of my libertarian leanings (and libertarians normally consider themselves on the right). But on this scale libertarian socially is left while libertarian economically is right and I tend to be more libertarian socially than economically.

But what's really telling is this image from Crooks and Liars about where the candidates fall. Even the MOST liberal of the democrats are FAR more authoritarian and far more economically libertarian. They are not very darned liberal AT ALL. No wonder I am not terribly thrilled about ANY of the presidential candidates!

I should note, at times, I found the test to be a bit too black and white. There were questions where I didn't exactly agree or disagree. Where the question itself seemed unreal. Anyway, so much for my survey jones. I'll be quite pleased when skating season begins again and when I have time to follow it.
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In other news, my husband made Chief (E7). In the Navy, this is a BIG deal. They put you through a six week indoctrination that involves a lot of silly stuff, more volunteer work, and a whole lot of working late. I am presently conducting my marriage my cell phone. And after 5 years of not smoking, it took exactly five days for the indoc process to stress him out enough that he is back to killing himself.

No, I'm not very happy/

Five weeks and counting til pinning.
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I've joined a new team blog. I haven't posted yet, due to email problems but when I do, the new blog is Mama Needs a Book Contract. It's a blog about writing and parenting (or in my case, women's issues). Looking forward to seeing you there!

Editor's Choice!

I read Salon pretty often. Recently after the VT murders (which hit me really hard as you well know, I wrote a comment on an article on what English teachers ought to do about students who write disturbing stuff. Out of 122 comments, mine was chosen as one of 20 Editor's Choices. I'm tickled. Read my comment. You may need to click through a "day pass" advertisement if you don't have a Salon subscription.

The last day... and an ob figure skating

This week has been hellish, I tell ya.

My mother is visiting this week and as my MIL says, "houseguest are like fish, they stink after 3 days." No, honestly, I love my mom, but she is tiring herself out and she really seems to resent the fact that I am working my ass off from dawn to dusk. I don't know why that is. She feels put upone because she's not allowed to bother me. Okay... she's not allowed to bother me. It's a fact.

But I shouldn't get annoyed when she calls it "guard duty" when my US Navy husband has "duty." He's not guarding anything, he's just covering the night shift this week. It's inacurate. But I shouldn't nit-pick.

Truth is, I am TIRED.

I've been busting my ass for weeks. It's allergy season. I had two week long projects this week each of which would have taken the whole work week and I had to do BOTH of them. I did, but at the cost of not being able to do much else that wasn't optional. I spent 2 days at the doctor (one for me and one for Akey). I spent 3 days working. I'm beat.

The good news--if it can be called good news--is that I finished the project for the employer which is laying me off. I've spent some time prospecting and sent some resumes. I don't see much, but I guess I can keep prospecting. I sent a couple "perfect" ones, but no response so far. I find myself more drawn to regular working job that guarantee X hours per week rather than individual articles.

I made some major headway on writing chapter 9 of Google Analytics 2.0. Jerri says that Google announced that they are beginning migrating everyone to the new version. This is great, as Google Analytics 2.0 went up on Amazon already. I've started tracking it with my booktracker. It's pretty pathetic at present. It'll improve. The current edition Amazon Rank Tracker is still doing okay.

So, last but not least, I saw this video this morning and the first thing I thought--before I saw the caption--was, "boy, this looks like modern figure skating." So, here's your video this week.



Enjoy...

And yes, they are the famous Ross Sisters singing contortionists. The video is from 1944.

What a bad week...

This has been a crazy, stressful week (on top of about 8 crazy stressful weeks just passed). My anxiety disorder is in high gear, meaning that I'm constantly on edge and restless and worried. We've put a contract on a house that could well be overwhelming, but is what we can closest afford (or COULD have afforded). I'm deep navy blue over the shootings at Va Tech. And yesterday, to top it all off, I got a call from my most major client, the one which has, for the last few months provided 25% of our income (and the only REGULAR income I, personally, have, and about 75% of my revenue), and was laid off due to plummeting profits.

I just kind of stood there, listening to my supervisor (this was an actual part time job rather than a contract) nodding and going "uh huh" at appropriate times, trying not to freak out and cry in front of him. It seems the SEC has changed rules about how the kind of research we do has to be expensed. So instead of being paid out of commissions from the trading desk, it has to be paid for up front in "hard dollars." Real money. As a result, revenues plummeted, and people were being let go. My Red Hat project, for which I was supposed to be lead, wasn't picked up. And as a relatively new hire, I was laid off. I imagine a reporter with more seniority will take my place on my existing project.

I'm still freaking out, really. It's not that I can't replace the revenue. It's that it's damned hard to replace regular, dependable revenue that requires as little energy and brain power as this job did. Yes, I can replace the income, but at the cost of 3x the work... which I really don't have the oomph to do.

And to have it happen NOW. We're buying a more expensive house. I expect costs for our internet service to double (twice as much money for far less bandwidth, sheesh!). Our mortgage will rise by 50%. It couldn't really be much worse--I shouldn't say that, it can ALWAYS be worse. Just when things begin to go well, the sky falls. We never get ahead because through absolutely no fault of my own, bad things happen. Pardon me for whinging, but WHY, OH, WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME?!

I don't need to be depressed and de-energized this week. I have a book project that is still behind. I still have one last project for this job which I will have lost as of April 30. I have a moving to orchestrate and the last bits of paperwork for the mortgage to do. I have kids to get from one thing to another. I have laundry--that never ends.

This sucks. It just sucks.

Utter nonsense

I have been having a completely awful last-7-days. I was away on business last week in San Fransisco. It rained the whole time and I was in constant pain from my arthritis (which the medical plan won't pay for a medication to control, but will pay for something cheaper which leaves me in constant pain). I did get to see a lot of people I care about, but it is just so much fun when you're sore and tired every moment of every day. Then I come home to disaster after disaster—I'm not even going to go into them—the worst of which was my oldest daughter getting the stomach flu AND appendicitis at the same time. And needless to say, I'm in a FUCKING BAD MOOD.

So, a dear friend who means well sent me the following poem "so you want to be a writer?" Go ahead. Go read it. I'll wait. And it just sent me through the roof. What utter and complete nonsense!

Writing is HARD. Writing IS rewriting. Writing is writing when you don't wanna. Writing is being critiqued. Writing is putting food on the table. Writing is not sexy and not glamorous and not always fun, expressive and a delight. Sometimes it's just damned hard work.

So this is my response:

The Professional Writer Responds to Charles Bukowski

If you can write when it's not flowing,
you're a professional writer.

If you can write when your heart, mouth and gut are dry,
you're a professional writer.

If you write despite how HARD it really is,
you're a professional writer.

If you do it for money,
you're a professional writer.

If you do it so you have a bed to sleep in and a roof over your head and a spouse to share it with,
you're a professional writer.

If you have the guts to sit and rewrite over and over and over,
Celebrate! You're a professional writer!

If you do it despite how hard it is to think about it, if you can write in any style any time,
you're a professional writer.

If you can write even when the roar of inspiration is muted,
you're a professional writer.

If you first read it to anyone and you take their critique with equanimity and incorporate their suggestions,
you're a professional writer.

If you're dull and pretentious enough to make a living instead of being a starving artist,
you're a professional writer.

The poseurs of the world have cried themselves to sleep wanting to be YOU.

Add to it.

Do it.

It's not rockets, madness, murder and suicide.
It's professionalism. Do it.

When the sun does not burn and the neither does the gut,
do it.

If you wait to be "chosen" you will waste your life and your talent and your drive.

Do it.

There is no other way.

There never has been.

Figure skating and bad news

I haven't figured out why when I have some novel news, I don't just post it. Maybe because in the throes of dealing with bad news, I don't much want to dwell on it. Anyway, I had sent On the Edge to Thompson/Gale's Five Star line on the recommendation of a published author friend of mine last summer. They read it mainly on her recommendation. And for the next three, she told me again and again how she was sure they would buy it. It was a good book. Gale is a library subscription publisher (rather than a bookstore trade publisher). They would buy it.

Yeah, right.

Thanks for your e-mail, and for submitting your novel On the Edge to us for consideration in the Five Star Expressions line. While we think that your novel is very well written, I'm afraid that it skews too much toward the YA-fiction genre, and therefore, I'm afraid that it is simply not right for our Expressions line, which skews toward a more adult tone and theme (I was hoping this might be the rare exception that could have fit into our line, but I'm afraid that wasn't the case). I thank you for your patience while we reviewed your novel, and wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.

Thanks again, and please let me know if there is anything else we can do.

So, if I'd HAD any hope to begin with, I would have been crushed. As it was, I didn't dare hope, because I knew that I couldn't face another rejection. Losing my agent just about killed me. I couldn't face it again. I didn't hope and as such, I was less disappointed. But it's still a big bummer.

What does that mean? Well, basically, it means that On the Edge is dead. It's been queried to pretty much every possible agent in NY. It's been read by half of the people queried. It's been agented. It been shopped. It's been dumped. No, I'm not putting it out through Lulu or iUniverse. But I will be self-publishing it under the Private Ice imprint when I get around to making it happen. The question remains if I will then try to sell Desperate Times to NY or not. I suppose it depends. But if you love me, buy the book, okay?

~~~

Of course, with bad news, comes good news. For the first time in 2 years, my muse has come for a winter visit. Normally she just sends post cards from Tahiti. But I've been writing for three solid weeks now, and I strongly suspect that if I pace myself, she'll stay the winter. I've written about 25,000 words on The Barunian Incident, which brings the total to just 70 words under 40K. I am SEVENTY words from half done. I don't know whether to celebrate or run screaming through the neighborhood in frustration.

I'm sure, if the muse hangs out, you shall all be treated to the travails of trying to get The Barunian Incident published. I suspect this one might sell. It's sexy. The characters are sympathetic. It's got explosions and sword fighting (and a heroine who KICKS ASS). So far, both my husband and my 11 year old like it. Cross your fingers. The Barunian Incident has been in progress for nearly 5 years. I did the treatment based on a dream I had in 2001 and have worked on it sporadically since. I just want inspiration to hang around long enough to finish.

Oh, and it has NOTHING to do with figure skating.

~~~

On the professional front, I am now blogging for Ars Technica's Infinite Loop, a Macintosh blog. Things are things at Newsforge. I picked up a new client, Off the Record Research and that did nicely paying for Christmas. I'm also in negotiation with two new local clients, both of whom should mean regular income. We'll see. More on that when it happens.

~~~

And to feed my survey taking jones—because I watched return of the King THREE TIMES this weekend (more for boredom than enthusiasm, though the man candy is truly excellent)—here's which LOTR Hero I am: