The weekend was manic, but I accomplished much. My Things to Do list is now of manageable size–it’s still large, but I no longer feel so overwhelmed–and the house is cleaner (spurred about by the arrival of sara1221 later today). I even found a skein of yarn, which is sort of like finding candy–the kind of candy you can’t eat but that you can crochet with.
fosteronfilm convinced me to try Radio Yahoo. He likes how you can customize your own station by rating the songs it selects for you based upon some initial preference selections. I’m finding it distracting. I keep being pulled out of whatever I’m doing whenever there’s a song change to rank it. And also, since I’m using the free version, it pops up with commercials every few songs–the same commercials, about three of them, over and over again. I’m thinking I’ll probably go back to playing MP3s on my computer.
Wallace & Gromit won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature! Yay! Although I wish they’d decrease the number of hokey skits the presenters do at the award ceremony so the winners could have more than ten seconds to give their acceptance speeches. It seems rude to shoo them off stage, especially when they’re supplanted by the likes of Ben Stiller doing an exceptionally lame green screen gag.
Writing Stuff
While I greatly enjoy what I do for Tangent, there are times when being Tangent‘s managing editor is also incredibly aggravating. I find myself wondering whether I’d be better off with the extra time to focus on my writing.* I guess that’s why there are so many editors who end up doffing their editorial hats in lieu of their writing careers.
Do people view editors who are also writers differently than plain-jane “I just write” writers? I can’t help but think of, say, Gardner Dozois as an editor first and foremost, even though he’s no longer the editor of Asimov’s**. With my myriad editorial hats, I find myself wondering if my readers (those dozen or so of you wonderful and discriminating people out there) see me as primarily an editor with writerly aspirations or a writer who has a proclivity for editing.
Yep, labels leave me blinking in the dust. I should quit trying to tangle with them.
*Any of you Tangent reviewers who just went twitchy, don’t read more into this than a desire to vent some steam. My Tangent hat remains jammed on my head. Also, lemme make it absolutely clear that none of y’all are in any way contributories to my current pressure build-up.
**Not, mind you, that I have the hubris to liken my endeavors to Gardner Dozois’s prodigious accomplishments.
Re: care
Mmmf. Yeah, I learned the importance of le blog caveat the last time I felt the need to vent and got a series of comments from folks who no way, no how ought to have thought I was speaking about them, and yet were anxious. I felt terribly guilty.
I actually think of you as a writer who happens to edit.
I agree with your comments about the speeches vs skits and was also pleased that Nick Park won another Oscar, considering he comes from my part of the world.
It was only this weekend that I found out you were editor for Tangent when I went online to check out my competition for the Shadow Box review that I wrote! 😉
Glad to hear your to-do list has dropped a little, it is a great feeling!
Why does that italics thing do that when I decided where the gaps were? Humph!
You’re a writer who happens to edit and let know one else say otherwise, not even your evil twin! Got it?
And methinks you got more than a dozen readers. For every one person who comments on your LJ you can bet there’s close to 50-100 just checking things out….often…unseen….like lurking Nosferatu….
Ok, no more World of Darkness for me this week.
You’re a writer, first and foremost. The editing stuff is just a hobby 🙂 No, seriously, you definitely get a writer “label”, with, in very small letters “also does editing on the side”.
And I fully understand the need to vent some steam (erm…since I did it barely two days ago, I could hardly stand around and tsk on you). Sometimes it just does you good to scream (well, type in very large letters, at any rate).
And with that, I’ll be off to celebrate The Curse of the Were-rabbit’s Oscar. Fully derserved.
For some reason I always think of ‘mainstream’ writers and editors as just that, with very little crossover. But for some reason when it comes to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy realm writers and editors seem to become interchangable. I can scarecly think of any writers who have not edited, or editors who do not write. Personally I think doing both makes you better at both. (But I think of Gardner primarily as a writer, but I guess that was just me) 😉
Definitely an author!! “Author of ‘The Storyteller’s Wife’ and ‘Souls of Living Wood’, among other things”, if you want specifics. Oh, and to prove her brilliance, she also edits. 😀
By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you–I noticed that DKA had been moved to the Quarterly section at Tangent?
Erm. DKA isn’t a quarterly? Oops.
I couldn’t find on the site how frequently y’all published when I created the category for it in Tangent, so I consulted Ralan.com, and he sez you’re quarterly.
What’s the correct frequency? I’ll see about fixing it ASAP.
Hehehe. It’s okay–it’s kind of hard to tell. We think of ourselves as a monthly magazine; if we ever reach the point where finances make it feasible to have a print version, it will come out monthly (like TSR). But because of our rolling content, we have something coming out every week, so you could almost consider us weekly. 🙂
Basically, whatever works best for you and your reviewers works for us. 😀
Okay, I’ve fixed it. DKA is now properly listed on Tangent as a monthly. La!
I would tend to think what labels people put on you depends on their first impression, or whatever impression they put importance on. What I mean is, for me, I first read your stuff on Critters, and first saw you there, before you became Tangent-Queen. So I think of you as a writer, and I imagine other folks in my position would think likewise. But if someone only had experience with you as an editor, they might think differently.
What I Think of Eugie As
Um, I primariily think of Eugie as a Eugie and secondarily as the owner of many, many fuzzy things with dark beedy eyes that stare glassy stares of judgement from where they perch among your library of tomes as resolute as fluffy stones, baring mute witness upon the world, but for the occasional announcement of “Foot.” *nod*
Re: What I Think of Eugie As
“Fluffy stones”?
*mmmf* Oh dear. Are you being traumatized by the stuffed animals in our library when you visit? We could throw sheets over them so their little beady eyes wouldn’t bore into you while you slept . . . but then you’d have their little ghostly fuzz-lumps looming out of the shadows.
You’re an editor? Never noticed.