General update
As ever, it’s been a while since I updated, so it’s about time for a catch-up.
Work continues to go reasonably well: my earnings in January actually came pretty close to my outgoings, which is the first time that’s happened since I went ‘freelance’. So far this month, carefully-unnamed-publisher has commissioned me to translate two more (slightly shorter) books and we’ve agreed a rate which is still well below standard professional rates, but is a 50% rise on the per word rate for the first book, which was quite flattering. The main reason for taking that work at such low rates is that I get to be pretty flexible about when it’s finished, as the school job obviously takes priority. Speaking of the school job, things got a bit interesting this week (she says, cryptically. There may be a locked update about that sometime in the next week or so). It was only by sheer luck that it didn’t all go completely tits-up: the office staff had either not been told I don’t check my school email every day, or didn’t have my phone number, and there was about 24 hours between the ‘this needs doing urgently’ email to me and the timing of the Very Important Thing about which they also didn’t think to contact the Chair of Governors directly.
Meanwhile, in ‘real life’, the standard gaming-in-the-week with one group (including another new player) and Sunday lunch with slightly overlapping group continue. I also had a good time at the recent Invocation night with nezumi_sama and saw Inside Llewyn Davis at the cinema with A. As a film about a not-very-successful artist who’s not-very-successful partly because he sticks to his principles and partly because he can be a bit of a thoughtless arse, it’s not always comfortable viewing, but it’s a Coen brothers film, so it’s all extremely well done, and there were some genuinely funny moments.
Preparation for Whitby continues. A and I have ended up buying full weekend tickets, as the Saturday-only tickets are already sold out. It turns out it’ll still probably only end up being three nights out, though, as Nostalgia and Recollection are apparently merging to create a single night, Restoration, on the Sunday.
I also managed to read five books in January. If I can keep up anything close to that pace, I may even have my bookpile down to a sensible size by the end of the year. Of course, the more I read, the less I get around to writing anything like reviews (I still haven’t done the ones form the end of 2013!). I guess I’m going to have to decide whether to do reviews at all in future…
Work continues to go reasonably well: my earnings in January actually came pretty close to my outgoings, which is the first time that’s happened since I went ‘freelance’. So far this month, carefully-unnamed-publisher has commissioned me to translate two more (slightly shorter) books and we’ve agreed a rate which is still well below standard professional rates, but is a 50% rise on the per word rate for the first book, which was quite flattering. The main reason for taking that work at such low rates is that I get to be pretty flexible about when it’s finished, as the school job obviously takes priority. Speaking of the school job, things got a bit interesting this week (she says, cryptically. There may be a locked update about that sometime in the next week or so). It was only by sheer luck that it didn’t all go completely tits-up: the office staff had either not been told I don’t check my school email every day, or didn’t have my phone number, and there was about 24 hours between the ‘this needs doing urgently’ email to me and the timing of the Very Important Thing about which they also didn’t think to contact the Chair of Governors directly.
Meanwhile, in ‘real life’, the standard gaming-in-the-week with one group (including another new player) and Sunday lunch with slightly overlapping group continue. I also had a good time at the recent Invocation night with nezumi_sama and saw Inside Llewyn Davis at the cinema with A. As a film about a not-very-successful artist who’s not-very-successful partly because he sticks to his principles and partly because he can be a bit of a thoughtless arse, it’s not always comfortable viewing, but it’s a Coen brothers film, so it’s all extremely well done, and there were some genuinely funny moments.
Preparation for Whitby continues. A and I have ended up buying full weekend tickets, as the Saturday-only tickets are already sold out. It turns out it’ll still probably only end up being three nights out, though, as Nostalgia and Recollection are apparently merging to create a single night, Restoration, on the Sunday.
I also managed to read five books in January. If I can keep up anything close to that pace, I may even have my bookpile down to a sensible size by the end of the year. Of course, the more I read, the less I get around to writing anything like reviews (I still haven’t done the ones form the end of 2013!). I guess I’m going to have to decide whether to do reviews at all in future…