Home

Advertisement

Customize
  Journal   Friends   Calendar   User Info   Memories
 

Even in a little thing

23rd November, 2009. 2:22 pm.

Something cool to distract you while I pretend to work. Dealing with racism is way more complicated that this, but dealing with most apparently-racist statements isn't.

Make Notes

23rd November, 2009. 12:11 am.

Today was the last day of my worldbuilding class, and I now understand why my mind inhabits the past instead of analysing it (remember, a few weeks ago I was mourning the temporary loss of historian-Gillian and her historiographical capacity?)*. I was explaining to my students, you see, about the need to play with their learning and to take it on board.

I'm a bit besotted right now with the need to create an environment that feels real. My students were a bit addicted to writing every fact I gave them. I was trying to get them to do exercises that would help them with techniques and they were telling me "This is useful. Let me just write it down."

Now, I can hardly deny that I utter great words of wisdom. Even when I say stupid things, I shall claim they're great words of wisdom, largely to see how far astray I can lead everyone. That wasn't the point, though. The point was that, without grand stratagems** for transforming knowledge to understanding, any worlds we built in class would be hollow and will read hollow on the page should they be used in a novel. There are good novels written using hollow worlds, but there are much better ones written with worlds that are alive to the reader.

There are so many ways of turning theoretical world building into an understanding that's good for writing. My mind inhabiting the past and investing in key figures is one. Laying out a table with plot trigger points and a character's possessions is another. Maps and timelines, character life histories, role playing games, or even mentally walking down the streets of a created town are others.

The exercise we used in class was taking the basic design of a building (a house last week, a castle this week). Last week I had them add the people dynamic to it: we discussed how different parts of the house were used. This week we looked at the time dynamic: we discussed how the functions of a particular castle changed over time in response to changing circumstances.

And that was what I did with my afternoon. I discovered why my mind has been so very odd these last two months. I also did my best to make the minds of others just as odd.



*The punctuation in that sentence is so evil I decided to make it worse with a footnote. Besides, footnotes are fun. The world needs more footnotes. This world, not the world of my novels. I know one person who will never forgive me if I add footnotes to novels again.

**Grand stratagems are obviously big piles of semiprecious stones in many layers. I need more grand stratagems in my life. The world needs footnotes and I need pretty rocks.

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

22nd November, 2009. 10:28 pm.

I was going to post something cheerful last night, for Virginia Lee. She found my posts about the finances of writers far too sober. I agreed with her, too, and so obviously did the hordes of people who failed to comment. I was serious when I asked for corrections and emendations - this is something I really, really need to understand. (I need to understand everything - that's the way my brain works. If something doesn't make entire sense, I will fret about it till it does.)

I was going to thank a bunch of people (who are not guilty of any of the flaws in my posts - those were all my own doing): Sean Williams, Alma Alexander, Sarah Zettel, Nicole Murphy, [info]callistra, Narrelle, [info]kulpunya, [info]littenz, [info]little_foxy and [info]graywave. For the record, I know everyone's names, but I'm not clear whether they want to use their LJ identities or their writerly selves. Let me know if this is you and you would like your name whole and proper and I will change your identity. I am a whiz at changing identities today!

Why I didn't get round to doing any of that was that I was out enjoying myself. I watched the whole of Season 2 of Primeval, with a friend. I paid for it today, though. Except for teaching (which was lovely), today has been a bit difficult.

I told my mother I would come down and take care of her, and she announced to me that she would be well by Tuesday. I think she was worried I would descend on her and cook. She seems to think I have exotic food tastes, or like hot spices. Spices are good for pneumonia.

My mother really is a lot better. She walked upstairs, even, earlier today. I'm just a worry-wart.

I can't do a boppy post tonight, but I might be able to do one about the cool moment my students and I had today. Watch this space. Actually, don't watch this space. Get yourself a cuppa. That's what I'm going to do, after all.

Read 6 Notes -Make Notes

21st November, 2009. 2:30 pm. Fiction and money part 2

Yesterday's post was all about stating the obvious. I wouldn't have had to write it if so many people didn't assume that income is optional for many writers.

Today I'm going to work through the list of overheads and expenses and other stuff. Like any small business, these items vary from writer to writer and the problems that need to be addressed also vary*. Keep in mind that writing income can fluctuate wildly and that if a writer draws on their reserves to meet one of the needs listed below, they may not have income to cover basic living expenses. Or they may. It's unpredictable. We can't just spend up to the limit of our credit card and wait for Thursday**.

I've divided all the material various writers have given me into categories, to simplify things. Since businesses vary so considerably, the line between what's normal for a business and what has to be done for a particular person to be able to work in the business can be drawn in a number of places.

Business expenses (sort of an overview)
Sean Williams has broken down a bunch of the business expenses in the post I quoted so extensively yesterday. He emailed me the link and I looked and thought "Neat – I remember him posting this." Then I remembered "I ought to look closely at it." Then I thought "Why don't we all get safe public service jobs and give up on novels?" Here's a blown-up version of the most important graphic.

Basic equipment
Things like computer and peripherals, office consumables, phone. The easiest way to think about it is to consider that a writer has an office or formal workplace. The office/workplace may be oddly configured sometimes, but it still exists and it needs office equipment. It's hard to talk to an editor with no phone or internet.

I don't know how one would write a novel without basic equipment. Even Jane Austen needed paper and pen and a table. She also needed a blotter to hide her current work, so that no-one would know she was writing, and the capacity to post her finished manuscript to London. This leads us to services.

Services
Writers' offices require certain servicing. These can overlap with household needs when we work from home. Services include things like electricity, water, sewer, garbage/rubbish collection, telephone, internet, insurance, rates and/or property taxes, post. Various forms of insurance, bank fees, paperwork could fit in here, or even have their own heading. Time costs as well as financial ones need to be allowed for whenever services are involved. Every time a writer queues to pay a bill, that's time they're not working on fiction. The same goes for wear and tear – replacing or fixing things takes time out from writing, and so is a cost.

Wear and tear
A standard work-related expense. Just as crucial as disposing of rubbish and having electricity. A lot of things fit into wear and tear – anything that's essential to a writer for work that breaks down or gets old, basically. A dead computer is a serious problem when that computer is used to earn their income. There's also wear and tear on the body and mind, which brings me to leave.

Leave
The fact that the writer pays by not working rather than an employer giving days off still has to be factored in. Same with bereavement leave, holiday leave and any other sort of time off. Being self-employed (which is essentially what most novel writers are) means that the money and time for all kinds of leave have to be factored into finances.

Taxes
Writers who are not hobbyist pay taxes. Refunds usually come in the following tax year (well, they do for me and the writer who commented on US taxes). What this often means is we pay taxes up front on big lump sums (like advances) and then recover some of it later on. Most writers also have an accountant. I did my own taxes when I wasn't self-employed, but then it became complicated and now I need help (I probably need all kinds of other help, too, but let's not go there).

Health and retirement
Two big items are superannuation and healthcare. With no employer to provide, they have to come out of the money a writer makes. Whether you regard them as business overheads or not depends on your definition of human resources, I suspect. The truth is, though, that not many writers have enough money left after everything else to get superannuation. Healthcare provision (its nature and extent) depends heavily on which country you're in – it's a giant other topic.

Research
Research can include books, internet access for internet research, my recent trip to Sydney and a bunch of other things. So many non-writers ask where ideas come from. One of the answers is 'through research and hard work.' Sometimes it just takes time (time is a cost, remember), but research expenses can be significant. Like other expenses and overheads some are tax deductible, but some aren't.

Promotional expenses
In a dream world, books sell themselves or publishers do all the work. The reality is that, more and more, writers are expected to do a substantial amount of work (time cost) and even in making and distributing promotional material. Getting the word out about a new book or project is a part of the writing business these days. Examples various writers gave to me included making bookmarks, fridge magnets, business cards, travelling to cons, donating services (time cost as well as donation of the service itself).

Memberships in professional organisations
Just what professional organisations do writers join? It varies from writer to writer. Just like everything else.I'm not a member of every professional organisation I ought to be, because of the cost.

Personal expenses
Some basic living expenses have to be taken otherwise writing cannot happen. This includes things like food, drink, clothes, education, healthcare, childcare, care of frail relatives. Technically, they're mostly not business expenses or overheads, but, as Sarah Zettel said "I suppose I could plunk my kid in front of the TV for eight hours a day while I work..."

These are just as much issues with writers as they are with anyone else in paid employment. That many writers work from home can mask this. Basically, if something can't be done by someone in a normal fulltime job, then the writer has to sort it out and allow money for it or take time out of their job (writing) in order to meet the need. This comes out of the income earned part of a writer's life ie the money made from a book after tax, agent's fees etc have all been taken out. Remember that portion of the % of a % of each book sold is the writer's equivalent of a salary.

How many books does it take to make a liveable wage for a writer? That's the big question. A liveable wage is what's left after the business essentials are dealt with. Some of these essentials are overheads. And that was what started these posts.



* These two years my biggest timesink is deaths, oddly, and long phone calls sorting out the consequences of deaths. I'm hoping that relatives and friends will decide to live forever, starting tomorrow, and that I shall have more time to be self-centred and obnoxious and maybe follow up with more of the promotional stuff I really ought to be doing with 2 new books and a rash of short stories.

** Australian Federal Public Service payday. I live in a city where every second Thursday lots of people go shopping and drinking and celebrate having money again.

Make Notes

20th November, 2009. 11:21 pm. Fiction and money

This post is about overheads, and it isn't. I read all the emails and all the comments on my two posts about overheads for writers and realised that we weren't all thinking about the same subject. I thought it might be a good idea to spell out (for myself, as much as for anyone else) how everything fitted together.

There are many people who know far more than I do about the money side of novel writing. If any of you have additions or emendations or better explanations, I'd appreciate your comments. Please also feel free to lie through your teeth and say nice things about my two posts.

Two posts? Yes. You don't want to know how long my first draft was. After I got rid of most of the jokes, it was still too long. Even after I deleted digressions, it made enough for two blogposts.

I want to number things, or something, but instead, I'm going to start by belabouring the obvious: the money paid to a writer because of a book contract isn't profit. It's a writer's income. Fortunately, Sean Williams (one of the kind souls who emailed me thoughts and ideas) has given me the perfect graphic to explain this. In Sean's piechart, you want the section labelled 'for me'. You can also see where the rest of the income from his books goes. Of that, the one we're mostly interested in here is 'expenses.'

The income described in Sean's piechart is proportionate. It doesn't cover a regular sum of money or predictable earnings. Sean's breakdown is his income over time. It's very clear where his income goes in a year and what proportion he gets to take home to pay for groceries.

Take a look at another of his pictures. Make sure you're sitting down. This is a graph of the changes in amount of that income over time.

Don't look at the wonderfully high peaks or the very depressing troughs. Think of it as a day-to-day way of earning a living. Consider what it's like planning a life where you have absolutely no idea if you're going to get $50,000 or $5 in your next pay. Knowing that, for most writers, pay is at the low end of the scale.

That was the perspective I needed to give before anything else would make sense. Now we can start talking about other stuff. Stuff that eats into that income, whether it's rolling up to a gorgeous high, or has just plummeted into non-existence. Stuff that has to be allowed for from that strangely rollercoastering income.

[info]littenz pointed out that there are terminology issues in considering that other stuff. Specifically, what many writers consider as overheads, have other meanings to other people (which might be what tripped me up with that bookseller). Rather than argue about terms, what I thought I would do was look at the various things writers encounter and have to allow for in order to keep working professionally. Some of these might be overheads, some expenses, some hard to categorise. It's not a complete list. I created it from my own experience and from those emails and comments I've received over the last week.

There's one definition that's unavoidable, however. When I say 'writer,' for the purposes of this blogpost, I mean a fiction writer who makes their living (or significant part of their living) from their writing. There are many writers who write perfectly beautifully, but who write as a hobby. The way one deals with costs, expenses, overheads, life choices when the activity is a hobby is quite different to the way the way one deals with exactly the same thing when it's income.

Teaching is my main source of income right now and writing my secondary, but the teaching is as sporadic as the income from writing, so most of my calculations are similar to those made by someone whose whole income comes from fiction. I'm not alone, either. Quite a few writers have portfolio existences: income comes from a variety of places. My income comes from roughly the same sources as Sean Williams but all the proportions are different. No two writers will have quite the same division, but almost all of us have money from more than one source. Sometimes it evens out the rollercoaster. Sometimes it makes it nauseatingly topsy-turvy.

That's a really good place to finish for today. I'll give you the second post tomorrow or maybe later tonight, depending on when the heatwave breaks. Please forgive any addling of the brain in these posts: it's been a difficult week.

Read 3 Notes -Make Notes

20th November, 2009. 4:05 pm.

Today just gets stranger and stranger. A fire in Fyshwick means the refrigerator people have been told to get out, promptly. They just rang me to say they have loaded my fridge onto their ute and will be right over. It's an ill wind... this particular ill wind hit at 38.9 degrees C and caused CanTurf* to catch on fire.



*or its environs

Read 5 Notes -Make Notes

20th November, 2009. 11:10 am.

My day so far:

My mother has pneumonia. She's very perky with it and totally peeved she has to cancel everything this weekend. She's already done more things in this morning than I do in two full days, so she is quite ill without being debilitated, which is a mystery. A good mystery, I admit, because pneumonia is not something one wishes on anyone, especially not one's mother.

My fridge is coming at 5 pm. If I say this enough it will be true.

It's over 33 degrees and 11 am. This is OK, because I'm about to have lots of coffee or tea. I'll make up my mind when I get there. I have milk and cherries and other fruit. I also have two slices of bread as a special treat for lunch. I might mope about lack of refirgeration, but my friends have been very good to me and I suspect most of the miseries are caused by the weather.

I just found a 1961 penny. Is is good luck, or just that I forgot to put it away when I used it in class one day?

I really, really, really don't want to work today, but I really, really, really have no choice. If I get my act together, I might do that blogpost on what the hidden costs of writing can be a bit later, when I've done other stuff.

Make Notes

19th November, 2009. 5:42 pm.

It was 37 degrees today and I'm still waiting for my fridge to be delivered. Everyone's gone home for the day from the firm that's taking the old and bringing the new. I rang ten minutes ago to ask what was happening, and no-one answered.

Unless they're taking a very circuitous route home (possible - it appears that many machines have broken down in the heat) I'm fridgeless for another day. I've run out of ice and dinner is improvised from the stuff that will be quite foul in three more hours. Very strange meals I've had all this week. Except the day when friends came to the rescue. One day since I came back from Sydney. One meal that was normal. In all those days.

If the fridge folks had said "Can't get you anything till Friday or Saturday" I would have been able to rescue more and I would have been able to avail myself of the kind invitations to dinner. But I can't go out while waiting here, and now the ice is gone, the last bottles and jars are probably going to have to go. Unless I can do more inventive cooking, tonight. I've nowhere cool to store anything, though, so the inventive cooking is going to have to be of things that don't need cool storage.

All those posts I promised will have to wait till I'm less jumpy. I want that doorbell to ring!

The funny thing is that with all my food history, I can deal without refrigeration if I get to plan it and go to the shops. I could even do it without ice if I had to. The problem is now that I get told "Tomorrow" and tomorrow I get told "The day fter tomorrow." I can plan for a week, but it's hard to plan when you don't know how long for and when you can't leave the home to go up the street for more ice or for fresh milk because you've been expecting a delivery all day.

I know this is normal for Canberra, but it's a real pain!

Read 6 Notes -Make Notes

19th November, 2009. 12:49 am.

It's nearly tomorrow and the heat has addled my brain. Or is that further addled my brain? Anyhow, I was going to tell you about ferries.

It turns out (why didn't I know this years ago?) that for a mere $17, you can travel anywhere and everywhere on Sydney public transport. This means that you can catch ferries and busses in all sorts of exciting combinations.

I started in Drummoyne and bought my $17 ticket on the ferry to Parramatta. Except it doesn't go as far as Parramatta. Even the other ferry doesn't go as far as Parramatta when tides are low, it seems. So I only got a little way into the river before finding myself going back into Sydney Harbour. It was enough, though.

What did I see on the way towards Parramatta and back? Excuse me while I flick past my photos from Thursday (one meat safe, 2 ice chests, 2 coppers, one toilet c 1846 - my classes next year will love me).

I have lots of glorious pictures of rocks and the shape of the river shoreline. Some places have limestone in layers, and some have tiny elegant beaches. Occasionally there is green grass right down to the shore, but mostly there is rock and shrub. Lovely textures. I now have it very clearly in my mind what a limestone/coal coastline is like and have readjusted my baby map. This means I have to do a bigger map, I guess, and maybe some streetplans. Pity I can't draw.

Anyhow, some pictures are purely because I could take them, and not for the shape of the shoreline or the nature of river weathering at all. I have some shots of jetties, just in case I need jetties. I think the ferry people thought I was quite mad, because at least one of my photos specifically shows the way the vertical supports react to time and tide and turn from stern and strong to sadly decayed. These ones are more reminders to me of the fact that this happens and that any scene set on wood that is over water is going to have interesting sounds and maybe some rot. Visual notes to myself.

I have lots of pictures of Watergate. I can email one to anyone who really wants one. It's a very nice, lunatically-inclined Watergate, too. And bridges. I have many bridges and aspects thereof. I had forgotten that bridges might be useful. Palm trees, too. Pictures to remind myself of soil changes and of microclimates, basically.

After all this, the ferry kindly dropped me at Darling Harbour, where I visited the National Maritime Museum. I was given permission to take photos there and so I have lots of nice pictures of fortifications and various ship's things. Also ships. I have a single picture of the HMAS Vampire, to email to anyone who needs such a thing. Specially, too, I have lots of photos of a full-size copy of the Endeavour and of a miniature one, showing structure. My mind peoples these ships with the most inappropriate souls, doing odd things. I think it might have been telling me, at that point, that I was hungry. I bought a coffee, but I dropped it. Don't ask.

I walked to the Queen Victoria Building at that point (taking photos of some zombies along the way - I didn't want to ask what zombies were doing in the middle of Sydney on a Saturday, but they were very happy zombies and had smokes) and checked out Galaxy and bought something to eat. I caught a bus down George Street and just made the ferry to Manly.

My trip to Manly had two purposes. The first was to sort out the headlands and the fortifications for my invented country. I have lots more photos of rocks. Also some of Fort Denison. Yachts kept getting in my way, and so did pretty sparkles on the water. The second was to buy an icecream (chocolate and rum and raisin) and walk along the beach. Which I did. Then I caught a ferry back, met my cousin and we went to see some rather cool modern art.

I did take pictures of the Bridge, the Opera House and other Landmarks, should anyone want them to admire or scoff at or generally wish they had been there. If it's just one person, I'll email, but if a whole bunch of you really do want to see my photos, I'll open a Flickr account, or something.

And that was my ferry nice day. The sunburn is all fading and I'm back home.

Read 14 Notes -Make Notes

18th November, 2009. 3:53 pm.

I shall write about ferries later today. I shall give you a food and writers post tomorrow. On Friday I'll do the post I promised on what it costs to write fiction (keep those useful thoughts coming in!). Because, yes, I'm catching up with things.

This is despite an accident near the bus on the way in to teaching this morning that resulted in me being so late they rang up, worried. This is also despite things going overtime after work, so I've only just got home. This is also despite the weather, which has me reading a Significant Weather Media Release, because if we're going to continue having February temperatures in November, I want to know why. Not that it tells me, but it does affirm the general hotness and my thoughts on this being a bushfire summer. Except the fires have already started. And I have a weather headache. And it turns out that Canberra, being in the mountains, is way cooler than other places, as ever. If this weather is cool, then I don't want to be in Wilcania or Broken Hill.

Other things that have made my day busy include getting to borrow the first season of the Sarah Jane Adventures (yay for the generosity of Dr Who fans!), seeing the death mask of one William Westwood (who had a very big head for his height) and contemplating units that describe time. The latter is due to one of my students saying "it was during the length of a myth." I find a burning need for a list of unexpected units of time: the length of a myth, the breath of an apothogem, the sigh of a memory, the vastness of a history, the march of a folktale.

That last unit was a pun. This is not a good thing. I need to work to avoid more puns, especially since the puns are puny today. The heat has not addled my brain (since today is cool - under 31 degrees so far) - my brain was addled anyway. It's just a very odd day.

Read 4 Notes -Make Notes

Back A Page