Following the muse

When I can tear myself away from listening to "Weekend" by Curve over and over and over again, and I can get myself out of this study, I'll be able to make some progress. An important development in the past week, is that I got a new laptop (one that has a keyboard that works ALL THE TIME, unlike my HP Omnibook, which has a sticky keyboard and necessitates using a full-sized keyboard that I plug into the back. It's actually easier on my hands, than this IBM Thinkpad, but it's also clunky. And it's a lot less portable (being heavier and clunkier and all). Having a laptop that can do everything I need it to do, is critical in this PEAPOD process. Bottom line is, I have to have all the tools I need at my fingertips, and I don't want to have to go from machine to machine to get my work done. I want it all in one package -- my audio recorder and editor and encoder to be integrated into one application... my print creation and formatting to be possible with the same app... my blog text recorded into the same place as my podcasts... my virtual book tour files resident on the same machine as the manuscript and the promotional materials... graphics editors and text editors all in the same bundle. It's one thing, if you're at a company where they have all the high-end stuff and each application needs its own box to function... and they have a PC for each and every app that you use. But when you're doing indie publishing and podcasting and blogging, it all needs to be in the same place.

The one thing I do NOT want integrated, however, is web access to this machine. I'm deliberately NOT online on the machine I do all my work on, because I'm using Windows XP Pro, and what people usually don't realize, is just how unsecure WinXP is -- there's a pretty much wide-open back door built into it, for software updates and such, and all the bad people out there can easily figure out how to get in. They have, and they do. And it's bad, bad news. So, I don't go online with this machine. It's chaste. Virgin. Unsullied by the gang-bang that is the web, these days.

What a difference a full-time job makes...

Picked up a contract doing html and css work for a new company right down the road from where I live. The income is awesome, but now all my time is essentially going into their product and their initiative. That's fine, for the time being. But I have to find my way back to a highly disciplined mode that lets me finish up my books and podcast and blog and all of that. It's probably for the best, because too much time breeds indecision with me. I need to have a whole lot going on, to get a whole lot done.

And now that I'm ramping up with their system and their comps (learning ASP.NET as I go... which is a topic in and of itself), I'm getting my bearings with the work, and I'm getting my balance back between work and the rest of my life outside of work, things will get easier. That's my hope and plan, anyway.

I've been focusing on the first "P" of PEAPOD, for the past month or so -- the Print element of this mix. I've been focused on doing text edits and formatting "Fuel", as well as my poetry. I've collected all my poetry that I wrote over the past 20 years, and I'm publishing five (or six) book-length collections. Because I can. Because I love Lulu.com. Because I promised myself I would, years ago, and I have yet to come through on that promise.

Status for "Fuel" edits: Getting there
The book has been completely edited for style and content (but of course as soon as my partner Laney started reading it, she found things she thinks need to be changed... things like the date on the first page -- should be "2000" not "2005"... d'oh), so there will be more to do and more to come. I've also got a friend reading the manuscript... we'll see what she comes up with.

Status for the "Fuel" Virtual Book Tour: Sad and tardy
I went on vacation in Provincetown, and I'm not sure I ever came back. I'll be recording subsequent readings, starting this weekend, since I now have a new laptop and I've got Audacity loaded into it. It's also a lot faster than the other PC I was using to do my production, so that should help. And I can work anywhere, which is good. Throw the laptop and microphone headset in the car, and go out to a beautiful scenic vista and record my readings there. It could work. And the acoustics inside my little car are probably more conducive to audio production, than my living room or study. It could work.

Status for Podcasts: Even sadder and tardier
Okay, so I built this podcasting platform, Podtopia.net, and I decided I was going to be all over this podcasting thing. Well, yuh, I was... until I got caught up in my "Fuel" edits, and lost track of time. Thing is, when I'm really crankin' on my work, I lose all track of time, and different chores have no meaning or importance for me. It's not that I just forget about them (tho' I often do). I just really don't care about them. I'm serious - I get in this defiant frame of mind and I just don't care at all about anything besides what's right in front of me at the time. Which is good for my productivity and it's good for my employer(s), since it guarantees that they have my full attention. But for the rest of the world that would really, really like me to pay attention to it, it's bad news. The one bright light in all of this, is that Podgrrls.net is rockin' -- getting a new FemFrequency show up there for the world to tap into and enjoy. Still have to update the RSS today, but that will come. That will come.

Status for Blogs: Intermittent updates
I'm feeling pretty positive about my blogging, actually. I've been posting intermittently over the past weeks, so I'm pretty much up to speed on most of my regular blogs. PodBlog and Civil Unions and Sitebasics and VeryPeri are exceptions to that rule, which is ironic, as those are the "money-makers" of the bunch -- they're the ones with potential commercial value, or which support my commercial ventures. Fuel and PEAPOD have been luckier in the bloggin gprocess. They're commercially linked, as well, but the other "guys" are more established. What does this tell me about my blogging inclinations? That I'm more interested in focusing on what's brand-spankin' new and what's up and coming and what's NEXT, than what's established. Established means "old hat" to me... It's untrue and inaccurate, I know, but that's how my gut reacts to them. I want something wondefully novel and seductively fresh. If something's been done, it bores me. And I can't work up the excitement about it.

I know these other blogs matter, and it's totally my doing, that I've lost that lovin' feeling. I know that I have plenty to say about those other topics, and I could probably generate a bit of interest from the general public, if I could just keep up with them... so it's time to do something about my sad, tardy habits.

After all, it is a habit, this blogging thing. As is podcasting. As is publishing.