…since I posted here! What’s been going on?
Well, the first of what will hopefully be many temporary and short-term gigs with the United States Department of Commerce Census Bureau ended on May 9th. I spent the next week getting my unemployed legs back and diving into client work that had taken an unfortunate but necessary back seat while I enjoyed gainful employment with Uncle Sam.
One of the first things I did was try to re-instate my unemployment insurance. No, I’m not a moocher, thank you very much. I’ve been paying unemployment insurance with every paycheck since 1985. You pay insurance so that it’s there when you need it. I need it.
Except… whoops! If your last job was as a government employee — and I was one for six weeks — you have to go through a whole different set of paperwork, and you can’t do it on-line. You have to print it out and (gasp!) fax or mail it in! I don’t know about you, but I can fill out a form on a website and click “submit” with great faith and confidence, but ask me to put something in an envelope and give it to the postman and I get very nervous. And our fax machine? About twenty years old. Plus, can’t you just imagine the fax machine on the other end? They must get reams of faxes!
I decided to fax the forms and mail them, just to cover my ass. Much to my surprise, I received my new claim form not four days later. Faith in System: Revived. Next check should arrive next week.
Of course, the dole doesn’t bring our household income up to the level to which we are accustomed, and by that, I mean “the level we need in order to stay out of the poorhouse.” So I invoiced my clients, something I had put off while I was making a regular paycheck those six weeks. I bet it made some of them happy… and it brought me a nice bit of padding. Now, I’m invoicing every two weeks so my bank doesn’t empty out and my clients’ banks don’t get broken. Should work out better for all concerned.
One other thing has been instrumental in helping my wife and I survive financially this month: “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights.” Membership subscriptions to the site, my new ongoing episodic serial fiction webzine that launched on May 1st (where have you been?), took care of about half our mortgage payment for the month. This is why I’m asking folks to pay for the fiction I put on that site. No joke: when you give me money in exchange for the words I write, it helps keep the roof over the heads of me, my wife, our two dogs, four cats, and turtle. I’m not running around buying video games and porn with that cash, believe me. Besides, you can get porn for free on the Internet… as I understand it, anyway.
Most of the last ten days, weekends included, have consisted of trying to balance the varying needs of four different clients while making time to write installments of “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights.” I’m trying to get two months ahead of schedule on “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” so that I can also work on some other writing stuff… still trying..! I also just did my second-ever for-pay voice work, and some pro bono narration and voice acting for various podcasts has been done and needs to be done. Deadlines loom.
There are no less than four books I have read with the understanding that I will review them on this blog. I need to write those reviews. And post them, too — I bet the authors expect me to post them.
It hasn’t all be nose-to-grindstone, just mostly. I’ve allowed myself some relaxation time, mostly in the form of pulling my hair out over the NBA semi-finals games, but also by exercising (not enough), socializing briefly with a couple of friends, and spending at least a couple of hours straight with my wife every day.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Right now it’s after eleven at night, I know exactly what I have to do tomorrow (lots) and I don’t have much energy left to expend on tonight. So I’m writing this; saying hello to all of you.
Hello!
Postscript: a few days ago I got an idea for another blog. Stop me. Don’t let me do it. Or, subscribe to “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” so that I can afford to pursue every creative whim that comes into my skull. There are two thousand of you that swing by this blog every month… that’d about do it for me if every one of you subscribed for a year. What say you?
Post-postscript: Yeah, I do pimp the shit out of “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” and it probably grates on some of you because I’m asking you to exchange coin for content. Bear with me. I’m the busker under the bridge, guitar case wide open at my feet, ready to play you a song. It’s a good one, I promise.
Possibly related posts:
Hey Matt! I am so glad that “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights” has been helpful. It’s a great idea. I think you should pimp it more. You’re a writer. As writers, we need to eat too. You see mechanics and lawyers and well… pimps out there pushing their business, so why shouldn’t you? I think people expect writers to be more laid back and perhaps even a bit humble when it comes to their work, but humble doesn’t always pay the bills. So promote, promote, promote! I say. Anything I can do to help, I’m game to try it.
Jenny
Hiya Jenny!
Oh, I’m pimping it, believe me. Two textual and one podcast interview are pending release — and to everyone else, Jenny’s being coy, since one of those will be in her own eMuse webzine!
There are also three podcast interviews in the wild thus far — I’ve appeared on the Dead Robots Society, J.C. Hutchins’ “Hey Everybody,” and the WritingCast.
I’ve made arrangements to do a couple of guest posts on some publishing / new media blogs, and there are two more interviews (so far) that are in the pipe.
I’m also working on a few ways to incentivize other folks to promote “Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights,” including an affiliate program… but that’s still in the works.