Saturday

3 November 2018

I love Christmas. No secret there. I look forward to putting up the Whovimas tree and the TARDIS lights around the fireplace, and I love going around and seeing other peoples' yard decorations. I enjoy shopping for gifts, when I'm kind of -meh- about shopping any other time. I sing along to Christmas songs and every year Feliz Navidad gets stuck in my head for a least a week.

But peoples...it's barely November.

I went over to Starbucks to get a little writing done, as I do most weekends, and they were already playing Christmas music. No, no, no, no, no. That chit needs to wait until Thanksgiving. I mean, start it ON Thanksgiving Day, like 6-8 pm after people have had dinner and are in a food coma, dreading the cleaning of the kitchen. Start it then and play it until New Year's Eve.

But not early November.

This early, it feels like punishment.

I got little work done in the 90 minutes I sat there. I finally gave up just as non-holiday music began pouring out of the speaker overhead, and headed for Walmart to pick something up for dinner.

Walmart felt like a relief.

That's just not right.

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A writer's group I am a member of holds a "workshop" every year to cover issues in independent publishing. I put that in quotes because historically, little work gets done. The first three years it was held at Disneyland, and you can imagine how that went. The last two years it's been in Las Vegas (I did not go) and I understand it's been even less productive.

The last year it was at the Disneyland Hotel, on the night before the official start, a bunch of the attendees got together at the Rainforest Cafe, before I got there, there was drinking, there were words, and there was a bar fight.

It's the one thing I kinda wished I'd been there for.

The upcoming Indie Pub Panel will be, the organizer swear, vastly different. Individual panels will be structured. There will be an additional fee for each panel, the idea being that if people pay for it, they'll show up and do the work. There will be a dress code. It will be professional dammit.

It's being held at Disneyland again.

The person whose behavior started the bar fight was not, as promised, banned, and she'll be there again, her racist and homophobic rants surely on display. She's terrified of me for some inexplicable reason. I've never been mean to her. I've answered questions when she's directed them at me, and I've been polite.

I mean, I know what it is. She's got a pre-formed opinion about anyone with tattoos, and that I've had neon pink hair for every panel I've signed up for doesn't help.

All year, she's clamored for a panel that will teach indie publishers how to format for print using Adobe InDesign. She'll pay good money for that, because she's tired of paying other people to format her manuscripts, and there are always errors in them.

Guess who's been asked to head a panel tentatively titled: Formatting for Print with InDesign Made Super Simple?

Guess who agreed to do it?

Bets are now being taken (for real) on how quickly she asks for a refund.

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I have the TV on for noise and Lottery Dream Home is playing on HGTV. It reminds me, I have a lottery ticket in my wallet I never checked. Granted, I know I didn't win the big one because 2 other people did, but there's a tiny, tiny chance I hit for something smaller. I should go check.

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Bummer.

2 comments:

Vicat said...

She'll be known as Panel Patty on twitter and call the police on you for having pink hair, if you re-color it.

LMoore said...

How long before she finds out that you are the one heading that panel?