#freelance — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #freelance, aggregated by home.social.
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Wed. Aug. 5, 2026: Running Late
image courtesy of Mohamed Hassan from PixabayWednesday, August 5, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron Retrograde
Sunny and warm
Happy mid-week! Hope yours is going well.
It was difficult to concentrate in the morning, before heading out to the specialist appointment, but I managed to get household chores and some admin done.
We left a little after 10. The drive down was lovely as far as weather. The traffic was annoying, especially around Pittsfield, but that was to be expected. We arrived early, and they took us in early.
It’s a cancerous lesion. It has to be surgically removed, and will need a skin graft. They will do it as an in-office procedure under local anesthesia (at her age, one wants to avoid full anesthesia when possible). It will happen right after Labor Day weekend, and there will be wound care and pain management for two weeks until her follow-up. It’s all scheduled to fit around another commitment I have at the end of September out of town, and all works out. Not the outcome we hoped for, but also not as serious as it could be. They do a lot of these types of procedures in-office every week, and it only takes about an hour.
The surgery is the day before the author festival at the library, so I will have to go into September very organized. It’s all do-able, and the dates are all coordinating, so it’s fine.
We stopped at Chocolate Springs on the way home (it’s in the same complex) to get some treats and also an iced chocolate drink for me. That iced chocolate was perfection – it was exactly as I’d imagined. We made a stop at a thrift store in Pittsfield, and I found a pair of stuffed unicorns for one of the art pieces, well within budget. We also stopped at Adams Fresh Market for a blueberry pie.
Home to find the vacuum had been delivered while we were gone (of course it had), but it was patiently waiting by the door.
Got everything upstairs and unpacked and disinfected the stuffed unicorns (don’t ask).
Worked on the ghostwriting. I have to dig deep today. I invoiced for the other assignment, which is good timing. They paid today, which is even better, and means I can finish paying the month’s bills.
I didn’t make it to yoga. I heated up leftovers for dinner, and tried to do some work in the evening, before I switched over to reading. I’ve tried several books by a very popular cozy fantasy author. I liked the first one somewhat, but the other two I’ve read/am reading are just too cutesy in an annoying way for me, so I will stop reading.
I woke up at 3 AM, moved to the sofa, petted Bea, and fell asleep until 6:30, when Charlotte woke me by using me as a trampoline. Tessa Was Not Amused. Everyone was fed, chores done, morning routine, but I’m an hour and a half late so far today, and will have to make up for it somewhere. Tessa has also decided that my desk chair is the only place she can possibly be comfortable today, so I may need to take the laptop and work elsewhere.
I have to do a library run this morning, work on the play and, especially, the ghostwriting, pick up the CSA this afternoon, and the lit committee meeting that was postponed last week is now tonight. So there’s lots to do and no room for me to faff.
Have a good one!
#art #freelance #medical #Plans #writing -
Wed. Aug. 5, 2026: Running Late
image courtesy of Mohamed Hassan from PixabayWednesday, August 5, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron Retrograde
Sunny and warm
Happy mid-week! Hope yours is going well.
It was difficult to concentrate in the morning, before heading out to the specialist appointment, but I managed to get household chores and some admin done.
We left a little after 10. The drive down was lovely as far as weather. The traffic was annoying, especially around Pittsfield, but that was to be expected. We arrived early, and they took us in early.
It’s a cancerous lesion. It has to be surgically removed, and will need a skin graft. They will do it as an in-office procedure under local anesthesia (at her age, one wants to avoid full anesthesia when possible). It will happen right after Labor Day weekend, and there will be wound care and pain management for two weeks until her follow-up. It’s all scheduled to fit around another commitment I have at the end of September out of town, and all works out. Not the outcome we hoped for, but also not as serious as it could be. They do a lot of these types of procedures in-office every week, and it only takes about an hour.
The surgery is the day before the author festival at the library, so I will have to go into September very organized. It’s all do-able, and the dates are all coordinating, so it’s fine.
We stopped at Chocolate Springs on the way home (it’s in the same complex) to get some treats and also an iced chocolate drink for me. That iced chocolate was perfection – it was exactly as I’d imagined. We made a stop at a thrift store in Pittsfield, and I found a pair of stuffed unicorns for one of the art pieces, well within budget. We also stopped at Adams Fresh Market for a blueberry pie.
Home to find the vacuum had been delivered while we were gone (of course it had), but it was patiently waiting by the door.
Got everything upstairs and unpacked and disinfected the stuffed unicorns (don’t ask).
Worked on the ghostwriting. I have to dig deep today. I invoiced for the other assignment, which is good timing. They paid today, which is even better, and means I can finish paying the month’s bills.
I didn’t make it to yoga. I heated up leftovers for dinner, and tried to do some work in the evening, before I switched over to reading. I’ve tried several books by a very popular cozy fantasy author. I liked the first one somewhat, but the other two I’ve read/am reading are just too cutesy in an annoying way for me, so I will stop reading.
I woke up at 3 AM, moved to the sofa, petted Bea, and fell asleep until 6:30, when Charlotte woke me by using me as a trampoline. Tessa Was Not Amused. Everyone was fed, chores done, morning routine, but I’m an hour and a half late so far today, and will have to make up for it somewhere. Tessa has also decided that my desk chair is the only place she can possibly be comfortable today, so I may need to take the laptop and work elsewhere.
I have to do a library run this morning, work on the play and, especially, the ghostwriting, pick up the CSA this afternoon, and the lit committee meeting that was postponed last week is now tonight. So there’s lots to do and no room for me to faff.
Have a good one!
#art #freelance #medical #Plans #writing -
RE: https://mastodon.art/@Normia/116668736011078454
Repos(t) estival, on prépare la rentrée 😊
#graphiste #designer #freelance -
Not every marketing problem needs a full time hire.
Maybe you've got a launch coming and no one to own the messaging. Maybe your docs are solid but your positioning is a mess. Maybe you need someone who can actually talk to your engineers and your customers and translate between the two.
That's the kind of work I love, and you don't need the budget for a full time role to bring me in on it!
https://itguyeric.com
#ProductMarketing #DevRel #OpenSource #Freelance #Marketing -
Not every marketing problem needs a full time hire.
Maybe you've got a launch coming and no one to own the messaging. Maybe your docs are solid but your positioning is a mess. Maybe you need someone who can actually talk to your engineers and your customers and translate between the two.
That's the kind of work I love, and you don't need the budget for a full time role to bring me in on it!
https://itguyeric.com
#ProductMarketing #DevRel #OpenSource #Freelance #Marketing -
It’s easy for freelancers and agency owners to be pessimistic these days. The market is saturated with competition, AI is disrupting everything, and a “sure thing” is hard to find. This week’s episode of The WP Minute’s Agency Action podcast is all about casting a ray of light on your career.
Kurt and Toby examine the opportunities in the WordPress and freelancing space. The guys are […]
https://thewpminute.com/who-are-you-wordpress-professional/ -
Tues. Aug. 4, 2026: Trying to Figure Things Out
image courtesy of Trương Hoàng Huy Ngân from PixabayTuesday, August 4, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron Retrograde
Partly sunny, hot, and humid
Here we are, in the first week of August.
The Community Tarot Reading for the Week is here. We’ve switched to a new deck, which uses national parks for Major Arcana cards. It’s a really lovely, unique deck, and I enjoy working with it. I won it a few years ago in a contest.
After breakfast on Friday, we headed off to Whitney’s. I hadn’t realized how early we left –we got there a few minutes before they opened. I apologized profusely, and just looked around at what was set outside. They have enough to get setup without people prowling around early!
I bought a beautiful, big pot of Black-eyed Susans. Really lovely. On the way home, we stopped in Adams, and I picked up a blueberry pie.
My parking spot was even open when we got back, so it all worked out.
Two interesting job opportunities showed up. Very different than what I’d been thinking about, although one of them is with a company to whom I’m already preparing an LOI. So that was good timing. I accepted an invitation to an event at the Clark in mid-September, and I customized my CSA share. I did some work on the play, but I’m not particularly happy with the slow progress on that front.
I struggled with the ghostwriting, and was behind where I wanted/needed to be by the end of the day. I need to approach it from a different angle.
I cooked dinner, and then got changed and put some makeup on before trundling down to FutureLabs gallery to see the closing of my colleagues’ show. It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I saw it. I like both of their work very much. I got to chat with a bunch of people, and my friend Gloria and I both wore the same color shirt, in different styles (fuchsia). I so rarely wear that color, but with black pants, I wanted to the color pop. We were laughing about alignment. I was also encouraged to submit at least one piece by mid-month for a curated show in October. I really like the topic, and I even have some ideas. I’m just not sure I can get it done in time. But I will try, with at least one of the ideas. It may be a good break from the stress of other projects.
Sat on the porch and read until it was too dark to read, then played with the cats.
Slept reasonably well, although Charlotte woke me around 3:30 on Saturday. I fell deeply asleep again on the sofa (confusing Bea) with strange dreams, and it took the whole gang to wake me up just before 6.
It was Lammas (“loaf mass”), so the second thing I did (after feeding the cats), was to bake cornbread, which came out very well. For breakfast, we had blackberries (also traditional for the day), and scrambled eggs, along with the cornbread.
The morning routine was fine, and I had a really good free-write session, after a rough couple of days.
After breakfast, I trotted down to the post office and back to mail the rent and some bills. It was a lovely morning, although starting to get warm.
I staged a photo of the playing card shirt I bought a few weeks ago from Savvy Hive, along with the playing card serving dishes, the playing card mug I use on Monday mornings, all on a playing card cloth. It was pretty funny. I tagged Jess from Savvy Hive in the photo, since I promised it to her when I bought the shirt.
I have two puncture marks in my abdomen. It looks like I was bitten by a snake, but it’s from Charlotte kneading me, trying to wake me up. I treated it with antibiotic cream and slapped a bandage over it so that I wouldn’t bleed all over my shirt. Guess it’s time to clip some princess claws.
I gussied up the kitchen table for August and did a bunch of housework. The rest of the day was mostly about celebrating Lammas. I did some reading, I did some resting. Lion’s Gate Portal, blah, blah, blah – just let me take a nap, okay? Go have fun with it. It’s interesting information, but this frenetic yelling on social media about it gets real old real fast. Things are always moving across the sky. Pick what you want to work with, learn about it, do it. You don’t need to download a workbook for every transit or pay someone for every shift. My block button is very busy.
Tessa got angry when we moved her off the porch when it got too hot. She refused to speak to us for the rest of the day. She is officially in her Grumpy Old Lady Era.
I did my ritual work and slept well. The cats even let me sleep in until 5 AM on Sunday. Morning routine was good. I was doing the floorwork portion of the yoga practice with Tessa supervising from the top of the mat when I looked over to see Bea next to me, also on her back, waving her paws in the air. It was hilarious. My mom slept in until 8 AM, which was good for her.
Did the morning chores, watered all the plants, did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I’m using the Tarot for the Great Outdoors, which uses National Parks for the Major Arcana.
Why is Indeed sending me listings for jobs as a line cook and a dishwasher at a local restaurant saying I would be “a great fit” when I’m signed up with them for copywriting jobs? No sense to it at all.
It was a day for puttering and getting things set up in the house so the week will run more smoothly (I hope). Tidying things up. Rearranging some things in the bathroom that were sprawling. Doing hand laundry that’s too delicate for machines. Planning my table for the author event in September – that’s coming up fast. Trying to figure out when I can start updating/freshening up my various websites. Even keeping up with new information on them isn’t enough. At least once a year, preferably twice, I have to go through each page of each website and make tweaks. That takes time, and has to be put into the work schedule. It’s not happening this week, that’s for sure! Pretty soon, it will be time to begin the fall deep clean, so that it’s done by the Equinox. I feel like I just finished the spring clean!
I played with ideas for the art piece. What story do I want to tell? What images do I want to use? How will the images and the text play off each other?
Leftovers for dinner. Tried to get my head into the game for the upcoming week. I was definitely in a better mental frame of mind than end of day Friday by the time Sunday night rolled around.
I read Charlotte MacLeod’s THE GLADSTONE BAG. I forgot how funny she is, and the way she turns standard tropes inside out, while still doing justice to the plot and the characters. I am more familiar with her work under the Alisa Craig name, but now I want to go back and re-read everything under both names. Oh, for the days when cozy mysteries were actually fun and energetic, before the hard right destroyed them, like they destroy everything they touch.
Slept reasonably well with weird dreams. I must have slept strangely, because I woke up with neck pain, and spent a portion of my meditation session on the acupressure mat, which helped.
Hitting the desk on Monday morning is intimidating only because of all the email that piles up. That’s the extent of Sunday scaries for me (which hit Monday), and for that, I am grateful.
Morning routine was fine; morning chores were morning chores.
Sat down and wrote five pages on the play. I have to rethink how to escalate the current scene. That will then give the big push to the scenes leading to the climactic sequence. But it felt good. I have a little over 30 pages to do on this draft. Keeping a steady pace this week will get it done.
I did a little over 900 words on the Llewellyn article, which went well. It needs to be 3K, and I have to research a few things after I have it drafted out, and then decide what to cut.
I switched over to the ghostwriting for the rest of the day. It was a struggle. I think I’ve figured out how to fix it, which is about damn time, since I need to get it back to them.
It was humid, warm, and rained on and off all day. The fans my friend sent did more than the small coolers.
The Republicans are just going to get away with the whole keeping McConnell on a slab so there couldn’t be a special election, aren’t they? And now Beshear pretends like his response was part of a plan to keep Republicans down a vote. Nope. Not voting for him if he runs for president. Not doing it. Not for him, not for Newsom. Most of the Democrats are so useless. On top of that, they’re letting the confirmation of the corrupt AG go through. Don’t say they “can’t” do anything. There is always something that can be done. The Republicans do whatever they want, and the Dems just sit there with their thumbs up the collective ass and shrug. Because they are complicit. Get rid of all of them and start over, with people who give a damn about their constituents.
The whole McConnell situation is grotesque on a human level, aside from the grubby politics.
The replacement vacuum was delayed and did not show up yesterday. It will probably show up today, while we are out. Let’s hope it’s still there when we get back.
Got some dates sorted out with a friend for late September. Did some noodling with the idea for the art piece, but haven’t done anything with it yet. I will start working out the story elements in the morning free-writes later this week.
Slept reasonably well, albeit with weird dreams. Up at the usual time this morning, morning routine fine. I have to do some admin this morning and will try to write a few pages of the play. Then, I take my mom down to Lenox for her appointment with the specialist. At least it should be a pretty day for a drive. And it’s in the complex with the chocolatier, so we will have a treat on our way out. I want to get an LOI out today, too, although it may be closer to the end of the day than the beginning. And maybe even go to yoga tonight!
Woke up to notes on the other ghostwriting project. We are moving forward, so I should be able to invoice the first section later today. Phew. But I have to wrestle the other assignment into shape in the next couple of days.
Somehow, it will all get done.
Hope your week is starting well!
#art #articles #chores #freelance #playwrighting #reading #writing -
Tues. Aug. 4, 2026: Trying to Figure Things Out
image courtesy of Trương Hoàng Huy Ngân from PixabayTuesday, August 4, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron Retrograde
Partly sunny, hot, and humid
Here we are, in the first week of August.
The Community Tarot Reading for the Week is here. We’ve switched to a new deck, which uses national parks for Major Arcana cards. It’s a really lovely, unique deck, and I enjoy working with it. I won it a few years ago in a contest.
After breakfast on Friday, we headed off to Whitney’s. I hadn’t realized how early we left –we got there a few minutes before they opened. I apologized profusely, and just looked around at what was set outside. They have enough to get setup without people prowling around early!
I bought a beautiful, big pot of Black-eyed Susans. Really lovely. On the way home, we stopped in Adams, and I picked up a blueberry pie.
My parking spot was even open when we got back, so it all worked out.
Two interesting job opportunities showed up. Very different than what I’d been thinking about, although one of them is with a company to whom I’m already preparing an LOI. So that was good timing. I accepted an invitation to an event at the Clark in mid-September, and I customized my CSA share. I did some work on the play, but I’m not particularly happy with the slow progress on that front.
I struggled with the ghostwriting, and was behind where I wanted/needed to be by the end of the day. I need to approach it from a different angle.
I cooked dinner, and then got changed and put some makeup on before trundling down to FutureLabs gallery to see the closing of my colleagues’ show. It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I saw it. I like both of their work very much. I got to chat with a bunch of people, and my friend Gloria and I both wore the same color shirt, in different styles (fuchsia). I so rarely wear that color, but with black pants, I wanted to the color pop. We were laughing about alignment. I was also encouraged to submit at least one piece by mid-month for a curated show in October. I really like the topic, and I even have some ideas. I’m just not sure I can get it done in time. But I will try, with at least one of the ideas. It may be a good break from the stress of other projects.
Sat on the porch and read until it was too dark to read, then played with the cats.
Slept reasonably well, although Charlotte woke me around 3:30 on Saturday. I fell deeply asleep again on the sofa (confusing Bea) with strange dreams, and it took the whole gang to wake me up just before 6.
It was Lammas (“loaf mass”), so the second thing I did (after feeding the cats), was to bake cornbread, which came out very well. For breakfast, we had blackberries (also traditional for the day), and scrambled eggs, along with the cornbread.
The morning routine was fine, and I had a really good free-write session, after a rough couple of days.
After breakfast, I trotted down to the post office and back to mail the rent and some bills. It was a lovely morning, although starting to get warm.
I staged a photo of the playing card shirt I bought a few weeks ago from Savvy Hive, along with the playing card serving dishes, the playing card mug I use on Monday mornings, all on a playing card cloth. It was pretty funny. I tagged Jess from Savvy Hive in the photo, since I promised it to her when I bought the shirt.
I have two puncture marks in my abdomen. It looks like I was bitten by a snake, but it’s from Charlotte kneading me, trying to wake me up. I treated it with antibiotic cream and slapped a bandage over it so that I wouldn’t bleed all over my shirt. Guess it’s time to clip some princess claws.
I gussied up the kitchen table for August and did a bunch of housework. The rest of the day was mostly about celebrating Lammas. I did some reading, I did some resting. Lion’s Gate Portal, blah, blah, blah – just let me take a nap, okay? Go have fun with it. It’s interesting information, but this frenetic yelling on social media about it gets real old real fast. Things are always moving across the sky. Pick what you want to work with, learn about it, do it. You don’t need to download a workbook for every transit or pay someone for every shift. My block button is very busy.
Tessa got angry when we moved her off the porch when it got too hot. She refused to speak to us for the rest of the day. She is officially in her Grumpy Old Lady Era.
I did my ritual work and slept well. The cats even let me sleep in until 5 AM on Sunday. Morning routine was good. I was doing the floorwork portion of the yoga practice with Tessa supervising from the top of the mat when I looked over to see Bea next to me, also on her back, waving her paws in the air. It was hilarious. My mom slept in until 8 AM, which was good for her.
Did the morning chores, watered all the plants, did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I’m using the Tarot for the Great Outdoors, which uses National Parks for the Major Arcana.
Why is Indeed sending me listings for jobs as a line cook and a dishwasher at a local restaurant saying I would be “a great fit” when I’m signed up with them for copywriting jobs? No sense to it at all.
It was a day for puttering and getting things set up in the house so the week will run more smoothly (I hope). Tidying things up. Rearranging some things in the bathroom that were sprawling. Doing hand laundry that’s too delicate for machines. Planning my table for the author event in September – that’s coming up fast. Trying to figure out when I can start updating/freshening up my various websites. Even keeping up with new information on them isn’t enough. At least once a year, preferably twice, I have to go through each page of each website and make tweaks. That takes time, and has to be put into the work schedule. It’s not happening this week, that’s for sure! Pretty soon, it will be time to begin the fall deep clean, so that it’s done by the Equinox. I feel like I just finished the spring clean!
I played with ideas for the art piece. What story do I want to tell? What images do I want to use? How will the images and the text play off each other?
Leftovers for dinner. Tried to get my head into the game for the upcoming week. I was definitely in a better mental frame of mind than end of day Friday by the time Sunday night rolled around.
I read Charlotte MacLeod’s THE GLADSTONE BAG. I forgot how funny she is, and the way she turns standard tropes inside out, while still doing justice to the plot and the characters. I am more familiar with her work under the Alisa Craig name, but now I want to go back and re-read everything under both names. Oh, for the days when cozy mysteries were actually fun and energetic, before the hard right destroyed them, like they destroy everything they touch.
Slept reasonably well with weird dreams. I must have slept strangely, because I woke up with neck pain, and spent a portion of my meditation session on the acupressure mat, which helped.
Hitting the desk on Monday morning is intimidating only because of all the email that piles up. That’s the extent of Sunday scaries for me (which hit Monday), and for that, I am grateful.
Morning routine was fine; morning chores were morning chores.
Sat down and wrote five pages on the play. I have to rethink how to escalate the current scene. That will then give the big push to the scenes leading to the climactic sequence. But it felt good. I have a little over 30 pages to do on this draft. Keeping a steady pace this week will get it done.
I did a little over 900 words on the Llewellyn article, which went well. It needs to be 3K, and I have to research a few things after I have it drafted out, and then decide what to cut.
I switched over to the ghostwriting for the rest of the day. It was a struggle. I think I’ve figured out how to fix it, which is about damn time, since I need to get it back to them.
It was humid, warm, and rained on and off all day. The fans my friend sent did more than the small coolers.
The Republicans are just going to get away with the whole keeping McConnell on a slab so there couldn’t be a special election, aren’t they? And now Beshear pretends like his response was part of a plan to keep Republicans down a vote. Nope. Not voting for him if he runs for president. Not doing it. Not for him, not for Newsom. Most of the Democrats are so useless. On top of that, they’re letting the confirmation of the corrupt AG go through. Don’t say they “can’t” do anything. There is always something that can be done. The Republicans do whatever they want, and the Dems just sit there with their thumbs up the collective ass and shrug. Because they are complicit. Get rid of all of them and start over, with people who give a damn about their constituents.
The whole McConnell situation is grotesque on a human level, aside from the grubby politics.
The replacement vacuum was delayed and did not show up yesterday. It will probably show up today, while we are out. Let’s hope it’s still there when we get back.
Got some dates sorted out with a friend for late September. Did some noodling with the idea for the art piece, but haven’t done anything with it yet. I will start working out the story elements in the morning free-writes later this week.
Slept reasonably well, albeit with weird dreams. Up at the usual time this morning, morning routine fine. I have to do some admin this morning and will try to write a few pages of the play. Then, I take my mom down to Lenox for her appointment with the specialist. At least it should be a pretty day for a drive. And it’s in the complex with the chocolatier, so we will have a treat on our way out. I want to get an LOI out today, too, although it may be closer to the end of the day than the beginning. And maybe even go to yoga tonight!
Woke up to notes on the other ghostwriting project. We are moving forward, so I should be able to invoice the first section later today. Phew. But I have to wrestle the other assignment into shape in the next couple of days.
Somehow, it will all get done.
Hope your week is starting well!
#art #articles #chores #freelance #playwrighting #reading #writing -
The Fediverse is overflowing with incredible artists, engineers, designers, photographers, and brilliant minds in academia. With the job market on fire globally, let's make a habit of hiring from within our own community, please 🎨📚
Need a designer for a project? A photographer? A researcher? Post your gigs here. Let's create a close-knit support system to help fellow people weather the storm.
If you are hiring: look here first. Post your short-term gigs, full-time roles, and freelance contracts. Give people here a chance.
If you are looking: share your work, follow the hashtags, and connect. Let's take care of each other.
#FediHire #GetFediHired #Academia #MastoArt #art #Photography #Freelance #SoftwareDevelopment #programming #photography
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The Fediverse is overflowing with incredible artists, engineers, designers, photographers, and brilliant minds in academia. With the job market on fire globally, let's make a habit of hiring from within our own community, please 🎨📚
Need a designer for a project? A photographer? A researcher? Post your gigs here. Let's create a close-knit support system to help fellow people weather the storm.
If you are hiring: look here first. Post your short-term gigs, full-time roles, and freelance contracts. Give people here a chance.
If you are looking: share your work, follow the hashtags, and connect. Let's take care of each other.
#FediHire #GetFediHired #Academia #MastoArt #art #Photography #Freelance #SoftwareDevelopment #programming #photography
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This is a tough time to find development work, and Eric’s guest on The WP Minute+ podcast knows it all too well. Andrew Norcross is a seasoned developer, having run his own agency and led NASA’s transition to WordPress. These days, he’s looking for work. He doesn’t use AI, and at least one potential employer has turned him down because of it. Is that fair?
Eric and Andrew take a hard […]
https://thewpminute.com/dont-use-ai-you-might-not-get-the-job/ -
Can I ask what accounts software freelancers and indies are using here? #Accounts #Indie #Freelance
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Can I ask what accounts software freelancers and indies are using here? #Accounts #Indie #Freelance
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I'm accepting a few new #freelance #editing 📝 clients in the coming months. If you're interested, let me know ASAP. Spots are limited :) #writers #amediting #amwriting #indiepub #indieauthors http://www.venessagiunta.com/editing-services/
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I'm accepting a few new #freelance #editing 📝 clients in the coming months. If you're interested, let me know ASAP. Spots are limited :) #writers #amediting #amwriting #indiepub #indieauthors http://www.venessagiunta.com/editing-services/
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🎯 Available for remote web projects! Building & managing WordPress/Wix sites with flexible hours.
Perfect for small orgs, NGOs, tourism businesses. Fixed-price per project (no hourly traps!).
Based in Sweden/EU, trilingual (ES/EN/FR). Let's chat! 💜
#Freelance #WebDev #WordPress #RemoteWork #SmallBusiness #NGOJobs
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🎯 Available for remote web projects! Building & managing WordPress/Wix sites with flexible hours.
Perfect for small orgs, NGOs, tourism businesses. Fixed-price per project (no hourly traps!).
Based in Sweden/EU, trilingual (ES/EN/FR). Let's chat! 💜
#Freelance #WebDev #WordPress #RemoteWork #SmallBusiness #NGOJobs
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Fri. July 31, 2026: Scattered and Messy
image courtesy of Alicja from PixabayFriday, July 31, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy and warm
We’re at the end of another week AND another month. I can’t believe tomorrow will be August. The light is already changing, both in the morning and in the evenings. I already switched out some candle colors and put up the marigold garland across the fireplace.
Online meditation was good, and Charlotte was happy. We are now on break until Sept. 10. I will still maintain my 40-minute sit every morning and my 20-minute sit at bedtime.
The lovely person who received my misdelivered package left it at my door either in the night or yesterday morning. I’m so glad I don’t have to fight with the post office and the company about this! When I tried to file the paperwork with USPS yesterday, the form said I had to wait 7 days. I could have sworn the previous day, it said 24 hours. But I’m glad I don’t have to do it at all.
After breakfast, I loaded the car and headed out. I dropped off the vacuum at the FedEx dropoff spot, then did a light grocery shop and ran some other errands, including the library. Home, hauled everything up the stairs, and played with the cats. I did two batches of vegetable stock in the slow cooker over the late morning into the early afternoon.
The #FreelanceFriends chat went well, and it flew by! Hosting always feels fast, because there’s posting the questions, and then making sure to respond to everyone.
After lunch, I finished jarring up the veg stock, washed all the dishes, etc. I have way too much stock in the freezer at this point, and I still have two bags of veg bits that have to go into the next batch. Yes, I was procrastinating on the ghostwriting. But I got to it and started digging it. My opinions on it don’t really matter. It just needs to get done. I made some decent headway in the first few chapters, and thought through a few of the requested changes, which will help me in today’s session.
I tried to work on the play after, but ended up deleting everything I wrote, so I’m back to where I was yesterday.
Someone whom my mother nannied in England in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s sent an email with a bunch of questions. He’s a great grandfather now! It will take her a few days to pull those memories, if she even has the knowledge he wants of those times. They’ve been in touch regularly over the years, so it’s not like she doesn’t remember him. She was the nanny to him and his five siblings for six years.
I craved enchiladas for dinner last night, so that’s what I made!
It looks like Chewy is already sending the replacement vacuum, once they got confirmation I shipped off the one that doesn’t work.
The parking chaos is out of control. It’s to the point where I feel like I can’t ever use my car, because I won’t be able to get into my – or any – off-street spot THAT IS PART OF MY LEASE AGREEMENT. I can park on the street now, but when overnight street parking is forbidden as of Oct. 1, there will be a problem for the winter. The fact that the people who are supposed to deal with this won’t is aggravating.
This morning, we are going to Whitney’s. It’s the last day I can use the “Whitney’s Bucks” they gave us after we did our spring shopping, and I want to get some Black-eyed Susans. When we get back, I will work on the play and BETTING MAN, and then switch over to the ghostwriting. This play has a closer deadline than the radio series, so I had to push the radio series back to get this done.
This evening, I’m going to the closing of my colleagues’ show at FutureLabs. I missed the opening, being under the weather IN the weather of early July, so I will trot down to the closing tonight. Tomorrow is Lammas, a big day on my personal calendar. Sunday, I want to do a whole lotta nothing! Next week is busier than I would like it to be, so I need to prepare, mentally as much as physically. As much as I’m glad last Wednesday’s meeting got moved forward a week, it puts more pressure on me this week. And I have to take my mom down to Lenox for a specialist appointment late morning on Tuesday, so I lose most of the day with the prep and the travel time.
I hope you have a terrific weekend, and we’ll catch up on the other side.
#freelance #inconsiderateNeighbors #Plans #writing -
Fri. July 31, 2026: Scattered and Messy
image courtesy of Alicja from PixabayFriday, July 31, 2026
Waning Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy and warm
We’re at the end of another week AND another month. I can’t believe tomorrow will be August. The light is already changing, both in the morning and in the evenings. I already switched out some candle colors and put up the marigold garland across the fireplace.
Online meditation was good, and Charlotte was happy. We are now on break until Sept. 10. I will still maintain my 40-minute sit every morning and my 20-minute sit at bedtime.
The lovely person who received my misdelivered package left it at my door either in the night or yesterday morning. I’m so glad I don’t have to fight with the post office and the company about this! When I tried to file the paperwork with USPS yesterday, the form said I had to wait 7 days. I could have sworn the previous day, it said 24 hours. But I’m glad I don’t have to do it at all.
After breakfast, I loaded the car and headed out. I dropped off the vacuum at the FedEx dropoff spot, then did a light grocery shop and ran some other errands, including the library. Home, hauled everything up the stairs, and played with the cats. I did two batches of vegetable stock in the slow cooker over the late morning into the early afternoon.
The #FreelanceFriends chat went well, and it flew by! Hosting always feels fast, because there’s posting the questions, and then making sure to respond to everyone.
After lunch, I finished jarring up the veg stock, washed all the dishes, etc. I have way too much stock in the freezer at this point, and I still have two bags of veg bits that have to go into the next batch. Yes, I was procrastinating on the ghostwriting. But I got to it and started digging it. My opinions on it don’t really matter. It just needs to get done. I made some decent headway in the first few chapters, and thought through a few of the requested changes, which will help me in today’s session.
I tried to work on the play after, but ended up deleting everything I wrote, so I’m back to where I was yesterday.
Someone whom my mother nannied in England in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s sent an email with a bunch of questions. He’s a great grandfather now! It will take her a few days to pull those memories, if she even has the knowledge he wants of those times. They’ve been in touch regularly over the years, so it’s not like she doesn’t remember him. She was the nanny to him and his five siblings for six years.
I craved enchiladas for dinner last night, so that’s what I made!
It looks like Chewy is already sending the replacement vacuum, once they got confirmation I shipped off the one that doesn’t work.
The parking chaos is out of control. It’s to the point where I feel like I can’t ever use my car, because I won’t be able to get into my – or any – off-street spot THAT IS PART OF MY LEASE AGREEMENT. I can park on the street now, but when overnight street parking is forbidden as of Oct. 1, there will be a problem for the winter. The fact that the people who are supposed to deal with this won’t is aggravating.
This morning, we are going to Whitney’s. It’s the last day I can use the “Whitney’s Bucks” they gave us after we did our spring shopping, and I want to get some Black-eyed Susans. When we get back, I will work on the play and BETTING MAN, and then switch over to the ghostwriting. This play has a closer deadline than the radio series, so I had to push the radio series back to get this done.
This evening, I’m going to the closing of my colleagues’ show at FutureLabs. I missed the opening, being under the weather IN the weather of early July, so I will trot down to the closing tonight. Tomorrow is Lammas, a big day on my personal calendar. Sunday, I want to do a whole lotta nothing! Next week is busier than I would like it to be, so I need to prepare, mentally as much as physically. As much as I’m glad last Wednesday’s meeting got moved forward a week, it puts more pressure on me this week. And I have to take my mom down to Lenox for a specialist appointment late morning on Tuesday, so I lose most of the day with the prep and the travel time.
I hope you have a terrific weekend, and we’ll catch up on the other side.
#freelance #inconsiderateNeighbors #Plans #writing -
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Thurs. July 30, 2026: Keyboard Time
image courtesy of Simon from PixabayThursday, July 30, 2026
Last Day of Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Rainy and mild
You can read the latest on the garden over at Gratitude and Growth.
Yesterday, I suited up in what I call my “Cornwall coat” and my Wellington boots and headed out the door shortly after breakfast. It was bucketing down. Good thing I wore the boots. Because of the non-design elements in the sidewalk replacement last year, the water just pools on the sidewalks, and it was up to my ankles. I call it my “Cornwall coat” (a hooded bright yellow coat with blue trim) because I bought in the town of Falmouth when we were over in Cornwell back in 1999 (but it doesn’t seem like that long). I bought it after I was stuck in a thunderstorm on top of Tintagel and got soaked, and decided I needed raingear. It has served me well. (There’s a whole story about local rescue coming up to get me and me taking them to the pub in thanks because I figured I’d just have to huddle next to the chimney ruins until I could get down on my own, but that’s a story for another day).
Anyway, I got my errands done in about 20 minutes. The coat kept me dry except for a bit exposed between the bottom of the coat and the top of the boots around my knees. I took things off in the bathroom to let them drip in the tub.
I sat down and wrote 7 pages on the play. I’m at the halfway point of this draft, which is a good thing, since it has to be finished within the first week of August. My original plan for the day was to work on the ghostwriting first and then the play when the ghostwriting was out the door. But I wanted to be in the midst of my own work when the full moon peaked at 10:36 in the morning, so I focused on my own work first. Which is what I need to do EVERY day. My own work first, client work fit around it. I don’t resent the client work when I prioritize my own. I do better work in both realms.
Once I was finished with my own pages, I had an exchange with the library about the author fest in September. I switched over to the ghostwriting just before lunchtime. I finished it and got it out the door before I made lunch.
Then, I kind of felt like I’d been kicked in the head by a mule, so I wasn’t going to be particularly creative in the afternoon. We were still under a flood warning (5 inches of rain fell yesterday). I wrestled the vacuum into the box and slapped on the return label.
I managed to get some admin done and get out an LOI, so it wasn’t a total loss. I prepped the materials and graphics for today’s #FreelanceFriends chat. The rain just kept bucketing down.
Heated up leftovers for dinner, read a bit in the evening, honored the full moon, although I couldn’t see it. Slept reasonably well until about 4, when Charlotte started fussing, and moved to the sofa until nearly 5:30.
It was pouring again with rain when I woke up. I hope it will pause while I run my errands later this morning.
We have our final online meditation session before summer break, so Charlotte will be happy. After breakfast, I will drop off the vacuum at the Fed Ex dropoff, then do the grocery shopping, library, and other usual Thursday errands.
I am hosting the #FreelanceFriends chat at noon EST today over on Bluesky, where we’re talking about unusual skills feeding into our work.
In the afternoon, I have to start the rewrite from the notes they sent me last Friday. I’m dreading it. But that’s the way it goes. I also want to do some work on the play and write/submit the book review.
Lots to do, let’s hope I can get it done. Have a good one!
#freelance #playwrighting #practicalities #writing -
Thurs. July 30, 2026: Keyboard Time
image courtesy of Simon from PixabayThursday, July 30, 2026
Last Day of Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Rainy and mild
You can read the latest on the garden over at Gratitude and Growth.
Yesterday, I suited up in what I call my “Cornwall coat” and my Wellington boots and headed out the door shortly after breakfast. It was bucketing down. Good thing I wore the boots. Because of the non-design elements in the sidewalk replacement last year, the water just pools on the sidewalks, and it was up to my ankles. I call it my “Cornwall coat” (a hooded bright yellow coat with blue trim) because I bought in the town of Falmouth when we were over in Cornwell back in 1999 (but it doesn’t seem like that long). I bought it after I was stuck in a thunderstorm on top of Tintagel and got soaked, and decided I needed raingear. It has served me well. (There’s a whole story about local rescue coming up to get me and me taking them to the pub in thanks because I figured I’d just have to huddle next to the chimney ruins until I could get down on my own, but that’s a story for another day).
Anyway, I got my errands done in about 20 minutes. The coat kept me dry except for a bit exposed between the bottom of the coat and the top of the boots around my knees. I took things off in the bathroom to let them drip in the tub.
I sat down and wrote 7 pages on the play. I’m at the halfway point of this draft, which is a good thing, since it has to be finished within the first week of August. My original plan for the day was to work on the ghostwriting first and then the play when the ghostwriting was out the door. But I wanted to be in the midst of my own work when the full moon peaked at 10:36 in the morning, so I focused on my own work first. Which is what I need to do EVERY day. My own work first, client work fit around it. I don’t resent the client work when I prioritize my own. I do better work in both realms.
Once I was finished with my own pages, I had an exchange with the library about the author fest in September. I switched over to the ghostwriting just before lunchtime. I finished it and got it out the door before I made lunch.
Then, I kind of felt like I’d been kicked in the head by a mule, so I wasn’t going to be particularly creative in the afternoon. We were still under a flood warning (5 inches of rain fell yesterday). I wrestled the vacuum into the box and slapped on the return label.
I managed to get some admin done and get out an LOI, so it wasn’t a total loss. I prepped the materials and graphics for today’s #FreelanceFriends chat. The rain just kept bucketing down.
Heated up leftovers for dinner, read a bit in the evening, honored the full moon, although I couldn’t see it. Slept reasonably well until about 4, when Charlotte started fussing, and moved to the sofa until nearly 5:30.
It was pouring again with rain when I woke up. I hope it will pause while I run my errands later this morning.
We have our final online meditation session before summer break, so Charlotte will be happy. After breakfast, I will drop off the vacuum at the Fed Ex dropoff, then do the grocery shopping, library, and other usual Thursday errands.
I am hosting the #FreelanceFriends chat at noon EST today over on Bluesky, where we’re talking about unusual skills feeding into our work.
In the afternoon, I have to start the rewrite from the notes they sent me last Friday. I’m dreading it. But that’s the way it goes. I also want to do some work on the play and write/submit the book review.
Lots to do, let’s hope I can get it done. Have a good one!
#freelance #playwrighting #practicalities #writing -
Wed. July 29, 2026: Brick by Brick
image from Pixabay.comWednesday, July 29, 2026
Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Rainy and mild
Wednesday and a full moon. Of course, with all the rain, I doubt I’ll get to see it. . .
Today is the 54th anniversary of my father’s death. He’s been out of my life longer than he was in it, but I still honor him every year.
I had a hard time getting started yesterday morning. I slogged through a lot of email and did a bunch of chores.
I sat down and wrote four pages of the play, which made me feel better. It’s different than my regular wheelhouse, in both content and tone, but I like what’s happening with it.
The rest of the day, I worked on the ghostwriting. I have a little bit more to do this morning and the final polish, and then off it goes. I feel good about it, but then I felt good about the last thing I sent and that was a huge mistake. But, get it done and out the door. That’s all I can do, is my part of being a cog in the wheel. I’m frustrated at not having enough thinking time for any of this. Having to create this amount of material and do what would normally be 4-6 months of research for books like this in 4-6 days AND figure out the rest of what needs to be figured out in the 6K/20K configurations every 10 days (with revisions taking only 4) is taking a toll. And they’d really like me to work faster.
It started raining hard around midday, and went through bands of monsooning and then just sitting with heavy air.
The news that AI companies are buying up pallets of out of print/rate books, tearing them apart to feed them into AI and then destroying all the physical copies makes me sick. Remember, these are individuals hiding behind company policy. There are individuals doing this. May each one experience the same fate as the books they are destroying. No ethical human being does this, and it’s time for there to be consequences for ALL of it.
I’m not even going to get going on all the other awful crap going on. It’s time to get rid of the establishment Democrats enabling all of this and put people in who will remove the corrupt in both parties and the administration, so we can finally get something done.
I am also angry at the ATLANTIC magazine for the hit piece they did on a Black romance author the day before her traditional release. It should be a day of celebration and joy for her. Written by a white dude, of course, who fed hers and other authors’ work into AI WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT (gee, white dude not honoring consent, imagine that) to write lies about an author in a genre in which he doesn’t have knowledge. The ATLANTIC should know better. And that “journalist” should be sued until he’s living under a bridge somewhere like the troll he is.
On a happier note, the other reader of the rough assemblage of I WILL BE DIFFERENT sent back wonderfully thoughtful and detailed notes. Between the two sets of notes (which are very different from each other, both from people I respect), I have a lot to figure out. I need to accept that this is a play that will take as long as it takes to shape. Every project has its own innate rhythm, and I have to work with that as much as with the consistency it needs to get done between the rest periods needed to figure out the best way forward. I need to build it stone by stone, brick by brick, not put up something prefab.
It’s still bucketing down rain this morning, and supposed to rain all day. I have two small errands to run on foot after breakfast. Then, I will finish the ghostwriting, do a final polish, and send it off, hopefully this morning. In the afternoon, I want to work on the play that needs to be done in the next few weeks, and on BETTING MAN, which keeps getting pushed aside, and really needs more attention than it’s getting. My meeting this evening was postponed to next Wednesday, so that takes a little pressure off.
Tomorrow, I’m hosting the #FreelanceFriends chat at noon EST on Blueskey. I have to make sure all my bits are in a single folder and easily accessible for that.
The package that the post office claims they delivered still hasn’t shown up, so I have to file a claim this morning. Yet more wasted time and undue burden of administrative work shoved off onto customers instead of the people paid to do it. And pixabay wouldn’t let me download this image (it just kept saying “downloading” so I had to put it into Canva and download from there. More wasted time.
I’d like to just go back to bed, but too bad for me! Have a good one.
#creativeTime #freelance #playwrighting #undueAdministrativeBurdens #writing -
Wed. July 29, 2026: Brick by Brick
image from Pixabay.comWednesday, July 29, 2026
Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Rainy and mild
Wednesday and a full moon. Of course, with all the rain, I doubt I’ll get to see it. . .
Today is the 54th anniversary of my father’s death. He’s been out of my life longer than he was in it, but I still honor him every year.
I had a hard time getting started yesterday morning. I slogged through a lot of email and did a bunch of chores.
I sat down and wrote four pages of the play, which made me feel better. It’s different than my regular wheelhouse, in both content and tone, but I like what’s happening with it.
The rest of the day, I worked on the ghostwriting. I have a little bit more to do this morning and the final polish, and then off it goes. I feel good about it, but then I felt good about the last thing I sent and that was a huge mistake. But, get it done and out the door. That’s all I can do, is my part of being a cog in the wheel. I’m frustrated at not having enough thinking time for any of this. Having to create this amount of material and do what would normally be 4-6 months of research for books like this in 4-6 days AND figure out the rest of what needs to be figured out in the 6K/20K configurations every 10 days (with revisions taking only 4) is taking a toll. And they’d really like me to work faster.
It started raining hard around midday, and went through bands of monsooning and then just sitting with heavy air.
The news that AI companies are buying up pallets of out of print/rate books, tearing them apart to feed them into AI and then destroying all the physical copies makes me sick. Remember, these are individuals hiding behind company policy. There are individuals doing this. May each one experience the same fate as the books they are destroying. No ethical human being does this, and it’s time for there to be consequences for ALL of it.
I’m not even going to get going on all the other awful crap going on. It’s time to get rid of the establishment Democrats enabling all of this and put people in who will remove the corrupt in both parties and the administration, so we can finally get something done.
I am also angry at the ATLANTIC magazine for the hit piece they did on a Black romance author the day before her traditional release. It should be a day of celebration and joy for her. Written by a white dude, of course, who fed hers and other authors’ work into AI WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT (gee, white dude not honoring consent, imagine that) to write lies about an author in a genre in which he doesn’t have knowledge. The ATLANTIC should know better. And that “journalist” should be sued until he’s living under a bridge somewhere like the troll he is.
On a happier note, the other reader of the rough assemblage of I WILL BE DIFFERENT sent back wonderfully thoughtful and detailed notes. Between the two sets of notes (which are very different from each other, both from people I respect), I have a lot to figure out. I need to accept that this is a play that will take as long as it takes to shape. Every project has its own innate rhythm, and I have to work with that as much as with the consistency it needs to get done between the rest periods needed to figure out the best way forward. I need to build it stone by stone, brick by brick, not put up something prefab.
It’s still bucketing down rain this morning, and supposed to rain all day. I have two small errands to run on foot after breakfast. Then, I will finish the ghostwriting, do a final polish, and send it off, hopefully this morning. In the afternoon, I want to work on the play that needs to be done in the next few weeks, and on BETTING MAN, which keeps getting pushed aside, and really needs more attention than it’s getting. My meeting this evening was postponed to next Wednesday, so that takes a little pressure off.
Tomorrow, I’m hosting the #FreelanceFriends chat at noon EST on Blueskey. I have to make sure all my bits are in a single folder and easily accessible for that.
The package that the post office claims they delivered still hasn’t shown up, so I have to file a claim this morning. Yet more wasted time and undue burden of administrative work shoved off onto customers instead of the people paid to do it. And pixabay wouldn’t let me download this image (it just kept saying “downloading” so I had to put it into Canva and download from there. More wasted time.
I’d like to just go back to bed, but too bad for me! Have a good one.
#creativeTime #freelance #playwrighting #undueAdministrativeBurdens #writing -
Hey 👋 I'm an engineer and project/product manager in the Web Development sector.
Looking for paid work.
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kodakodra.github.io/projects.html
🔗 linktr.ee/kodakodra
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Hey 👋 I'm an engineer and project/product manager in the Web Development sector.
Looking for paid work.
#PHP · #Laravel · #SQL · #React · #TypeScript · #Docker · #GitHub · #wfh · #freelance · #remote
kodakodra.github.io/projects.html
🔗 linktr.ee/kodakodra
-
On this episode of The WP Minute’s Agency Action podcast, Kurt and Toby examine the challenges of taking time off. A sabbatical can be great for the soul. However, it’s also a test for your agency’s processes and team members. Can they keep things going while you’re away?
You’ll also find takes on pricing projects in the age of AI, the role of trust in agency work, and the future of […]
https://thewpminute.com/what-happens-to-your-agency-while-youre-away/ -
Tues. July 28, 2026: A Weekend of Ups and Downs
image courtesy of Luvmissile from PixabayTuesday, July 28, 2026
Day Before Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy and humid
Here we are, nearly at the end of July. Saturn has joined the retrograde parade. Saturn is about life lessons and structure. If you ignored certain things in the last Saturn retrograde, they will come back and smack you upside the head. If you learned and grew, there will be new questions coming up between now and December 10. It’s about finding long-term structure to best support your life on all levels.
I wanted to take a minute to talk about Isabel Klee and what she and her fiancé Jacob have gone through lately with her beloved dog Simon. She is @simonsits on various social media accounts. I’ve been shedding most of the big accounts I’ve come across/followed over the years, because, frankly, they are about numbers to get endorsement dollars and not about actual connection. Isabel is the exception, because of all her work fostering dogs and with dog rescue. She does wonderful work and has helped so many people and so many dogs. Her dog Simon was amazing, and so good with all the fosters. He was very ill with epilepsy and then cancer, and she had to let him go this past weekend. She shared his last days, and we all cried with her. Anyone who has lost a beloved animal companion understands the grief.
People who love her account have comforted each other in our grief, while also hoping Isabel’s family knows how much her grief is being held by the people around her. I hope she also takes time off camera to grieve as she needs to grieve. It was galvanizing for people to hold her family and each other in grief, but the part that can only be done alone is important, too.
I think the grief goes beyond this particular family and dog, though. I think we all remember the grief of lost pets in our lives. And we also grieve the world we’re living in, the intentional cruelties and the murders of humans. Isabel and Simon showed the world so much empathy and love, and that’s a sharp contrast to the murders of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Nolan Wells, and all the others. I think the grief goes beyond this one particular event and family, and is about the world we are mourning. The lost potential and possibilities.
On Friday, I got the script commission pitch out the door. The window closes on the 31st, so I got it in a bit early. It’s a topic I’ve wanted to explore for several years, so I’m glad I had the chance to put the ideas together and work up some sample pages.
I was happy to hear that Melissa, Mark, and Gilbert Hortman’s murderer got two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years. A tiny candle of justice in all the injustice going on.
I folded and put away the laundry. I’m almost caught up on all the winter fabrics, and hope to have them done before it’s time to turn the house over for fall/winter! Times like these, I miss having laundry in the house. But it’s not worth buying my own machines in a rental unit.
I did the free-write session later than usual (because I was out at the laundromat) and played with an idea so I have notes for it when I want to come back to it.
I focused on the ghostwriting assignment that’s due tomorrow. I know why I’m frustrated, but I don’t know how to solve it. Talking to the client won’t, because this conversation has happened before and doesn’t get us anywhere.
I decided not to punish myself (for once), and finished up what I was going to do by around 2 PM. I got changed and headed to Williamstown. I swung by the Milne Library, which I hadn’t visited in too long. I got three terrific books from the free cart, one for my mom, two for me. Then I went to the Clark, where I haven’t been since the opening of the exhibit earlier this summer. I ran into an artist I know there, and we had a nice catch-up chat.
I spent my time there sitting by the reflecting pool, reading and resting. Some of the dragonflies flitting around the pool came to visit, which was lovely.
When it was time to go, I packed up and headed to Theatre 62 at Williams College. What a gorgeous space! We were in the dance studio upstairs (shoes off), with a wall of windows looking over the mountains. WAM’s resident artists had an open rehearsal of their project. It’s a musical. The lyricist is also writing the book (which is somewhat unusual). They talked about the project and played us a section of the song as they first wrote it, and then in the version that’s now evolved.
Then, they broke us up into groups to do a worldbuilding exercise. At first, I was somewhat resistant, because – busman’s holiday. But I also figured, why not, and learn something new. Our group of four held the woman who used to run Many Forks up in Clarksburg, and a pair of tourists visiting the area this weekend who happened to come upon the listing. We came up with our setting and the sensory specifics (haunted house – gee, what a surprise, since I was involved, right). Once the time was up, each group read out their bullet point list of their built world (there was a magical soccer field, a spaceship orbiting Mars, and fairytale treehouse built by the others). The composer listened, then created music for each world. It was pretty amazing.
We chatted with them after, and I asked to be put on their mailing list, so I can continue to support their work. It was great to learn so much about the process of creating a musical, the actual nuts-and-bolts of sitting down to do the work. They started working on this musical eight years ago, and just talked about it for the first two.
I first headed out to Blue Mango on Spring Street, planning to bring back Thai food. But they are “closed for maintenance” and, from the notes taped to the door, it looks like they’ve been closed for awhile and may be closed indefinitely. I stopped at Chopsticks instead, which was on my way back, and picked up Chinese.
Came home, frustrated by the musical chairs in the parking lot again, ate, then found very frustrating notes from the ghostwriting client on the project I turned in a little over a week ago – that will delay payment on what I’ve done (again – gee, what a surprise, yes, that’s sarcasm). We seem to work out trouble spots and things smooth out for a couple of months, and then the contradictions and chaos start up again. There’s a difference between natural growth of a series and chaos, and this tilts toward the latter for me too often.
I went to bed very unhappy. I slept reasonably well into Saturday, until Charlotte started fussing around three. I moved to the sofa. It took her about an hour to find me, and then she started kneading my kidneys (ouch). Bea finally got me up (gently) just before six. I had steadfastly refused to capitulate to Tessa’s howling and Willa’s general shenanigans.
After that slow start and dealing with chores and plants, I sat down and wrote four pages of a play I need to get done by early August. I’d already written pages on it, I’m continuing to finish it. I’m about a third of the way there. I hope that by writing 2-4 pages/day for the next few weeks, I can get it done.
I was sad and angry to hear about the attack at Berlin Pride. There are too many horrible people in the world, and there need to be harsher and faster consequences for them.
I rehearsed my sections of the poem several times. I read the next book for review, which was quite good. I was in rough emotional waters most of the day. I grieved about many things, not just a lovely dog I’ve never met.
Heated up leftovers for dinner and had a quiet night, feeling completely drained.
Charlotte fussed at me around 3 AM again on Sunday, so I got up and moved to the sofa and went back to sleep (after cuddling Bea). By a little before 6, Bea, Charlotte, and Tessa were all fussing at me, so I got up and fed them.
I did the morning routine, and the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I made a birthday gift for a friend who hoped to make it to the poem.
I rehearsed the poems a few dozen times. Once I had the reading rhythm I wanted, I timed the sections and adjusted, until the timings were consistent. Each section can be 30 sections. The more complex one, with the harder words, ran 29.17 seconds regularly. The second ran only 18.12. So I was well in the parameters.
Pretty soon, I need to decide what I’m reading for the Boiler House reading, and what I’m workshopping during our residency. For the reading, I will have to start rehearsing and then time it with the stopwatch. I’m hoping I can read a flash fiction (250 words) that was published a few years ago, a prose poem/drabble, and an actual short poem, but we will see how it times out. If I need to cut/rearrange/swap out pieces, I will. I know one of the poems I want to bring into the workshop, an ekphrastic piece inspired by an art piece in the FutureLabs group show earlier this year. I have to do some work on it before I can bring it in. I have some other poems I’ve played with, but I’m not sure which ones to bring in yet. I’m still struggling to write the comic horror cleave poem. It’s still beyond my skill level, but I keep trying. We have 5 workshop sessions, so I will have to see if I bring in 4 poems and 1 short scripted scene, or 3 poems and 2 short scripted scenes. I’m leaning toward the latter, using one stage play and one radio play for the scripted scenes. But we’ll see how it shakes out. All the radio plays might already be out by then.
I worked hard to get myself into the mental headspace for the poem. Feeling so physically and mentally drained made it difficult. This is one of my favorite events all year, so I knew once I actually got there, I would perk up, but trying to properly prepare to be the best I could be in support of the rest of the group was a challenge.
Got dressed and left a little after 1:30. My mom decided to come, too, which was nice. She’s always been interested to see how it comes together. I stopped for gas on the way, and off we went. Traffic was a little sticky around Pittsfield (as usual), but not too bad. It was a lovely day to be out and about.
We arrived a little early. I got my mom settled, and found my chair. On one side was one of the poets I’ve known for the past 5 years of participating in this creation, and it’s always great to be around her. On my other side was a poet who has also been doing this regularly, but this was the first time we were positioned together and could really talk. Her mom (who is 96) sat with my mom (who is 101), and had a good natter. I also caught up with another poet I’ve been friends with since the first year, who is a wonderful playwright and historian, and also is the person who got me hooked up with WAM. Two chairs away was a younger poet whose first year was last year, and who now works in the marketing department for the Mount. A few more chairs down was a poet who’s done the event for several years who beat cancer. Down the other way was a skilled poet I’ve known for all the years I’ve done this whose poetry took a huge leap this year and it was beautiful to see. There was also a poet I met the first year I did this (who hasn’t been back until this year), and we were then in a playwrighting workshop together, and further down, the leader of that workshop, which is where FALL FOREVER was born. So there’s a lot of my personal history woven in with these poets. I WILL BE DIFFERENT was also born at a Word X Word event, although it was one of their Poets in Conversation series, rather than the large poem.
It flowed well. Many of the poems were far more political and pointed this year than in previous years, some funny and some angry. It always amazes me how the sections wind up supporting each other, when all we have is the final word of the previous poet’s poem to start our own.
We were called in earlier this year, and had more rehearsal time, which worked well. And we had a break to have a bit of food and drink in between the rehearsal and performance, and be silly together. That translated well when we got back into the tent to perform the poem.
Melissa Quirk, who wrote the first and last poem of the piece, also wrote a poem during the piece weaving bits of all our poems into a final poem. She creates with more love than just about anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s always an honor to be involved in anything with her.
The afternoon reminded me how healing poetry is. One of my fellow poets spoke to how important this kind of creation, in small pockets all over, is to our resilience.
A friend showed up to the poem. I wasn’t sure she’d make it, since it was her birthday, but she did. She loved the experience. It’s so difficult to explain it, because it’s so experiential. I got to give her the gift I made for her, and hang out for a bit. She gave us some tomatillos from the community garden at which she volunteers. We had a bigger audience than usual, which is always terrific, including some random people who were visiting the Mount and got curious.
The drive home was smooth. I guess the tourists and weekenders cleared out! We stopped at Adams Market, where a bought a mixed berry pie and some – I’m not sure what they are – custard wrapped in Belgian chocolate.
Home, cooked dinner, sat on the porch looking at the almost-full moon. The cats behaved while we were gone.
Slept reasonably well, although I woke up at 3:33 on Monday. It wasn’t Charlotte’s fault this time. I stayed in bed until just before 5, then started the morning routine.
Monday was pretty packed, that moon-in-Capricorn thing being a taskmaster.
I had to prepare paperwork and a strong response (cc’d to two attorneys general) in response to a company trying to scam my elderly mother out of an account she’s had for decades. That took a bit of work, and then I had to trot down to the post office and send things off via certified mail. I also deposited a check in the bank, a small payment for something I wasn’t expecting, but for which I am grateful. Lovely orange and black butterflies joined me on the walk, which was fun. I sent a polite but measured response to the ghostwriting client on the one project, and then another polite response when they were “checking in” to make sure I was still on schedule with the other project. I have not missed a deadline the entire time I’ve worked for them. I asked once for an extension of a single day when they sent me a massive rewrite. I’m so burned out on all this right now.
I worked on the ghostwriting all afternoon and am still behind. I need to do a big push today, because one assignment is due tomorrow, and then I have to start the rewrite on the other project on Thursday.
I didn’t get any of my own work done, which is self-sabotage and needs to stop. I did, however, get some work done on one of the LOIs, which is good.
Upset to hear about the mass shooting in Seattle.
I was sad to learn about the death of choreographer Hope Clarke. I knew her from waaaaay back in the days when I was an office assistant at the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation back in NYC, in my pre-Broadway days, when the office was so small it was only the executive director and me. Hope was involved in a lot of our programming and outreach, and was such a lovely person, in addition to being enormously talented. Being around her was always joyful, and I looked forward to any meeting or other activity in which she was involved.
I got a notification that a package was delivered, only it wasn’t. The notification said it was in the mailbox, which was ridiculous because it wasn’t an item that could fit (although they shove plenty of stuff that doesn’t fit in the mailbox, and then I can’t get it out). Usually, it’s left on the porch or in front of the door. Nothing. And I went down as the postal van was driving away, so it’s not like anyone had time to grab it (not that they would, we’re all pretty good about redelivering the misdelivered mail). I have to wait 24 hours to file a non-delivery claim. I am also sick and tired of paying for delivery and then WE are told to run around the neighborhood doing the unpaid labor for which we paid someone else, looking for the delivery. It’s from a company with whom I’ve already had issues, although this part is not their fault.
We had two of the mediocre frozen salmon patties left, so I made a salmon hash with them, potatoes, onion, garlic, and then peppers and spinach from the CSA box. The mediocrity was hidden within the good stuff.
Slept reasonably well, in spite of the humidity. My hip is bothering me a lot today. I tried stretching it out in the morning yoga. If I need a pain patch later, that’s what I will do. I think it will be Thursday, when I run all my regular errands, that I finally get the vacuum to the Fed Ex drop off.
So tired of all of it.
We are under a flood watch until tomorrow night. I doubt I will make it to yoga, if it’s pouring (like it has for the past few weeks). The rain was supposed to start overnight, but hasn’t yet. I hope it starts soon, to cut the humidity a bit. The temperatures aren’t bad, but the humidity is a bit oppressive.
Hope you’re having a good start to your week!
#attacks #collaboration #commissions #freelance #poetry #scriptwriting #theatre #writing -
Tues. July 28, 2026: A Weekend of Ups and Downs
image courtesy of Luvmissile from PixabayTuesday, July 28, 2026
Day Before Full Moon
Pluto, Neptune, Saturn Retrograde
Cloudy and humid
Here we are, nearly at the end of July. Saturn has joined the retrograde parade. Saturn is about life lessons and structure. If you ignored certain things in the last Saturn retrograde, they will come back and smack you upside the head. If you learned and grew, there will be new questions coming up between now and December 10. It’s about finding long-term structure to best support your life on all levels.
I wanted to take a minute to talk about Isabel Klee and what she and her fiancé Jacob have gone through lately with her beloved dog Simon. She is @simonsits on various social media accounts. I’ve been shedding most of the big accounts I’ve come across/followed over the years, because, frankly, they are about numbers to get endorsement dollars and not about actual connection. Isabel is the exception, because of all her work fostering dogs and with dog rescue. She does wonderful work and has helped so many people and so many dogs. Her dog Simon was amazing, and so good with all the fosters. He was very ill with epilepsy and then cancer, and she had to let him go this past weekend. She shared his last days, and we all cried with her. Anyone who has lost a beloved animal companion understands the grief.
People who love her account have comforted each other in our grief, while also hoping Isabel’s family knows how much her grief is being held by the people around her. I hope she also takes time off camera to grieve as she needs to grieve. It was galvanizing for people to hold her family and each other in grief, but the part that can only be done alone is important, too.
I think the grief goes beyond this particular family and dog, though. I think we all remember the grief of lost pets in our lives. And we also grieve the world we’re living in, the intentional cruelties and the murders of humans. Isabel and Simon showed the world so much empathy and love, and that’s a sharp contrast to the murders of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Nolan Wells, and all the others. I think the grief goes beyond this one particular event and family, and is about the world we are mourning. The lost potential and possibilities.
On Friday, I got the script commission pitch out the door. The window closes on the 31st, so I got it in a bit early. It’s a topic I’ve wanted to explore for several years, so I’m glad I had the chance to put the ideas together and work up some sample pages.
I was happy to hear that Melissa, Mark, and Gilbert Hortman’s murderer got two consecutive life sentences plus 40 years. A tiny candle of justice in all the injustice going on.
I folded and put away the laundry. I’m almost caught up on all the winter fabrics, and hope to have them done before it’s time to turn the house over for fall/winter! Times like these, I miss having laundry in the house. But it’s not worth buying my own machines in a rental unit.
I did the free-write session later than usual (because I was out at the laundromat) and played with an idea so I have notes for it when I want to come back to it.
I focused on the ghostwriting assignment that’s due tomorrow. I know why I’m frustrated, but I don’t know how to solve it. Talking to the client won’t, because this conversation has happened before and doesn’t get us anywhere.
I decided not to punish myself (for once), and finished up what I was going to do by around 2 PM. I got changed and headed to Williamstown. I swung by the Milne Library, which I hadn’t visited in too long. I got three terrific books from the free cart, one for my mom, two for me. Then I went to the Clark, where I haven’t been since the opening of the exhibit earlier this summer. I ran into an artist I know there, and we had a nice catch-up chat.
I spent my time there sitting by the reflecting pool, reading and resting. Some of the dragonflies flitting around the pool came to visit, which was lovely.
When it was time to go, I packed up and headed to Theatre 62 at Williams College. What a gorgeous space! We were in the dance studio upstairs (shoes off), with a wall of windows looking over the mountains. WAM’s resident artists had an open rehearsal of their project. It’s a musical. The lyricist is also writing the book (which is somewhat unusual). They talked about the project and played us a section of the song as they first wrote it, and then in the version that’s now evolved.
Then, they broke us up into groups to do a worldbuilding exercise. At first, I was somewhat resistant, because – busman’s holiday. But I also figured, why not, and learn something new. Our group of four held the woman who used to run Many Forks up in Clarksburg, and a pair of tourists visiting the area this weekend who happened to come upon the listing. We came up with our setting and the sensory specifics (haunted house – gee, what a surprise, since I was involved, right). Once the time was up, each group read out their bullet point list of their built world (there was a magical soccer field, a spaceship orbiting Mars, and fairytale treehouse built by the others). The composer listened, then created music for each world. It was pretty amazing.
We chatted with them after, and I asked to be put on their mailing list, so I can continue to support their work. It was great to learn so much about the process of creating a musical, the actual nuts-and-bolts of sitting down to do the work. They started working on this musical eight years ago, and just talked about it for the first two.
I first headed out to Blue Mango on Spring Street, planning to bring back Thai food. But they are “closed for maintenance” and, from the notes taped to the door, it looks like they’ve been closed for awhile and may be closed indefinitely. I stopped at Chopsticks instead, which was on my way back, and picked up Chinese.
Came home, frustrated by the musical chairs in the parking lot again, ate, then found very frustrating notes from the ghostwriting client on the project I turned in a little over a week ago – that will delay payment on what I’ve done (again – gee, what a surprise, yes, that’s sarcasm). We seem to work out trouble spots and things smooth out for a couple of months, and then the contradictions and chaos start up again. There’s a difference between natural growth of a series and chaos, and this tilts toward the latter for me too often.
I went to bed very unhappy. I slept reasonably well into Saturday, until Charlotte started fussing around three. I moved to the sofa. It took her about an hour to find me, and then she started kneading my kidneys (ouch). Bea finally got me up (gently) just before six. I had steadfastly refused to capitulate to Tessa’s howling and Willa’s general shenanigans.
After that slow start and dealing with chores and plants, I sat down and wrote four pages of a play I need to get done by early August. I’d already written pages on it, I’m continuing to finish it. I’m about a third of the way there. I hope that by writing 2-4 pages/day for the next few weeks, I can get it done.
I was sad and angry to hear about the attack at Berlin Pride. There are too many horrible people in the world, and there need to be harsher and faster consequences for them.
I rehearsed my sections of the poem several times. I read the next book for review, which was quite good. I was in rough emotional waters most of the day. I grieved about many things, not just a lovely dog I’ve never met.
Heated up leftovers for dinner and had a quiet night, feeling completely drained.
Charlotte fussed at me around 3 AM again on Sunday, so I got up and moved to the sofa and went back to sleep (after cuddling Bea). By a little before 6, Bea, Charlotte, and Tessa were all fussing at me, so I got up and fed them.
I did the morning routine, and the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. I made a birthday gift for a friend who hoped to make it to the poem.
I rehearsed the poems a few dozen times. Once I had the reading rhythm I wanted, I timed the sections and adjusted, until the timings were consistent. Each section can be 30 sections. The more complex one, with the harder words, ran 29.17 seconds regularly. The second ran only 18.12. So I was well in the parameters.
Pretty soon, I need to decide what I’m reading for the Boiler House reading, and what I’m workshopping during our residency. For the reading, I will have to start rehearsing and then time it with the stopwatch. I’m hoping I can read a flash fiction (250 words) that was published a few years ago, a prose poem/drabble, and an actual short poem, but we will see how it times out. If I need to cut/rearrange/swap out pieces, I will. I know one of the poems I want to bring into the workshop, an ekphrastic piece inspired by an art piece in the FutureLabs group show earlier this year. I have to do some work on it before I can bring it in. I have some other poems I’ve played with, but I’m not sure which ones to bring in yet. I’m still struggling to write the comic horror cleave poem. It’s still beyond my skill level, but I keep trying. We have 5 workshop sessions, so I will have to see if I bring in 4 poems and 1 short scripted scene, or 3 poems and 2 short scripted scenes. I’m leaning toward the latter, using one stage play and one radio play for the scripted scenes. But we’ll see how it shakes out. All the radio plays might already be out by then.
I worked hard to get myself into the mental headspace for the poem. Feeling so physically and mentally drained made it difficult. This is one of my favorite events all year, so I knew once I actually got there, I would perk up, but trying to properly prepare to be the best I could be in support of the rest of the group was a challenge.
Got dressed and left a little after 1:30. My mom decided to come, too, which was nice. She’s always been interested to see how it comes together. I stopped for gas on the way, and off we went. Traffic was a little sticky around Pittsfield (as usual), but not too bad. It was a lovely day to be out and about.
We arrived a little early. I got my mom settled, and found my chair. On one side was one of the poets I’ve known for the past 5 years of participating in this creation, and it’s always great to be around her. On my other side was a poet who has also been doing this regularly, but this was the first time we were positioned together and could really talk. Her mom (who is 96) sat with my mom (who is 101), and had a good natter. I also caught up with another poet I’ve been friends with since the first year, who is a wonderful playwright and historian, and also is the person who got me hooked up with WAM. Two chairs away was a younger poet whose first year was last year, and who now works in the marketing department for the Mount. A few more chairs down was a poet who’s done the event for several years who beat cancer. Down the other way was a skilled poet I’ve known for all the years I’ve done this whose poetry took a huge leap this year and it was beautiful to see. There was also a poet I met the first year I did this (who hasn’t been back until this year), and we were then in a playwrighting workshop together, and further down, the leader of that workshop, which is where FALL FOREVER was born. So there’s a lot of my personal history woven in with these poets. I WILL BE DIFFERENT was also born at a Word X Word event, although it was one of their Poets in Conversation series, rather than the large poem.
It flowed well. Many of the poems were far more political and pointed this year than in previous years, some funny and some angry. It always amazes me how the sections wind up supporting each other, when all we have is the final word of the previous poet’s poem to start our own.
We were called in earlier this year, and had more rehearsal time, which worked well. And we had a break to have a bit of food and drink in between the rehearsal and performance, and be silly together. That translated well when we got back into the tent to perform the poem.
Melissa Quirk, who wrote the first and last poem of the piece, also wrote a poem during the piece weaving bits of all our poems into a final poem. She creates with more love than just about anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s always an honor to be involved in anything with her.
The afternoon reminded me how healing poetry is. One of my fellow poets spoke to how important this kind of creation, in small pockets all over, is to our resilience.
A friend showed up to the poem. I wasn’t sure she’d make it, since it was her birthday, but she did. She loved the experience. It’s so difficult to explain it, because it’s so experiential. I got to give her the gift I made for her, and hang out for a bit. She gave us some tomatillos from the community garden at which she volunteers. We had a bigger audience than usual, which is always terrific, including some random people who were visiting the Mount and got curious.
The drive home was smooth. I guess the tourists and weekenders cleared out! We stopped at Adams Market, where a bought a mixed berry pie and some – I’m not sure what they are – custard wrapped in Belgian chocolate.
Home, cooked dinner, sat on the porch looking at the almost-full moon. The cats behaved while we were gone.
Slept reasonably well, although I woke up at 3:33 on Monday. It wasn’t Charlotte’s fault this time. I stayed in bed until just before 5, then started the morning routine.
Monday was pretty packed, that moon-in-Capricorn thing being a taskmaster.
I had to prepare paperwork and a strong response (cc’d to two attorneys general) in response to a company trying to scam my elderly mother out of an account she’s had for decades. That took a bit of work, and then I had to trot down to the post office and send things off via certified mail. I also deposited a check in the bank, a small payment for something I wasn’t expecting, but for which I am grateful. Lovely orange and black butterflies joined me on the walk, which was fun. I sent a polite but measured response to the ghostwriting client on the one project, and then another polite response when they were “checking in” to make sure I was still on schedule with the other project. I have not missed a deadline the entire time I’ve worked for them. I asked once for an extension of a single day when they sent me a massive rewrite. I’m so burned out on all this right now.
I worked on the ghostwriting all afternoon and am still behind. I need to do a big push today, because one assignment is due tomorrow, and then I have to start the rewrite on the other project on Thursday.
I didn’t get any of my own work done, which is self-sabotage and needs to stop. I did, however, get some work done on one of the LOIs, which is good.
Upset to hear about the mass shooting in Seattle.
I was sad to learn about the death of choreographer Hope Clarke. I knew her from waaaaay back in the days when I was an office assistant at the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation back in NYC, in my pre-Broadway days, when the office was so small it was only the executive director and me. Hope was involved in a lot of our programming and outreach, and was such a lovely person, in addition to being enormously talented. Being around her was always joyful, and I looked forward to any meeting or other activity in which she was involved.
I got a notification that a package was delivered, only it wasn’t. The notification said it was in the mailbox, which was ridiculous because it wasn’t an item that could fit (although they shove plenty of stuff that doesn’t fit in the mailbox, and then I can’t get it out). Usually, it’s left on the porch or in front of the door. Nothing. And I went down as the postal van was driving away, so it’s not like anyone had time to grab it (not that they would, we’re all pretty good about redelivering the misdelivered mail). I have to wait 24 hours to file a non-delivery claim. I am also sick and tired of paying for delivery and then WE are told to run around the neighborhood doing the unpaid labor for which we paid someone else, looking for the delivery. It’s from a company with whom I’ve already had issues, although this part is not their fault.
We had two of the mediocre frozen salmon patties left, so I made a salmon hash with them, potatoes, onion, garlic, and then peppers and spinach from the CSA box. The mediocrity was hidden within the good stuff.
Slept reasonably well, in spite of the humidity. My hip is bothering me a lot today. I tried stretching it out in the morning yoga. If I need a pain patch later, that’s what I will do. I think it will be Thursday, when I run all my regular errands, that I finally get the vacuum to the Fed Ex drop off.
So tired of all of it.
We are under a flood watch until tomorrow night. I doubt I will make it to yoga, if it’s pouring (like it has for the past few weeks). The rain was supposed to start overnight, but hasn’t yet. I hope it starts soon, to cut the humidity a bit. The temperatures aren’t bad, but the humidity is a bit oppressive.
Hope you’re having a good start to your week!
#attacks #collaboration #commissions #freelance #poetry #scriptwriting #theatre #writing -
Intent for the Week: Attempt to Bloom as Best I Can: https://devonellington.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/mon-july-27-2026-intent-for-the-week-attempt-to-bloom-as-best-i-can/
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Intent for the Week: Attempt to Bloom as Best I Can: https://devonellington.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/mon-july-27-2026-intent-for-the-week-attempt-to-bloom-as-best-i-can/
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Check out my new video on animating a dragon head slapping to the ground!
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Fellow #science #editors — whether you’re on staff or #freelance like me — please submit your critical comment to help stop the weaponization of the National Science Foundation by Russell Vought's Office of Management and Budget. #NSF #OMB #research 🧪
https://fight2win.standupforscience.net/campaign/ProtectNSF_Comment/
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Fellow #science #editors — whether you’re on staff or #freelance like me — please submit your critical comment to help stop the weaponization of the National Science Foundation by Russell Vought's Office of Management and Budget. #NSF #OMB #research 🧪
https://fight2win.standupforscience.net/campaign/ProtectNSF_Comment/
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Fri. July 24, 2026: Soft Summer Days
image courtesy of congerdesign from PixabayFriday, July 24, 2026
Waxing Moon
Pluto and Neptune Retrograde
Sunny and cool
I can’t believe we’re at the end of yet another week. The weekend is busy, a good busy, although I hope to have some downtime tomorrow.
I finished a bunch of stuff before online meditation began, which was good. Online meditation was good, and it made Charlotte happy.
After breakfast, I grabbed all the stuff and headed out. Did the grocery shopping, another errand, and the library. Got home and hauled everything up the stairs and put it away. Had a bit of a break to deal with some admin before logging onto the #FreelanceFriends chat, which was fun. I’m the host next week, so I’ll have to be in fine fettle, as they say.
I made us a lovely salad using CSA ingredients (two kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots), and took a short break to rehearse the poems before tackling the ghostwriting.
That went slowly, and I was frustrated with my own plodding. I figured out why it’s happening, even though the quality of what’s getting done is good. Now I have to figure out how to solve the plodding (although the plotting is going well, so there’s that).
The warranty people at the Eureka vacuum company continue to ignore me, so I asked Chewy (from where I bought it) what steps to take next. They sent me a return label. I kept the box (I am a notorious box keeper), so I will pack it up and send it back on Monday, and they will ship me a new one. No muss, no fuss. I am grateful. We are a pet-friendly household that needs a working vacuum.
Got another book review assignment, so I have two in my queue. There’s been so little work from that client lately it’s been frustrating.
I made pizza from scratch, using CSA ingredients (mostly) and it was so good. We even have leftovers. Frozen pizzas have gotten much smaller (for higher prices) AND have so many empty calories you can eat the whole thing still feeling hungry AND the lack of flavor at this point that going back to making our own exactly the way we want it with ingredients that satisfy us is a better choice.
I do, however, want to try Dough Boys in Adams, which is owned by the guy who owns Grazie here in North Adams. I’ve heard good things about them. The pizza place down the street that was good when we first moved here isn’t anymore.
Read a little bit in the evening, a book that’s annoying me. It’s written to specific market tropes without fulfilling them particularly well or doing something fresh with them. Yawn.
So Substack now encourages readers to feed all the posts through an AI-tool, pretending it’s to let readers know how much of any given work was AI-generated. Which is nonsense, all it’s doing is stealing yet more work. As if there weren’t enough reasons not to have anything to do with Substack anyway. Zero respect for anyone who stays on that platform. Even “but oh, they’re doing good journalism.” None of it needs to be done on that platform. There are plenty of choices.
Slept well. It was actually chilly, when I got up, in the 40’sF. I did my yoga and a 20-minute meditation session before heading out the door to the laundromat. Got everything done and was back a little after 7.
After breakfast, I will put it all away, do the morning chores, do a polish on the script commission pitch and get it out the door, and focus on the ghostwriting. If I get enough done, I may get to spend a couple of hours at the Clark this afternoon. If not, I will go to Williamstown later in the afternoon – WAM invited me to an open rehearsal of their residency piece, and I will attend that.
Tomorrow, I hope for a quiet day to putter around the house and rehearse my sections of the poem. Sunday is all about the poem. Rehearsal is earlier than it usually is, but the poem itself will be performed at 5. It’s supposed to be lovely and in the mid-80’s. Fingers crossed that’s true.
I’m hoping for a quiet, pleasant few summer days on the home front in contrast to the larger chaos. I need to recharge.
Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up again next week!
#books #ethics #freelance #poetry #summer #writing