2017 Weekly Writing Log, Part Seven
Feb. 26th, 2017 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingMy pneumonia got worse this past week, and to make a long story short I had to go to the hospital. After being sick for so long, finally being able to receive treatment was actually quite pleasant. I'm doing much better now, thank goodness. Despite everything, this is what I managed to accomplish:
- I'm still leaning way the fuck out of my career, but I updated all of my professional profile pages to reflect recent publications and public lectures and so on. Honestly this doesn't matter to anyone, because no one in the world would have any reason to care about what I do professionally. Still, I'm trying to negotiate a raise alongside my contract renewal, so I suppose it's good to have all my files in order. For what it's worth, I recently found out that my starting salary was almost $10,000 less than that of my male peers in my hiring cohort, and I suspect the strongly worded letter from my lawyer will probably have more of an effect on my employer's decision than this update to my portfolio, but it feels good to pretend like I'm in control.
- I beat A Link Between Worlds for the sixth(? I think) time, woot woot.
- I posted the fifth chapter of The Marriage of Lanayru. The story now has 25 kudos, 18 of which are anonymous. There are still a lot of old-school fans hanging around who say they won't read stories that have such a high ratio of anonymous to signed kudos, but I treasure every single one of my kudos regardless of where it came from. If it's the same person leaving a new kudo on every chapter, I don't even care, that person is a saint of fanfic.
- I edited the second and third chapters of the story and posted them on FFN (and updated them on AO3 and Tumblr). Since these two chapters were written before I decided to significantly simplify the story, there was a bit of retcon involved. In any case, I've gotten some very nice comments on FFN, all of which have filled me with love and joy and positivity.
- A few weeks ago I commissioned Blizzarderful to do a speculative illustration of Zelda and Ganondorf in a grungy retrofuture environment, and holy wow did she ever deliver. I set the image as the background of my laptop, and I'm finding new and interesting details literally every single day. This illustration got almost no notes primarily because of the way it was tagged, which is a damn shame – I really wish more people in the Zelda fandom could see it.
- A few months ago I commissioned Greencladprince to draw me some Princess Peach and Human!Bowser, and we've been working on the character designs in stages. The finished product has finally been posted, and it is so awesome I can't even. This sort of thing is super niche and was never going to get a lot of notes, but I regret nothing. I am responsible for bringing art into the world, bros, ART.
After lying in a hospital bed and reflecting on various things, I'm starting to feel very salty about certain aspects of fandom. Specifically, despite everyone's insistent avowal of progressive politics, there really isn't a lot of tolerance for diversity or support for creators who operate outside the mainstream. Maybe I'll write about this later, or probably I won't, but I think the important thing to remember is that human endeavor is meaningless and we all die alone.
- I'm still leaning way the fuck out of my career, but I updated all of my professional profile pages to reflect recent publications and public lectures and so on. Honestly this doesn't matter to anyone, because no one in the world would have any reason to care about what I do professionally. Still, I'm trying to negotiate a raise alongside my contract renewal, so I suppose it's good to have all my files in order. For what it's worth, I recently found out that my starting salary was almost $10,000 less than that of my male peers in my hiring cohort, and I suspect the strongly worded letter from my lawyer will probably have more of an effect on my employer's decision than this update to my portfolio, but it feels good to pretend like I'm in control.
- I beat A Link Between Worlds for the sixth(? I think) time, woot woot.
- I posted the fifth chapter of The Marriage of Lanayru. The story now has 25 kudos, 18 of which are anonymous. There are still a lot of old-school fans hanging around who say they won't read stories that have such a high ratio of anonymous to signed kudos, but I treasure every single one of my kudos regardless of where it came from. If it's the same person leaving a new kudo on every chapter, I don't even care, that person is a saint of fanfic.
- I edited the second and third chapters of the story and posted them on FFN (and updated them on AO3 and Tumblr). Since these two chapters were written before I decided to significantly simplify the story, there was a bit of retcon involved. In any case, I've gotten some very nice comments on FFN, all of which have filled me with love and joy and positivity.
- A few weeks ago I commissioned Blizzarderful to do a speculative illustration of Zelda and Ganondorf in a grungy retrofuture environment, and holy wow did she ever deliver. I set the image as the background of my laptop, and I'm finding new and interesting details literally every single day. This illustration got almost no notes primarily because of the way it was tagged, which is a damn shame – I really wish more people in the Zelda fandom could see it.
- A few months ago I commissioned Greencladprince to draw me some Princess Peach and Human!Bowser, and we've been working on the character designs in stages. The finished product has finally been posted, and it is so awesome I can't even. This sort of thing is super niche and was never going to get a lot of notes, but I regret nothing. I am responsible for bringing art into the world, bros, ART.
After lying in a hospital bed and reflecting on various things, I'm starting to feel very salty about certain aspects of fandom. Specifically, despite everyone's insistent avowal of progressive politics, there really isn't a lot of tolerance for diversity or support for creators who operate outside the mainstream. Maybe I'll write about this later, or probably I won't, but I think the important thing to remember is that human endeavor is meaningless and we all die alone.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-26 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-26 11:23 pm (UTC)I was discharged on Friday afternoon, and I feel a good deal better now. Honestly staying in the hospital was like a vacation. I didn't have to go to work, nobody expected me to answer emails, I got to sleep all day, people brought me food, and everyone was super nice. Also probably it will end up costing me a lot of money, but hey, that's capitalism?
Productivity is an illusion, though. The only reason I ever get anything done is because enough time eventually accrues until something is finally finished. For example, I've been working on that shitty 1,400 word fic chapter for almost four weeks now, which amounts to something like 50 words a day. And the Peach and Bowser commission has been an ongoing project since last July.
I mean seriously, if anyone ever manages to accomplish anything against the backdrop of cosmic chaos and absurdity, then it is a victory for all humankind.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-26 11:43 pm (UTC)You are very modest but I do think you are better at fighting entropy than most. Keep on trucking!
no subject
Date: 2017-02-27 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-28 02:11 pm (UTC)I work at a public institution, so by law everyone's salaries need to be a matter of public record. To be honest, I'm not super happy about randos on the internet being able to find out how much money I make through a Google search, which is one of the reasons I try to maintain such a strong web presence - so that sort of personal information gets pushed back several pages on most search engines. I never thought about actually pulling up the full list of salaries to make comparisons until it was time to renew my contract, and man, it was a good thing I did.
My working theory about the gendered difference in salary is that, because my field is extremely male-dominated, all of the men in my hiring cohort had multiple competing offers that they could use to negotiate, while I was just abjectly grateful to be offered a job in a place that wasn't under three feet of snow for most of the year. Still, it's not like we're a for-profit corporation, and... Whatever, it doesn't matter. But I will fight the good fight!! Thank you for your encouragement!
no subject
Date: 2017-03-01 02:50 am (UTC)...I mean, that makes sense, but still: UGH. Kick their asses and get paid what you're worth!