I live in fear of this month.
Jan. 2nd, 2006 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenmillionSeriously, January has me quaking in my shoes.
Firstly, I must pay artists. Paying artists is all very nice and warm feeling, except for the 'sorry, sold nothing' letters that I inevitably have to write, but with more than 100 of them, and the VOA book, and PA, it is also now a huge, many, many day, brain-melting task. I dread it. On the upside, I have at least begun to move into my new studio, and won't have the 'which place is that paperwork?' dance going on non-stop. Lengthy, uncreative task. Not looking foward to this one bit.
Second, I must get ready to accept submissions. This always means more emails to deal with, some of them composed thusly: 'i want to be part of ur site. my art is attached. pls call me.' These make me want to tear my hair out. I need to write an example page taking folks through the nitty-gritty of submissions. This won't be too hard, but still, several hours of work. It's people who won't read it that will turn my hair white. And then, of course, I will have to accept submissions, and make the damnably hard decisions, and review a frightful amount of work, and answer all the panciky 'I can't log in! I don't know where to go! I don't remember my password! My picture is too small! emails. I like it - discovering new artists and finding fabulous new designs, but oh man, the stress. I'm really glad it will only be open for two weeks. I don't think my spleen* could take more. I'm also, just so you're warned, going to be a lot more critical at this particular submissions opening than I have been in the past and will be in the future again - I still have to input things manually, and since my 'formula' for accepting work has a lot to do with work in balanced against sales out, that means lots of stuff isn't going to make that cut.
I must also start working on taxes.
And I have four or five art hires to finish.
I must pay for my booth space at AWA, and look into going to WorldCon, if it isn't already too late. I need to start thinking about plane tickets to Dragon*Con, and send samples to Jasmine for INATS east.
I want to also get the PA site live by Feb 1, since that will be the 2-year anniversary, and get coding in place for EMG-Zine so folks can register and stuff. I got my php manual and have been thumbing through the chapters. I've made my lists of variables for EMG-Zine, and feel fairly comfortable that I'll be able to do these bits. The PA site is wildly more complicated, besides being more than half-done by someone else, so I'm lots less confident about that and will put it off until I've done the EMG-Zine stuff for practice. Oh, and I think it will actually be quite easy to make the scrolly menu an option that any registered user can turn on or off. :)
And of course, I'll have to get the Feb edition of EMG-Zine up before next month.
I also want to get Fishbowl Fantasies reprinted, and Keepers of the Forest, and several coloring books that have been lying around waiting for me to get to them...
Oh, and Melissa's prom invitations.
But not until tomorrow, 'cause I'm still on vacation. I just wanted to jot down why exactly January was making me nervous. I think those are good reasons.
*I don't know that my spleen actually cares how much stress I have - my understanding of this part of the body is sort of vague and distantly removed by the years since HS biology. It's just a cool word.
Firstly, I must pay artists. Paying artists is all very nice and warm feeling, except for the 'sorry, sold nothing' letters that I inevitably have to write, but with more than 100 of them, and the VOA book, and PA, it is also now a huge, many, many day, brain-melting task. I dread it. On the upside, I have at least begun to move into my new studio, and won't have the 'which place is that paperwork?' dance going on non-stop. Lengthy, uncreative task. Not looking foward to this one bit.
Second, I must get ready to accept submissions. This always means more emails to deal with, some of them composed thusly: 'i want to be part of ur site. my art is attached. pls call me.' These make me want to tear my hair out. I need to write an example page taking folks through the nitty-gritty of submissions. This won't be too hard, but still, several hours of work. It's people who won't read it that will turn my hair white. And then, of course, I will have to accept submissions, and make the damnably hard decisions, and review a frightful amount of work, and answer all the panciky 'I can't log in! I don't know where to go! I don't remember my password! My picture is too small! emails. I like it - discovering new artists and finding fabulous new designs, but oh man, the stress. I'm really glad it will only be open for two weeks. I don't think my spleen* could take more. I'm also, just so you're warned, going to be a lot more critical at this particular submissions opening than I have been in the past and will be in the future again - I still have to input things manually, and since my 'formula' for accepting work has a lot to do with work in balanced against sales out, that means lots of stuff isn't going to make that cut.
I must also start working on taxes.
And I have four or five art hires to finish.
I must pay for my booth space at AWA, and look into going to WorldCon, if it isn't already too late. I need to start thinking about plane tickets to Dragon*Con, and send samples to Jasmine for INATS east.
I want to also get the PA site live by Feb 1, since that will be the 2-year anniversary, and get coding in place for EMG-Zine so folks can register and stuff. I got my php manual and have been thumbing through the chapters. I've made my lists of variables for EMG-Zine, and feel fairly comfortable that I'll be able to do these bits. The PA site is wildly more complicated, besides being more than half-done by someone else, so I'm lots less confident about that and will put it off until I've done the EMG-Zine stuff for practice. Oh, and I think it will actually be quite easy to make the scrolly menu an option that any registered user can turn on or off. :)
And of course, I'll have to get the Feb edition of EMG-Zine up before next month.
I also want to get Fishbowl Fantasies reprinted, and Keepers of the Forest, and several coloring books that have been lying around waiting for me to get to them...
Oh, and Melissa's prom invitations.
But not until tomorrow, 'cause I'm still on vacation. I just wanted to jot down why exactly January was making me nervous. I think those are good reasons.
*I don't know that my spleen actually cares how much stress I have - my understanding of this part of the body is sort of vague and distantly removed by the years since HS biology. It's just a cool word.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 03:00 am (UTC)Rest up, nice lady, and try not to stress too much! You work so hard already. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 06:46 pm (UTC)