Not Setting Up Shop

[dr_pretentious]

The friend with whom I've been brainstorming about starting a business got word that the university will be reappointing her for next year. If we lived in a country with a national health system, we'd be free to strike out on our own anyway, but the difference between the university's health insurance and all the other options is such that S is staying put at Rutgers. It's absolutely the right thing for her to do, and we knew all along the odds of her doing it were about 50/50.

Without S in the picture, swapping the flexibility of my freelance work for the intricacies of owning a limited liability company would be a very bad trade.

I'm both disappointed and relieved.

Some things about running a tutoring business with territory of its own would have been good, or at least an improvement on my current working conditions. It would have been nice to cut the time I spend driving on house calls altogether out of my daily routine, to make the students come to me. I was starting to make peace with the word entrepreneur, mostly by insisting to myself that I'd be more like Fezziwig than like Scrooge. (Most of the entrepreneurs I've met in Dan's field have been major jerks, but it must be possible to start a business and hire employees without immediately becoming an asshole.) I liked the idea of being able to offer starving grad students a spot in my lifeboat, since the university's budget is sinking to the bottom of the sea.

On the other hand, now I won't need to burn the precious mortal hours of my life on learning Quickbooks. If the economy takes a dip and my client families have to tighten their belts, I won't have to worry about paying rent on office space. As long as I'm my own sole employee, I'll never have to fire anyone.

Best of all, I don't have to sacrifice more writing time to my day job than I already do. Even if there were no other reason to be relieved, that would still be huge.

Now it may be possible to get the Stisele manuscript into complete working draft by the end of March after all. Remember when I thought I'd be done roughing this book out by the end of September? Yeah, I remember that, too. So it goes. March would be fine. March would be great.

Comments

[leapfaith.livejournal.com]

Congratudolences!

I'm happy you'll continue to have time for writing. And I'm happy that you can be happy.

Disappointment And Relief

[sonofhephaestus.livejournal.com]

I've always considered Life as being good enough to offer us swift kicks in the ass whenever we truly needed them. And, as silly as it sounds, I was always, always grateful whenever I received said kicks (well after the fact, of course).

Well, it looks as if you got one; and it looks as if you're more than okay about it.

Best of luck with your writing.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Mostly off topic, but on my mind (especially since I just was in a discussion about how words written with an ending vowel-single consonant-"e" combo are pronounced): how is "Stisele" pronounced? stih-SEAL? stih-SELL? A more Germanic stih-SELL-ah?

March would be great.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The pronunciations I hear in my head are more along the lines of Ancient Greek. (Not that that helps much--big freak that I am, I took a course in Ancient Greek pronunciation when I was in college, so my Greek pronunciation is a little different from the anglicizations we grew up with.) In this case, it's more like stee-SAY-lay. But really, any of the pronunciations you proposed would work.

In the Big Book, I used diacritical marks to clear up where I put the stress accent, but I haven't been using them in the Little Book. Editors hate diacritical marks. Readers beg for diacritical marks. What's a girl to do?

I don't worry too much about how readers will pronounce the characters' names. The main thing I worry about when naming a character is whether the reader will be able to tell at a glance what the name's culture of origin is. An aristocratic Beltresin name doesn't look like an indigenous Beltresin name, which in turn doesn't look like an Efa or Jhislaini name, and none of those could be mistaken for an Upriver name. Very occasionally, a character gets a name that's at odds with his/her ethnicity, but there's always a significant reason when that happens

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Things are going pretty well here, overall. I'm sorry things still aren't going so well for you, though. At least spring is coming. I've found even the most difficult things easier to bear once the crocuses come up. So I'm wishing you crocuses, just in case that helps.

[paganpilgrim.livejournal.com]

what's "blasts" status?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'll be getting an update on that tomorrow and pass it on then.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Most of the entrepreneurs I've met in Dan's field have been major jerks, but it must be possible to start a business and hire employees without immediately becoming an asshole.

No, it's part of the job description for "entrepreneur."

As for your friend and the business, I'm sorry it never got the chance, although it's good for her that she's still gainfully employed.