#warehouse gremlining

[qwanderer]

Catch me in the warehouse making kissy noises to attract a ladder as if it's some sort of recalcitrant animal

[qwanderer]

This morning I sent an order from my company to someone going by the name "Doug Dimmadome Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome" and have been chortling ever since. Like yes, thank you Mr. Fakename, I appreciate your order and your taste in cartoons!

[qwanderer]

Either the roofing noise has gotten quieter or I'm genuinely getting used to it. There are still ear-popping pressure waves but I no longer feel like my skull is going to fall out due to vibrations.

[qwanderer]

There is a Bad Noise in the warehouse and Kevin decided to wake up to help me cope. So good news and bad news. Kevin is awesome.

The Bad Noise is because they're redoing the warehouse roof and there's a truck outside making a helluva racket. It makes everyone's head vibrate unpleasantly so at least I'm not alone in my discomfort. Like I would be if the bad noise was in the mosquito range.

I honestly don't know how the folks at the pack table are going to manage. They have set workstations. I'm a wanderer, I do my work mostly on rolling carts, so I've been seeking out the cool spots in the waveform and rolling the carts to them. It's still noisy but it's not nearly as skull vibratingly intense.

Kevin is helpfully reminding me that it's okay to do things that look silly if it helps me do my job. If I do my job well, that's where the real respect comes from.

I'm not sure but I think Kevin might be the first of my OC muses to wake up. He's definitely built out of components that I was already familiar with, all my characters are, but Kevin is made of pieces of myself and pieces of people I know and famous personalities.

He might be a version of Eben Keth, who come to think of it was noisy even before I started really talking to my muses. He liked to look through my eyes and give me poetry about stuff.

Anyway gotta go back to work I guess. I'll try to keep my brain from vibrating out of my skull.

[qwanderer]

Got word today that the warehouse will be shut down on Friday, after tomorrow's shift THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER

[qwanderer]

I think I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that I have two jobs now that I'm obliged to do (full time warehouse gremlin, landlord) and that if I want to continue to pursue being a novelist then that is my third job.

I mean I wrote The Grafting Mark while being a full time warehouse gremlin, so I can swing that, but until the whole landlord thing settles down a little, I might not be able to do much in the novelist realm. I expect landlording will get easier. A lot of it right now is figuring things out.

Either way I intend to finish the third draft of The Grafting Mark by the end of the summer, if possible. I do have some time off of warehousing coming, and definitely intend to use some to work on the book.

[qwanderer]

No writing today. I had to play catch-up on chores this weekend because last weekend was so busy, plus sharks arrived today, so I also needed to make brownies and sit around doing nothing.

Hoping to find some writing time over the next few days! Might take Tuesday off, or just the morning? It's going to be inventory audit day so the morning will mostly involve waiting around.

Tomorrow is going to be our last day to reconcile our own inventory numbers so it'll be a lot of recounting things where the numbers don't make sense. We caught a lot of the obvious mistakes on Friday and now it'll just be the tricky stuff so hopefully I'm not too tired when I get home.

I have been working on this chapter for so long and I really want to post soon!

[qwanderer]

Genuinely working in the warehouse is something I want to keep in my life even if I reach the point where I could be a full time author. I'd love to be able to take it down to three days a week though.

Just spent two and a half days on writing, with breaks for social activities and chores, and this morning I was like, "yes, perfect, I am so ready to go back to work again!" Doing the work here that tends towards repetitive physical activity and formulaic mental tasks is just perfect for getting me out of the overly invested place where it's hard to get perspective on my writing.