chaos and noise

This year's textbooks have been sent in to the printers. Nothing's ever really done until the hardcopies arrive, but I'm glad to see them finished.

I now know more about politics (Australian and North American) and economics (Australian) than I did before. That's one of my favourite parts of this job... that, and getting paid to obsess over minutiae like font leading, stray apostrophes and embedded graphics. I know the printers can probably work around all but the most catastrophic of layout mistakes, but it's nice knowing that all the loose ends have been dealt with. Vastly cheaper to fix things in the layout stage, too.

For the rest of this week, I have two painting jobs to finish: one Dwarf Bloodbowl team (for a CanCon player), and some Menoth figures. Next week contains some zombie horsemen (Cryxian Soulhunters) and a box full of Space Marine vehicles - hopefully, a reasonable number of which will be finished before Christmas. Finishing work = getting paid, which is always a good incentive at this time of year.

I've been asked to magnetise all the optional parts for the plastic vehicles, which means I now have 300-odd rare earth magnets on my desk. They're kind of fun to work with, although frustratingly small - most of them are 1mm thick, and they whizz across the desk whenever one slips through my fingers.

Right now, it's time I headed up to bed. The last of the year's really major jobs is now finished, and sleep is sounding good right now.

I got a bit of a shock this morning when I went to update my CV, and realised that I haven't opened that file since 2006...

Since then I've done a lot of small jobs, and a few larger ones. Unfortunately I don't have much to show for them, as not one of the publishing jobs has given me copies of the books... a bit disappointing, as those jobs go back as far as Easter 2006. I can print out mockups at home, but I wish I had a proper folio to take along to job interviews.

Three painting jobs to work on this week, plus a much-needed website update, an interview on Friday, and a pile of stuff that needs doing around the house. I like productive weeks - last week was a bit of a write-off, so hopefully I'll actually get some things finished this time around.

In other news - I went in search of Yum Cha yesterday, only to find that King Bo isn't just closed down... it's an empty shell of a building with no windows or interior walls, slated for redevelopment into a six-title retail block. When the hell did that happen?

I just picked up the final set of documents for my current project, from a black BMW idling at the kerb. There's something... odd... about that image.

I've closed all the curtains in a (vain) attempt to keep the house cool. It should work for another couple of hours, but after going out into the sunlight it took a few minutes before my eyes adjusted to the gloom again.

It's 156 pages to the end of the book, I've got a full hard drive of music, half the time I thought I'd have for the project, it's dark and I'm not wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

I now have rather a lot of paintbrushes.

I ordered a batch of Winsor & Newton sable brushes from a US supplier, as a way of testing them out for future supplies. I won't be ordering from them again, as the brushes have been sent in two backordered lots (at $50AUD postage per batch...) over several months. I've also been charged more for the second batch than the entire order was worth. They arrived today, and I expected to find the box filled with my remaining items... so I took a photo as I opened the box, ready to send it to their customer service email address.

As it turns out, I haven't been charged for items that were not sent. Instead, they sent far more than I ordered, and charged me for the lot. Looking through their returns policy, I can organise to have them shipped back, be reimbursed for the shipping costs, and recieve a credit note for the items... but I don't particularly want to deal with them again. There's no way that I can turn the items back into cash again, so it looks like I have a larger store inventory than I had originally planned. Here's hoping that they sell well.

In other news - I have a website! You can find it at http://www.purple-mantis.com.au.

The site's still very rough at the moment (bits of placeholder text in a few Gallery pages, several "coming soon" pages, etc) but I decided it was time to stop tinkering with stylesheets and actually put something online. I'll be frantically adding bits to it over the next week, mainly to fill in gaps from the initial pages. It's mainly there for commission painting/sculpting at the moment, although I won't be taking on any new jobs until October.

I'll be adding an online storefront (using ZenCart) after I get back from travelling... hopefully, it will all be up and running during October.

I'm becoming more aware of time, these days. Specifically, how much time it takes to do specific things during the day - I know that lately I've been undercosting the time involved in painting, but I hadn't realised just how badly until I bought a little electronic timer to stick on my desk. I paint pretty quickly, but I forgot to factor in just how much I slow down when I'm bored...

There's been another heated debate on the Privateer Press forums about how much figure painters should reasonably charge for their work, with some fairly extreme views on both sides. While I'm happy to ignore the "I need cash now so I'll work for 50c an hour" arguments, and the "I couldn't possibly sell work for less than $150 a model" counters, someone mentioned charging extra when repetitive bulk work was required. I think it's a good idea - there is nothing more boring than doing the same task over and over again, and boredom slows you down. Slowing down pushes back other jobs in the queue, which pushes back getting paid for the work, which means you eat instant noodles for another week.

I happen to like instant noodles, but I do appreciate getting paid as well :)


In other news, I won the Cryx faction medal in Saturday's Warmachine/Hordes tournament. I think that makes five medals from the last four events... lots of shiny things :) The Liber Animus tournament is on next weekend, and after that it's high time I started getting ready for the National Open at GenCon.

Enough typing... back to the painting desk.

So. I finished work for the year yesterday. The book isn't going to the printers this year, as we have been asked to wait while the family puts together a family tree... it won't take long to add, but the printing deadline passed yesterday. Still, it's all finished bar the final page. There are no new projects starting until February, so that means I'm free for about six weeks.

The downside, of course, is that my income has now dropped to zero again. I'm going to finish the current sculpts (which fortunately were paid in advance), and when my desk beigns to clear I'll start looking for more work.

It's been an interesting year, as work goes. I've designed a magazine, three newspapers, two books, and a few eBooks. I've also started putting time into painting and sculpting, which is likely to make up about half my income in future. I'm also putting together a plan to cover the next couple of years... the trick lies in making a structure that's flexible enough to take anything thrown at it, but robust enough to give some form and direction to what I do.

My plan looks like a fractal. It has some very simple rules that make up a complex picture, and it can be extrapolated on any scale I need it. It's also a conscious attempt at a lifehack.

Goals: I want to constantly learn new things, which expand the range of things I do, while supporting the existing areas.

Phases: Focus on something new. Consolidate it until it becomes reliable. Keep an eye on changes in the work environment. Explore new directions. Assess progress in context of the new environment. Pick the next direction. Rinse, repeat.

The mid-range perspective for planning is a three month timescale: annual quarters, which fit nicely into a financial year. The same rules apply on a weekly basis, or a three-year cycle, though.

* 2006 Q4: I've been setting up the basic structure of a sole-trading business, and getting it to the point where I can use it without thinking about it. I've also been working on my editing and design skills, and watching where to go next.

* 2007 Q1 and Q2: Focus on painting and sculpting, to take advantage of a market that's currently strong, but has an uncertain future. The skills there are part artistic (improving my sculpting), part marketing (finding and entering international markets), and part technological (setting up an e-business). I will be watching the market for wargaming products, and exploring eBook RPG publishing.

* 2007 Q3 and Q4: Focus on eBook publishing. Draw on editing and design skills, e-business marketing, and develop a roleplaying imprint. The aim is to have limited hardcopy prints (electronic print-on-demand), with a full backlist available as PDF. It's a project management area, and a way of helping people get their work in print.

By keeping things modular, I can work around dead-end paths by starting a different area or falling back on the existing ones. Focusing on transferrable skills means that if specialised markets (e.g. sculpting) vanish, I'll still have learned enough from that area (e.g. e-business setup) to have it support future areas. Placing skills into context with others helps me to see them from different angles, and monitoring changes in my work environment (market, etc) helps me to deal with changes as they occur.

Coincidentally (if you believe in coincidence), it's exactly the same process behind learning a martial art. Identify the basics, drill them until they become second nature, watch for areas to work on, find ways of combining strengths more effectively. Analyse the context in which a technique is likely to be used, and recognise how to employ them when you inevitably come up against something you haven't seen before.

Despite a brief public appearance last night, I've returned to uni-imposed exile... at least for another week.

All of the Communication Entrepreneur material is now in, although I'm likely to continue doing the same work for a while yet... as a direct result of researching a "hypothetical" freelance communication business, I've now started my own. If you know anyone who could use a writer, editor or designer, give me a yell :)

I'm now working on two other extended pieces. One is late, but virtually finished. The other is due next week. It's in that all too familiar state of "ten thousand words of references and random thoughts," but it's a subject I'm happy to streamline into a 3,000 word package. It's also a handy bit of practice for any future science writing projects.

Work for Media Design is waiting until last, when everything else is finished. Three assignments, one essay. I'll take a warp-speed look at virtual reality interfaces, graphics in game design and photographic storyboard narratives, and finish it up with two thousand words of dystopian speculative fiction.

After that, my course is finished. I think I'll celebrate by collapsing in a heap, and spending at least 48 hours unconscious. It may be the only way I'll get any rest :)

In November and December I'll be primarily doing design work and sculpting to pay the bills, plus any other jobs that crop up. I'll also figure out how to build two websites - one for the communications gig, and one for my painting. Then January will hopefully be full of hiking, in nice photogenic places that I can write travel articles about...

I've discovered the thread linking all my disparate jobs and hobbies together: a ridiculous attention to detail, bordering on obsessive/compulsive :) I seem to enjoy the jobs that most people find soul-destroying, like spotting misplaced commas at ten paces or paintng the eyeballs on tiny figurines. Here's hoping that there will always be a demand for minutiae, as they form the nano-scale foundations of my career.

I'm now working at Synergy Publishing two days a week, with two projects to occupy my time. The first is a book - a memoir, to be precise. I started work on it last week, but it's on hold for a while as there is still a lot of editing to finish. It's the second book I've designed - the first being the Weapons of the Gods Companion... I hadn't realised at the time just how far into the deep end I leaped with that project. Memoirs and novels are serenely calm in comparison. Five text styles instead of thirty, one author instead of half a dozen...

Project #2 is an educational journal called "Junior Horizons," which is actually a lot of fun to design. It's aimed at pre-school and early primary teachers, and also has information for parents of pre-schoolers. It's a riot of colour, fonts and illustrations. It's also a nice manageable 16 pages. I spent today re-buildng the layout templates, as it looks suspiciously like the file has been edited and re-saved for every issue they've ever worked on it.

I'm still in the process of sorting out paperwork like an ABN (I need one!) and GST registration (perhaps - only compulsory if my annual turnover will be over $50k). I'm planning to quiz the accountant at work tomorrow, to find out exactly how this works. Wading through the ATO website was on my list of things to do eventually, but I didn't expect to start two jobs before I got my feet under me.

My goal for the week is to register for all the legal things I need to do, and then start sending out invoices for all the work I've done over the last few months. With the exception of the "hobby income" (painting), I haven't actually been paid for any work I've done this year... high time I sorted that out. I'm also thinking of rolling my painting income in with all the other elements of the Sole Trader operation (essentially considering painting, writing and design all as "professional" income sources). If I have to start collecting GST on my income, I might as well claim back the GST component of the things I spend most of my money on.

Thanks to those who surprised aeliel on her birthday :) She's headed back to Blackwood for a couple of days, so I have an empty house at the moment. I feel like I've stepped back a few years in time... I'm back late from work, the music is cranked up nice and loud, and I'm heading upstairs to paint until my eyes drop out. Plus ça change...

I'm slowly wearing myself away at the edges. The last few weeks have been a trial... I've been running that knife edge between five sets of deadlines for too long. Nights like these, I wonder whether I'm actually still on top of things. I'm far too stubborn to stop just because I've hit a wall. I'm still delivering work faster than ever, but this time I'm all out of reserves. One more week at full throttle. Six more weeks until I get a few days off. After that, blessed oblivion.

No firetwirling tonight. Not much of anything other than work, actually. Layout has stalled while I wait for Chapter 2 to come in... after that, I'll make a few final changes and connect up all those lovely "page XX" references. Compiling an index will be the last job to do. I can see why so many RPGs "forget" to leave space for one - they are a royal pain to prepare. Fortunately, Wednesdays and Thursdays are eaten by uni so I'm not twiddling my thumbs waiting for the last piece of the puzzle.

I can see why they don't recommend combining postgrad with any large amount of other work. Like, say, 80-hour weeks. The workload is generally pretty decent, but it's been slowly building up while I try to make enough money to pay my bills. The work is fun, but getting it in short bursts is killing me. In realistic terms, work from the last month should have been spaced out over at least two. Unfortunately, when it's "do this in three days" or "don't do this and don't get paid," that doesn't give me much of a choice.

Right now, I have pieces of a persuasive writing folio to upload, and then it's time for a few more hours of restlessly wishing I could get to sleep. The thing that frustrates me most about insomnia is the wasted opportunity - you can't do anything productive with those hours, sleeping or otherwise. The plan for tonight is to get some exercise until I'm physically exhausted (not hard, in my current health), with the aim of collapsing into bed afterwards. If I would have spent a few hours staring at the ceiling, I might as well get something done in that time.

Too bad I only discovered the "danger!" lab on my second-last day of work :)

To do list: Clean up desk. Exit paperwork signed by Project Manager, IT, Security, Workshop, HR. Hand in swipe card. Computer account closed. Hit the road.

EDIT: I hope my next job involves dinosaurs or ninjas....