April 4, 2008

Posted on | 3 years, 10 months ago, mid-afternoon | 2 Comments

I’ve had it up to here [indicates eyeballs] with UPS today. They left a pick-up slip downstairs when I was at home, all day; and besides — they have a key to our corridor. There is no good reason they couldn’t have just kicked the thing inside the hallway to sit with the mailboxes, but noooo. That would’ve been easy.

And now, of course, I’ve called them twice and both times I was promised a call back within an hour. In five minutes, their second hour will be up, and I will be deeply irate. I want them to either (a). come back here with my package, dammit, or (b). hold it so I can come and get it later. And you’ve got to understand, the UPS pick-up place is 5-10 miles away from here — clear on the other side of the city. It’s a huge pain in the ass to drive out there, and the last TWO times they’ve assured me they were holding my packages there, they were big fat liars who had, in fact, kicked my package onto the nearest truck. So if I seem to be uncommonly demanding about getting confirmation on this point, well. I have my reasons.

Anyway. Today’s progress on the west coast steampunk Victoriana book with zombies, air ships, toxic gas clouds, mad scientists, dead folk heroes, secret criminal societies, and Bonus! extended deleted scenes from the Civil War:

Project: The Boneshaker
Resolution revised: Still writing every day, as planned.
New Words: 2375 (fair.)
Present Total Word Count: 60,876 words
Goal: 100,000 words by July 1





Things Accomplished in Fiction: Briar has gotten the low-down on Inside politics, including why the “Chinamen” are viewed with suspicion, even though they’re vital to the city’s daily operation; learned why Lucy (and almost everyone else) is indebted to the mysterious Dr. Minnericht; heard rumors about the crows; did not quite agree to go visiting the mad old doctor quite yet.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Spent a ridiculous amount of time on the phone with assorted UPS people; took on another freelance assignment for next week; ran to the postal store to ship off copy edits.

Reason for Stopping: I’m wrapping up early for the day because it’s Friday, and I need to clean house in earnest. The place is getting grody, and I can’t work surrounded by grode.* Tonight, I think, we’ll see about catching a movie and taking it easy. This is the first weekend when I haven’t been run ragged by deadlines in quite awhile, so I’m going to keep it all low-key.

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 129,478



* Henceforth defined as “Cat hair tumbleweeds, dust bunnies, scattered kitty litter, dirty dishes, dried coffee spills, and Pop Rocks.”

Category: misc

Comments

2 Responses to “April 4, 2008”

  1. JS Bangs
    April 4th, 2008 @ 6:26 pm

    Gawd, I hear you about UPS. I had the exact same thing happen: note left at my door when I was home; called to have it held for me at the distro center; arrived at the distro center, and of course I didn’t get it at home either, because I was away at the distro center.

    Everyone I talked to was nice but useless. I think that the underlying reason is what a former UPS driver once admitted to me: the delivery quotas that the drivers are supposed to meet every day are ridiculously high, so the drivers have to cut corners left and right or get fired. “Cutting corners” evidently means leaving slips without even attempting to contact the homeowners, it seems. So blame the corporate bastards who set the quotas.

  2. Cherie
    April 5th, 2008 @ 2:01 pm

    Nice but useless — that sums up everyone I spoke with on the phone. *sigh*

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