About 4 pm, I become the undead – the Zombie Formerly Named TC who staggers around the house and eating the brains of the living. It’s the result of a potent cocktail of “new baby” sleep deprivation and eleven time zones worth of jet lag, and it’s every bit as unpretty as it sounds.
Unfortunately, the Undead stagger carefully around the Copywriter Underground/Soiled Diaper World Headquarters these days, what with the Still Uncompleted Construction Project turning every available space into a deadly obstacle course (if it’s one thing zombies don’t do well, it’s hurdle).
In fact, I’m designating this Day 40 of the Underground Home Hostage Crisis – an acknowledgement that an extremist contractor splinter group has apparently seized control of our house, demanding bags of money or they’ll start killing rooms.
They’ve done enough damage to convince us they really mean it.
Still, these aren’t your average Working-Class Extremists – they apparently prefer to terrorize lazily from a distance. At least that’s the conclusion you’d have to draw since we haven’t actually seen a cell member all week long.
My wife is reacting to all this with the kind of grace you’d expect from an Ivy League educated brainiac new-mom type, which is to say she’s threatening to go all Chuck Norris on the contractors for not finishing the project when they first promised – five weeks ago and “for sure” before we returned from our trip to Ethiopia.
In fact, when calling the lead contractor, she casually mentioned that “Nothing says ‘Welcome to your new home’ to a baby like the severed heads of contractors mounted above the front door.”
(Moral of Story: Don’t Mess with a New Mommie)
(Truth in Copy Disclosure: She didn’t actually say “severed” but drama demanded I add it. Sorry.)
So to summarize:
- Me = The Undead
- House = Hostage Site/Nuclear Blast Zone
- Spouse = Chuck Norris Would Be Proud
- Little M (new baby) = Burbling happily away in the corner
- Spare Time = None
The New Writing Life
I’m working feverishly on a big Web site project, and while I’m happy for the work, sizable changes lie before me.
My regular work routine – honed over two decades of mucking around in this business – is now mostly a fantasy, and the accommodations are flying thick and fast.
You write when you can, and look carefully at the things you formerly had time for, but now seem less important.
Keep writing (and avoid zombies whenever possible), Tom Chandler
See you (other zombies) on the River, Tom Chandler.
Comments 4
I quite like your animated writing style, Mr C. You inspire me. It’s rare to be inspired and motivated at an early-hours stage of Monday, but you seem to have cracked the nut.
Keep on zombifying and good luck with the web project. Care to share how you set about tackling this monster job?
By “monster job” do you mean raising a kid, or doing the Web site?
The site seems the simpler of the two to explain (and I don’t understand babies yet anyway), so here’s the secret:
Build an image map/outline.
This project is 200+ pages of content – a lot of which I’m not writing, but simply rewriting/editing (almost as much work).
Today’s Web sites typically use short copy counts on each page. Thus, the problem isn’t writing the stuff, it’s staying organized around the writing of the stuff.
I actually drew a visual map of the site and its pages, then highlighted those that needed new copy, and those that needed rewrites, and those the client was invariably forgetting even existed (and would probably need copy).
You could easily do the same with commercial flowchart/outline software, but I’ve found that drawing something on paper is actually faster and you can mount the thing on the wall next to your desk and check off the pages as they fall…
Fodder for a post, if I could ever get some sleep.
I have a low-hanging giant whiteboard on the wall and an assortment of fine-tipped markers for creating those maps when necessary. I’m with you–drawing them works so much better for me than using software.
I’ve avoided the contractors, but we made the utterly insane decision to move about a week before the arrival of Amelia earlier this year.
The combination of a completely upended household, a new munchkin and trying to maintain a business that would cover all of the associated expenses should’ve snagged me a star turn in a horror flick… As Buck Owens might’ve said:
“George Romero’s gonna put me in the movies. He’s gonna make a big star out of me. He’s gonna make another zombie movie. And all I gotta do is act naturally.”
Good luck. It gets (marginally) better. At least it does when contractors aren’t involved.
Carson Brackney´s last blog ..Let’s Get Ready to Ruuuuummmmmble! Content Mills and Cheap Content…
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 5:41 am (Quote) ¶When a kid shows up, the last thing you need is an extra workload. Thus, moving just a week before the birth does technically qualify you as “insane.”
As for the whiteboard thing, I mentioned my big paper-based image map to a Web client, and he seemed so offended by the idea (too low tech) that I pretended I was doing it on the PC…
Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] Embarrassingly, I had to read my own blog to discover where my last post left off (hint: Zombie Copywriter attacks Slacker Building Contractor). [...]
Post a Comment