telecommuting

Cold and wet and miserable outside at the cottage yesterday. Which made it a perfect indoor workday, of course, since neither Jeff nor I were at all tempted to go outside. We both spent most of the day with our laptops at the dining room table.

It took ages for the boathouse to heat up yesterday despite a huge blaze in the fireplace. I was so cold that I wore a fleece hat and put a space heater right beside my feet for a while.





Things I did online yesterday from the cottage, in addition to working on my fiction novel:

- Researched current publishing news, uploaded my Market Watch column to WritersMarket.com (based in Cincinnati)

- E-mailed with my literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. (based in New York)

- E-mailed with some writers re: their poll answers for my column for Writing-World.com (based in Maryland)

- E-mailed with interviewees for my Chatelaine article.

- Researched NaNoWriMo communities and writers for my article on the topic for a newspaper in Ohio.

- Worked on my outline for my own NaNoWriMo project.

- Was interviewed by e-mail for an online magazine.

- Got an e-mail from our real estate agent about a potential house. Jeff and I looked at the picture of the house, checked out the info, checked out the exact location via online maps, made an appointment to see the house in Toronto next Tuesday.

- Researched hotels in downtown Ottawa (Jeff and I are staying in Ottawa Sunday night), looked up locations via Yahoo maps to find a hotel close to Jeff's client in Ottawa.

I love the Internet.

I've added a Permalink link at the bottom of my main Blatherings entry, by the way, and have also (with Parki's help) turned on RSS 1.0 (activated? added?) in case people want to check on updates that way.

Jeff and I worked until 4 pm, at which point we had a sauna then a short nap. Jeff, who rarely cooks at home, made a yummy ginger-pear chicken dish with steamed snow peas and a salad on the side. In the evening, he taught me how to play Carcassonne, a pretty cool board game.





NaNoWriMo Update:

I downloaded Eric's NaNoWriMo Report Card, which is an Excel Spreadsheet that records all kinds of stats as you write your novel, including generating pie charts, charts output progress, etc.

I'm working on an outline in MS Word in preparation (it's allowed! I asked!). Using outline mode, I'm doing an overview of the main characters, their background, the plot.

Links/News:

One year ago, I was hanging out with my friend Andrew in Santa Clara.

Four years ago, I saw Antz with Jodi, Allison, John and David.

Five years ago, we were eating Walkers' Chocolate-Covered Ginger Cookies (from Lissa and Phil).

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Me, yesterday morning.
	Our set-up in the boathouse. We shared one long phone cord which we passed back and forth whenever one of us wanted to go online. I wore headphones whenever I was in my "I'm writing don't talk to me" mode. Jeff hung the blanket up over that window to try to conserve some heat. Yesterday's headphone workmusic: Kim Robertson harp music and Manhattan Sleeps.
	Still more fall colours from our walk earlier this week. Sadly, these already seem to be fading somewhat.