Monday, July 31, 2006

Oh, my dear Print Futures peeps (and all you other aspiring writers out there). My generosity cup runneth over, and I am therefore going to share with you some of the wise wisdom I've picked up while working at the mag. Today I found myself at the crap end of the query pile. My beloved e-i-c keeps all the good ones to herself, and she makes the interns write the "sorry, loser" emails to all the misguided fools who think that they have a good idea.

I realized today that there are some lessons to be learned here, and shared. So we will begin with today's prizewinner. It begins "Hello Terry-Lynn, how are you today? I hope your having a bright sunny day!!"

Now. Let's analyze this. If we ignore the serial adjectives (is a comma necessary?) because no one understands those rules, we can focus on the basics. Sure, he spelled the e-i-c's name correctly. But the informality of "hello" just negates the bonanza of proper spelling. Then there's the comma splice. You can't just mash the salutation into the first line, even if that's the way your manic brain works. "How are you today?" is a separate sentence. So it needs a capital "h". And in the final sentence, it's not "your" but "you're", as in the contraction for "you are". It's very simple stuff, people. If you can't get the first lines right, can you reasonably expect the reader to assume that you'll get it together eventually?

To answer that question, I'll provide the closing paragraph. Please note that when this writer wrote "we", he was really just referring to himself (and maybe the voices in his head).

"So we Thank-You Terry-Lynn !!! We thank-you for taking a bit of time w/David & Lymphology. & please forgive me for misspelling your name in the other article I submitted to you Terry-Lynn. Lymphology is starting to really cook & I used to have 4 million hairs on the top of my head as opposed to what I got now."

Now that's how you close a query letter!

You have no idea how difficult it was to copy that word for word. I think that I sprained something.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Dear JP, my "work wife" at the mag, lent me some old Life and Maclean's magazines from around 1955. I love those old magazines. People were so shockingly innocent in those days, I think. Case in point, this photo from a story about a housewares tradeshow, as it appeared in a July 1955 edition of Life:



Am I perverted? Was the photographer perverted? The caption says "Outsized poster of attractive girl with Woodpecker Woodware salt and pepper mills paid off in orders of $5,200 for regular-sized mills."

Thank you Mr. Caption-writer, for the explanation that they weren't selling 3 foot tall salt and pepper mills. And by the way..."Woodpecker Woodware"? Is that a nickname for the model, or is that a company name?

Let's discuss.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Cry for help.

Please PF peeps, give me some advice. I'm freaking over Calvin's last f-ing assignment. I had it all planned out. I knew which "document" I was going to use. There's a "famous" note written between my sister and I when we were both sick at one time. I apparently wasn't feeling too bad, and was bored. My sister felt like shit. We both had tonsilitus, so we were "talking" by passing notes under her door (she locked herself in because she felt like shit). It's a very funny note. Me: Let's play a game. She: No, screw off (we were only around 10, so her language wasn't that strong...which makes it that much more charming). However, my mother, who I've discovered has kept every useless greeting card from our childhood, as well as birthday party guest lists and menues, and Christmas lists, and all kinds of other useless junk, doesn't know where that note is. Great. I've spent the whole day looking, and I haven't found it.

So now I'm faced with Plan B which was...I didn't have a Plan B because I had a perfect plan for the first scenario. Now my choices are:
-sheet music for a piano duet that my sister and I played...the last time we played it together was the year we both quit piano lessons

-the post-it note that is still on the microwave which lists my sister's hospital room number

-a receipt some housewarming gifts we gave my sister and her husband, all of which her returned after she died

-some random airplane ticket or something, from when I went to school in England, or, if I'm lucky, when I went to Europe in high school

Please give me some ideas...what are you all doing? I haven't got a clue, and I need to get this done early in the weekend.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

I got an emergency assignment today. I'm ghostwriting a regular column for someone who is brilliant, but who had some family tragedy which has affected her deadline.

Am I flattered?
Yes.

Am I intimidated?
Yes.

Will this be fulfilling?
I'll let ya know.

Is the deadline soon?
Like yesterday!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

I have much homework to do, so I shall blog.

First, I must quote a friend: Hot enough for ya? Oy, it's nasty, steamy, cloyingly, annoyingly hot. It's the kind of hot where you feel like you need to have a shower immediately after you've just had a shower. My scalp is sweating, which is quite impressive considering that there isn't much insulation. Please wait for the photographic evidence to follow.

It was Josie's last day at the mag on Thursday, so to commemorate and perpetuate, I took my camera. I tried to get some candid photos. I thought that it would be a nice memento. But unfortunately, she has camera radar. Somehow she "felt" the camera, and managed to turn around and give it a hideous glance just in time for the "shutter" to close. I've promised her that I will never share the photo. However, I didn't promise her that I would delete it.

But I did manage to get a couple of good shots of her in her temporary natural environment. In this first one, she's saying "Goodbye, I'll miss you. I really loved working here at alive".















Maybe it was more directed at me. I'll have to check. The second one shows her studiously at work. Please notice the lovely environs. No windows to the outside world!























Then there's a couple of photos of me. In the first one, I'm editing a brilliant article written by super-intelligent SME. Really, it's pretty good. And here's a sidebar: look at my lovely forehead. It's getting bigger every day.












And finally, here's a completely posed, self-shot photo. I perched the camera on top of my water bottle thingy. I'm sure that the snotty accountant guy in the office behind me thought I was really insane. But I really wanted a photo of myself at "work". Please, oh PF peeps, tell me if this act of photo self-preservation was a sign of insanity.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Whew. I've finally gotten around to blogging about work. So many people requested it after meeting Terry-Lynn (aka T-L or Her Majesty...that will be explained later). Her appearance at the PF forum this past Wednesday means that the secret is out: it's terribly cool to be alive, and it's especially cool to be an alive intern. But now, as of yesterday, the honeymoon is over. Josie and I officially got a work-spouse divorce. She's now gone on to other things (holidaying on Thetis Island, hosting a PF barbecue), while I'm still slogging away at the magazine.

Slogging because party time is over. The literary luncheon (hosted by alive's editorial department) was held last Tuesday. We interns were included in the planning from day one. It was my brilliant idea to have an Alice in Wonderland theme (those who know LC know how appropriate that theme is), so we could carry on with the tradition of poems that take the piss out of everyone at alive, word games, and costumes. I didn't know about the costumes until after I suggested A in W; then I was very, very scared. Luckily, T-L didn't have any costumes to fit me. We had to settle for T-L dressed as the Red Queen, Susan, (the assistant editor) dressed as the White Rabbit, and Josie (the other intern) dressed as Alice. Unfortunately, there was no film in Josie's camera (accident?), so I don't have any photographic evidence of her costume. However, here's a photo of the eic and the assistant eic en costume.



We had the picnic in the park across the street from the alive Publishing Group Inc.'s office. You can see a part of the muddy Fraser in the background. You'll have to believe me when I say that it was incredibly funny to see the Red Queen, The White Rabbit, and Alice running back and forth across the street. It's an industrial area, and I'm sure that many of the truckers who drove by blamed too many long hours and too many cups of coffee for the characters they saw. The rest of the editorial team (and me) transferred all the food we had prepared to a 16 foot, red-checkered table for the buffet lunch. During lunch, the alive staff was treated to a funny poem, recited by the Red Queen, about all the "wonders" of working for alive. After that, they played a "confounded compound noun" word and picture game for prizes. Those who finished first were free to play croquet (the wickets weren't numbered, but were in the order of the editorial process) and checkers on a 16X16 foot checkerboard. There was also an A in W themed crossword puzzle. There were "door" prizes, raffles, and a lot to clean up. Josie de-Aliced herself for the cleanup. I can't get the f-ing photo to work, so you'll have to just try to imagine it.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

This is the blog about the wonderful day I spent with the Belles of Print Futures (as dubbed by Josie P), Brat and Meladuck, on Saturday, July 8. It started when I picked them up at the last stop for Skytrain. They had been there for too long. Luckily, none of it rubbed off on them...no spitting or cursing throughout the day. Well, at least none that I noticed.

We then headed to Critter Care, the wonderful wildlife refuge for which Sara and I wrote a research report. Writing that report was a long and tedious task, and we were delighted to see that they had not implemented any of our suggestions. Thanks for nothing. But really, we would have been surprised if they had implemented anything considering how busy they've been with all the babies.

The tour this year was pretty good, except that we got separated from the rest of our group. We got stuck in a group with a couple of families with kids. I know. Imagine that...people brought their kids. It wasn't so much that there were kids involved, it was more about the fact that they were tired and cranky when they got there, so having them on the tour was torture. At least Meladuck got to add to her list of reasons why she doesn't want to have children.

Anyhow, we saw lots of baby animals, including skunks and squirrels.
















The baby beavers were pretty cute too, although I didn't manage to get a photo of their tails.













Then we went to White Rock. Meladuck and Sara were starving. We stayed in the East Beach area, and found a delightfully tacky fish'n'chip joint. Unfortunately, my photos didn't fully realize the tackiness, although you get a hint of it by the look on the Belles' faces.














Then we walked around on the beach, with Mt. Baker all snowy in the background. We counted dead baby crabs (and lost count), the Belles fashion-watched ("Who wears Bebe jeans and stillettos to the beach?"), and had to wait for a train to get the hell outta our way so we could get some refreshing gelato. There wasn't enough time to walk out on the pier. Maybe we'll do it next time.























Then I unceremoneously dumped them off at Skytrain because I had to rush to work (Ugh!). I'd have to say that the only bad part of the day was that Brat got a sunburn. I'm sorry that I didn't warn her in advance that the sun might be out. Just chaulk it up to country ignorance. Sorry, city folk! I'll warn you about nature next time.

Monday, July 03, 2006

To all my PF friends, I'm submitting a warning: Although my family incident story contained no bodily fluids, and is, in my opinion, of good taste, my poem is not. I have returned to my former glory of "grossmeister of PF", and have written a narrative poem about vomit. You are lucky...I didn't feel compelled to describe it in detail (although now that I'm thinking about it...). I feel that it is an unusual tale, and I have told it as cleanly as I can.

Please forgive me.