The whirligig of time is quick

[desperance]

You know how, every time you find a penny, you are obliged to lose a pound?

Sometimes it's really, really quick.

Yesterday, as you know, I was being obnoxiously bouncy over the sale to Nature. I had brought a duck home from the market, and meant to spend the evening deconstructing it: the legs for confit, the carcass for soup, the breasts to be flash-fried and eaten pink. Like that. But I hadn't even laid blade to skin before the phone rang, and that was Sean suggesting a drink. Well, I was still full of bounce; I set the duck aside and bounced down to the pub. Where much drinking occurred, etc.

And then went straight from the pub to the theatre (Cats, since you ask. I hadn't seen it. Now I have). And came out of the theatre with my own producer, the guy who directed "A Cold Coming". And we spoke.

The plan had always been that to follow the success of that last play, we would go to the Arts Council early this year - about now, as it were - to apply for funding for a new one. It was foolish of me, I know, because the Arts Council is unpredictable in its vagaries, but I was rather counting on the money, as well as being dead keen to write the play. Which I had been discussing with Sean in the pub, just a bare couple of hours before...

But. I have a love-rival; I have been displaced. Peter has another play: something that he saw in Edinburgh and has negotiated the rights for, and will be producing this year. In lieu, apparently, of mine. He speaks of 2009 now, for us. And I don't believe him.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Oh no! What a pain. Sympathies...

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Aim higher. Peter isn't the only producer around, surely?

[timill]

Did the cats enjoy their duck? Or did you remember to put it away before leaving...?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

You were counting on money from the Arts Council? Seriously? Hmm. Well, at least this way you can cut straight to the disappointment without the trouble of filling in the application first.

Besides, durham_rambler has a point: if you are seriously committed to the flummery of the theatre, you're probably better off talking to Sean than to Peter.

(Though personally, I think you got your pennies and your pounds the wrong way round, back there).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Happily, I remembered; it's in the fridge. Barry got bacon-rind, Mac got a mushroom; they were happy.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Did not. The apophthegm (a word I have no idea how to pronounce, so diligently reproduce every phoneme - if phoneme is the word I want - unstressed) says "you look like you've lost a pound and found a penny," but I find it tends to work the other way, that nemesis seizes on glee.

[julesjones]

a) Foolish perhaps, but it's still painful. [hugs]

b) durham_rambler offers wise advice.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I said "personally", I wasn't criticising your use of language. I just felt that actual publication as an actual SF writer in actual Nature is the pound, and a potential Arts Council grant for a potential play is the penny.

What I also meant to ask back there was, does Peter realise he will be shunned henceforth by all right-minded people as a flighty creature of no discenment?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Somebody should probably explain it to him; I think I smiled and was quiet and expressed no distress at all. I do that.

As to the pound/penny thing: I take your point. But I keep thinking about the numbers. The play would actually have kept me alive for months, which is on the whole a good thing, we think. Now I have no notion how I will get past the summer.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Producers. I don't know what world they live in but it is only fitfully the one we occupy, and then only if we are in a position to be exploited.

Grrrr. Nil nisi, etc, 'cos they certainly are illegitimus (sorry if my Latin is a bit off)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Baem's Universe pay 15-25 cents a word, and they pay right away.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

They're closed for submissions until 'at least March' - boo! - but thank you for the prompt.