stuff done

I wrote two articles today, which is two more than I get done on most days: the program book blurb on a conference guest of honor, which isn't due till next week; and an update on the current status of the local chamber music venue whose owner is in bankruptcy proceedings, which as you can imagine puts a lot of stuff in limbo. This latter turned out to be longer than I'd thought (well, they both did), and it'll be finished as soon as I hear back from the concert vendors who are usually faster at returning my calls than this.

I also have three months in which to write a major scholarly piece that was suddenly dumped in my lap. Terrified (there's a contract and everything), I dashed off an outline - as long as either of the above articles, actually - in one hour in the middle of the night a couple days ago, just after getting the e-mail from across the pond confirming that I'm to write it. So at least that's started. I actually sent the outline to the editor, something I've never done before, partly because my outlines aren't designed to be intelligible to anyone but me, and he claimed to follow the gist and proclaimed it good. I think I know where I'm going to test-run this thing.

Another odd bit of writing I did recently came from having been contacted by a local G&S group that wanted me to write some sort of publicity article for their next production. After much go-around, since they didn't seem clear on what they actually wanted, and I did not wish to write a press release for a production I know nothing about, I agreed to write some short blurbs on the show itself, not tied to the specific production, that they could post on Facebook or somewhere. After another go-around in which I explained that no, I'm not going to join their publicity team and post on Facebook myself, I'm just going to write stuff for them to use, I did it. The show is The Sorcerer. Not one of G&S's best-known works, and deservedly not, so what am I to say about it? Well, it's their first full-length show for D'Oyly Carte and has premonitions of what will be in its successors, so that was good for a few examples. And it's an opera about a real love potion, not a fake one like L'Elisir d'amore, so that's another. And it's a fantasy, but completely unlike Game of Thrones - no dragons! no beheadings! no dwarves! - so I can get a dig out of that one too. And the job was done. My employers were greatly tickled, and promptly abridged them even further - and quite well; I was astonished - so that they'd fit for additional broadcasting on Twitter.

Meanwhile, today I also picked up a cartload of stuff at the vet's for Pandora, who is now on 4 medications instead of 2 and needed an entire new supply of prescription cat food, as she's suffering from two illnesses that require incompatible diets, and we're switching which one gets treated. At least she's in better spirits than in the previous few days, although the moment when I gave her the first dose of one of the new medicines, by sticking a syringe in her mouth and squeezing the bulb, was a big surprise for both of us. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before, and the question becomes whether she'll tolerate it ever happening again.