Tuesday, February 12, 2008

If I used tranquilizers...

...I would have overdosed on them li'l puppies today.

It was the kind of frustrating day that just shreds me.

Late yesterday, I heard from the guy I wanted to interview for a story. He'd love to talk about the subject, had a lot of stories to tell, and would call me this morning. He's a busy guy, and his schedule was over-full yesterday.

So I spent some time last night reworking parts of the story so his impressions and stories would have maximum prominence, as they should. All that would then remain was to plug in his words, and ship the damn thing to its editor.

The inevitable happened: no call this morning. Or this afternoon.

So I sat here, catching up on the news -- which was also incredibly irritating when not outright depressing -- waiting for the call that never came.

I'm not exactly mad at the guy. After all, he's busy, and will be doing me a favor by adding unique information to the story.

But I essentially wasted this day. Completely. And I can't afford that.

My whole plan to extricate myself from the sewer I'm in depends on things happening. Unfortunately, I can't control all of them. I still have to depend, to a big extent, on others. And time grows short.

All I can do is try to calm myself down tonight, and hope I get the interview tomorrow.

After all, I can't tell each person I need to get assistance from, be they people who can help fill complete articles or clients to whom I want to sell my work, that I'm clinging onto a fraying rope here.

Not good for the "image," you know.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a razor's edge, Scrib. Hope he calls tomorrow!

becomingkate said...

Yikes. I hate when I forget to call someone when I've said I would, and I really hate being stood up even if it's just a phone call.

Anonymous said...

Reading the same stuff over and over and over, I feel bad. I mean I really do.

All I can wonder is whether your verbal skills match your written ones. Are you able to commuicate to people [nicely] the fact that you are busy and have deadlines, and MUST be told promptly if there is going to be a hiccup on your plans to meet or talk.

Kimmywoo said...

Scrib, this seems like a common theme in your journal. And the person getting hurt by this is always you, even though there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe you need to develop a strategy to deal with this, because it's doing your head in! You're getting no reward for a large amount of work. Maybe there's some way to reward yourself for all the hard yards you put in? I dunno. That's all I can think of for advice.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully he called today. He probably didn't think of important the timing was. All the best to you.