In the average day at the DJ, I do a bunch of different
things. Among them today I handed in the edit of a book, wrote some copy,
edited some other people’s copy, looked up Boxcar Willie and found out that
good old BW is no longer with us, Googled the phrase “predictable as…” and got
nothing useful but did discover the Neverending Story slideshow, got
sidetracked on Twitter by the fact that September 1 is Back to Hogwarts Day,
read a bit of a novel that practically put me into a state of permanent
depression but I got my revenge by writing a really snarky review, listened to
a bit of futile employee ranting, said farewell to an employee on her last day,
listened to another bit of futile employee ranting, ran out for Chinese takeout
that I ate at my desk while doing the crossword puzzle (just my average time
today, sigh), turned over the two calendars on my wall to the new month, sent a
book to our Canadian editor to see if I can trick her into getting it edited
for us, read a bit of a different novel that I couldn’t make heads nor tails of
and therefore quickly put aside with another really snarky review, gave away
my broken iPad to my production assistant after resetting it back to factory clean so
that she doesn’t steal my identity and start buying everything that isn’t
nailed on Amazon, threw in the keyboard/cover that I never did like because it
weighs too much, marveled that the company Kindle she was working on is so old
that it still has Gutenberg’s fingerprints on it, communicated with Kirby C a
couple of times about the relative lack of shenanigans on the Rather Large
Bronx waitlist that he is about to clear, responded to another tournament
director about a local coach who doesn’t pay her debts of honor by pointing out
that her total and complete lack of honor renders those debts invisible to her
(don’t get me started), had a cup of tea, read a little bit of another book
about four friends who get together and reveal secrets and put it down because
I didn’t care about any one of them much less all four of them and gave it a less than snarky review because my snark dies down as the day goes on, took a break
and watched a little of a walking tour of Disney Springs, read the latest
Publishers Weekly (and I am looking forward to Alan Moore’s Jerusalem, but for
myself, not the DJ), tried reading another book but it was too literary for a
series that prefers straightforward narrative—
By the way, the part of my job that involves choosing books
does not necessarily mean reading them. I start reading them, and if I like
them, I keep reading them, but I’m not getting paid to read, I’m getting paid
to find books. At the point where I determine a book won’t work for us, it’s my
job to go on to the next one. So occasionally I get paid to sit and read and
enjoy myself, but as far as this stuff goes, I get paid to read as little as
possible of stuff I don’t enjoy. There’s plenty of that to go around. I also
edit books for the series, about half of my time overall although not today.
That’s a whole nother biz entirely.
—and wrote up a review of that one, and finally grabbed one
more for the road, hoping, as always, for the best. The worst days I spend are
the ones I spend sifting through unusable books. It’s boring and feels
unproductive. But then you read a good book, maybe not today, maybe not
tomorrow, but soon, and all the bad ones disappear.
And that’s how I earn the big bucks.
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