Smallville writer: “Hey, I’ve got an idea.  Let’s take the most legendary villain that Superman has ever faced and really wussy it up.  We can make him smaller and less imposing to start with.  I figure about one third scale should suffice.  Next we should round out all those nasty bone spikes to give him the soft, cuddly appearance our audiences expect of today’s super-villains.  After that we should stick him in the body of a regular human who spends half the season crying about how evil he is, crying over someone else’s girl (that he barely knows) and crying over produce.  Once he’s Emo’d his way through fifteen episodes in the desperate search for a way to end the pain, he can give one final dramatic farewell then take his own life in a Kryptonite bath.  Of course we’ll have him walk back in two scenes later like nothing happened because he’s so bad-ass.”

Obviously I wasn’t in the room when this trainwreck of a decision was made, so I don’t know for sure how it went down, but I’m pretty sure it was something like that.  I probably shouldn’t complain after seven seasons of pure awesomeness.  I’m just surprised that after doing everything else so well, Doomsday was done so poorly.

I don’t know where this picture originally comes from (found it on some vampire collective site) and I don’t know who painted it (the signature is far too small for me to make out).  I do know it’s freaking awesome.  She’s just so cheerful.  I know for a vampire that’s wrong but in this case it’s so wrong, that it’s right.   I love this cheey vampire.

Had someone tell me recently that my writing is very witty. It’s a nice compliment but not entirely true. One particular character or another may sound witty but it took me ages to think up all his clever lines. The rapier sharp comeback you’re reading in two seconds is often the result of multiple hours of staring at my screen or replacing the crap line from draft one with a better one in draft four.

A good life example – any room mate I’ve ever had will tell you I’m notorious for coming up with the most scathing comebacks days after the opportunity to deliver them. Numerous times I’ve been hit by a flash of inspiration and shot up from the couch, interrupting the TV with a line beginning with: “Man, what I should have said was…” Of course the response is: “Yeah, that would have been an awesome thing to say four days ago.”

Oh well. All these ideas do get saved for later and put to use at some point, and it does still feel good that the end result result came out how I wanted it to even if I didn’t think it up instantly.

I had a buddy once comment that the way I write is the exact opposite of the way I speak. It’s true. If you were to meet me in person you’d find that 90% of the time I don’t have a lot to say. I’m a listener. Every once in a while I’m able to chip in my two cents worth but on the whole conversations are for me almost entirely a spectator event. There are the rare occasions when I do find a topic I can ramble on about. Usually it’s writing or some other personal interest. When I do get passionate about a conversation and really let loose, I’ll often trip over my words. My brain gets firing faster than my mouth can keep up and I’ll stutter, or I have a difficult time putting my thoughts into words and simply cannot express what I’m thinking verbally. The concept makes sense in my brain but once left my mouth I can see that it’s fallen flat.

Because of this I’ve found that people who haven’t actually read anything I’ve written have a hard time taking me seriously. They assume that they way I write is the same as the way I speak and so therefore my writing must not be very good. I can see the look on their faces; I’m expressing some story idea or talking about how much I love writing in general and I’m getting back that awkward pity look. The one where they think I’m being a deluded idiot and have absolutely no chance of success but they don’t really have the heart to tell me such. I’ve been able to convert some of these people over later; the ones that I’ve allowed to read some of my finished work. Some of them have raved about how much they loved particular scenes that they were not at all thrilled about when I was describing it verbally (they were giving me the look). It’s nice, and a form of vindication, but it’s not dealing with the original problem. I can talk about a scene verbally and they think that it’s trash; it isn’t until it’s on paper that they enjoy it. The way it’s written on the page is how I’d always intended it but I couldn’t convey that idea to my audience vocally.

The problem I think might be brain hardwiring. I’ve read a few articles about how people with severe verbal handicaps, such as stuttering or a lisp, lose those handicaps when they sing. Singing apparently uses a different part of the brain than speech so it bypasses the section that’s malfunctioning. Or, on a less “mental deficiency” angle, some people are just geared towards certain activities while things that you think would be simpler are beyond them. Some people are phenomenal at math but have a hard time putting that skill to use in practical applications like science. Others can perform precise, small scale tasks like woodcarving or surgery but have a hard time with broader activities like catching a ball. Their brains are just geared towards a certain type of activity and they’re very good at it but for anything that falls outside that narrow range they’re just as average as anyone else. Or worse.

That’s the problem I’m up against. I have great ideas and can write well (given a couple drafts, the first one usually sucks) but I can’t express any of that in a verbal format. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a fix. The only solution I can find is to shut up about my writing and just let the finished work speak for itself. Which is probably a good thing anyway – it keeps the plagiarism ninjas in check. They’re all around me… trying to steal my golden ideas… don’t try to tell me they’re not…

Got another couple short stories in the works.  A vampire tale of spurned love and a sci-fi story, oddly enough.  Never thought I’d write any science fiction but have some good ideas floating around in my head that I think need to be put to paper.

Haven’t heard a word back about my last short story submissions.  Going to be a while with Christmas and all.  Probably not even reading them for another few weeks.

The number of people that believe in me, that support me and are really encouraging me to succeed may be small but for now it’s enough.

Many agents and publishers have their own special requirements for what they do and do not want to receive.  If you go to any of their websites you will see lists of the genres they accept, the genres they don’t, the proper font to use, whether they accept submissions electronically, whether you can send attachments, whether they accept multiple and simultaneous submissions, etc.  All that makes sense.

What doesn’t make much sense to me is the list of don’ts and disclaimers they post.  Not that the disclaimers themselves are an issue but that they have to explicitly state some of them.  They really should be obvious.  Or at least one would think so.  Here’s a list of some of the stranger ones I’ve come across.

“We do not want any thinly-disguised transcripts of role-playing sessions, or settings obviously based on D&D and other such games.”

“No stories set in someone else’s universe or using existing characters (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, etc.).  This includes fan fiction.”

Stories of the same genre will have common themes.  Science fiction stories are likely to have space ships or aliens in them.  A fantasy story will probably have some sort of magic or mythical creatures in it.  A crime drama could very well contain police officers of some sort.  That’s all fine.  However if Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Darth Vader are battling it out in a desert world full of giant sandworms to see who can first get their hands on the one true ring… it’s safe to say you’ve gone astray.

“We don’t want your first drafts, nor do we want your second, third or fourth drafts.  We only want to look at complete, finished work.”

“My requirements for submission are strict.  The reason is because they make your submission easier to read on my end.  Submissions that do not meet the requirements will be rejected with a letter to that effect.  I will accept a resubmission in the proper format but writers that continually ignore the requirements will have their e-mails added to the block list.”

“Please do not send manuscripts that you’ve scribbled extra notes on or ones covered in coffee rings.”

Are they going to read your manuscript? Coffee Stain Man says no.

I don’t quite get why people wouldn’t put their submissions into the requested format or why they would hand in a poorly presented manuscript.  Sure there’s a learning curve, and everyone does make mistakes, but to send in a half-assed manuscript is just a waste of everybody’s time.  It’s like applying for a job; you tailor your resume to suit the company you’re applying for and you make it look as professional as you possibly can.  You wouldn’t hand an employer a crumpled up resume that’s written in crayon and you wouldn’t fill out half an application form so I don’t get why you’d do the same when submitting a story.  I know it can be time consuming and you’d rather devote that time to writing more fiction but by following the requirements you’re showing them that you’re serious.  I think half the requirements are there simply to phase out the people that aren’t serious and aren’t willing to put in the effort.

“If you don’t like the requirements, or I’ve rejected your story because it does not meet the requirements, please do not write me a letter calling me a Formatting Nazi.”

“If we are not interested in your work, please don’t take it personally or write an angry missive back about how we are going to regret our decision once you become famous.”

These are the real head scratchers.  What could possibly possess a writer to send hate mail to a publisher or agent?   At the very least it’s unnecessary, pointless and rude.  In the worst case it can get you blacklisted.  I’m assuming these people all know each other; they go for lunch and they talk.  At least the New York ones would, which by my rough estimate is about 90% of the agents and publishers out there.  It’s a pretty sure fire way to kill your career before it begins.

Oh, the burden of being eternally young, beautiful and powerful... my heart goes out to you...

Many people don’t realize what a Cuddlepire is or understand the ever growing threat they represent.  As a public service to fans of horror fiction everywhere, I have put together a little FAQ explaining Cuddlepires in detail so that we may be better prepared to deal with this growing menace to the vampire stories we know and love.

What is a Cuddlepire?
The first mention I’ve ever heard of a Cuddlepire was in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off, Angel.  While that may be the first time they’ve been given a proper name, Cuddlepires have been worming their way into our society and culture for decades.  On the surface they may appear to be a normal vampire.  At the very least they’re likely to have a set of fangs, be immortal, have paler than average skin and some form of supernatural powers beyond the realm of mortals.  There, however, the similarities end.  In direct opposition to the centuries of vampires that came before them a Cuddlepire will often be friendly, polite, humane, and in some rare cases perhaps even heroic.  They are the cute, the compassionate, and the harmless vampires that are more interested in being your friend than in actually being a predatory monster.

Why are Cuddlepires such a threat?
What if Darth Vader wanted to talk out his differences instead of brutally crushing the rebel alliance?  What if Freddy Krueger, Jason and Michael Myers wanted to hang out, drink beer and shoot some pool instead of murder?  What if The Joker gave up his life of crime and mayhem, and instead went to work in children’s television?  What if werewolves and zombies couldn’t be bothered to eat people anymore and instead spent their time doing charity work?

You may think those questions sound silly.  A few decades ago, seeing a vampire go to high school and make friends with people instead of hunting your virgin daughter would have sounded silly too.  Today it’s Cuddlepires, tomorrow it’s Snugglewolves and then one day we’ll wake up and see that the entire horror genre has been turned into a dumping ground for the most pathetic crap ever to try and pass itself off as fiction.

How do I spot a Cuddlepire?
Cuddlepires come in a variety of forms and are not always easy to recognize at first glance.  Here are a few of the most common telltale signs:

• They Don’t Hunt Humans – Usually Cuddlepires will feed off of animals or cloned blood; anything to prevent them from harming humans.
• No Vampiric Weaknesses – Often they can be seen wandering around in the daytime, eating food, going to church and generally living a fairly normal human life.
• Sparkling in the Sun – This one’s a dead giveaway.  Real vampires burst into flame.
• Obsessive Need to Talk About Their Feelings (The Emo Effect) – This most often manifests as lamenting all the power and eternal youth they possess or moaning about how nobody understands them.
• Hero Complex – This may range from becoming a vigilante on the streets who fights crime to some sort of involvement in saving the world and everyone in it.  Note this applies only to those doing it out of the goodness of their hearts as opposed to those working for some sort of personal gain.
• Being Educational – For example, by teaching small children how to count.

What can I do to combat the problem?
Stemming this rising tide won’t be easy but here are a few suggestions for what you can do to help:

• On those rare occasions when someone actually gets it right, buy the book or see the movie and recommend it to all your friends.  By supporting the good examples of the genre we are casting a vote for people like that to make more good works in the future.
• Ridicule is one of our most powerful weapons.  When you see people standing in line to watch a movie or buy a book that contains Cuddlepires, point and laugh.
• When you come across an angst filled nancy-boy that claims to be a vampire, bitch-slap the emo off him.  Alternatively if he’s standing out in the sunlight at the time, prove him right by lighting him on fire.
• Write a letter to your political representative expressing your concerns.  Make it clear that your vote hinges upon their action plan for dealing with the Cuddlepire threat.

Remember, the power to save our genre lies in your hands.  Say no to Cuddlepires.

I’m live on Twitter today. Now all my posts and pages have a neat little “Tweet” button for everyone to pass on articles they like.

I also got my own Twitter name today. Twitter name is viktorjnight.  Some other guy has viktornight already…

... and you're a bad speller.

People give Stephanie Meyer a lot of heat over her Twilight series, especially for her portrayal of vampires.  While I’m honestly not an exception (I absolutely despise the way vampires work in her world), I actually have a lot of respect for her as a writer and I think there are a few things people need to keep in mind when they consider trashing her.

• Nobody Owns The Idea Of Vampires – As much as every writer and fan of vampire fiction has their own specific ideas about what a vampire is and how they should work, those ideas are not going to be the same as everyone else’s.  Stephanie Meyer’s vampires may not be presented the way we like them but it’s her choice as a writer to portray vampires in whatever manner is most suitable for her particular style of fiction.  Telling her she’s wrong is like telling the creators of Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Farscape that they’re wrong for not measuring up to the same standards of science fiction that came before them.  Not all science fiction has to be War of the Worlds and not all vampires have to be evil monsters.  I can think of dozens of other sources of fiction where I didn’t like the way the vampires worked and it doesn’t necessarily make them wrong, it just makes them different.

• It’s Not Written For Us – The people that read her books and see her movies are primarily quite young and mostly female.  That’s the market she was catering to.  A lot of fiction out there is geared towards specific ages or genders and if you don’t fall within those demographics then chances are you’re not going to like it.  Some people like aliens, some people like cowboys, some people like sparkly vampires.  It may not be what you or I are into but somebody is or it wouldn’t have gotten published.

• Her Success Speaks For Itself – We’re all entitled to our opinion.  I can disagree with her ideas, I can say I don’t like her portrayal of vampires and I can bitch about the sparkling in the sun (which I do, frequently).  At the end of the day however, one of us is a millionaire with a gigantic fan-base and the other isn’t.  If people enjoy her work and gain some value from reading her books or seeing her movies then she must be doing something right.  Of the last ten books I’ve enjoyed reading and the last ten movies I’ve enjoyed watching, none of them have been anywhere near as successful as Twilight.

Her storytelling aside, why I have so much respect for her is because she didn’t give up.  From what I hear, Twilight was rejected dozens of times before it was picked up and she could have quit at any time but she didn’t.  She really did believe in her work and wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and in the end her persistence paid off.  You never know when your break will come but if you quit, it never will.

Our Most Popular Vintage - The '97 Syphilitic Crack Addict

There exists in our society a sub-culture of people who think they are real vampires, even going so far as to drink human blood.  At the risk (and with the hope) of offending any “real vampires” reading this, I think that is complete and utter stupidity.

Now to qualify this, I love vampires.  I read a lot of vampire stories and watch every vampire movie I can get my hands on.  I love dark, Gothic music and think that vampire/Goth fashion is stunningly beautiful.  I play a fair amount of vampire role playing games and I’ve even spent a couple grand on costume accessories for vampire LARP’s over the years.  I love vampires so much that I have this website and a whole career ambition devoted to the creation of quality vampire fiction.  Experiencing the culture and living the lifestyle (for what little of it I do on the fringes) is great.

Somewhere along the way however, these “real vampires” have started to take themselves a little too seriously.  Some think that human blood contains mystical, healing essences that will cure their illnesses.  Others think it will give them real vampire power.  Some simply think that without consuming human blood they will wither and die.  Whatever the reasons, they’ve long since crossed the boundaries of safety and sanity.  I could go on for a dozen paragraphs about how idiotic I think this is but instead I’m going to boil it down into three points and be done.

• It’s dangerous - Why would you want to drink something as dirty as human blood?  An actual vampire (the fictitious supernatural creature) is not going to die of a random disease.  We as regular humans can.  If someone’s so anxious to out and get Hepatitis or HIV then I can probably suggest a few more entertaining methods than by drinking blood.  I’m certainly not condoning heroin or unprotected sex but if you’re going to pick up one of these horrible diseases you might as well do it the fun way.
• There are better sources of nutrition - I’ve heard the arguments about how blood has all these great vitamins and minerals in it, and without regularly consuming human blood these vampires grow weak or have health problems of some kind.  Putting aside the placebo effect, do you not think there might be something wrong with your diet then?   Maybe it’s time to start eating more fruits and vegetables, less Twinkies.  More steak and fish, less deep fried meat.  More whole grains, less processed flour.  If human blood has nutrients in it that you’re not getting from your regular diet it’s because your diet sucks.
• It will not give you superpowers - There have been many examples of blood drinking or cannibalism in many cultures around the world where the purpose is to consume the power and strength of the person they’re eating, particularly in many Native American or African tribal cultures.  Now I notice that this great power and strength only extends as far as the normal limits of the human physique.  It doesn’t turn them into gods or give them any sort of supernatural advantage over their enemies; it just makes them strong, agile warriors.  Really it doesn’t do anything more than exercise and practice.  You want to be strong and fast?  Lift some weights and go for a run.  Do that three times a week for five years.  Now you’re strong and fast.

So to conclude:
People who like vampires in the entertainment world are awesome.
People who think they actually are vampires are deluded emo-freaks.
People who want to write me a letter to tell me I’m being mean can go to hell.

Like most things in life, being a writer has a steep learning curve.  I don’t so much mean creating the works themselves, though there are a few things to learn in that respect; what I’m mostly referring to is the submission process for sending manuscripts to agents and publishers.

When sending something off for review one wants to make it as professional as possible.  This to me meant minimizing spelling and grammatical errors, having a nice little cover page and justifying the right margin to make the work look crisp.  After that I would apply whatever specific formatting requirements were listed on each individual submissions page, in the rare cases where such guidelines existed.  It turns out that wasn’t enough.  Cleaning up spelling is of course a necessity and the cover page (not query letter) is acceptable but not always necessary.  Justifying the margins, I’ve later discovered, is a big no-no.

I had no idea.  I did my best to make it look as presentable as possible but without realizing it I was making some real amateur mistakes, the kind that will often get a submission immediately rejected without being read.  The other two were presenting my work single spaced and making my margins too small.  It seems the only thing I did right was pick the correct font, which is 12 pt. Times New Roman in most cases.

Eventually I came across an agent site that said “Use standard manuscript submission guidelines.”  Oh, well, that seems obvious in retrospect.  Of course there’s an industry standard.  Why wouldn’t there be?

For those who are interested, here’s the point form list:

• Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
• 1 inch margins
• Double spaced
• No justification (keep a ragged right edge)
• Indented paragraphs without a blank line between them.
• Number pages, keep them consecutive (1-50 as opposed to chapter 1: pages 1-12, chapter 2: pages 1-8, etc.)
• First Initial, Last Name and Title of work in upper left corner of header.  Shorten the title if it’s especially long.

Individual agents and publishers may have their own special requirements but if there aren’t any listed on their site then the above is the best guideline I’ve found.

So in hindsight I have a lot of reason to kick myself.  I probably wasted a ton of time and money on two dozen submissions that had no hope in hell of ever being seriously looked at.  On the bright side, I’m a quick learner and figured it all out in reasonably short order.  It could have been much worse; I’ve read stories about some that never learn and get so frustrated with being constantly rejected that they start writing angry letters back to the agents, calling them “Formatting Nazi’s”.  I’m no expert but I would assume that hate mail isn’t going to win you any points with a prospective agent and could seriously result in blacklisting.

Anyway, live and learn.  At least I now know the requirements and won’t be making the same mistakes with future submissions.  Hopefully I have better luck with the next batch out the door.

If you had asked me five years ago “What are you doing with your life?”, the best I would have been able to say is “I am working to make ends meet.”

If you had asked me the same question two years ago I would have said, “I am working to ensure my financial security and independence.”

If you were to ask me that question today I would reply, “I am working to achieve my dreams.”

If you ask me that question five years from now, I wonder what my answer will be…

In all the old tales of myth and legend, and in much of the classic vampire fiction, vampires used to be monsters.  They were dark predators stalking the night in search of human blood, blending in amongst the heard and picking off the weak and helpless.  They were beings of great charisma with an indomitable presence, inflicting their will upon their prey.  They were creatures of unholy power; allowing them to shape-shift, perform incredible feats of physical prowess and even bend the very darkness to their will.  They were, at one time, something to fear.

Sometime during the last 20 years however, the vampire genre completely fell apart.  Now it’s all disposable minions designed to fall by the hundreds upon the hunters’ sword or these sad, tragic, emo-freaks who spend eternity whining about how hard it is to be beautiful and powerful forever.  All that’s fine in small doses but to have completely hijacked the genre with mooks and Cuddlepires quite frankly pisses me off.

Hollywood is the first guilty party.  I don’t mean the classic Hollywood where movies were about story, style, mood and theme; I’m referring to the modern blockbuster Hollywood where it’s all about big action sequences and flashy death scenes.  Everything is a hail of bullets or an explosion or 10 on 1 battles to the death where the hero might almost get wounded once before turning the attacking mob into ash.  They’ve almost completely forgotten about what’s important to telling a good story, especially a good vampire story; things like dialogue, social politics, mystery and suspense.  Hollywood vampires have almost entirely been relegated to cookie cutter villains that are no different than any other nemesis except that they have fangs.

The other culprit is women.  Yes, you read that right, women.  Other than the works of Anne Rice, every piece of vampire fiction I’ve come across that was written by a women has been full of these fluffy, defanged Cuddlepires that want to hold hands and share their feelings.  They’re the vampires that have lived for centuries but have never killed a human or they’re all so busy saving the world that they’ve forgotten how to be monsters.  I’ve found that women writers are also the most likely to strip away all the classic weaknesses that make a vampire what they are.  Vampires written by women can be seen wandering around in the sunlight, going to church and often can’t even be bothered to drink human blood because it’s icky.  I even saw one case where the vampires somehow learned to subsist off the negative emotions of others, so they travel around the countryside sucking out people’s pain and sorrow, leaving their prey with nothing but happy good feelings.

So now that I’ve determined how and why they are broken, I am setting upon the task of fixing them.  Through my stories, I want to bring vampires back from the realm of fluffy fantasy and return them to their rightful role as monsters and villains.  Sure it’s arrogant and presumptuous of me to think I can possibly be responsible for revamping an entire genre but that’s how strongly I feel that it needs to be done.  I will make vampires something to fear again.  Cuddlepires be damned!

Finished a short story called The Oubliette.  At some point it should be posted here for you to download.  It might not be too soon as I don’t think I should post it publicly and until it’s been sent off to a few magazines for submission.  Once it’s made the magazine rounds, then I’ll post it freely on my site.

Have two more short story ideas in the works that I’m going to get onto paper as soon as I can, then I’m back to work on my second novel.  It’s been sitting at a prologue and one chapter for months.  Accursed day job getting in the way of creativity.

Not many people understand just how much time I’ve put into writing my book or other projects like marketing the book and creating this website.  Because to them the projects transition from non-existence to reality in the span of a single conversation, the general impression is that I simply threw it together and it therefore must be utter crap.  Either that or the book magically appeared for me one day while I was playing video games.  So here I thought I’d take the opportunity to put together a breakdown of the approximate time I’ve been devoting to my first project up to this point.

Drafts one and two:
These were the hardest drafts, the ones where I was really building the story.  Each took about six weeks to complete at 70 to 80 hours a week.  I did take the occasional day off but usually spent between 12 and 14 hours a day, every day, on writing.  Occasionally more, rarely less.  There were even a few 2-3 week stretches where I didn’t take off any days at all.  Adding all that up, that totals around 900 hours and breaking it down into regular work weeks equals a little over twenty-two.  The fact that I did it in twelve meant I was extremely busy.  You know, despite being unemployed.

Draft three:
The hardest work, the major rewriting and plot revisions, was complete.  Now all that was left was tweaking and polish.  Here I went over each line, looking for ways I could better say what I wanted to say, finding sentences I could shorten or cut out, tuning the dialogue to be sure it had the proper punch and hunting for spelling mistakes.

This draft took me a little under five weeks at a more leisurely pace of 60-70 hours a week.  Since the hardest work was done I was allowing myself more time to do other things.  Averaging it out, that’s around 300 hours.

Draft four:
A similar process to the third draft but spread over a greater length of time.  I started the fourth draft while still unemployed but I had to take a break from writing for a few months when I did find a new job as I found the learning process consumed so much of my mental energies that I had nothing left at the end of the day.  I tried writing a little during this period and simply couldn’t do it.  Besides, I was also waiting on some preliminary feedback from friends and family.  Once I’d settled in at my job and gotten comfortable there, I arranged to take Fridays off to devote more time to writing.  This one’s the hardest to estimate because of the break but I probably finished off draft four in about 200 hours.

Draft Five:
Short and Sweet.  Nothing much to do but provide some final polish.  I also found the need to replace all my single quotes around dialogue with double quotes.  For some reason I didn’t realize that double quotes was the North American Standard.  I must have read a lot of English books or something because single seemed normal to me.  I don’t think I spent more than 50 hours on this last draft, spread over the course of a couple weeks.

Adding up all the above equals about 1500 hours, give or take maybe five percent.  On top of that I have spent dozens upon dozens of hours drafting and redrafting my query letters and synopsises, as well as about 200 hours building my website.  I couldn’t even guess how much time I spent on researching agents, personalizing my query letters, printing them off, stuffing envelopes and taking it all to the post office to be mailed away.  All told, it’s got to be around 1800 hours so far which works out to over eleven months worth of regular 40 hour work weeks.  I believe that falls into the category of “freaking lots”.  It’s not all 100% productivity time of course, as there are smoke breaks or meal breaks or whatnot, but in percentage terms it’s higher than any day job I’ve ever done.