Since I came to China about 2 weeks ago, I’ve been making an effort to keep up with my duties back in Canada. I made sure the rent got paid, my bills are all up-to-date, and I’ve been trying to keep in touch with my family and all that. One thing I forgot about was my other writing obligation, a monthly magazine I contribute to called BC Musician (www.bcmusicianmag.com).
Today was the first time I checked my email in more than a week. I didn’t have a chance while I was driving around Hainan, and none of our hotels had internet access. Hainan is a pretty small place, so it’s understandable that they don’t have high speed internet everywhere you go. When I checked my email today, I had a message from the magazine:
“Nathan, can you attend so-and-so conference, take some pictures and write a story? Here’s the date and time, etc etc.
I replied with “I am in China right now. Unfortunately I can’t make it. However, I have my story ready for the March issue, if you want it ahead of schedule.”
Being a keener, I took care of doing the article before I left Canada. Well, most of it anyway. I interviewed someone, and had the general idea for the story, it just hadn’t been put on paper yet. It was written in my head. I also asked my Editor if the cover was still available, as I had kinda sorta promised it to this band, in exchange for a nice, long interview.
Apparently the cover story is due a week before the rest of the articles, so if I wanted the cover, I had better get off my ass and write this story. So I basically forgot that I was in China for a day, got on the computer and started putting together this article. When I emailed the Editor, I said that I am a day ahead of her, so please take that into account. I got a good laugh from her reply.
“You’re in China? That’s so cool! If you’re a day ahead of us, can you tell me what happens tomorrow? Maybe I’ll just stay in bed if I already know what’s gonna happen.”
I relied with “You will win the lottery tomorrow, and will be sleeping in a large pile of money. You should definitely stay in it for as long as possible. Oh and you gave Nathan the cover story.”
I hope she has a good sense of humour, otherwise my story will probably be stuck in the back somewhere.
By the way, I usually post all of my music articles on my other blog site, www.nathanstafford.blogspot.com so I hope it’s not a cardinal sin to promote one blog through another or something. Still, I’m sure some people would be interested to know that I wrote an article about a Canadian band while in China. Maybe for my next article I’ll go to Africa and write about a Chinese band, just for fun.
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