A new year

06. January 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: just thinking... · Tags: , , , ,

I have been really terrible about updating my blogs for the past couple years. I have so many other writing projects that this and my tattoo blog have really fallen by the wayside. I’m trying to work out ways to remedy that in 2013, including writing a book. We’ll see how well I do.

2012 was a good year, all in all. My daughter and her partner traveled to NYC to get married, and my husband and I celebrated our 40th anniversary. My small business is making a small profit. I completed NaNoWriMo for the fourth straight year, and now have 150K+ words written on what will be my third novel. I am determined to get that into good enough shape to send to agents by my birthday at the end of this year.

Tybalt D. Cat is still with us, and will be 19 years old in May. We are dealing with his health problems and count every day we’ve still got him as a blessing. His last remaining sister died this past summer, so he’s now the only one of Caliban’s children left.

The men in the family got my Vespa fixed as my birthday present. I had despaired of ever being able to ride it again. My husband also arranged tickets to Disneyland for my birthday and our daughter treated us to lunch at Blue Bayou, which I had never thought we’d be able to afford. Getting my picture taken with Minnie Mouse remains the only thing I have never done at Disneyland that I wanted to do. I have no idea if we’ll ever go there again, but if not, I’m still happy.

In October I signed up for a pilot program that the American Diabetes Association is running with Weight Watchers. I had never considered Weight Watchers before even though my daughter had been quite successful with their online program. I thought it was too expensive and the program was too restrictive. I’m still of the opinion that it costs a tad more than it needs to (thus keeping many people from joining up) but I have been amazed at how easy the program is and how few changes I really needed to make in my life to be successful. And I have indeed been successful. My weight has gone steadily down and I’m now using half the insulin I once did.  The LA Times had an article about diabetes control in today’s paper (link below) and their reporter certainly hit the nail on the head.

It wasn’t all good news. Our sewer pipe finally clogged up completely right before Christmas and we had the joy of using a porta-potty for a week while the plumber got things sorted out. On the bright side, the job ended up costing less than we thought it would. I had hoped that the money I’m going to earn assembling some rack mount computers would pay for a new MacBook Pro, but it’ll have to go to fixing the sewer instead. That’s a pretty minor first world problem, when you get right down to it, and I can keep saving up for the MacBook and get it next year.

I hope all my readers have high hopes for good things in 2013. I certainly do.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-clinic-diabetes-20130106,0,2996357,full.story

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The perils of assembly

09. December 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: computer follies · Tags: , ,

I took on the job of assembling a bunch of computers for my husband’s office. Not so quixotic as it might sound, because (a) I used to work as a computer tech and (b) I’ve built plenty of computers and (c) they’re going to pay me.

SATA power cable

Of course, as with any computer-construction job, sometimes the instructions don’t quite match the reality. In this case, I was told to attach SATA cables to the hard drives after they’d been installed in their little cages. As it turns out, my hands are neither that small nor that nimble (the space was pretty darn cramped). So, although I didn’t hear or feel it happen, one SATA power cable got broken. (For the non-geeks among us, those are the cables that bring the power from the power supply to the drives, and their connectors are unaccountably fragile.) Result: first computer no workee. In fact, once I got it booted up and went to take a bathroom break… when I came back the thing was stone cold dead.  AIEEEEE! I’ve never had a computer just flat-out commit suicide before. This was rather distressing, to say the least.

However, I resolved to have a positive attitude toward the second one, plus assemble it slightly differently so that those fragile connectors were never in peril. And this I did, and lo, the second computer went together in much less time and lo, it looked perfect upon completion.

Except…  when I turned it on, the monitor screen flashed briefly and then went blank. SAY WHAT!!!

I re-checked everything and found nothing wrong. I asked my husband to come check everything and he found nothing wrong. We swapped the video cable. No change. Then I said “Oh, all right, I’ll go get the monitor off the Mac from the office” (we were using a really beat-up monitor my husband had scrounged from someplace at work).

Now, excavating the Mac’s monitor from its place in the office was an adventure unto itself. When we re-did the office we pretty much wedged things into the available space. Efficient and space-saving, as long as nothing had to be moved afterwards. Now I had to move something, and it wasn’t pretty.  After pulling  the keyboard table out, moving the bookcase, moving the power bar, untangling the cables and pulling everything apart, I was finally able to carry the monitor out to the kitchen table where the assembly process was in progress.

I hooked it up, crossed my fingers and flipped the switch. And oh, hallelujah, there was the login screen. If I hadn’t been certain it would have damaged the floor I would have jumped up and down.

I enjoy putting computers together. I’m sure I’ll enjoy putting the rest of these together now that I know I’m actually capable of doing it right.

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Rejoice, rejoice, you have no choice

12. February 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: commentary · Tags: , , , ,

The RainbowRecently, a bunch of terrified religious leaders slapped their names on a “marriage and religious freedom” screed that anyone with two functioning brain cells could see was a horrendous collection of lies. You know, marriage is under attack, religious freedoms are under attack, religious organizations are going to be forced at gunpoint to do all kinds of things they have been taught to believe are totally icky… blah blah blah.

One of the signatories was the Commissioner of the Salvation Army. As it happens, I am a descendant of two of the Salvation Army’s shining stars, and I have their last name. All those other fearful-faithful brethren would not even see a letter I wrote to them expressing my opinion on the subject of Bronze Age superstition clouding 21st century minds beyond all reason… but in that one instance, my name would get me an audience.

I took the opportunity to write. I was polite but firm. Signing that hateful collection of absolute lies was reprehensible. To be honest, I never expected a reply and I was fine with that.

In one of those cosmic connections that defy imagination, I got a reply. It arrived in our mailbox the same day we got the news that our daughter (also a descendant of those two shining stars) and her partner of seven years had gotten married in New York City.

I told the commissioner (among other things) that he was standing square in the footsteps of George Wallace in the schoolhouse door and that my family and I were very sad that his unfortunate lifestyle choices would prevent him from sharing in our happiness.

Marriage equality is inevitable. And the people who frothed at the mouth about it are securing for themselves a place in history right alongside George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Lester Maddox and others who truly believed that they were right.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Kaptain Kobold

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More adventures in publishing

15. September 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: writing & publishing · Tags: , ,

In honor of what would have been my mom’s 82nd birthday, Logan Books has released The North Star is Nearer by Evelyn Eaton.  It’s available on the Smashwords web site in all e-book formats. Kindle format on Amazon coming soon!

Publish your book with Smashwords

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Publishing, one, two…

21. March 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: writing & publishing · Tags: ,

Dutchman's PuzzleMy second novel Dutchman’s Puzzle is now available in e-reader format!  The print version will be coming as soon as I review the proof.  I will post another message when it’s available.

If you’ve got a Kindle you can get it from Amazon here (or by clicking on the picture of the book jacket) and if you’ve got another kind of e-reader, or want plain text, HTML or a .pdf file, you can get it from Smashwords here. DRM free.

I’d be very interested to hear what you think of the book, or of my first novel Closed Circuit, which is available on Lulu here (lowest price!) Amazon here (print) and here (Kindle) and on Smashwords here (e-readers, etc).

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My second novel

08. March 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: writing & publishing · Tags: ,

I’ve gotten the manuscript for my second novel Dutchman’s Puzzle as complete as I can make it. I’ve rewritten it according to the advice I got in some excellent critiques, I’ve had three editors look for typos and bad writing, and today I formatted a copy of the manuscript for e-book publication. Phew.

Tomorrow, I will format the paper-book manuscript and finish the cover design.

Thursday, I send it out for publication. Which means the e-book versions will be available within a week on Smashwords and Amazon, and the print version will likely follow a few days after that on Lulu, with distribution to the major online book retailers about a month later, if my experience with the first novel is any indication.

I never thought I’d be a writer. Oh, I wrote, no doubt about it, most all my life. But I never really seriously tackled fiction. In fact, that first novel lay around in bits and pieces for more than 20 years before I finally got my act together and finished it. But now I’m on a roll.

The first two books are set in the same fictional small town and with many of the same characters in both books. The third novel, which will likely take me more than a year to finish, is based on my family history, starting in Canada in 1902 and ending up… well, I’m not sure where, but sometime around 1980. The 50,000 words I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year weren’t even half of one character’s story, and there are three main characters, a grandmother, mother, and daughter. Yeah, it’s gonna be a long book. And a good one, if my instincts are correct. Hey, there’s gotta be some advantage to being old. :)

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And away we go. Soon.

31. October 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: writing & publishing · Tags: ,

I’ve added a NaNoWriMo word-count widget on the right, there.  It’ll start showing something tomorrow (Nov. 1).

This will be my second year in National Novel Writing Month, and I did indeed get a good strong backbone for a novel out of last year’s endeavor.  This year, I’ll be starting on the novel I’ve planned to write for decades.  I’ve gotten my two practice novels out of the way (one published in August, one to be published next spring) and I’ve seen a few small royalty checks, enough to encourage me if not make me rich as Croesus.

This new book will be based on my grandmother’s life, my mother’s, and my own.  I think my grandmother would approve, but I’m not so sure about my mother.  The characters will be fact-based fiction, and there are certain aspects of their lives and histories that need to be included for the story to work.  I’ll be doing the same with my life, of course.

I’m once again going to be using Scrivener, which is a writer’s dream.  I’m using it on a vintage Mac Mini and Mac Powerbook G4, but there’s a Windows version due out early next year (beta version available for tryout on the Literature & Latte web site).  To get serious work done, you need serious tools that get the heck outta your way and let you have at it.

I think one of my brothers will like this book, one will hate it and one will be ambivalent.  It will likely take me a long time to get it finished, so I’ll have to revisit that prediction when the time comes.

Want to join me in the fellowship of the novel?

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Who else wants to write?

05. October 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: writing & publishing · Tags: ,

NaNoWriMoLast year, I entered the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) competition for the first time.  I think I’ve mentioned this a time or two.  :)   I’m going to enter again this year and get a start on my third novel.  Is anyone else thinking of entering?  If so, maybe we can encourage each other as we go along.

If you’re worried about not being able to do this, you owe it to yourself to read  No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty, which will get you past the fear of writing and keep you going all month long.  It’s designed specifically for NaNoWriMo participants.  You’re not competing with other writers, only with yourself, and nobody will see the finished work unless you want them to.  What you write doesn’t have to be perfect–you just have to accept the deadline and keep moving toward your goal.

I got two novels for the effort of one, last year, because being able to finish 50,000+ words in less than a month encouraged me to finish my first novel after more than 20 years.  If I can do it, anyone can.  :)

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My book!

13. August 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: personal foibles · Tags:

My first novel, Closed Circuit, has been published in print and e-reader editions.  You can get the details here.

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Illogically logical

13. July 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: personal foibles · Tags: , ,
Tic-tac-toe

Image by Marcin Wichary via Flickr

I have never been known for straightforward, logical thinking.  Just ask my family.  :)   I failed the only programming class I ever took (although to this day I can read programs written in some languages and figure out where the problems are) and my brothers would regularly whup my butt at any game requiring an advanced-thinking strategy.  My mind doesn’t handle chess or checkers–heck, my son beat me at chess the first time we ever played.  He was nine years old.  I did not let him win.

However, I’m able to think in patterns and spatial relationships that my straightforward-thinking family members can’t handle.  No brother of mine ever beat me at 3D tic-tac-toe, although when we played the paper version I only won if I got lucky.  I’m very good at troubleshooting computer problems because I don’t expect them to behave logically and I understand when to search for less exact terms.  My husband, who made it all the way through college calculus without trouble and went to grad school in a demanding scientific field, regularly fumes at his computer because he expects it to behave in certain ways and of course it won’t.  I just wish he didn’t get so annoyed with me for coming up with the solutions.  I know; logical people don’t think illogic solves problems.  That does not make sense.

Why did I go off on this tangent today?  Because I recently discovered to my absolute astonishment that I can solve Sudoku puzzles.  The iTunes store was having a sale, and in browsing through what was available I found a free Sudoku app.  At first I wasn’t going to get it, figuring it would be hopelessly beyond my powers of reason, but then I figured what the heck, I could always delete it if I couldn’t handle it.

I tried an easy puzzle and figured it out without much difficulty and with only one or two false moves.  I did another one and another one and…. OMG I can do this!

I don’t do it logically.  I do it by seeing patterns.  I will never be a speed demon or a champ but I can do this.  I am now doing the medium-diffuculty puzzles and my average solve time is just a little slower than on the beginner ones, although I’m making a few more false moves per puzzle, usually because I’m not paying close attention to where the numbers are.  When I’m actually seeing what I’m looking at, I rarely make mistakes.

I mentioned this to my son last night and he said he wasn’t at all surprised.  Because for years now I have been playing an old DOS based logic game called Sherlock.  You’re presented with a grid and a series of graphical clues as to where various icons must go on the grid to solve the puzzle.  My husband was the first one to get involved with that game and when I saw it I didn’t think I could handle it either, but here I am, probably 20 years later and still playing it.  (If any of you might be interested in trying it, it’s still available from the programmer, Everettt Kaser, on his web site.)  I think I’m using logic to solve those puzzles, but I might not even know what real logic is.

I think once I get done with the ten medium-hard puzzles on the free Sudoku app, I’ll buy the full version so I can have lots more challenges.  Man, I feel so good about this!

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