Back in business

Okay, the last chapter of G&M is in the hands of one of my beta readers.  The rest of it’s all done and formatted, and author’s note and afterwords are added.  It’s mostly done, so I’m turning to another project.

We had our fifteenth wedding anniversary the week after we buried my father-in-law.  Neither of us were in the mood for more than visiting the site where we were married, and showing the kids (it’s a public, outdoor area–Missouri Southern State University’s Biology Pond*).  A few days later, I showed Andrew a pen: a Moonman 600S.  It’s a Chinese reproduction of a Parker Duofold.**  He told me to order it, and happy anniversary.

I’ve wanted a Parker Duofold fountain pen for a while, now.  I still do, but not a new one.  I want a vintage (but not the Big Red) self-filler with one of the older gold nibs.  I think they’re prettier.

This one, though…I got it about a week ago, and it’s gorgeous.  I got the sort of teal-green one (may go back at some point for the blue one–which they didn’t have when I made my order).  It writes with a broader line than I prefer, but it’s really comfortable to write with for decently long periods–I spent the kids’ entire swim lesson (35 minutes for one, 50 minutes for the other, and I wrote nearly the whole time) working.  Got several pages of the second Liquid Diet Chronicles book written–yes, by hand, but it won’t take me long to get that transcribed.  It’s only 5 1/2 pages in an A5 notebook.

One last note: I’ll be keeping my FB profile, for the most part, for keeping in contact with distant family and friends, but I’ll also be a lot more active on my MeWe account–FB is currently in the process of becoming useless for author stuff.

 

*Missouri Southern originally was a mansion and extensive grounds owned by a mining baron…who wrote in his will that his property was to become Joplin’s first institute of higher education: a junior college.  Which became a 4-year college, then a state college, then a university.  The biology pond was the mansion’s spring-fed, natural-style swimming pool.  And they’d built a Japanese style bridge over the end that drains out into a creek.  It’s a beautiful spot.

**I call these a reproduction rather than a knock-off because there were Parker factories in China.  They were closed and sold, but they weren’t cleared out.

 

Updates

Wow.  We’re more than half-way through July.  The kids just finished one 2-week session of swim lessons, and the last session of the summer starts on Monday (2 more weeks).  Two weeks after that, they go back to school and are out of my hair for a few hours every day.

Sometime before that, I need to get them both in to the dentist, and Kathryn in to the optometrist–her well child visit indicated that she could be a little near-sighted.

In any case, school starts, soon, and that means more time I can focus on something besides diffusing fights between bored kids.

I’m hoping to get Gods and Monsters out, soon.  It’s a year later than I’d planned, for which I apologize, but it fought.  It did not want to adhere to my planned schedule.  At all.  But it is finished (for the most part).

I’ve got my cover art rounded up.  I need to find a big enough scanner to fit the painting.  Or at least sort of fit the painting.

I’ve got the formatting for it done, too.  I’m 3/4 of the way done (again) with the last chapter that decided it had to be written after everything else was done.  I’ve got the afterword and author’s notes (discussing the future of the series) yet to do.

I do have Word, now.  Office ’07 came on the 8th, and it was supposedly licensed for up to five machines.  I have used one of the licenses on my laptop.  So I should be able to load it on the next four, as well.  I hope.

I’d honestly forgotten how nice Word was to work with.  How easy everything is.  Yes, you do have to know how to do the things, but it does the things without arguing, and without wading through all the drop down menus looking for the one thing that might do what you want it to do.  And might not do what you want it to do (ahem, table of contents formatting).  It was well worth the money I spent on Office, and would have been worth even a little more than I spent (if I’d had it).

Little at a time

My father-in-law’s funeral was Friday.  I’m going to miss him more than I can possibly express in words.

Life goes on, though.

Last week sucked really bad. Besides prepping for the funeral, I had a “let’s kick her while she’s down” moment presented by life, the universe, and everything.  I pulled in an old desktop tower that resided on the desk in the living room at the old house we moved from two years ago.  I cleaned it up, hooked it up, and started it up–everything was slow, but seemed fine.  And it had Office ’07 on it.

I got the formatting done, and saved the document to the hard drive.  And the computer got shut down to move the wireless dongles (dumb idea, I know–I should have safely ejected one and just moved it) so I could move the document to the jump drive I’d used to transfer it…

…and something went catastrophically wrong.  It will not restart.  I’ve tried several things.

I gave up.  I’ve ordered a copy of Office ’07, which I liked better than some of the current versions.  And which is licensed for five different machines.  Guess what’s going to be stored for later.

This week is going to be busy–the kids’ swimming lessons (2 weeks of 4 day sessions) started this morning.  I had an errand to run this morning, too.   I’ll be moving the tower and monitor back out to the garage later today so I can work at my desk.

My software should be delivered within a few more hours, and once I get that, I’ll spend the rest of the day getting it loaded and set up.  Tomorrow, I’ll re-do everything I’d gotten done already.

Update:  My copy of Office arrived, loaded without complications, and runs fine.  I’m getting back to work.

A pause in work

I can’t do any writing, right now.  I probably ought to be, but I can’t.  I can’t think.  This week sucks.  It started Sunday.  And I’m not sure when the suck is going to stop.

My father-in-law passed away in his sleep Saturday night or Sunday morning.  Funeral is set for Friday of this week.

And I’ve been randomly leaking tears since.  And it doesn’t help.  At all.  Honestly, all it does is make things worse–it doesn’t ease the emotional pain, and it causes a nasty sinus headache.

So.  No writing.  Not now.  Can’t.