In a nutshell: Left job due to pay dispute. Currently temping my way through life. Bankruptcy didn't clear out all the bills. Bank account is going away in a large mushroom cloud. Oh, and writing? HA.
Today I'm trying to find money to keep website afloat, since bank declined payment to website host (my bad). I don't know if the website is going down, and if it does, when it will be up. Time in the next couple of weeks will tell. Please note that if the site goes down, the email does too, so don't email me to tell me the site's down. DUH.
If it does, I hope to have my act together by the first of the year. The next six months are going to be wacky. Laura and I are trying to weasel our way into moving back to California (had enough of Nevada) but until tax time, that's not even remotely possible. Ever spend the winter in an unheated brick house? That's what we're looking at. And it already started snowing on Halloween, so we're in for a long haul.
But I still have my cats, and my car, and my computer. Everything else is up in the air.
Hawaii was lovely. And warm. Sigh. Hopefully by next update I'll be able to afford to get the pictures developed.
On the plus side, the third roommate with child is long gone. But I'm not telling where they're buried.
:-)
See? Haven't lost my sense of humor...
July 14, 2003 What, are you still here?
What's been going on. Surgery went well, and I'm about as well as can be expected. Got no work done while recuperating.
Gave "boyfriend" a second chance, which lasted from about November to early June. He proved little better the second time around. Hint: a man cannot be both a gentleman and a cad. So, I'm single again. So-called relationship took up all my energy, so got no writing done, although I did get the idea for a mainstream novel featuring a magician whose hands get blown off by a pipe bomb. Think I'll back burner that one till there's no possibility of a lawsuit.
Changed jobs, again. Still same employer, just different department. Have to get up at 4am now. NOT a morning person. But at least it's quiet and smoke free. Have to get writing done in evenings.
Acquired new third roommate with five year old boy who is not housetrained and does not listen. Mother thinks nothing of making poor Laura baby-sit for her all day, hog the internet line and the phone line simultaneously while ignoring own child, and letting child run around all night while on aforementioned internet even though some people have to get up at the aforementioned 4am. Cats are this close to teaching him how their claws work. Not conducive to the writing process. In the process of getting them back out of the house before they're taken out feet first.
Retooled Ouroborous for the nth time. Changed section title (to what? You'll see...) Went back to original original plot before trying to write "friends" into story. Still have to dispense with Jones, but I think I can get rid of him without messing up my storyline even further.
Going on cruise at the end of August, courtesy of half-sister who inherited a boatload of cash from her grandmother who was not my grandmother and who wants to have a real family vacation if she has to pay everyone else's way. I have no objections to this. Going to Hawaii, then cruising around islands. Long time at sea should be nice for thinking happy Adrift and Honor thoughts. Back the first part of September.
Thanks to the great cat giveaway, we're down from ten cats to six, and we'll be losing two more by the end of summer. Laura's ex Melissa finally came to get Uriel (Pudge), but left Pigwidgeon behind (the jerk). Anna took her cats Moonshade and (unfortunately) Sunspot; I miss Sunny, he's a good cat and deserves better than she can give him. Two of Laura's friends are taking Feather, the shy one, so she'll have a house without other cats in it and maybe become more outgoing instead of being always at the bottom of the pack, and another friend is taking Pig with her to college in Seattle, where her long pelt will do her good and she'll be loved. The last four (Émile, Fantine, Gem and Sterling) we're keeping.
Made updates to Oddities, Gallery (with new Cover section), Media Comparison Checklist (one new review, one pending, have decided to ditch reviewing the OFC because I'm a lazy so and so), and the Blotter. Feel productive. Have given myself till the end of the year to deliver Adrift to the publisher. If J K Rowling can take three years for a book to come out, so can I :-) And Honor restarts in December, with republication of the first two sections.
One more thing: the three year publication contract for Resurrections is up at the end of this year. Which means book one is going out of print, until I can afford to put it back in print for another three years. Obviously it's more important to fund Adrift first. I am considering putting up a donation link so people can if they wish contribute to the publication cost of this and future volumes. I'll keep posting the books as they're written on the website so long as I have a site to do it in, but publication takes a lot out of my budget.
See you all after Hawaii. Happy Bastille Day. And happy birthday inspector, wherever you are.
January 3, 2003 Happy New Year!
Okay, so, here's the plan. Obviously Adrift is not finished. Honor is being taken off the site until I do. No sense leaving it up if I'm not going to get to it. I am ten days away from major surgery after which I will have six weeks off of work. How much writing I will be able to do is up in the air, but I hope it's more than I've been able to do in the past few months, which is almost none, between holiday crap and medical crap and job crap and you name it crap. I have had a steep decrease in energy levels and it's been hard to concentrate. However, I have more or less outlined Ouroborous to my satisfaction, so that when I can get it back on, I will be able to jump in feet first.
Needless to say the reviews aren't done either. Having little to do in the next week but sit around and wait to go into the hospital, I may, just may, get one of them done. Don't know if I will, don't know which one, but there it is.
I will, however, post a notice after I get home from the hospital as to how things are going and what I may or may not get accomplished. I understand I won't be able to sit at the computer and concentrate for any length of time in the beginning, so the note will be short and to the point. But at least you'll know I'm still here.
Contrary to rumors there is not a file on my computer outlining the whole Pont-au-Change series so that in the event that Something Happens to me, someone else can finish the series. So if Something Happens, I'm taking it with me. This is my pitiful attempt to garner prayers/good wishes/happy thoughts for my continued health, and I hope it works, because I know a few people who'll be pissed off if it doesn't.
(note: the surgery, while major, is not life threatening. This is another pitiful attempt, this time at a joke. Laugh or not, makes no difference to me)
Anyway, that's about it from me for now. I updated the Blotter and fixed the Gallery, which is the most I've done on the website for months. And it took about all the energy I got to do it. I even added a couple more pictures to the Gallery while I was at it. And if things go well, in the next few days there'll be a review to go with it. That should give you people something to read while you're waiting for me to get working again.
Oh, and Happy New Year. Yeah, I know I said it, but considering everything that's going on, both personally and globally, it seems kind of important to say it again.
Until next time...
October 16, 2002 What a long strange trip it's been...
...what with the acquiring of and dispensing of something not quite resembling a boyfriend, medical problems, lots of work, and the resulting inability to put two coherent sentences together. Other than that, not much happened this summer.
Update is half of the section I wanted to put up. The other half is due in two weeks. I can do it.
Meanwhile I have some other stuff to work on. I have not one but three pending reviews to do: the Focus on the Family radio play, which I've procrastinated so far into the ground it can smell feet, a new acquisition of the 1985 French miniseries, and I got a quasi-request to review the Original French Concept Album. Those will be forthcoming. They will give me something to do while I go on another sabbatical.
What? I hear you cry. Haven't you goofed off enough this year? Well, yeah. And your point is?
No, really, I need to take time out to do the final I mean it this time rewrite of the elusive Ouroborosaurus. I want that book in the can by the first of the year. No Christmas book this year, sorry. In order for me to do that, and in order for me not to give away stuff in Honor that will happen in the new Ouroborobbity, I have to break after the current section. Then when Adrift comes out in book form, Honor will resume. I still hope to finish Honor on time for next year's anniversary. But I'll need to get Adrift put to bed before I can move on, literally and figuratively. So. That's the plan.
The next half of the section comes up in two weeks. Then the book goes down for a bit and I'll update with new reviews until I can get back to Honor.
Meanwhile, people should write to me and let me know they're alive. Click the new email link for the new address. Do I have to do everything? :-)
Till two weeks, then...
August 10, 2002 Welcome to my nightmare...
And so here we are with a brand new site. Whoo. The story, if you don't know it, is long and tedious and frankly I don't want to give those Thénardiers over at the other hosting company another moment's thought. The upshot of it is that I can't get control of the old pauc address back without some serious hoop jumping. Hence the new address. Which is actually grammatically correct anyway, so, why not?
Nothing new updated with this posting, though. This is the "get it all back up on the web" announcement. I don't know when part two of Honor is going to get done. This whole website thing kind of threw me off my schedule.
Anyway, I'm back. And so are you, apparently...
See you in September sometime with a fresh section of Honor...
July 20, 2002: Happy 222nd Birthday, Inspector
Well, after much fussing and fretting, I've managed to get Honor underway. I was hoping to have the next review done too, the Les Mis radio program produced by *shudder* Focus on the Family, but I don't have time right now. I'm glad though that I'm back working on the book. I think in retrospect I took too darn much time off and I've obsessed over Adrift to the point of distraction. As long as I get it fixed by October, I should be fine. But I'm refusing to stress about it anymore.
Some of you may know that I've been having some recurring medical problems that have put a crimp on my writing. I'm still trying for a post a month, same as usual, but again, I'm not going to stress if I don't meet that deadline. It's my deadline, it's arbitrary, and much as I like writing this thing, my health comes first. Thanks for patience and understanding while I get this straightened out.
Nothing more to report for now. See you, hopefully, next month.
June 7, 2002: just fifteen more minutes, mom...
I feel like it's the first day of school all over again. Particularly when you're about 7 and realize you have to do this over and over again for the next ten whole years! Longer than you've been alive! Who thought that one up??
Anyway, I spent the last two months letting Ouroborous simmer on the back burner. I think I have a handle on how to do the final rewrite. It will take time, but I'll get there. Needless to say the book won't be out till the end of the year, like the other ones.
Meanwhile, I've put together a new front page for book 4, which will start next month on Javert's birthday. I've added a few more pictures to the Gallery, I've updated the Blotter and the Bibliography and the Oddities, I've added a Message Board, and I've figured out how to achieve world peace. So I don't feel like too big a slacker.
The experiment with using my Other than that, not much happening around here. Book Four is where things start coming together. Like who is this Mrs. Nichols person and why is she even involved in any of this? This is where PauC merges with the story I had thought up in High School, the one in which she was originally featured before she became a character in a Sherlock Holmes musical, and then retrieved and revamped for this one, along with the necessary and ubiquitous Jerry Crocker. I can't wait to meet them all over again, and it's great to be able to finally introduce them.
Six weeks to go for that, though. Meanwhile, it's time to catch the bus for school, and it looks like I left my lunch on the counter again. Oh well. What's life without a few inconveniences?
