when technology rebels

Aug

2021

Well, THAT was Fun…

I just had to brute force my way into my own WordPress site. That was more interesting than a Monday should be.

Apparently, something is broken in the newest update, and WP support is telling everyone to disable their plugins (didn’t work), change to the default theme (also didn’t work), and make sure that they are using their most updated browsers (also also didn’t work.)

What did work? Rolling WordPress back to the last version. But it took me nearly an hour to find the support forum that SAID that was the only thing that worked. I’m in now, and updating everything. Once I’m done, I’ll let WordPress update again and we’ll see if they fix things before next week.

Monday needs to not try so hard.

I’m in the home stretch with Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads! My goal is to have it DONE by Thursday, so I can take the pages with me to Orlando Reads Books.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

120119 / 130000 (92.40%)

In other Heir to the Firstborn news, the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of the RWA announced the winners of the Prism awards on Saturday night, and I’m pleased to announce that Bones of Earth came in third in the Fantasy category. (The book that came in second also won Best New Book, which is impressive!) So, for this series, that’s high ranking placement in two major awards. Not bad!

Not much else — I’m keeping an eye on the events for later this year. One of the other Florida writers conferences cancelled just this morning, so we’ll see if the other in-person events I have planned this year actually happen.

I’m not fond of this whole “Wait and see” approach to life. I happen to like making plans!

And speaking of making plans, I have a meeting in a few minutes, so I need to wrap this up. Here’s hoping I see some of you at ORB!

Mar

2021

Whiplash

Ever had your luck change so fast you get whiplash?

That was me today. Yesterday was a technological mess, to the point that I was ready to throw my laptop away and buy a Mac. I use Libreoffice, a solid, free open source office suite. It does everything that Office does.

Well, almost everything.

In one of the last updates, they managed to break something to the point that saving in .doc or .docx corrupts the files. They become unreadable. I, of course, discovered this when I attempted to upload Ashes and Light to Draft to Digital for formatting.

Cue much thrashing and flailing, and finally purchasing Office. And then discovered that the corruption was embedded in the formatting — I could not copy the text from the .odt file and paste it into a Word document! It locked Word up solid. What I ended up doing was copying the text from the .odt to Google Docs, then copying from Google Docs to Word. Which somehow fixed the formatting issue and it worked.

And then I ripped Libreoffice out by the roots.

But tell me again how technology makes your life easier…

Flash forward to this morning. File uploads like a dream, preorder is ready, print proof is ordered, and I go do my morning yoga. When I pick my phone up again, T-Mobile is reminding me that it’s Tuesday, so I should go check out my free stuff and play the giveaway game. I NEVER win the giveaway game, and as I spun the virtual wheel, I muttered, “I never win this. Why do I do it?”

And promptly won a $5 Visa gift card.

Now, the T-Mobile reminder also reminds me that it is Tuesday, which is when my county releases the new block of Covid vaccination appointments. They changed the criteria YESTERDAY, and I’m eligible for vaccination now. So I log into the vaccine portal…

And score an appointment. I get my first shot next Tuesday.

I think I may need to nip out to play the lottery…

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

36493 / 150000 (24.33%)

Work continues on Heir to the Firstborn, and I’m ramping up for the release of Wings of Air on the 23rd. How, you ask?

A sale!

Starting next Sunday, and running all week (so, from March 7-13th),

Written in Water will be $1.74 (75% off).
Forged in Fire will be $4.49 (50% off)
Bones of Earth will be $6.74 (25% off)

The sale is already set up in Draft to Digital and Smashwords, but I need to set it manually in Amazon.

In addition, there will be a Kindle Countdown deal on Hidden Things, starting March 14th!

Wings of Air will go on sale everywhere on the 23rd.

Feb

2021

Curiouser and Curiouser

The other day, my husband pointed out to me that when he came to my website on his phone, it still showed John Zebedee as the Work in Progress. Which is odd. Since I’m updating the website today, I took a look at it.

And discovered that according to my phone, my website hasn’t been updated since December. It’s not showing any recent blog posts or anything. Now I need to troubleshoot. WHEE!!!

Something got borked in an update, I guess. Now to find it and fix it.

Which was easier than I thought it would be. Fixed now! A plugin was broken.

Right, now that I’ve accomplished something on a Monday, I can go back to bed. Right?

Well, it was worth a shot.

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

23201 / 150000 (15.47%)

Work continues apace on Heir to the Firstborn, and edits are ongoing for Ashes and Light, which is Swords of Charlemagne, book 3.

Wait, what happened to book 2? Where’s The Lady and The Sword?

Right here:

Preorders are now available, and the book will release in May. I think this is my favorite of the covers. I think.

Preorders are also up for Wings of Air, and that one releases NEXT MONTH!

Wings will be available wide from day one, so you can get it at Amazon, Eden Books, Smashwords, or any other bookstore of your choosing.

What else is going on. Not too much — we’re still lying low. I’m signed up for vaccination, and hopefully I’ll have the chance for one before Nationals in July. Working on words, working on edits, working on super spiffy RWA project that you’ll hear about REAL SOON NOW! (I really can’t wait to tell you all about this. It’s going to be so amazingly awesome and I can’t wait!)

But, until it goes public, I can’t say anything. So we’ll all have to be patient.

Aug

2020

Not Expecting To Get Much Done Today

Today is the FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL… with all attendant tech issues. And I’m first tier tech support in our house, so I’m not expecting to get much done today. We’ve already had issues, and I’m not expecting those to be the only ones we have today, or even this week. But today will be the SNAFU day, as everyone tries to get into the school servers all at the same time.

Funtimes, right?

So while today, I’ll get my writing in while the electrons behave themselves. I’m pretty pleased with how things are going already.

Wings of AirHeir to the Firstborn, Book 4

67067 / 120000 (55.89%)

***

John Zebedee and the Monstrous Town

5662 / 30000 (18.87%)

I’m enjoying writing John and Ethriel again. With the addition of Parsons, who didn’t have a definitive voice in my head when I wrote Heir to Elf-Land, but now is starting to sound suspiciously like Douglas from Cabin Pressure. This happens at times to some writers (but not all, I understand) and the characters that I start hearing usually end up this way have a habit of taking over the story. (See also Owyn, from Heir to the Firstborn, who sounds like Sam Yao from Zombies, Run!)

Wings of Air is ongoing, and I’m about to hit another scene that I’ve been waiting to write. Who this scene happens to has changed twice since I first thought of it, but the scene is going to happen soon, possibly in the next chapter. (Or maybe the chapter after that…)

So, things are progressing, and the tech issues seem to have abated (I hope. It’s now about two hours after I started writing this entry…)

Let’s see how many words I can get on the page by the time school lets out.

when technology rebels

Well, THAT was Fun…

Whiplash

Curiouser and Curiouser

Not Expecting To Get Much Done Today

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