Moving Through Life

I recently returned from a trip out west with my significant other. Like most people obsessed with keeping up with their business/friends/social networking and such, I brought along my trusty laptop. My hubby had also brought his tablet (which serves as a hot spot) and iPad, GPS and all the pertinent accessories for charging and connecting us to the e-world.  We were thus able to keep in contact with our studio, check for critical emails and respond if needed — an office on wheels.

Enlightenment of a sort soon descended upon us.  Very little communication was actually that critical to our existence or to the existence of our business. Most of the emails I received on my 3 addresses could be scanned for  subject lines and then deleted without reading. Intermittent signal in the Great Plains kept calls and texting to a minimum, and dragged download speeds to slower than snail mail. It was okay.  There was nothing we were doing that was so important as to become upset by that.  We were moving through a sea of life and had time to be aware of it.

Hawks, pronghorn antelope, deer, badger, pheasant – these were some of the wildlife we watched pass by our vehicle window.  The terrain and flora slowly changed from Midwest carpets of bluegrass and maples, to the soft gray-green of sagebrush and cottonwoods scattered over deeply carved gullies and canyons.  In South Dakota the winds beat us nearly off the road.  In Montana, a sixty-second snow flurry gave way to clear blue skies and snowcapped peaks in the Bridger Mountains.  All of that I would have missed had I been intent on burying my nose in the ethernet.

My lesson was that virtually nothing we were involved with could not wait.  All our human endeavors were put into perspective while we watched the land and life unfold before us, hurtling down the highways from Point A to Point B. The basics of life operate just fine without the ‘Net.

Live from Quilt Day 2012

Imagine a building full of fabric addicts and enthusiasts, plus all the gorgeous examples of fabric art, and that is where we are, Virgie and I.  Quilt Day 2012 at the Indiana Career and Technical Center in Evansville, Indiana.  It’s part of National Quilt Day celebrations across the nation.

We came to sell books, both Speeding Tickets and Virgie’s The Book Business Book.  It’s been a fine day, meeting lots of interesting (and interested) ladies and gents.  We may even have inspired a few closet writers, so it’s all good.

A Valentine from Valley

It’s officially Valentine’s Day, so from me to you, have a happy one, filled with all the romance and joy you can handle.

Speaking of Love, that particular emotion comes in many forms.  One of those forms was brought to my attention recently when I was contemplating phasing out a “character” from the next book in my series.  It had seemed necessary to let Beebee the cat find a new home, so as not to interfere with the PTSD issues her owners, Chris and Doug, share.  Then I had several conversations with other pet owners and PTSD sufferers.  Pets have a significant role in helping their owners cope with PTSD and related anxiety/stress disorders.  Simply having an animal around, particularly one that interacts as much as a cat or dog, helps to calm the mind and ease some of the mental pain.

Animals sense emotional discomfort and are quick to react.  The affectionate bond between pet and owner is akin to unconditional love, something we all crave.  For those who feel unloveable due to their disorder, this bond is a huge thing.

I had lost sight of the underlying bond between Chris and her cat, and once it was brought to my attention, I was stunned by that blindness.  Beebee has a definite function to perform.  She’s far more than a literary device.  She is a therapy animal, one that kept Chris from going off the deep end early in their relationship, and she will be needed for a long time to come.  PTSD, DESNOS and other stress disorders have no cure.  They are managed, and require a lot of interaction and love to stay that way.  Beebee stays with Chris.

Vanishing Act, Part III

P. S.   No, I didn’t quite forget.  The file conversion is still in limbo, although I now have made progress in resolving that.  Rather than vent in two places at once, I suggest you check out the guest blog post I recently did for Author and Readers Book Corner: http://www.arbookcorner.com/2012/01/guest-blog-thursday-with-valley-brown.html

Teresa Beasley was kind enough to allow me to publicly humiliate myself in confessing the pain of my learning curve as a new entrant into the world of publishing.  She’s so nice to me.  You can also find her site added to the Links list at the bottom of this page.

Losses and Crossroads

There are a lot of “firsts” in our lives, events that signify a crossing over from some level of innocence to the loss thereof.  From there, we eventually set foot upon a more advanced level with a touch more enlightenment.  Life has certainly been in this mode lately.

Today I took part in helping my childhood BFF lay her father to rest.  It was a tough day for all of us.  She and I spent so much time together from Kindergarten through high school, that to us, our homes, and our parents and siblings, were nearly interchangeable. She lost her mother more than 20 years ago, quite unexpectedly, and then I lost my father, and now she has lost hers.

We endured most of our “firsts” together:  first day of school, first crush, first joys of puberty (yeah, I know…), first dates, first romances, first child, and all that other good stuff in between.

Now we share a very sobering “first” — the complete severance of parent/child role.  She is no longer anyone’s child.  She is now out there on her own (well, not exactly — I mean, she still has her younger sister and me, the unofficial sister, of course).

It seems we are destined to share all our “firsts,” good or bad, joyous or heart-breaking.  And that’s okay. No matter what, we are there for each other, if not always physically, absolutely in heart, mind and spirit.  We may not be blood, but we will be sisters forever. And so I swallowed hard and volunteered to say a few words about her father, there in front of a room full of people I barely knew.  My brain scrambled for pertinent memories and anecdotes from the moment it realized no one else was going to stand up and relate anything.  It appalled me that no one other than the pre-ordained few would feel comfortable sharing.  Did they think everything had already been said?

By the time I made it to the podium, BFF was a red-faced, weepy mess.  She looked at me expectantly and I lost control of my impromptu organized reminiscences.  All the fond pictures I might have painted of this gentle man of endlessly pleasant disposition, devolved into an almost juvenile blurting of how sweet, thoughtful and kind a person he had always been.  The best I could do was label him as “one of those truly decent people,” which was true. The words would not come out, only tears, but she and her sister and I knew what I couldn’t say, and so it was okay. That’s part of what makes us who we are, and why she is my BFF, and why, when my remaining parent passes on some day, she will be there for me, and she won’t be able to say anything either, and it will be okay.

 

 

Vanishing Act, Part Two: The Lessons Learned

As promised, here is what I found in regard to the missing items.  Amazon.com had a rather sudden policy change, which kicked out any professional reviews that had been posted under anything other than “Editorial Reviews,” and in particular by any reviewers who were paid to write reviews. It so happened that Midwest Book Review does charge for certain types of reviews, for ebooks, but not for print books. The one they gave me was for a print book, so I was able to repost it, albeit in abbreviated format, under “Editorial Reviews.” That irks me, because it was such a nice review in its entirety.

During this same time, I discovered that a miscommunication caused the files for the Kindle account to go un-uploaded.  That was quickly remedied, and Speeding Tickets is now available there. A similar situation applied to the Nook account.  Unfortunately, that is still problematic, and giving me heartburn.  The file conversion has a recurring glitch that refuses to play well with EPUB format. We’re still trying to figure it out.  When the magic answer becomes manifest, I will share it!

Two painful lessons have been learned from this.  One is that you absolutely must

follow-up on things you delegate, so that miscommunication is prevented or minimized, and you don’t get caught in the switches over it.  The other lesson is that the initial layout and design of a book needs to take digital editions into account from the git-go.  My files for print were wonderful, but lacked something for certain digital formats.  I don’t plan on making that mistake again.

[Photo by Kathy Maxwell. 2010.]

Vanishing Act – 2011′s Grand Finale

Here it is, the tail end of the year, and what a year of frustrating lessons it has been, from taking my manuscript to publication, to orchestrating the Donation Quilt, and then some.

Case in point:  The Disappearing Review. “Speeding Tickets” received a wonderful review via Midwest Book Review.  It was in their December online issue, as well as on my Amazon page. Or at least it used to be.  As of today, no one could find it anywhere, including me.  Was it pulled?  If so, why?  In all fairness, I have not yet contacted MBR to find out, but when I do, I’ll certainly let you know what happened.  I did find the letter they mailed me, so I have hard evidence of its existence.

Case in point, part two:  The Missing Ebooks.  Not only did my coveted review vanish, but now the ebook versions for Kindle and Nook are also MIA.  Accounts were supposedly in place, and files uploaded, but neither of them finished processing.  That too is being investigated.

Lessons Learned:  This is what happens when you get so wrapped up in your day job that you depend too much on automated whatevers or on other people who have too much on their respective plates.  You lose track of critical aspects of your plans, and thus lose control.  Your precious marketing platform teeters on the brink of temporary catastrophe.  Lost opportunities are difficult to recoup.  The humiliation of having told all of your friends and fledgling fans to look for non-existent reviews and ebooks is the icing on the cake.

It boils down to this:  If you make a plan, see it through.  Confirm things personally, otherwise anything that can go wrong certainly will do its darnedest to head that direction.  Of course, with all of these things happening at once, maybe, and this would explain a lot of things, I inadvertently offended the Almighty Ethernet and it retaliated by sucking all my stuff into a virtual black hole?  Maybe.  Depends on your concept of artificial intelligence.  Personally, I think it’s Murphy’s Law working overtime.

Best Wishes for 2012.  Ride Safe.