The Proof is Ordered...

     The proof for The Falls: Mud season was ordered yesterday. It would have been ordered two days earlier, but I was changing cover pictures. I went from a drawing of a school bus with a girl standing in the back window to a sign that said School Bus Stop Ahead to one that read School Bus Turnaround Ahead. In Vermont, school buses often drive up winding mountain roads. There are a number of turn-ins that are made specifically for a long school bus to back into and then turn around and go back the way it came. It becomes financially expedient to do that rather than drive the whole road around or over the mountain. Some of those roads go on forever. Thus the sign.

     The cover will be gray (light and dark, just like Vermont clay-mud). I should get it in a few days and then take another few days to proof it. I'm already a quarter of the way through editing the word document for the fifth book in the series, The Falls: Making a List, Checking it Twice and placing it on the template with chapters for CreateSpace. For those of you who haven't used CreateSpace yet, it's all about creating a good template, which my good friend, Kate Shannon, helped me do. After that, it becomes a lot of cut and paste (but not the old paste, the special formatting paste that keeps the formatting and font of the original). I also use a separate editing Word document if there are formatting problems in the original. I transfer the original chapter(s) onto the editing document and use the special paste, which gets rid of the formatting problems, then I transfer to the CreateSpace template. Much better than trying to fix them. I'm not skillful enough to do that. But I figured out a way around it.

     Contractors should be here this week to put down the floors, and I'm still bringing things down from the upstairs to make the job easier for them. They will move my TV stand with Xbox 360, Xbox One, two Kinects, modem, flat screen and DirecTV box to one side along with all the wiring...put down flooring and then move the whole thing back without me having to take everything apart. (I made a diagram and labeled each wire, cable, etc. just in case...chuckles.) Can't wait to get my office space back with the new stand-up, sit-down desk. That should be in a week or two.

     Until then, the dining room table (which is heaped with other stuff from upstairs on top of, under it, on both sides and in back of it) is my office space. Amazingly enough, I can write there just as well. Chuckles. Who knew?

     Until the proof gets here and I go "proofing", may the dragons watch over you all...

Limbo...

     Yes, I'm in limbo. Halfway between realities. Our contractor brought in all the flooring and cut a large piece out of the rug on the second floor loft to store it on the plywood flooring. We have a lot of the things you accumulate over the years from upstairs down in the living room, dining room, bedroom and garage, getting the rooms ready for the contractors to lay the flooring and only having to move large pieces of furniture. That means that my iMac is now sitting down on the dining room table and my writing pattern is a bit ragged. 

     My wife, Carolyn has left to go to CA to visit her sister which leaves me by myself in the shifted house. I just published the third book in The Falls small town mystery series at CreateSpace and am waiting for it to be out on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. I'm well on the way to setting up the fourth novel in the series on CreateSpace, and have just published the 16th in the series, The Falls: Boneyard, on Kindle. I'm writing the 17th in the series, The Falls: Coldblooded, and working on covers for both Kindle and CreateSpace (covers for Kindle I make through myecovermaker.com and CreateSpace has it's own cover creator that I use). Oh, did I mention that I woke up at four this morning, have already been to the gym, exercised using about 10 of the machines at LA Fitness, used the treadmill and the stationary bike? 

     Anyway, at the heart of it all, I'm in limbo. Good thing I have a strong work ethic, and am a pretty patterned guy. Through it all, I get done the things I need to do. Hmmm...I wonder if that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" quote pertains to me? Nah, my name is George William. That's what my mom called me when I was in trouble anyway. I had a few kids use the "Georgie Porgie" thing, but that quickly stopped when I decked a kid much bigger than me when he smiled when he sing-songed it. The dragons reached out and bit the lad.

     So, thus limbo. Have you ever been in limbo? Is there a door or a window...or did you just finally ooze on out of it? Ah, well. Contractors had a job ahead of us and the rain had put them back a few days. They should be working on the floors next week. Once they are done, I should be at the stand-up, sit-down desk and be working my way into a new rhythm. That should be interesting all in itself. I'll let you know. That will establish a new pattern. Like I said, I'm a patterned guy.

     I'm getting better at the CreateSpace thing. I find that one proof, and both my wife and I going carefully through it with high liter and pencil, plus checking the second proof for the basics: format, cover, chapter headings, etc. is enough now. I think that varies from author to author. I edit the text several times before I get to the proof, so it should be relatively simple to finish it off from there.

     So for now, take care...enjoy the summer...and may the dragons watch over you...

The Desk is Gone...

     Well, our contractor went with us to Lumber Liquidators on Wednesday and we bought the flooring for our upstairs and the stairway itself. Bamboo flooring...the middle grade...we couldn't afford the top of the line, cost all-out-doors kind. Chuckles. But still nice flooring. The tongue and groove kind so the floors are what they term floating (also 'click') and more comfortable to walk on. 

     I helped the contractor and his son and helper bring the boxes of flooring up where we placed them on a space where he had cut away the carpet and pad. Felt it the next day...chuckles. Where was that space you might ask? Why where my old twenty-year-old, sturdy and massively heavy L-shaped desk was sitting, off course. So, they took away the desk (at my request since I have the new standup-fit down desk). Not sure what they did with it...they might have given to someone (I hope) or trashed it (don't want to think about that). The floor will be put down in a week or two. The contractor wanted the flooring to sit there for at least a week. (Perhaps it needs a rest after being in the warehouse?)

     In the meantime I have labeled all the cords, cables and HDMI cables coming and going from the modem, TV, DirecTV box, Xbox 360, Xbox One, two Kinects, printer, two computers, and battery backed up surge protector. When they finally need to move the TV stand and all the stuff on it, I have this deathly fear i won't be able to figure out where every cable and cord goes to afterwards...even though I set it up in the first place. I also looked up the name of our modem system (from the internet and then to all the devices) and password to make sure i wouldn't lock myself out and the room would turn blue from frustration at my idiocy and ineptness. By the way, yes, I play video games. Have since they came out. Enjoy playing with my kids, grandkids and just by myself. I like role-playing games (does that surprise you?)

     So, I'm sitting at the iMac situated on the dining room table, which also holds a lot of stuff from upstairs already (dragon statues, swords, Chinese Geishas statues that are my wife's, etc). Yes, I collect swords. Have for decades. And dragons. Oh, and my new paperback books! It's a bit different, writing down here but will do for now. I have a desk journal/calendar that I use to enter things daily, such as the FB sites I advertise on, what we've done for exercise such as walking (6 days/week), swimming (3), and LA Fitness workouts (3) and things that have happened/will happen like doctor's appointment, etc.  I also have a list of characters on several sheets as well as a box of more in-depth information on characters. I also keep a set of 3x5 cards in front of me that I use to add new characters and to keep the page numbers and chapters of books I'm moving from Kindle to paperback template, etc.

     So, the flooring is here, just not installed, my wife is a little more than halfway through editing the proof for The Falls: Fall of the Fallen Apples, I just edited the cover photo for The Falls: Mud Season (volume 4) and have it ready for CreateSpace, since I'm about a third of the way through placing the Kindle version onto the CreateSpace template. Wrote another chapter of The Falls: Coldblooded this morning and I will edit more this afternoon. Still need to edit The Falls: Boneyard and get it on Kindle!

     So, until the next installment of this saga, I hope your Saturday is wonderful, filled with small pleasures and that the dragons watch over you always...