![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Contact –
07/03/07
The cable is intermittent up here, so reading the Friend’s pages will be tricky. If it’s important, drop me an email!
Greetings from the delicately chilly north. It is pushing 1 am here in the 2nd knuckle of the mitten that is Michigan. I spent my childhood summers north of Muskegon and south of Traverse Bay, and even wrote a mystery on an imaginary island just off Beaver Island. Not that NYC has ever wanted to publish that mystery. They read it into tatters, each time I sent it off, but apparently no one could convince the sales force that anyone wanted to read a ghost story about a Prohibition-era cottage that was a speak-easy, and the descendants of the line dealing with the sins of the fathers.
Currently the cottage is fairly quiet -- there are TVs on in several rooms, as the insomniacs in the family attempt to sleep. Outside, some mischief-makers at the northwest corner of Lake Michigan have picked up the shore of the lake and are pouring its water on the southeast side. Since Michigan is not as deep as Superior, the rain is steady and firm but not deafening. I keep trying to get through to the Internet, but the wireless link cannot penetrate the weather or the dearth of towers, this close to the big water.
There's a reason that the only working cell phone in that mystery is a satellite phone. Not that we don't try; we just can't count on a signal to save our lives.
The first day or so here was awkward, since the box that was supposed to be sent next day was not delivered until the third day. I did not want to risk having my medicine confiscated by Homeland Security, so I mailed it.
Free advice: don't rely on the USPS to get anything overnight in a rural and/or isolated area. The commercials have got it right -- FedEx will find you. Everyone else may simply slap a note on a doorjamb and not bother to ring the bell.
So, I was visibly slowing down to a trickle before the drugs, much less the supplements, were delivered and kicked in. Thursday, we find out if the postmaster got permission from the state capital to refund all or part of my payment for the overnight service. I want either the difference between overnight and 3 day given back, or a complete refund. If I don't get it, letters will be written.
I hate wasting time writing something I can't sell, but this little episode was not only $24.50 down the drain, it took a sizable portion of time and energy as well.
It's hard to visit with family, sometimes. I love them, but I hate being railroaded into anything, and I no longer respond to old gambits in the accepted manner. Since I currently multitrack poorly, the constant "company" of TVs drives me nuts. I am learning where the mute button is on each control, that's for sure. But my niece is now 20, her brother a spindly 17, and I have to keep in contact with them now, to have contact with them later. My parents are 75 and not taking as good a care of themselves as I'd like -- my sisters are as good as can be expected, considering their stresses. The middle sister has tutored reading for five years, and now is returning to the classroom full time, teaching kindergarten. The youngest has taught in the primary wars for decades, trying to teach things to kids who are ignored, or damaged by poor diet and their parents' bad habits before their births. The niece is studying to be a physical therapist, but works for a daycare each summer. She is starting to hit a frustration button with it. She can now tell you which of the many children under her care are plopped in front of a television as a babysitter -- which act out to get attention they get no other way -- she realizes it's a different form of education, but still a learning experience.
I am the chief suspect in the addiction of my nephew to fantasy novels. I know he's going to read ERAGON, but I do my best to make sure he reads Hearn, McKillip, LeGuin, Hughart, and anyone else I can slip his way. He started with Harry Potter and Wrede's Enchanted Forest books, and has gone along with everything I've sent him. Sometimes he doesn't care for the covers, and waits until he's read everything else around before he dives into what I've sent him -- but once he's in, he can't put them down. His mother keeps pointing out that he knows everything I send is gold, and why does he keep trying to judge books by their covers?
Tonight, he discovered why his mother knows to make him look at her when she's trying to compete with a book. Surprise...he's not the first one to have the ability to read through a house catching on fire.* He wanted to know if BURNING BRIDGES was first, or farther along in a series.
Heh-heh-heh..... I told him a) it's #4, b) great urban fantasy, c.) best sex scene in a mystery or fantasy, ever, in book #2 (he laughed at this and poked his mother. I said: "Well, it is, I but hope to equal it in a few things I'm working on...") She then told me he's read all her romances. I made faces and then had to explain that OCD romance was all well and good, and often a lot of fun, but I was a "give me a lot of plot and character with all that, not 51% romance thread" which I don't seem to be able to write. I respect the people who do it well, but I don't totally believe in Love At First Sight. Intrigue, Fascination, or infatuation, yes -- but not actual love.
Then I told him to get STAYING DEAD and enjoy urban fantasy as well. He likes manga, so I suspect he'll enjoy current urban stuff, too.
More later. Will try to upload again later.
(* Yes, I did. Don't think he's been tested yet.)
The cable is intermittent up here, so reading the Friend’s pages will be tricky. If it’s important, drop me an email!
Greetings from the delicately chilly north. It is pushing 1 am here in the 2nd knuckle of the mitten that is Michigan. I spent my childhood summers north of Muskegon and south of Traverse Bay, and even wrote a mystery on an imaginary island just off Beaver Island. Not that NYC has ever wanted to publish that mystery. They read it into tatters, each time I sent it off, but apparently no one could convince the sales force that anyone wanted to read a ghost story about a Prohibition-era cottage that was a speak-easy, and the descendants of the line dealing with the sins of the fathers.
Currently the cottage is fairly quiet -- there are TVs on in several rooms, as the insomniacs in the family attempt to sleep. Outside, some mischief-makers at the northwest corner of Lake Michigan have picked up the shore of the lake and are pouring its water on the southeast side. Since Michigan is not as deep as Superior, the rain is steady and firm but not deafening. I keep trying to get through to the Internet, but the wireless link cannot penetrate the weather or the dearth of towers, this close to the big water.
There's a reason that the only working cell phone in that mystery is a satellite phone. Not that we don't try; we just can't count on a signal to save our lives.
The first day or so here was awkward, since the box that was supposed to be sent next day was not delivered until the third day. I did not want to risk having my medicine confiscated by Homeland Security, so I mailed it.
Free advice: don't rely on the USPS to get anything overnight in a rural and/or isolated area. The commercials have got it right -- FedEx will find you. Everyone else may simply slap a note on a doorjamb and not bother to ring the bell.
So, I was visibly slowing down to a trickle before the drugs, much less the supplements, were delivered and kicked in. Thursday, we find out if the postmaster got permission from the state capital to refund all or part of my payment for the overnight service. I want either the difference between overnight and 3 day given back, or a complete refund. If I don't get it, letters will be written.
I hate wasting time writing something I can't sell, but this little episode was not only $24.50 down the drain, it took a sizable portion of time and energy as well.
It's hard to visit with family, sometimes. I love them, but I hate being railroaded into anything, and I no longer respond to old gambits in the accepted manner. Since I currently multitrack poorly, the constant "company" of TVs drives me nuts. I am learning where the mute button is on each control, that's for sure. But my niece is now 20, her brother a spindly 17, and I have to keep in contact with them now, to have contact with them later. My parents are 75 and not taking as good a care of themselves as I'd like -- my sisters are as good as can be expected, considering their stresses. The middle sister has tutored reading for five years, and now is returning to the classroom full time, teaching kindergarten. The youngest has taught in the primary wars for decades, trying to teach things to kids who are ignored, or damaged by poor diet and their parents' bad habits before their births. The niece is studying to be a physical therapist, but works for a daycare each summer. She is starting to hit a frustration button with it. She can now tell you which of the many children under her care are plopped in front of a television as a babysitter -- which act out to get attention they get no other way -- she realizes it's a different form of education, but still a learning experience.
I am the chief suspect in the addiction of my nephew to fantasy novels. I know he's going to read ERAGON, but I do my best to make sure he reads Hearn, McKillip, LeGuin, Hughart, and anyone else I can slip his way. He started with Harry Potter and Wrede's Enchanted Forest books, and has gone along with everything I've sent him. Sometimes he doesn't care for the covers, and waits until he's read everything else around before he dives into what I've sent him -- but once he's in, he can't put them down. His mother keeps pointing out that he knows everything I send is gold, and why does he keep trying to judge books by their covers?
Tonight, he discovered why his mother knows to make him look at her when she's trying to compete with a book. Surprise...he's not the first one to have the ability to read through a house catching on fire.* He wanted to know if BURNING BRIDGES was first, or farther along in a series.
Heh-heh-heh..... I told him a) it's #4, b) great urban fantasy, c.) best sex scene in a mystery or fantasy, ever, in book #2 (he laughed at this and poked his mother. I said: "Well, it is, I but hope to equal it in a few things I'm working on...") She then told me he's read all her romances. I made faces and then had to explain that OCD romance was all well and good, and often a lot of fun, but I was a "give me a lot of plot and character with all that, not 51% romance thread" which I don't seem to be able to write. I respect the people who do it well, but I don't totally believe in Love At First Sight. Intrigue, Fascination, or infatuation, yes -- but not actual love.
Then I told him to get STAYING DEAD and enjoy urban fantasy as well. He likes manga, so I suspect he'll enjoy current urban stuff, too.
More later. Will try to upload again later.
(* Yes, I did. Don't think he's been tested yet.)
no subject
I also have a low tolerance for "background" TV; it either sucks me in or drives me batshit. I've been known to walk over to the TV in a waiting room and either turn it completely off or turn the sound all the way down. Falling into a book will shut it out, but then that shuts out my name being called as well. :-)
no subject
Moi, aussi. And usually the TV isn't nearly as interesting as the book. Heck, people-watching is better than most TV....
no subject
*hugs* on having to deal with Post Awful idiocy. They annoy me on a frequent basis.
Me too, me too!
David
(silly publishers)
Re: Me too, me too!
I am giving it this year to sell -- then I may do a limited edition from Lulu, or something.