Support

Over the past two days, I've gone back and forth trying to get the romance e-novel where I could make corrections. I couldn't get into the account.  I contacted the support line and the staff sent me e-mails telling me how to change the book, which I couldn't do since I couldn't get into the account.  They gave me the phone number of the password support people.

Huzzah, I could talk to a live person.  But the person changed the password and I found out that was only good to get into another account.  The solution, an e-mail address which took me back to the original staff who once again couldn't get my account number but gave me a phone number which was the same as the other.

We went back and forth one more time and then a miracle occurred.  I was sent a customer satisfaction survey which I promptly filled out....with nothing good to say.

I got a phone call about a minute later.  The caller asked me what went wrong and I explained the whole problem to him.  He set to work. As it happened, the support staff guy was two desks away and between them, they were finally able to get the problem solved.

I now have access to the e-book.  I expect it will only take a day or two to make the corrections and re-post it. Once that is done, I can go ahead and work on the paperback. With a some hard work and a little luck I'll have all that done in time to get the book checked over and a proof made. I'll check over the proof before I got to Mississippi and order books in time for a Valentine's Day book signing.

I also was able to find out how sales were going.  I hadn't had a report in over a year.  I never made much in royalties since I never did much about publicizing the book, but I sold a few, mostly in the United Kingdom.  I wonder why.

Once I have everything in order, the PR blitz begins.  

Stories

This afternoon, I posted my latest short story is at Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

It's a story about two topics about which I know nothing:  gourmet cooking and football.  I wrote it by researching and asking the help of friends who were experts in one or both of those fields.  One doesn't need to know anything to be a writer.  It is always a matter of research.

It helps to have Wade Peterson as my cohort in writing these short stories.  Wade is an excellent cook, a brew master, and a football fan. He helped me through.

Wade is the deep thinker in our partnership.  While I blithely write silly love stories, he works at his craft with a serious intensity.  He writes about his work in his own blog.  This week he turned to the subject of violence in his writing: when to use it and when to cut it out.  http://wadepeterson.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/what-i-learned-from-quentin-tarantino-about-writing/

I'm opposed to censorship, but each of us as writers need to think about what we're doing with our words.  When I taught a writing to some middle schoolers, I found that boys wrote stories about violence, gore, nastiness and more violence, gore and nastiness. I explained to them the idea of building up tension.  Violence for violence sake was simply boring.  They thought about it and came up with an a great story.  I re-read it just this afternoon and still found it imaginative and funny.

On another writing problem, I've spent much of the past two days trying to re-do the romance novel I self-published two years ago at Amazon.com. Somewhere along the line, my account disappeared.  I can't make corrections to the story until I find it.  The problem is that I cannot talk to anyone by phone.  The answers I am sent by Kindle Direct Publishing are of no help whatsoever despite them writing "we're dedicated to providing the best customer service possible via email."  The KDP team tells me how to make the changes but that is contingent on my account being somewhere on line and it doesn't seem to be.

I want to publish the book as a paper back in time for  Valentine's Day book signing but if that impasse continues beyond next Monday, I won't have time to get the work done.

So I scream at the computer, send e-mails to KDP and wait to see what happens.  

Waiting for Spring

It's only 77 days until spring, but we're making plans already.  

Today, Gary and I signed up for the annual Wisconsin Department of Resources sturgeon guard.  The annual Wolf River sturgeon run usually happens in April, but in 2012 it started in the third week of March. The DNR still assumes the 2013 run will be in April but this year the sign up dates begin on April 1 instead of April 15.  We were asked to sign up for three dates, marking them in order of preference.  We like Sunday nights so picked April 1 (which is Easter Sunday this year), April 8 and April 15.  In fact, there is a shortage of people who like to take night shifts, so we'll be asked to work no matter how the run goes.  

The annual Midwest Crane Count takes place on April 13.  I'm not certain I will join on this one. I am getting a bit long in the tooth to get up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the sunrise on a cold morning.  We'll see what I feel like  after Easter. 

Canoecopia is held in Madison, Wisconsin March 8-10.  We don't need any more canoes, Gary already has four, but he is still thinking about a kayak, plus the maps and brochures we collect there are invaluable. Last year, we got all the information we needed for our Circle Tour around Lake Superior in July. Since I will be repeating that tour (though going the opposite way, counterclockwise) I wouldn't mind talking to some of those lovely rangers from Ontario who comes to the convention each year.  

It is events like this that draw us through the winter. 

My February tour to Mississippi will help, too!

Things I'd Like to Know about the Fiscal Cliff

At the very last minute, Congress avoided the fiscal cliff and voted for the bill worked out between the Senate and the White House.  Thinking about it makes me wonder if there are changes coming.

Most of the Republicans representatives had signed a pledge written by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform to raise no taxes.  The Norquist pledge has held up fiscal legislation in the House of Representations for years, going back to the Bush administration. How can you run two wars, not raise taxes, and yet expect to balance the budget?  And doesn't the pledge sworn by all Congressmen to serve the American people take precedence over Norquist's?

With the fiscal cliff avoided, with taxes raised on those earning over $400,000, the representatives have broken their pledge. It may be time to tell Norquist to take a hike.

The tragedy at Sandy Hook is finally making those in Congress wonder if it isn't time to have gun controls. The National Rifle Association has not fared well in our public opinion, especially when they suggested that the solution to the violence would be to bring guns into our classrooms. It may be time for Congress to act.

The House of Representatives tried to hold up funds for those whose lives were destroyed in New Jersey and New York during Hurricane Sandy.  They were urged to do so by the uberconservative Koch Brothers.  But with a huge public outcry, the Representatives are now backpedaling as fast as they can.

The Presidential election in November showed that no matter how much money the plutocrats spend, the people will be heard.

Is sanity just around the corner for the United States Congress?

Fresh Start in 2013

Today's accomplishments:

I labeled all the photos I placed in the 2012 scrapbook. As Gary and his sister work through the old farmhouse in Dixon, they are finding boxes of unlabeled photos.  I've labeled all of mine and put them in scrapbooks, 40 so far.

I cleared the bulletin board in my office.  This is where I tack business cards and odd pieces of paper that are not worth filing yet need to be kept for a while to see if I need them.  Once a year I throw most of them out.

I deleted around a hundred documents.  I cleared out paper from my filing cabinets.  If I haven't used a file in three years or more it likely will be recycled.  

Today is the day I put all the old newspapers and magazines into the recycling bin.  If we haven't read them by now, they won't get read.  Every year there are fewer as we glean news on the Internet

I sorted through books, videotapes, and DVDs I might want to donate to the library. I gather up clothes that will go to Goodwill.  These go in my car so I'll remember.

I planted the first bulbs, some daffodils I have been forcing in the refrigerator.  I set up the schedule for weekly plantings.

I went through e-mails, answered some, deleted some, printed out some, and moved others to folders.

One last thing:  I changed the sheets on my bed.  In November, I switched from cotton to flannel sheets as the days grew shorter and the nighttime temperatures dropped below freezing.  The last two or three weeks, Wisconsin has been frozen and last night we dropped below zero F. for the first time.  I cannot deny winter. Flannel sheets no longer work.  The fleece sheets went on.  Somewhere around the last week in February, flannel will return and on the first day of spring, cotton will return.

I am ready for 2013.

Happy New Year!

Years ago, back in the 1970s, I was in a fancy Chicago club on New Year's Eve with a date.  The star attraction was Cher post-Sonny, pre-Moonlighting. I looked around me.  Everyone was obnoxiously drunk...and I wasn't. I had a drink now and then but never got tipsy. That's a terrible situation to be in. The drinkers were noisy and nasty.  I looked at Cher and could tell she wasn't having a good time either, struggling to be heard over the nightclub roar.

That was the day I decided New Year's Eve was not for me.  Since then I've made a point of staying home to get organized for the New Year instead of going out.

Today, I've set up a tax folder, put the 2012 photos and memorabilia in my scrapbook, set up my budget and goals for 2013.  Car maintenance dates and birthdays are on my new calendar.  I answered e-mails from months ago.  I wrote thank you notes.  I paid a couple of bills.  I laid out the tour dates for my Gulf tour.

As I approach midnight, I've finished everything  on my list.  Feels good.

Tomorrow, a new list.  I plan to clear the bulletin board, go through the filing cabinets and throw out old files. I'll plant the first forced daffodils for my indoor garden and set up a planting schedule.  I'll go through computer documents and delete old ones.  I'll save others on CDs.

So no hangover for me, just a great start to 2013.

Books

I watched another Bill Moyers program tonight on public television.  I admire Moyers for his intelligence and his grasp of the political world, but even more I admire him as an interviewer. Tonight, his subject was Junot Diaz, Pulitizer wining novelist, teacher and winner of the McArthur genius award. I was so impressed with the man, I went right to the library website to order his three books, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Drown, and his latest This is How You Lose Her.

It's always that way with Bill Moyers and with that other great interviewer Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's Daily Show.  Both of them read the books before they interview the authors. They ask brilliant questions that draw out even the shyest of interviewees.

Between them they introduce me to authors and books from around the world.  Not for these two the best selling novels, they select interesting subjects with something to say. I listen then go directly to the library website and order the books. Too many books.  Sometimes I can't finish them all, just get a taste.

One of the writers interviewed by both Moyers and Stewart was Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer prize historian who wrote Team of Rivals, the basis for the new movie by Steven Spielberg:  Lincoln.  

I've wanted to read Goodwin's book, but when there are waiting lists, and when the book is eight hundred pages of history long and with me so busy with other things, it didn't seem possible to get it done in the shortened loan period.

But to my surprise, I won Team of Rivals at the library Christmas raffle. Now I am working my way through the book.  It may take time, but the book is brilliant. I taught history and know a great deal about the Civil War, but Goodwin has done research and used sources none of the other biographers have touched.
I am so glad to have the book.