Rather than answering a recent message I thought a blog would catch everyone. It has been a while since I last posted. I have had a bad back lately and just started writing again. Hope to have something out soon.
There will be no chapter of Sunny: The Hippie Chick this Saturday. I have been very lazy this week. I hope to get one to Eric, my editor soon. Eric has been bailing me out recently, turning around chapters in increasingly shorter lead times, but this week I have fallen so far behind that I need to skip a week to catch up. I also hope to get another episode of Stone out, since it is nearing its end.
I know my latest serial is not as popular as my earlier ones, but there are about 500 readers per chapter. Today I drove an hour each way to the nearest Apple store to learn that the hard drive has died. I lost all my stories, but the only real loss was the next chapter, half written and two future stories.
There will not be another chapter of The House until Monday at the earliest. I have just started on a story arc that will run from three to five chapters in length, and I want to write all the chapters before I publish them, possibly as double chapters. I want to be able to go back and amend earlier chapters if the arc takes me in unexpected directions.
There are still a couple monthly chapters to come to A Second Chance, and Interesting Times is at a standstill. I have decided that my next story will be a non-transgender one. I don't want to limit my writing to the genre, and I have seen other writers get in a repetitive rut when they focus so many stories in the genre. Fictionmania explicitly bans non tg stories, but it appears they are allowed here (there is a tag for non-transgender).
I notice that more and more blog postings are about book releases. I wonder if there could be a dedicated place for books, where they could last a little longer than in the blogs. I have no problem with authors making a posting about their books in the blogs, but I think to encourage sales, a longer lasting place might be appropriate. In other words, when the release falls off the blog, it could move to the new place. The Forums section seems dead, maybe that is where they could go.
Does something like this seem workable Erin? What do others think?
I'm in tears much of today. A hockey team from Humboldt Saskatchewan was in an accident last night, and 15 people, most of them young teen hockey players died, and another 14 are in the hospital, some never to play the game again.
In my recently finished “A Gentle Soul” I dealt with the way that fairy tales could be concocted. I have also come up with a rationale for the story of the fishes and the loaves in the Bible.
In the story five loaves and two fishes fed 5000 people that Jesus preached to. And amazingly, the remnants of the meal exceeded what they started with.
Fans of my series’ (River and A Second Chance) may remember that I often claim that I don’t write the stories, my characters do. That is true for a lot of the story, but I do come up with ideas, sometimes months before the chapters will be written. Often these come as I am about to fall asleep, or have just woken, and seem to be like little movies about my characters. I have decided to present a series of these that are waiting for chapters that can use them, sort of like promos for upcoming TV shows, or trailers for future movies.
There should have been a chapter by now but I am suffering a bad back and can hardly walk, let alone write. Hopefully I’ll be back in action soon.
Dawn
Just a note to let fans know that I will post the awaited Sleepover chapter tomorrow morning, so that it does not interfere with those of you who will be awaiting Snowfall's theme park story Venture Realm. (I know I will be hitting the refresh button every two minutes around 9 p.m. est until it appears).
I realized that the title I chose for my most recent series is especially apt. The working title was the horrible Alison Hangs. I changed the main character's name to Rachael from Alison, since I had used the latter name in River, and didn't want people thinking it was the same person. And as a working title it had no chance of becoming the actual title, since the suicide is only the trigger for the rest of the story.
I have just posted a new story. This is one that has been on the backburner for a while as I concentrated on River. There are only four more chapters to River, and two are already at the editors, with a third nearly written. So I decided to get a start on this story. I have five episodes written (more if I can find the right stick where I put the update). These will be posted over the next week or two, and then I will have to fall back to a weekly routine.
I just posted River 37, for those of you following that story. We are nearing the end, and I am afraid that the twice weekly postings are over. I have barely started the next chapter, so it won't be out for another week. Eric, my super editor gets no blame for the delay. He had this finished and back to me last Friday but I did not post it that night.
I've never had my readers tell me the title of a chapter before. But I promised to continue Mark's story from River (the one he told the students in his grade 5 class) if there was interest. Many said I should do so, and told me the title should be the one at the top of this blog. I just finished the story, and for me it is a long one, at 9000 words.
Efindumb posted a well read posting about stories to reread a few days ago. This got me remembering that about a year ago I occasionally saw a Classics series that someone posted from the archive. I loved them, and read them all. Yet I haven't seen this lately. Are these still done?
I'm off to see about changing the titles of my chapters. I find that just numbers 1 to 30 (soon) are quite boring. I want to actually have chapter titles. It is sort of to follow the style of some of my heroes (Dickens and Tolkien) but more importantly it gives me a reference to past chapters when I have to look back to check on a fact months later. Hopefully it will mean not having to scan through many chapters to find what I seek.
Apparently. I was getting a bit disappointed in how few comments I was getting to my series River in the latter chapters. Since retiring I have started getting onto a roll, and have several chapters ahead. So I decided to let me readers know that I would post a second chapter this week if I got at least 12 comments. So it is three hours since posting, and normally I would get my first comment about now, or maybe a second one. Today there are 8 (I have made two replies, which don't count).
I've been going nuts this week. I had another chapter to River ready to post on Monday or so. Eric got it back to me on Friday. Unfortunately there was an electrical storm on Thursday night, and it blew up my computer. The repair guy says that the power supply was toast, and the components inside melted, although nothing serious was destroyed (like the hard disk).
I know that there are limited fans for my series River, but I feel I have let them down, missing several weeks as my retirement issues worked their way though the system. The good news is that I walked out of the college for the last time on Wednesday, and for the next month I am on holidays, with retirement kicking in on August 1.
Anyway, I just sent Chapter 20 to Eric, best editor on BC, and he sent me a note back saying he will get right on it. The upshot is that I will be posting a chapter before the end of the weekend, after he works his magic.
It's been another gap between chapters in the River saga. I see that some of my fans are getting worried. You can relax. There is one chapter half written, and I hope to finish it this weekend. On Wednesday next week I will officially be a retired person, and can focus on my story. River will try to get back to a weekly schedule, and I have a couple other stories on my hard disk that might be completed as singles or short chapters.
Sorry for not getting anything out to you for a while, but real life has been throwing up obstacles.
I am in the process of making a huge decision. Two months ago my supervisor changed at work, My prior supervisor was an easy going guy who respected my talents and was very laid back. The new guy is a micro manager, and on Tuesday accused me of spreading rumors in the workplace (completely untrue and unsubstantiated). As well, he did this in front of another employee. I decided that I would never work for him again unless he apologises. So the next two times I see him it is about filling in a schedule for my work listing what I will be doing for each two hour block through the week.
Time for an update on my health issues. I had my third cataract surgery on Tuesday. No, I don't have three eyes. The first on my left eye didn't line up correctly, and had to be redone. I can now see perfectly ... at things that are more than five feet away. My close up vision currently sucks, and I can barely read my iPad.
This has delayed my productivity, although I did manage to do my part in getting The Wildcats chapter posted today. And I managed to get 5000 words written on River, my own story. (Wildcats is by Leslie Moore).
As you may have notices, there is no chapter of The Wildcats this week, due to the double posting last week. Leslie is hard at work on the next chapter, and you will see it next Friday.
Any of you who are needing a Wildcats fix should go back and check that you read both Chapter 23 and 24. The numbers for Chapter 23 are only about half of what 24 (and prior chapters) got. It looks like a lot of people saw the two units posted close together, and assumed that they were duplicates, so only read 24.
Well my little break is over, and chapter ten of River is in editing. My health problems aren't over, but I am feeling better. I hope to get back to a weekly schedule on Monday. This was a hard chapter to write, and I was in tears several times as it unfolded before my keyboard. I won't say more, lest I create a spoiler.
Well,it is eight hours later, and I seem to have survived my cataract surgery. It was kind of interesting. The doctor has a sort of assembly line set up, with about eight people prepping and/or assisting. It was about an hour and a half of waiting and being prepped, and eventually I was one of the four on gurney's waiting to be wheeled in to the OR. The operation only took about 10 or 15 minutes, during which I could do nothing except "stare at the light" while he did his stuff.
I've seen the word drug used as the past tense of drag in several stories in BC, and it jars me everytime. I know that most (some) dictionaries list it as accepted as well as dragged, but in my area it is definitively s sign of lower educational achievement. It makes me think the character saying the words should be saying "youse guys" and "learnt" as a synonym for taught.
Just wanted to get that off my chest (feeble as it is).
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
