Sunday Update - 2022 Week 1

Ya know, I've been doing these weekly updates for a while now.  I don't know why it never occurred to me to put the year in the subject.  Hmm.  Okay, it's there now.  Derp.

Anyhoo...  It was a productive week for writing.  I edited six out of seven days.  Got 57 pages done this week.  That's not bad at all, especially considering I took Thursday off and I only got 4 pages done last night.  Of course, last night I ended up adjusting all the chapters, moving stuff around, adding chapter numbers and bookmarking them, etc.  Sometimes when I write the first draft, I either forgot to do chapters, sticking little hashtags to break up the scenes, or I just put CHAPTER and keep writing.  And now that's done - the book has 36 chapters.  I'm on page 238 of 360 of the editing.  Woohoo.

Okay, so Dying Embers and Wish in One Hand are both at 99c now.  I really need to get some advertising out about that.  Maybe tomorrow.

I had a nice reading week.  I finished two books and right now I'm reading a lovely Zane Grey novel.  I really like this one.  (Not that I haven't enjoyed his others, but this one is more... everything.)  I'll talk about it Saturday.

In baking news, I made pizza earlier in the week.  Then, yesterday, I made cake cookies.  In bar form, because I was feeling lazy.  Then I smooshed them into an 8x10" pan instead of a 9x13", so they'd be thicker and more brownie-like.  I probably could've taken them out a minute or so sooner, but they're pretty good.  Sadly, I ate the last of the ice cream yesterday.  Better get myself hence to the DG.  

Activity-wise... Well, it wasn't my best of weeks.  Only three days.  I got the whole house vacuumed, which is a feat.  Then we did one day of working in the woods.  Then yesterday we attacked the remaining leaf piles.  We dragged them further into the woods.  In order to do that, though, we needed to thin the underbrush.  It looks quite nice... or it will once spring comes.  Weight: 182.6

In the interest of being more social, I've been posting more to FB and MeWe.  I've also joined GETTR because a writer I follow was bragging about how many followers he's gotten on there in so short a time.  Me?  Crickets.  But I'm putting myself out there.  Not sure what to say when I'm there (or anywhere else for that matter), but I'm there.  

We got a little snow this week.  But it's gone.  They were predicting freezing rain, but it missed us.  Other than that, it's just been cold.  Yuck.  Oh, well, it's January, so I guess that's to be expected.

And there it is... another boring week in the life of B.E. Sanderson.  How was your first full week of the new year?

Thursday This n That

Yesterday's post was caused by a combination of the end of a week-long sale that had few sales and basic frustration.  I'd say 'it'll pass', but I'm not sure it will or that it even ought to.

I got a call yesterday from a 'Babette Hosier'.  Caller ID can be fun.  Definitely a change from "Unknown Caller" and "Not Provided".

Speaking of which, what the hell is it with all the freakin' spam calls?  I mean, we're pretty sure it's because Hubs will be eligible for Medicare later this year and it's a rolling stampede of morons trying to get him to sign up for their super-special supplementary insurance plan.  Lemme tell ya something - we will never sign up for anything that comes through telemarketing.  As if.  Duh.

We're also being inundated with wasps this year.  Oh, holy crap.  They like to get into the smoking porch - which is totally enclosed and has screens on the windows and junk.  Too bad for them, the smoking porch is lined with nicotine-impregnated cedar.  If we don't kill them with a flyswatter, the ambience will.  Heh.  Otherwise, they're just all over the freakin' place outside.  Walk around the yard at your own risk, lemme tell ya.

The other day we were casually watching game shows when there came a knock on the door.  Which was really weird because we didn't hear a car.  Peeked outside and there's a woman standing on our porch.  A pregnant woman.  Hubs opens the door and she starts asking if we've seen her little dog.  We have no clue who this person or her dog is.  Hubs asks what kind of dog and she says 'min-pin'.  "Excuse me?" he says.  "Min-pin?" Time for me to step in because she was kind of looking at him like he was nuts because he didn't know what a min-pin was.  "You mean a miniature pinscher?"  "Oh.  Yes."  Apparently it was fat little min-pin and she found it.  I saw her walking home with it about 5 minutes after she stopped here.  Nice to meet the new neighbors. At least now if we see him again, we know his name and where he belongs.

According to the fishing dudes around here, we're at the spawn.  This is the time when the fish are making baby fish - she's laying down eggs and he's milting all over them.  It's a good time to catch fish, but not a good time to keep fish.  And I want to keep them so I can eat them.  Right now, I sadly let even the keepers go, so they can make more fish.  The rest of the year they won't be so lucky.  And neither will I in catching them.  =o\

What's on your this n that radar today?

Sunday Update - Week 3

Hi again.

Third week out and I'm still not writing.  I've been thinking about writing a lot.  Not that it counts, but it's better than nothing.

No editing either.

Sleeping Ugly is still on sale.  Not sure what happened to the ad.  I mean, it showed up on FB and it's certainly on their website, but I never got the newsletter - even though they sent me an email showing me what it would look like.  And I know I'm signed up for the newsletter (they automatically sign you up when you book an ad, plus I actually signed up for it before I first started placing ads with them.)  :shrug:  Anyway, whatever happened, I only sold one book that day and that was in the UK.  Derp.

Made some marketing photos to post to FB along with my marketing verbiage.  They're just the print copies of SU in my bed.

Here's one I decided not to post:

I don't think Kira appreciated it.  And she refuses to sign a waiver.  ;o)

I read a lot last week.

We did a lot of woods work, too.  And then it rained.  I think I said the same thing last Sunday.  We're in a pattern now where it rains every Friday/Saturday.  Anyway, we now have 4 piles of deadfall down there, placed strategically for ease of use.  (I'll take pics if it ever stops raining.)  We drag stuff to whichever one is closest.  Made some major progress in killing the spiky, thorny vine things.  I hate those things.  They're evil.  We also made progress on eradicating the big vines.  I think they're wild grape, but since they have no leaves right now and even if they did, the leaves are way up in the canopy, I can't be certain.

I actually left the house for the first time in over a week.  There wasn't really any reason to not leave the house, but there also wasn't any reason to leave.  Four days of that was actually not even stepping foot out the door.  The rest was just not leaving the property.  I think the hermitude is getting worse.

While I was out, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in over a year, so we chatted for about 20 minutes while in a really slow checkout line.  I was already there, saw him pushing his cart by and called out.  He pulled in behind me and we chatted.  He's a great dude.  I told him he really should stop by and see Hubs next time he's in the area.  The height of my socialization so far this year.

Hubs got to socialize, too.  One of the neighbors stopped by.  We were social animals last week.  ;o)

On the activity/exercise front, I did 5 out of 7 days.  Cleaning and woods work for the most part, plus biking.  I'm up to 5 minutes at a time on the bike.  I've noticed a thing about getting lots of exercise, though.  The more I exercise, the hungrier I am.  Not really surprising.  You're burning more calories and the body wants to replace them.  Not helpful for losing weight, though.  :shrug:  I keep reminding myself I'm not doing this to lose weight, I'm doing it to be more active and get off my dead ass.  I think I'm seeing my gut shrink.  Probably would've helped if I'd done some measurements at some point so I could track progress.

Oh, and it snowed yesterday.  First real snow of this winter.  'Bout time.  LOL

Wow, that was a long post.  Must be that since I'm not writing, my words are coming out in blog posts.

What was up in your world last week?

Thursday This n That

Update on the keyboard saga.  So, I told the customer service rep to go ahead and send the keyboard she suggested and I'd give it a whirl.  I got a keyboard yesterday.  The exact same model keyboard I'm currently rubbing the letters off of.  I sent the CSR a note this morning telling her about the error and telling her not to bother trying to send me any more keyboards.  Enough is enough and I'm sick of dealing with it.  I got an email from them this morning promising to never contact me again.  Let's see if that sticks.

We went out to the park to go fishing on Tuesday.  The park was totally empty except for one camper parked right next to where we wanted to fish.  We went in there anyway.  There was no one at the site.  Just a dog.  By the time we got done fishing, the person had returned.  And wouldn't you know it, she was wearing a Mackinaw Island sweatshirt.  (It's a famous tourist spot in Michigan.)  What are the odds of that?  Anyway, we had a nice chat with her and went on our way.  Lucky gal had the whole park to herself.  And her dog?  Totally was chill about us when we went in, but when we came out, he was totally in protective-dog mode.  Cuz his mommy was home and he needed to protect her.  Good dog.

I've started replanting the irises.  So many bulbs.  I began with putting some back into the cedar bed, where they were when we moved here but on the east side of the bed instead of all over.  It's along the retaining wall.  I used about a third of the bulbs.  Today, I'll start putting them back where they belong.  Leftovers will go in the south facing bed along the garage - where the lilies were before the deer ate those.

Didn't win the lottery again.  Not even a dollar.  This is really getting irritating.

I have to pay bills today.  That lottery stuff would really come in handy. 

A relative of mine got her DNA thing done.  She's point five percent African and point one percent East Asian/Native American.  The Native American I can be pretty certain is from my line of the family.  My 11 times great grandmother was named Mourning Flower and I think listed as Cherokee.  The African DNA?  Well, it's possible it came from my tree.  It's also possible it came down from the part of her tree that isn't related to me by blood.  Interesting but not really critical one way or the other.  I've never really concentrated on the race box of my ancestors, except when I noticed that my mother's grandfather's brother married a woman who was listed on the census as 'half-breed'.

I don't remember if I mentioned the maggot issue or not.  The other day, I went out to the garage to get some gardening gloves I'd left in there and noticed they were covered in these weird little things that looked kinda like seed pods.  Then I noticed the same things were all over this and all over that.  And then I noticed the center of each pod was wiggling.  Maggots of some kind in a webby pod, I assume getting ready to pupate into something else.  We packed everything out of that corner of the garage, throwing out stuff and washing other stuff.  Disinfecting everything.  Cuz ew.,  I had to throw out a whole big container of extra towels and blankets I was saving for dirty work and drop clothes. Last night, Hubs was getting the garbage together to take to the road (they pick up early Thursday mornings) and when he opened the polycart, those maggots were all over in there.  :shudder:  They are not house fly maggots.  They're smaller and yellower with a tiny black head.  I almost wonder if they're moth caterpillars of some kind.  Anyway, whatever we threw out must've had the eggs in it - I never found those - and they hatched.  Gross.  No more of them in the garage as far as I can tell, though, which is awesome.

I'm tellin' ya, it's been the year of the bugs here.  Bleh.

And on that disgusting note, I'll let you go for the day.  What's on your this-n-that radar today?

Sunday Update - Week 39

Hello again.  Thanks for stopping by.

I made some limited progress on writing this week, but not on UatB.  Instead, I jumped over to the next SCIU book.  I don't have a title yet, so it's just #4.  I have the villain.  I have the heroine.  I have a kinda sorta plot.  Now to put it all together and make it suspenseful.

I was thinking ahead.  Kinda.  And I set of Kindle Countdown Deals for three of my books over the next month.  First up is Project Hermes.  It's KCD starts Wednesday the 10th and runs for 7 days.  I've got some advertising in place for that.  Next up is Sleeping Ugly, which will run from the 24th through Devil's Night.  Then Blink of an I will be on sale from the 7th thru 11:59pm on the 14th.  I still need to set up ads for the last two sales.

My editor contacted me and asked if she could push back delivery of Unequal by a day to the 14th.  Since I wasn't expecting it until the 15th, it was no big deal.  And the difference in days was totally me.  She said 4 weeks, I thought a month, so while she was planning on having it back to me on the 13th, I had it in my planner for two days later.  It's always good to have a buffer.  And since I haven't promised anyone to have it ready on any particular date, I can be flexible.  I'm still shooting for the end of November, maybe early December.

There was cover art stuff done.  Stop by Outside the Box tomorrow to read about it and see something pretty.

I did some reading.

Still only made 4 out of 7 days on the activity plan.  But I'm down to 178, so it's all good.  Eating smaller and smarter portions combined with being active seems to be working this time around.  Now I just need to maintain it all.

The fawns have lost all their spots and now they've turned gray like their mothers.  They all look like mini-me versions of deer.  Rut is fast approaching.  As is hunting season.  If any of our deer get taken, I hope it's a clean kill and none of them suffer.  As long as hunters are doing it legally and efficiently, I'm all for it.  The herd needs culling.  Of course, I'll be sad, but I'd be sadder if the deer had to starve because the herd's too big and the resources aren't stretching far enough.  I'd also be sad if the herd became stagnant and led to inbreeding.  So, yeah, I'm pro-hunting, even of deer we've named.

We had some socialization this week.  On one of our walks, we stopped and talked to a neighbor.  Got the skinny on some stuff.   Then yesterday, Hubs ended up walking with a lovely couple - because they were headed in the same direction and walking at the same pace - who vacation here from Louisiana.  He gets way less contact with other human beings than I do, so it was good for him.  They had a nice chat while they walked.

I need to get out in the gardens soon.  Things need to be dug up and replanted.  I need to get a dozen bags of good dirt, too.  And I still have hopes of doing the retainer wall project. Not sure if this will be the week or not.

Last thing.  This is my 1900th post on this blog.  Woohoo.

And that's about it for me.  Nothing super-exciting, but still muddling along.  How were things for you last week?

Thursday This n That

It rained yesterday for the first time since May 25th.  We got 4/10ths of an inch.  Not a deluge, but it's a start.  I had Hubs open the front door so we could listen to it.  Not for long... cuz, you know... bugs... but it was nice for a minute there.

Is it just me or has the world gone batshit freakin' insane lately?  Oh, holy crap.  Can't read my FB feed without purging someone from my view.  And forget Twitter.  I wasn't even on there for a minute before I ran screaming from the virtual room.  And saying 'I don't usually post about political things but I can no longer hold my tongue' and then spewing a load of verbal diarrhea?  Yah, ain't helpin'.  If it's wrong now, then it was wrong two, five, ten years ago, so what held your tongue then?

We had a lovely visit with our company.  Super nice people.  Interesting to talk to.  Fun to be around.  He was Hubs' best friend in high school and his wife was a former librarian.  What more could you ask for?  Sure, I still had to take a five minute alone break, but that's me.  Socialization, even with the best of people, is tiring.  Of course, I overbought on the cold cuts.  We have a ton of leftover deli ham and turkey.  Sammiches for everyone! 

Today is the day I'm supposed to have an ad going out.  Problem: it's a new source for me and I hadn't signed up for their newsletter until this morning, so I probably won't actually SEE what the ad looks like today.  Problem #2: After I signed up for their newsletter, they had links to their FB and Twitter.  They haven't posted to FB in years.  The Twitter feed is current, but I'm not sure if what I paid for includes tweets.  Caveat Emptor.  But more about that another day.

We saw our first fawn of the season yesterday!  So tiny and so cute! 

The rabbits have now accepted Hubs as one of their own.  They still move out of the way of the giant human, but not very far and as soon as he moves, they go back to where they were.

Okay, that's about it from me today.  What's it for you?