Week 33 - Cursed

 

UPDATE – I’m making slow but steady progress on draft #2 of the detective story. Things may slow down a bit because this week I upgraded to a new laptop because the old one was taking longer and longer to boot up and one of the keys had come loose, with a second one threatening to follow suit. Since Microsoft’s been bugging me to upgrade to Windows 11, I went ahead and got a machine with 11 already installed. Sadly, I had to buy Microsoft Office 11 separately so I’d have access to the latest version of Word. The words you (all three of you, maybe four if Switzerland’s tuned in this week) are hopefully  reading here are coming to you live from the couch where I’m typing between commercials during Thor: Ragnarok. I’ve already done work on an existing file and only had minimal problems, but this is my first attempt at creating a new file on the new system. It’s…well, it’s turning into an interesting experience.

A caveat: if this week’s entry seems a bit disjointed and distracted, it’s because, as I mentioned, I’m watching a movie as I work. If there’s a break in flow, those were the points where I looked up to ogle Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, or both. I’ll try to type fast, and coherently, during commercial breaks and get this done before the big battle scene at the end. And if anyone’s wondering: Loki’s the one you have a torrid affair with before you marry Thor. Just in case it ever comes up in conversation.

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And here we go. I’ve barely started and already it’s giving me issues.

I didn’t have too many problems the other times I changed laptops. Mostly it was just getting used to that particular machine’s idiosyncrasies. Windows 10 was similar enough to Windows 7 that upgrading wasn’t much of a jolt. Wish I could say the same for Windows 11. Working with this is like I’ve been speaking Canton Chinese and 11 only speaks Mandarin. It’s just different enough to throw me off.

And then there’s the fun I’m having with the cursor. (NOTE: I’m being sarcastic.)

New Lappy didn’t waste any time showing me how annoying it could be. Once I got home, I naturally signed in to Google and checked out my regular sites. Of course I used the cursor and the scroll bar to move up and down. Instead it zoomed my screen out. Then out again. Then in. This happened without me clicking anything. Just moving the cursor brought on a dance of extreme close-up to ant-size print with all size variations in between. No amount of clicking on the mouse pad would return my point size to normal.

And that’s not all. My headstrong cursor also likes to drag the page itself around, zooming in and then swiping left or right so I can’t read a full sentence from either side. Again, no amount of clicking and dragging on my part reverses this.

I don’t know if this is a hardware or software issue. I’m not doing anything. It does this on its own, sometimes when I’m not even touching it. In the time I’ve been typing this entry I’ve already had a zoom in/zoom out incident and a random left-swipe. Ironically, the zooms started after I’d asked Search “Why does my cursor randomly zoom?” Answer: it may think my Control key is stuck. Try pressing Control. (Didn’t work.) Help told me I should be able to disable Chrome’s Zoom function by clicking on Settings and going to sections that didn’t appear when I did so. As for Microsoft Settings, that shows me the Zoom setting was already off. Somebody needs to tell that to my errant cursor.

I’ve had three laptops before this one and two versions of Windows. I never once encountered this problem with any of them, or on the various library machines I’ve used over the years. Others must have, though, because answers show up in Search. I just wish the answers worked.

Monday a new assignment comes in. I get to do paid work with this annoyance lurking in my system, just waiting for its moment to pop up and piss me off. I’m under warranty for another couple of weeks, but first I think I’ll go up to the computer lab the library’s offering. Maybe someone familiar with the new iteration of Windows can help me straighten this out. If it turns out to be a hardware problem, then I’ll take it back to the shop.­ I should have kept Ol’ Unreliable, my oldest laptop with Windows 7 on it, as a backup. At least I know how to work on that one. Only problem was, it tended to conk out unexpectedly; sometimes it would boot up again, other times it wouldn’t. That’s why I got rid of it, and why I started calling it Ol’ Unreliable.

There is a bright side to the zoom problem: I tried playing computer games, and the constant random zooming ticked me off to the point I just shut the whole system down. I think I’ve finally hit on the solution to my gaming addiction. The price of the laptop was still cheaper than therapy, so I have no complaints in that regard.

In semi-related news, my car has decided it’s also going to be difficult and not start at random times and places. The lights come on but the engine won’t turn over. It’s not the battery; that got a jump from a guy in the grocery store parking lot, but it did nothing. It may be the starter. Popping the clutch got it started and I got it to the garage, but they couldn’t do anything because it started right up for them so they can’t determine what’s wrong. Right now it’s running fine, but it could leave me stranded at any time, in any situation. I’d think it was in collusion with my new laptop if I were a paranoid person. Oh, wait…

Looks like I’ve got this written. Now let’s see if it’ll let me post. If not, it’s off to the library with a thumb drive, which may be how I end up doing the paid assignment. There are always solutions if you look for them. See y’all next week.

 

 

Week 32 - Writing with Style

 

UPDATE – the writing is moving along slowly, but at least it’s moving along. I’m making progress on both the new longhand work and typing the second draft. The longhand has slowed down a bit because every time I sit down to write new ideas hit and I end up running with them. Sometimes I run down a dead end and have to go back. That’s the trouble with being a pantser.

I wrapped up a paid assignment today and will have off for a while. I think I’m going to need to get a new laptop. My current one is taking longer and longer to boot up, and now at least one key has come loose (the number eight/asterisk; I can’t press it to show you because it doesn’t work now). So there’s yet another expense on the credit card. I may be doing a lot more longhand over the weekend. Or I can type at the library. Hooray for thumb drives!

I miss the bots. Those big view numbers made me feel popular. It doesn’t help that the old group blog I used to be on, which hasn’t been active since at least 2016, still rakes in a huge viewership. Mostly from Canada lately, for some reason. Why doesn’t Canada like me? Maybe it’s my breath.

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Reading soft-core smut for a living can be fun, but it does come with a downside: after years of spending long hours daily reading for a paycheck, reading for my own entertainment gradually fell by the wayside. At the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to do was look at even more of someone else’s words. Especially romance. I got burned out on reading, even the stuff that was paying the bills, but I couldn’t afford to just quit. Then the market slowed down, the writers started retiring (maybe they got burned out too) and the assignments (and my income) started to dwindle. Instead of  reading and writing more, I got depressed and ended up with the gaming addiction. But you don’t want to hear any more of that whine and cheese fest, so let’s move on.

Now that I’m semi-productive again, I’ve chosen to put time for just plain reading back on my schedule. Just no romance novels; I get enough of that at “work.” And not entirely just for the fun of it, either. This is semi-related to work, almost. Allow me to explain.

As chronicled, I’ve been writing a fantasy story about a detective trying to track down a writer at the request of several fictional characters. Since this is a novel about genre fiction, I’ve decided my first-person narrator’s voice should echo the tone of past detective classics. Although, as anyone who had to slog through a “classic” for a high school or college lit class knows, the writing styles of yesteryear can be a challenge (cough “boring” cough). I’ve never read Moby Dick, but I’ve heard stories. There’s a reason Cliff’s Notes and Classics Illustrated comic books used to be so popular with students.

What I need is the tone and flavor of a 1940s noir detective novel, but updated for modern readers. My first choice would be if I could find my old copy of Who Censored Roger Rabbit, about a hard-boiled LA detective dealing with comic strip characters, but that’s buried somewhere in my book room and I’m not about to go digging for it. So I’m going with my second choice, the best of all possible worlds: reading my way through my collection of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels.

If Parker’s name isn’t familiar to you, maybe Spenser’s is. There was a TV series back in the 1980s based on the books, starring Robert Urich as the titular PI and Avery Brooks as his buddy Hawk, still the coolest character ever to grace a TV screen. Watching the show got me into reading the books. Parker himself was a fan of Raymond Chandler, creator of private eye Philip Marlowe and one of the fathers of the hard-boiled detective genre. The Spenser in the books was nowhere near as charming, or good-looking, as Urich’s TV version. Book Spenser was an articulate tough guy and chivalrous thug who could knock down opponents with a smartass quip as easily as with his fists, depending on the situation. The tone Parker used was a callback to ’40s pulp writing styles, but streamlined and sped up for modern impatient or time-constrained readers. Exactly what I’m looking for for my particular story.

Now all I have to do is study the books and figure out how he achieved it.

This solves a lot of problems: it keeps me focused on the book I’m writing, so I’m not tempted to screw off and play games; it will make the book better if it has a “voice” that matches the subject matter; I get a chance to learn new tricks by dissecting the work of a successful published writer; I get to read something other than romance for a change, which will help get me out of my rut; and the books themselves are just plain fun, which will elevate my mood and get me back into my writing groove. That “joy” I talked about in a previous post? Here it is.

And I can picture Avery Brooks delivering Hawk’s lines in that sexy voice of his. Dang, that man was hawt.

Be aware that this is not plagiarism. I’m not stealing plots, characters, or lines of dialogue from someone else’s work. I’m looking for word choices, rhythms and sentence/paragraph structures that will echo the flavor of noir detective classics without putting readers to sleep. It would be the same if I was writing a Western or, well, a romance novel. People pick up a genre book with certain expectations, whether they’re consciously aware of that or not. If my PI doesn’t have a world-weary outlook or a quick-witted comeback in the face of some guy’s gun, they’re going to wonder about it. As an added bonus, there’s a meta reason for all this regarding the PI’s origins, but I can’t reveal that without ruining the ending. You’ll just have to wait until I finish it. Which had better be before I hear back from the publisher I sent my query to. But now I’m stoked, so I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I’m off to work before the next assignment comes in and I get dragged back into romance. See y’all next week.

Week 31 - Jumping the Gun

 

Update – I think I may be a week behind on these updates. That’s fine; they’re pretty much the same anyway. If I find I’m a week short at the end of the year, I’ll just do a New Year’s catchup. Technically I already have a book out on sub, but I need more than that to count this year, and this blog, as a success. A sale before the end of the year would be nice, but that won’t happen unless I sub, and for that to happen I need to write things. And fast, before people with AI programs start flooding the market. Better make this blog short; time’s a-wastin’.

I’m still working on the two projects, the second draft of the detective story and a first draft of a M/M romance. Some days it’s both, some days it’s one or the other. I’m trying to cut out the days when it’s neither and I just write flash. The romance just surprised me with a sudden swerve I wasn’t expecting, as the love interest just revealed himself as an incubus. That’ll definitely spice up the sex scenes.

I miss my Hong Kong bots. Their huge numbers made me feel successful. Singapore’s okay, but it isn’t the same. Just wait’ll I start selling books and get popular. Then Hong Kong will be sorry.

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I don’t have much of a topic this week, so I’m going to wing it. See if a couple of things that happened to me recently can be turned into a life lesson. I’m a writer, and turning life into stories is what we do so yeah, this better work.

The first incident involved the death of my ancient flashlight and the purchase of a new one. The other week a bad storm knocked out the power, reminding me how dependent I’ve become on electricity. Yes, the laptop has a battery, which I quickly discovered doesn’t work. I haven’t used it in months, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Sure, I could write longhand, but not after it got dark (power went out a little after 4 pm and, as it turned out, was out for four hours). That’s when the flashlight came into play. I wrote a quick update in my journal and scribbled a flash scene, then settled in to read for a while. Then the flashlight abruptly winked out, forcing me into an early bedtime. The power came back around 10 and I reset all the clocks and went back to bed. No problems.

The next day I went out and got new batteries for the flashlight. Only to find they didn’t work. Apparently the little lightbulb had burned out; that would explain why it died so suddenly instead of the light simply dimming. So: new flashlight time. Got one at a reasonable price that came with batteries, brought it home, tried it out…and it didn’t work either. I tried the new batteries I’d gotten for the old flashlight; no difference. Life can be a pain in the ass.

There was a logical and very simple explanation, which fortunately I discovered before I embarrassed myself by taking everything back to the store. I went through the battery process again, but this time I noticed a small paper tab on the underside of the flashtlight top (the part you unscrew to load the batteries). The tab read, “Remove before use.” I did so. The metal tip of the bulb socket could now connect with the pole on the battery and everything worked fine. I hadn’t thought to look for a tab because I haven’t bought a flashlight in over twenty years. From what I recall, you had to buy batteries separately too. Times have changed. Live and learn.

 A couple of seconds of paying closer attention saved me from a return trip to the hardware store and being humiliated in front of the store clerks. Sometimes you are the problem. Take a deep breath, slow down, go over everything a step at a time and make sure you’ve covered all the bases. Then take everything back to the store and go full-on Karen on the manager. Don’t forget your receipt.

In the other case, I did jump the gun, though I prefer to think of it as “being proactive.” I ordered some merch from a company in Texas. It was shipped UPS with an email tracking number I could use to follow its progress. Things were fine until it arrived in my town, where delivery duties were turned over to the local post office, which is about a mile from my house. The last time I ordered something from this place, it also arrived at this same post office, which somehow relabled the package and sent it to another PO 20-30 miles away. So when my current package, which was listed as “out for delivery” failed to arrive at my house during my usual mail delivery time, I was understandably worried.

I waited a couple of hours. No package on my porch. I went out and checked our communal mailbox (I’m in a mobile home park). No package. Finally I went to the post office in person to check on things. I showed them the tracking number. “That’s no good,” they told me. “When it gets here from UPS it’s in a bag of packages. We scan that in with our own tracking number. You should have that.” Well, I didn’t. The original tracking number said my PO had accepted the UPS delivery the day before. They checked in the back; no package with my name on it. “Maybe UPS still has it. Wait a couple of days.”

This is frustrating. This was the second time I’d had a package make it all the way from Texas to within a mile of my address only to have it somehow vanish between my house and the post office. I’ve never had this problem with Amazon. But then, Amazon doesn’t use the US Postal Service.

So I shot off an email to the Texas company’s help desk, explaining my situation. Maybe they could get an answer from either the Post Office or UPS, since it was clear I wasn’t going to.

Upon hitting send, I went back to the email tracking number one more time. And noticed, for the first time, an arrow icon at the end of the UPS link. I clicked on it and it took me to a Post Office page with the new PO tracking number and delivery info. My package was still out on the streets, but I was promised delivery by sometime between 6 and 7 that night. In point of fact, it arrived at 5:30, which I learned when I looked at the email one last time later on that night. I’d already found it on my porch at around 6:15. Right after I found the new link I contacted the Texas help desk again and told them never mind, the issue had been resolved but thanks anyway. Always be polite, especially when you’re wrong.

Or maybe I wasn’t. Details are still pretty sketchy. Why didn’t the PO deliver the package the same time as my regular mail? That’s how they handled the other one, the one they mislabeled and sent somewhere else. And how long was that link on my UPS tracking number? Was it there all along and I just didn’t notice, or did it magically appear after I went to the PO in search of my order? I didn’t know about the PO link or what that arrow meant; I’ve never encountered that particular scenario before. Jumping the gun and involving the company was still on my head either way, and I handled it the way I should have: An instantly emailed oops, my bad, never mind, thanks for helping anyway. No finger pointing, just get in and get out. Though I still blame my local post office. Their mishandling of the first package made me paranoid. I’ll never fully trust them again.

I need to watch out for my jump-the-gun tendency in my writing as well. Sometimes my first idea isn’t the best one. It doesn’t help that I don’t always research things before I start writing. You make a lot of mistakes that way, and fixing them can screw up the entire story. It’s okay to write a first draft in a rush to get all the ideas down, but after that it pays to slow down, check over things and make sure it all makes sense. That’s what drafts are for. Better a slower draft process and a smoother, more accurate book than a ton of reviews calling your baby a “carelessly-written piece of crap.” People are going to do that anyway, but you can cut down on the amount. See y’all next week.

Week 30 - Currently Trending

 

Update – Things are going much better this week than they have for the past few months. I’m back working on the detective book, even though I still fear for its chances in the current market. I’ve started a romance story, now that I know I’ve still got a job and the publisher’s not going under. Not this week, anyway. Next week I’ll be getting an assignment, which always messes up my schedule. Or something else could break down and require expensive repairs. My upcoming paychecks aren’t anywhere near as generous as the one I had to nudge for. Better cut junk food out of the budget.

All the recent controversial topics (diversity in particular) along with my tendency to whine in public (well, I am using this blog in place of therapy. Like I said, the budget’s tight) has apparently cost me viewers. The Hong Kong bots have abandoned me entirely. Looks like Singapore has taken their place, though not in the former huge numbers. A few folks in the US of A are sticking by me; probably white Republicans. My faithful fan in Switzerland still shows up from time to time. And I’ve got my first Russian bot! Only the one, but it’s a start. Is that you, Vladimir? Doubtful, but the notion of my words appearing on a screen in the Kremlin does bring a smile to my face.

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The other week I mentioned the possibility I’ve written a book that may not be sellable in our current political climate, burdened as it is with a protagonist who’s a straight white adult male. I’m not going to change him. At my glacial rate of production, tastes and markets and publisher mandates may well swing back in my favor by the time I’m finally ready to shop it around. In the meantime, I detailed how easily my idea could be…well, let’s just call it “adapted” to better fit current publishers’ preferences. If somebody faster wants to take a whack at writing and marketing that version, knock yourself out. Your characters won’t be anything like mine, and the execution of the general idea will be totally different, I guarantee it. Just give me a nod in the dedication, m’kay? (Do not dedicate it to Rod Serling. I call dibs on him for my dedication.)

The other ideas in my pipeline at the moment are all romances, which always have a market so I’m not worried about them, even though they’re paranormal and that’s on the downswing right now. I have a couple small epublishers in mind who are always hungry for content, so we’re good.

Then there’s the currently-lucrative Young Adult market. At the moment “romantasy” appears to be the flavor of the month. Near as I can tell, that’s a standard romance in a fantasy setting, preferably with main characters at or below voting age. We had those in days of yore; they were shelved in the Science Fiction section because there really wasn’t a separate Young Adult genre back in the Paleolithic. Apparently romance writers are writing these now, by aging down their characters and throwing in dragons and elves. Hey, whatever puts food on the table.

Actually, I’d had this idea myself a couple years ago. I had some romance book ideas that I realized would probably work a lot better as YA novels. Just make the protags between 17-20 and keep the sex to a minimum. I grew up reading and writing stories like this so it’s not a huge stretch for me.

Except, me being me and therefore contrary, I’m putting my own spin on it. No generic dragons and elves, chosen ones or palace intrigue for me. The ideas I’m toying with fall firmly into science fiction’s purview. The one involves a group of genetically-engineered teenagers with superpowers; the other is about an invasion of alien shapeshifters out to take over the earth. In both cases the lead is female, mostly because, like I said, these were originally going to be standard adult romance novels. At least I was ahead of the curve on that one.

As far as adhering to diversity goes, I think that’s covered too. My superheroine is white and straight, but one of her comrades is Asian. I don’t know why or when I made that decision; it just seemed to fit him. The biggest problem is going to be one of the other girls who, frankly, is a ditz. Mean girls are okay—they’re  practically a requirement in YA—but I don’t know if honestly stupid girls are allowed in books any more. She’s also white and blonde. If she was male this wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll worry about that when or if I ever write this. As for the invasion story, the aliens in their natural form are vaguely humanoid; they take whatever shape is required by circumstances. They’re literally gender fluid, normally sexless but going from male to female as needed for breeding. My heroine here is an alien who lives among humans. She imprinted on the woman who raised her so she thinks of herself as female, although she has no problem with turning male if a mission calls for it. When she meets another of her kind, that one adapts to her by assuming the form of a handsome male. She literally makes a man out of him.

I can’t say when or if I’ll get around to these. It depends on how the others work out. Should I write one, I’m guessing by the time it’s done the romantasy fad will be over. That’s fine. Good books don’t follow trends anyway. They start them. Maybe I can start a trend and be ahead of the curve for once. At least it gives me something to aim for. See y’all next week.