The Journal, Monday, 8/31 (Yay!)

The end of a month. A horrible month. Whew. Glad to see this one end. The Day Rolled out a little before 3. I was up late (for me) last night working with web browsers. I’ll tell you the rest in the Topic below. A personal note — I’ve received a few emails recently from some of you expressing concern for what’s going on. Really, nothing. Just life. (grin) But I’m doing a mostly daily journal here, … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, 8/30

The Day Rolled out right at 2 this morning. Good to feel back on schedule. Spent more time this morning on email than usual but for a good reason. I woke to Dr. Mardy Groethe’s weekly newsletter in my inbox. Dr. Mardy is a verbivore. He is the author of I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like, Oxymoronica, and several other books in the same general vein. Each week his newsletter contains an interesting “puzzler” regarding a … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, 8/29

The Day Rolled out a little late at quarter to 3. Wow. I hope all of you who are reading this are having a lot better month with your writing than I am so far. With the month mostly gone, it isn’t likely to improve much either. No walk today. Not a lot else either, except I switched my internet browser from Firefox over to Opera. I’m more than happy with it. For one thing, whenever … Read more

The Journal, Friday, 8/28

The Day Rolled out a little early this morning at about 1:30. After waking up with coffee and email, I thought about yesterday’s post. I was a little harsh maybe. For years I’ve seen writers, even retired, very successful business people, allow various companies to take advantage of them. I despise those companies, and I don’t mind being vocal about it. But the thing is, many writers bring these things on themselves. They’re intelligent people, by … Read more

The Journal, Thursday, 8/27

The Day Rolled out a little after 2 this morning again. The hits just keep on comin’. First, I don’t feel well. Had a short, unsuccessful walk punctuated by the fear that a high-velocity rainstorm was going to notice me and come my way. Back to the house, and pretty much blah ever since. Second, what I wrote in your Topic of the Night below. I won’t be doing any writing today, other than this stuff … Read more

The Journal, Wednesday, 8/26

The Day Rolled out a little after 2 this morning. Coffee and emails to wake up, and then a shocker from the Smashwords blog. Mark Coker has decided to end his association with Flipkart, the small ebook retailer in India. That effectively hands Amazon a monopoly in distributing ebooks on that continent. Although I understand why he’s doing it, I don’t like that even in the title of his post he seems to blame Amazon. Regardless … Read more

A Sample of My Daily Journal

Hi Folks, This will be an extra blog post. On 1 September I’ll be back to posting nuts and bolts how-to information for writing. I’ve come to see my daily journal, the other major blog post from this site, as eminently more important than this one. In it, I outline my day (the day of a professional writer) and write a Topic of the Night on most nights. I also generally pass along whatever important tidbits … Read more

The Journal, Tuesday, 8/25

The Day Thanks to storms disrupting the clock at the head of my bed, I rolled out at 1:30 this morning, but thinking it was 2:45. So much for battery backups in the clock. (I never use an alarm, but have the clock there so I can see what time it is when I get up.) Despite the alleged battery backup, when it turns off, the clock reverts to midnight and starts keeping time from there. … Read more

The Journal, Monday, 8/24

The Day Got up closer to 3:30 this morning. Still dragging a bit. Checked email, got my coffee and went to check out Dean’s site. I haven’t been there for a few days. It’s almost better that way because when I go late, I read the comments too. Sometimes there’s some good stuff there. Reading Dean’s stuff took an hour, almost exactly. Worthwhile, though. I found out in the comments section that we both use the … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, 8/23

The Day Rolled out at 3 this morning. Still feeling a little under the weather – ulcer stuff – and then padding through the living room, I was hit by a wood scorpion. Fortunately he caught me on the outside of the left heel and apparently hit a callus. Either that or I’ve developed a tolerance for things that sting. Fire and intense pain for about a half-minute, then a very small, dull and subsiding ache … Read more