Where's my internet! Aggg!

Ok, here's what happened. Last weekend, I called the phone company to complain about a problem that's been going on for the last few years -- when it rains, I can barely use the phone because of the noise. It doesn't bother me all of the time, so I let it go.

Wednesday, the young man came to fix the telephone. I was on the internet when he was up on the pole, and I noticed I wasn't connected to the internet anymore. I thought, ok, no problem, he probably had to disconnect something. I finished my transaction at my workplace before I started work.

Wednesday night, the clarity on my phone was great. But I had no internet. I spent at least an hour on the phone while they tested various things. The phone company's position is that I needed a new modem, which will come within 3 -5 business days. Oh, great. So you see no connection with the guy on the pole and my lack of internet? Guess not.

I grant that I'm not all that technical with computers and my modem is a few years old. Maybe it is the modem, maybe not.

But, in the meantime, I never realized before how much I'm entertained and informed by the internet until it was taken away from me. Argh. I check it at work. (I do adjust my time for the internet checking.) I even connected my phone line to my old computer and used Juno's dial-up. (Slow, and the IE on that computer is very, very old.)

I'm going through withdrawal. I'm begging time from my local coffee shop (Thanks, LA Coffee!) and my sister (Thanks, Kathleen and Bob!) I'm wishing I had a phone that had its own wi-fi. What would be worse? If I didn't have a computer!

And that's just plain sad. I'm old enough to have lived before widespread computer usage, before the internet, before cable, before pocket calculators. Howcum I miss my internet so much?

I don't know. *sigh*

Well, back to the real world for me. Just don't expect me to reply very fast.

Synchronicity and frustration

I was turned down by another agent this morning, which I suppose is not terribly surprising. I'm not arrogant; I don't believe I've written the great American Novel. I do believe that it's at publishable level and is relatively entertaining and enlightening in its way, and I keep trying to think of ways to improve it or places to send it. Still, it is discouraging. I know the stats. I know how many places J.K. Rowling submitted before “Harry Potter” clicked with a publisher. I’m trying to keep an attitude of “Ok, it’s just a hobby.” Mostly I do. Today – I suppose because it’s Monday and I was a work – I was grumpy.

Then I got a good review from one of my stories on FanFiction.net. Synchronicity! Or, perhaps, a message. I am a Christian; I don’t advertise it, I’m not one to sit you down and try to convert you. (I had enough of that long before I became a Christian.) But perhaps this was God’s way of telling me to not be discouraged?

This has happened a couple of times! I get discouraged, then I get good news about something I wrote. Gives me hope.

Synchronicity. I’m now looking for fortuosity. (And if you don’t know what that is, take a look at this link to a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-mDrxLVuVU (copyright Disney)

To Mom, with Love

My mother left us five years ago. She could be irritable, demanding, and insistent. She wasn't always patient, and did not suffer fools gladly. She could be mad at you one minute, and concerned in the next. She hated housework, dishes, and sewing, yet she was a housewife all of her life. She was often in pain from a neck injury, and had headaches every day. In the last six years of her life, she lived in a nursing home, and because extremely patient.

She was also loving, supportive, fun, and funny. She didn't need to discipline me, she could quell me with a look. She went to my choir concerts, even though she was extremely tune-deaf and couldn't tell one note from the next. She always knew when I had done my best, but then she knew when I could do better and encouraged me to do so. She lived long enough to see me published and was happy for me, even though she wasn't able to read my story.

She was a fan of all Disney Parks, cozy mysteries, and the original version of Star Trek. She loved to travel, and she loved taking slides and pictures. She loved her husband of 50 years, her daughters, sons-in-law, and her grandchildren.

She was my friend, and I miss her.

To you, Mom!

Thoughts on reviews -- should I care?

I received my second review the other day on one of the Smashwords stories I put up -- "Second-Hand Princess." The reviewer, "Caite" said:

"A very muddled story, with a Princess who never acquires a name, a Prince with an unpronounceable one, and entirely too many typographical and grammatical errors to be readable. Lovely premise, poor execution. (review of free book)."

I've spent the last few days trying to decide what I thought of this review. It's not bad. My initial thought was to ignore it, but then I wondered: was she right? I think what worried me more was not the muddled story or the poor execution part -- that's opinion -- but the part about typographical and grammatical errors.

So tonight I ran the story through Microsoft Word's grammar and spelling corrector. Yes, she was right. I wouldn't call it unreadable, but I found at least two spelling errors, one of which wouldn't have been caught by spell check. I also replaced a number of periods with commas. *sigh*.

The rest is her opinion, although I'm still trying to figure out how the name "Aarach" is entirely unpronounceable. The name doesn't seem as hard as some I've seen, such as Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Naismith Vorkosigan." (I discovered I was pronouncing it wrong when I listened to the audio books.)

That's fine. While I would like other people to enjoy my stories -- that's why I put them out there -- I mostly enjoy writing them. And that's all that counts. In my opinion!

If it's free, they will come? A rambling blog.

I've always taken my writing seriously, ever since 9th grade, and Mrs. Van Atta said I wrote good poetry. When I got to high school and 10th grade, I wanted to join the school newspaper, which, unfortunately, was on the way out. I don't remember the details now -- maybe Sue S. does -- but somehow Mrs. Longanecker was convinced to be our advisor, and the Wildcat Weekly was back. I started writing articles and discovered something.

I like being edited.

I like being edited, because it was the only way I could learn what I did wrong.

To my eyes, my writing is perfect. The newer it is, the more perfect it is. I enoy reading my own stories. But, practically, I know my writing is not perfect, and I need improvement.

I am not a perfectionist; far from it. I don't search for exactly the right word to fit into a story. I don't take forever to write. I do subscribe to Dean Wesley Smith's theory that a story should be written once, but not necessarily re-written. I clean my stories up, I try to catch all of the dangling plot points, but I'm not obsessive about it.

Which, 'round about, brings me back to Smashwords.com and fanfiction.net. I want feedback. I want the ego-boo, of course, but I want feedback. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect reviews, but the feedback I get here is how many people look at my stories. I guess it gives me verification that I actually might be doing something right. One of my stories on fanfiction.net has over 1200 hits. A story I just put up last week at Smashwords.com for free already has 145 downloads. Makes me feel good.

But does it mean my storytelling is good? I don't know.

You tell me.