FROM A WEEK OR TWO BACK, TO SUBSCRIBERS, ALONG WITH THEIR FREE NEW STORY.
Hi to all – subscribers and blog-readers – A very merry lockdown-ending to everyone, without going mad and killing ourselves. Lockdown hasn’t been all bad – No distractions, so I’ve managed to finalise and publish four sci-fi books in the past year. But I’m stultified with writing and computing. Can’t wait to get up the coast and do some fossiling along the Yorkshire coast (It's the footprints of Jurassic dinosaurs we search for) Few days camping at Scalby. Missed out on the two-weeks camping in France at the Ste Marie giant geology fair again this year – Durn.
(Not my pic - thanks, BBC - you show my weather photos, and I'll show your news pics - fair enough?) It’s been a busy time since my last online ramble. Yesterday was fairly typical • Wake up; toss, turn, can’t sleep; up at 4.30 a.m. • My website is inaccessible because the company that owns the actual site (Wix) was “upgrading” and I can’t figure out the new system at this time of day. (I still can’t, Sunday morning). • KDP - Kindle Publishing is also closed for upgrading, so I can’t go to “My Bookshelf” to continue with the uploading of details for future books. • Finishing off the week helping daughter (who lives next door and has to use up a week’s holiday before the end of the work year – definitely a case of use it or lose it) to level the area for her new garden shed. Then a drive to Marehay to finalise the choice of shed, and order it. Plus visit a place for 2 x 2 slabs (they’d gone); and then to Toolstation, for – guess what… • Online with KDP to upload and approve “The Fractus Project” for paperback publication on 24th April (my mum’s birthday). Can’t do it in advance, but it only takes a day for paperbacks to be approved – Amazon’s very good in that department. • Attempt to upload and schedule final version of “Roads Less Travelled”, but KDP is feeling off-colour again. • Drive into Nottingham. • Write 3 pages of notes on a new story idea about islands, aliens and whales (watch this space) whilst waiting in car. • Dentist’s chair for a gruelling 2+ hours. Fix next two appointments to correct and adjust last month’s dental disasters. • Seek refuge in warm Southern Comfort and fiddling with the islands story; altering the website banner; and a modicum of telly-watching (binge-watch Intruder). • Electric blanket on; sit up in bed.
• Open “Terminal Space” and escape for five wonderful minutes… (Okay, not really, but that’s how my last advertising tweet went, with a link to the short SF story “Option 3”. • It was actually three hours of rampant sex. (And if you believe that, you need to switch genres – try fantasy.)
• Or you could try "Second Thoughts" - the carnally-oriented short story elsewhere on the blog-spot, for the real inside story.
