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Author Topic: What is going on with everyone?  (Read 6290 times)

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Lynette

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What is going on with everyone?
« on: May 16, 2008, 03:03:47 PM »

I've noticed this place has been empty for a couple of weeks. Are you just enjoying the spring weather, trying to dry out in the mid-west or on vacation in the rest of the world? Hopefully, you're just busy writing that next best seller.

To get things going I want to announce that I have a book signing at Barnes and Noble in High Point, NC on Saturday if any of you happen to be in the area.

On Sunday I'm going to a combined birthday party for my grandchildren. Grandson, Trent will be 12 in June; Granddaugher, Blaire was 6 in April. (You old timers will remember how we prayed Blaire would make it because she was 2 months early. She is now an active and thriving kindergartner. You'll also remember that Trent is dysletic - the one thing he had to inherit from me, but it clicked this year and he's now reading everything in sight. He is in the 5th grade and reads on a 7th grade level. We're all so proud of him.)

I'm also in the process of editing a manuscript for a friend, doing some rewrites for a publisher for the first in my new series and working on my third Willa Hinshaw mystery.

Now, it's your turn.

Lynette

ella

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2008, 09:48:13 PM »

I got my digital converter boxes and have been trying to figure out how to read well enough to get them set up correctly... :'(

is there a website that can walk me through this... this...this uuh, experience?
« Last Edit: May 16, 2008, 09:50:00 PM by ella »
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B L McAllister

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2008, 03:07:43 PM »

Got one too.  Got it hooked up. Took all day. Sigh! I don't think I'm literate enough to tell how I did it, but that may be because I had to adjust the instructions in the manual to the fact that our "old" TV set must also read VCR tapes and DVDs, so we can revisit Agatha Christie, Foyle's War, etc.  In fact, I'm not sure I could even think-and-read my way through the process again.  Fun, in a way, when it was all hooked up, though: Now some channels come in two parts (9 is 9-1 and 9-2, for example) one comes in better but with fits and starts," (42, for example, which I found by pressing 34 and discovering it as channel 6-1; there doesn't seem to be a 6-2), and one doesnt' come in now at all (because our Zenith brand box doesn't "pass through" analogue stations, I think.) I don't understand it all, but we get most of what we used to get, and we can still watch Ms. Marple in either of two incarnations, so it's blessing counting time.  I have a PhD in math, but it didn't contribute to the process, so I figure it didn't give me any sort of edge. Should have majored in Electrical Engineering.  Incidentally,  the VCR, using the present way of hooking up, won't record.  So I'm not through.  [this red stuff appended after I revisited the set, just to see whether it woulld record or not.  Gotta do something different.  Another day shot.  Not tomorrow, not Monday, but sometime.]    Needless to add, I wish you good luck!
Byron
« Last Edit: May 17, 2008, 10:15:32 PM by Byron Leon McAllister »
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Byron Leon McAllister.
Books by Byron and Kay McAllister can most easily be obtained as e-books or in print from the publisher at http://www.writewordsinc.com/ For "Undercover Nudist," the print version is an improved version of the ebook version. The others are the same in both formats.

Lee Lofland

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2008, 01:06:06 AM »

Let's see...

I've already spoken at three conferences this year - the Emerald Coast Writers Conference, Scene of the Crime Conference,  and the Pikes Peak Writers Conference - and have several more to go. I'm in St. Louis this weekend speaking to the local chapter of RWA. Next up is the Midwest Writers Conference in Muncie. After that - Willamette Writers Conference, East of Eden Writers Conference, a couple of library appearances in the Boston area with Kate Flora, and a corporate event in Miami.

I just sent in the manuscript for my kids book. It's scheduled for release in early 2009.

I'll be heading to Buffalo and Ohio to start the research for a true crime book I'm writing. That's going to be an interesting project.

I also have a couple more projects in the works. I'll have more information on those, soon.

Oh, and in my spare time I work on my blog.
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Elena

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2008, 12:19:32 PM »

Quote
I have a PhD in math, but it didn't contribute to the process, so I figure it didn't give me any sort of edge. Should have majored in Electrical Engineering. 
Sigh - I wish I could tell you it would help, but it won't.  I have a PhD in EE and three of us with a lot of EE experience were only able to get partway through the process.  Finally, after six hours we gave up and the owner called her grand-nephew - a high school junior.  He finished up the job in less than two hours which included correcting the bits that we didn't get right.

He tried to explain it to us, but we quickly found out that we didn't have a language in common  :D

Thank goodness there is a younger generation, "Mom's Song" works  8)

And, what am I doing now?  I'm thinking about writing a revisionist autobiography.
Elena
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B L McAllister

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2008, 02:54:44 PM »

I think I need a teen-age friend, too.  So far I don't have any ideas on how to re-wire so as to be able to record--and even though I used that capability rarely, there've been times when it was almost important.  (But note the word "almost.")
Byron

PS: what's a revisionist autobiography?
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Byron Leon McAllister.
Books by Byron and Kay McAllister can most easily be obtained as e-books or in print from the publisher at http://www.writewordsinc.com/ For "Undercover Nudist," the print version is an improved version of the ebook version. The others are the same in both formats.

ella

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2008, 10:30:24 PM »

Tell me this: WHICH remote am I supposed to be programming--the one for the TV or the one that comes with the converter box?

I have TWO of these to set up...

Ella
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Elena

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2008, 11:04:16 PM »

Ella, I don't have a clue - if my sense of humor were still around, I'd try one at a time and see what happens.  But, then I'd also take careful notes about what I did to be sure I could undo it if needed.  Otherwise, a good book and bed  :D

Byron - here is what the dictionary says about revisionist:
"the theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a previously accepted ... point of view."
In my case it comes down to revising my past making my autobiography a lot more fun to think about and maybe even write about.  There actually is a name for non-fiction books where the author adds narrative and reactions, but it's slipped away - sitting on the boundary between non-fiction and fiction, though primarily non-fiction.
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Peg H

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2008, 11:13:10 PM »

I just got back from the Pennwriters conference.  Had a great time with fantastic sessions and wonderful people! ;D

Peg H
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Lynette

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2008, 02:26:41 AM »

Byron and Ella, Thank goodness I don't have to do that converter thing. This is a woman who can't figure out how to record a TV show when I'm not home. I'd just have to give up television if I had to resort to a converter.

Lee, you are a wonder to get all done that you do. What's your kid's book about?

Elena, a revisionist autobiography sounds exciting. I'm sure most of us would like to go back and revise some of our life, maybe not all, but some. At least we can change the way we think sometimes.

Peg, why not post some of the words of wisdom you heard at Pennwriters? Lack of funds has kept me from attending as many conferences and workshops as I usually do, but I like to hear and read about what's been going on at some of them.

Lynette

Lee Lofland

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2008, 09:14:46 AM »

The title of the kids book is EVERYTHING KIDS: I WANT TO BE A POLICE OFFICER. It's for kids in the 7-9 age group. My good friend, Becky Levine, and I wrote this one together. We managed to remain as friends, too.  :)
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Q

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2008, 09:40:14 PM »


We've moved, Mrs. Q and I, a process that began about two years ago and isn't really finished yet (and we will probaly have to do so again soon) but ... just last week we got the DirecTV dish put up again ... after two years without any television at all. And we are so used to doing without it that we may remember to turn it on sometimes. From the little I've seen, the Wold hasn't changed all that much and I'm very relieved to see that it's been coping quite well without me.

Doing? Trying to set up a web page, have a couple of blogs at the server though; a lot, all at once as our old place was a farmhouse hoomestead up in the mountains near here, off the grid and on a precarious wireless telephone (and an even shakier dial-up Internet).

We did pretty well, diesel generators and a solar system i spent years putting up and perfecting (a month after we habnded over, the grid electrical connection that we'd asked for some three years before, came through!).

The first thing I did when we got into this new place (literally, as we are building a new house, before we got a roof over our heads), the first thing was to get an ADSL hookup ... and start a long postponed writing career.

A novel I began at NaNo "The Danzig Daughters": I try and get a few more words done every day.  Short stories, compiling a few with a 'local' setting - an imaginary village, an oasis isolated in the middle of a vast salt-pan desert (imagine something from a Sergio Leone spaghetti western). I think I've mentioned, a "Writer's Reference"of sorts, part of a series offered by author Holly lisle (http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=222&rn=399&action=show_detail (if the link works).

And I've also joined a forum of oddball Mystery Writers ... uh? ... what? oh yes,  ;D right here. It has been very quiet - is it usually like this?

So glad you asked. That's what I'm doing. I think.

:) Q
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Kathy Wendorff

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2008, 02:36:14 PM »

It has been quiet around here, hasn't it? I've been rewriting, painfully slowly; working in the garden; attending my 8th grade daughter's many end-of-the-school-year concerts; hauling my college son's dreck home from the dorms and sending him off to 3 months in Germany. And working to get the new Wisconsin Sisters in Crime chapter up and running.

All of which takes time, but doesn't provide much interesting to post about.

Kathy W.
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B L McAllister

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #13 on: June 03, 2008, 11:15:01 AM »

I've noticed this place has been empty for a couple of weeks. Are you just enjoying the spring weather, trying to dry out in the mid-west or on vacation in the rest of the world? Hopefully, you're just busy writing that next best seller.
Lynette
Well, it's a week or so later, now, and things are still pretty slow.  I have a conjecture as to why so many are so missing: they're all out manning their blogs or visiting other people's blogs.  Blogs are sticky to get through, because they get so many irrelevant entries that take time to spot and gloss over, so people's time is pretty well consumed by them, once they get the habit.  As for me, I haven't begun to re-attach my TV converter box yet, and I don't like blogs very well, so I keep returning here--but, unfortunately, I seldom have answers to questions that might be raised here (no, they aren't raised here, currently, much, but they might have been, and they used to be), and I don't have any very interesting questions for other people to work on, so my name seldom shows up here, either.  Except, maybe, in this string, where I've visited twice.  I should add that I'm not writing a best seller.  I'm not sure I'm writing anything but this here thing here.  There's very little market for what I wriite, and although writing does, indeed, obsess me, so do several other interesting activities, so at moments of writing-discouragement I still have plenty to consume my time.  Some of them are getting to be "far between," however, like learning to play the bagpipes, which takes a lot of wind, or ditto the Australian didjeridoo, where I have yet to master "circular breathing."  Or . . . , well, and so on.

Byron
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Byron Leon McAllister.
Books by Byron and Kay McAllister can most easily be obtained as e-books or in print from the publisher at http://www.writewordsinc.com/ For "Undercover Nudist," the print version is an improved version of the ebook version. The others are the same in both formats.

Tony

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Re: What is going on with everyone?
« Reply #14 on: June 03, 2008, 12:20:21 PM »

Some amusing little answers here.

I am quite new here and yes it is quiet; I have posted a few threads, many people view them but only half a dozen comment.
I am pleased to say I have made a new friend in Erica.
I began to feel a little inadequate at first; people busy writing and promoting etc etc.

Here on this side of the pond it is a typical English summer....raining!  I am rather busy looking after rich folk who really don't need looking after at all but it makes them feel better when I take their money from them for looking bulldog British all day long.

I am in fact writing....Well of a sort and of a fashion.  I am thirty thousand words into a new manuscript; the prologue to which I have posted here for critique, I have to come away from it often though because it is quite sad and tragic.

I have also written and submitted a short story to The Writers Digest short story genre competition, results are out in November or thereabouts so please wish me luck.  It is a story called "No Mans Land" and is somewhat ironically set in London.

I have recently finished a story that is too long to be "short" and not long enough for a novel, called "Blossom" it started out as based on fact from my previous experiences but ended up in the realm of fantasy, which really isn't that far removed from my police career...  ;D  I think Linda liked it...

Thats it!  Thats me!  publishing nothing, attending no conferences, glad-handing no one, all work work work...
Tony... :)


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