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Mad Genius post on going Indie

One writer's analysis of the Kindle Scout program.  Summary: not worth it for most authors.

Independent bookstores on the rise, Esspresso POD at The Passive Voice.  (Original, full article at the Wall Street Journal, where it's outside the paywall right now.)

Sol, have we fixed the 'subscription must expire before you can change the credit card' problem?  Mine had to be cancelled on account of fraud.

I've been unproductive of late, occasioned in part by a problem.

In the last of my recurring rounds of illness, I had a 20-day course of Levaquin.  I've taken it before without problems.  Not this time.  And I was given prednisone to take at the same time, to rein in a persistent scalp problem.  (Same doc.)  I got the meds late in the day, and decided to start the prednisone the next day so I wasn't taking it all at once.  (It has a declining dosage schedule.)  And then forgot the next day, so I started the steroid two days later.  After I was on the prednisone for two days, the problem turned up--but I didn't realize that Levaquin is in the same family as Cipro, and can cause the same problems.  (My father suffered a muscle tear on Cipro--about four months before the FDA put the notice out on it.  It was prescribed as a precaution.  He was one of the first non-rescue/recovery people into the WTC after 9/11, checking Transit Authority infrastructure.)

When I did learn that Levaquin might be the problem, I was two days from the end of the course, and had been clear of symptoms for just over two days.  I preferred to risk the next two days.

So I had muscle damage in the big thigh muscles, and a little below the knee.  But mostly the glutes and the balance muscles on the outside, and a little on the knee extensors.  Maybe a little on the ankle extensors too, but I still have the strength to stand on my toes without pain or soreness.  No balance on my toes now, though.

I was recovering nicely for a week or so.  I took a drive into southern Queens, and (after about six hours of rest and mild activity) back without noticing any problems.  The next day I was no worse than before, and I was getting better bit by bit.  With a cane, I could handle my normal load of two heavy three-section shoulder-strap briefcases, and even the battery pack (a portable jump-start pack with a bigger and better battery).

I should add that I've had a cane in the car since I put it there as a spare for Mom.  I was glad I had it.

I decided to stretch things with a 2+ hr drive out, and back.  To make matters worse, I found a parking problem involving half a commercial flight of stairs and about a thousand-foot walk.  I was a bit sore that evening, but the extra soreness was gone the next day.

So, having found no ill effects from driving, I pushed things harder.  This trip was 5 hours out, and some time sitting.  After that, I had a very hard time getting back to the car.  Not wanting to have to pump gas, I drove slowly to get back to NJ on the rest of the tank (NJ has only full-serve), making it a 6-hour drive to the gas station (where I also made it to the men's room and back) and another 40 minutes to home.

When I got home I had real trouble getting up the stairs to my apartment.  And the next day, I was worse.  Much worse.  I managed trips to the couch, the bathroom, and the refrigerator.

That was 11 days ago.  Today I had to take a (partial) load of laundry out--no choice!  Getting back up the stairs was hard, even with cane and railing.  (To make matters worse, the neighbors downstairs have a dog that was rescued in Katrina and reacts VERY badly to canes.  I asked the manager's office to send word, telling them that the dog is afraid of canes--true, but incomplete.)

So, with the right mix of rest and activity, and plenty of protein in my diet, I figure it will be five or six weeks before I can move normally with the cane, and a like period before I'm at 95% strength.  I also figure that improvement will come on a logistic curve, since muscle growth depends on having damage from stress--but not so much that the damage outstrips the rebuilding.  (I'm estimating that the worst muscles--right glutes--are at around 65% strength.)  I'm drinking plenty of water to keep my kidneys flushed, and trying not to take too much ibuprofen.

With the reduced activity, my compression stockings have squeezed my feet almost to their proper size--a size smaller than my shoes--which makes movement outside harder.

The problem for my writing is that I work best out of the apartment.  Reviews are okay here, but original work suffers from all the stuff surrounding me.  However--I was able to work out notes for the next chapter (and mark up the last three per reviews).  I'll type up and print out the notes (I can only carry a couple of notebooks with me, not the computer, the 22 Ah Pb-acid battery pack, or the second bag with the printed copies of all my work and very incomplete 'bibles'--and the tote bag with thesaurus, Big Red Pittman dictionary, and a few other things).  With the notes in print (close version for tinkering with order, well-spaced version for writing in details) I should be productive for a day or two.

Tomorrow I have to drive across the parking lot to the community mailbox.  (Drat Drat DRAT the USPS!)  Friday I have to get into the supermarket to get a prescription refilled.  I need a couple of other things, which maybe I'll be able to get.

And that's why Paddy won't be at work today ...

Oh, one capper.  My Visa card numbers got nabbed by fraudsters and the card had to be cancelled.  The bank caught it and was good enough to overnight the new card (though it came in around 15:00; still, pretty good).  I'm worried that the problem might have occurred at the 'last gas in NJ', where I filled up going out and coming back.  But I can't be sure of anything, so I'll be using PayPal when I can, and paying cash next time at that station.

Personally, I think that people who make their livelihood committing fraud on strangers are no better than highway robbers.  We used to hang them, back in the day.  I suspect that some countries still would--though perhaps they would use a less elaborate method.

Now I have to shuffle slowly to the bathroom, and after that I'll indulge in a dose of ibuprofen and maybe a slice of meat-heavy pizza from the fridge.  Later I have to get the laundry to the bedroom.

Oh, and if someone with a cane asks you to let them handle that door, please do as they ask.  They know best, and they may feel rushed if you're standing there holding it for a minute and a half--and feeling rushed is inviting a fall.  Which is not to say you shouldn't offer--but don't feel offended if they decline.  They know best.

If you just have to be helpful, let the door close but hang around unobtrusively until they near the door.  Then open it, or offer to.  And if they'd prefer to handle it themselves--THEY KNOW BEST!  (Dammit!)

But not just direct address.  If I say 'I gave Dad a new saw for his birthday.' it's capitalized because 'Dad' is used as his name.  But if I wrote 'I gave my dad ...' it would not be.

No, that's definitely not Mr. Bultitude, who becomes one of the N great bears of Logres.  I don't recall those detail particularly well.  Oh, and there's another character whom I think could be the inspiration for Horse Badorties.

What?  You've never heard of Horse?  Well, take the idea of an urban cowboy and replace him with an urban spaceman.

Old post:

In case I forgot to mention it, don't forget (H)Eliogabolus, Rome's drag queen emperor, who demanded that the Senate call him 'Empress'.  In Elegiacs.

Followup on the review, on the part about bears and wolves not thinking or feeling.  There's a good case that their minds are almost entirely desire and feeling.  That many of them can read our feelings, and we can read theirs, argues for it.  Oh, and the dynamics of a wolf pack are rather like the dynamics of a gang.

Quite apart from from that, CSLewis does a convincing job of showing the reader the mind of a bear in =That Hideous Strength= (after Mr. Bultitude has been drugged and imprisoned).

http://www.organstoppizza.com/the-resta … operation/

If you arrange the meet in the fall, I might be able to find a way to join you.  (You'll be disappointed.)  I'd probably make the trip by way of Pheonix.  The world's largest theater organ is no longer the Radio City Wurlitzer.  The world's largest pipe organ is in a pizzeria in Mesa, Arizona.  The traps are in the restaurant space itself.

I believe Amy's point is that it will be too long to be a single book.  My view is that Anver's storyline is the strongest, and my impression is that all the storylines will merge into his.

Mandates is about Kha and Airen, and lies within the time period of A1.  If Amy will only take my advice and start Mandates with a short prologue of Kha writing the note to Anver and leaving, the reader who picks it up after A1 will have an immediate connection.  Mandates will explain Sil, who appears in A1 and becomes a force in A2.  A2 will reference, if not involve, the priests of Behira, and Dictates will provide an explanation for the Gillis as well as explanations that will be needed early in A3.  It dovetails beautifully ... depending on how A1, A2, and A3 are broken up.

Now if only my stuff would fall together so cleanly. 

This article describes how Mary Shelley rebelled against the rebellion to which she was born.  One part of that rebellion shows in her original Frankenstein, and the treatment of the topic hits some of my larger themes.