September 2023 - Update #4

 

Very little writing progress in the last week - perhaps 300 words on Chapter 2 - but some ideas are developing. Most of my attention, however, has been on the situation with Chokecherry's retreat. Due to clerical errors on the part of our site, we are going to be forced to hold the retreat (which fortunately is mostly virtual) here in Denver at my house. A good bit of time and energy was spent on these problems, including unsatisfactory negotiations with the site, changing arrangements with several people who will be here, and serious housekeeping on my part. I also spent half of yesterday with technical support regarding a problem with my laptop, which turns out not to have been entirely fixed after all. Life in general has been rather chaotic, but I hope to get back to Gwernin's adventures soon.

September 2023 - Update #3

 

No progress on The Well of Wisdom this week as I've been occupied with the next issue of Oak Leaves - working on my Coelbren article and on layout and contents of the issue. There have also been a few blips in my life in general - dental work and vehicle problems, among other things - and a good bit of yard work to get my back yard ready for our Autumn Equinox ritual Saturday 23rd. This is a public Zoomed ritual, by the way, and if you're interested in joining us it starts around 6:30 p.m. MDT.

After I finish with Oak Leaves, I'll be involved with Chokecherry Grove's annual Rocky Mountain Retreat, managing the Zoom sessions by our presenters and giving a presentation myself. For more information on that, see our blog. I figure I might get back to working on Well of Wisdom seriously sometime in mid-October!

September 2023 - Update #2

 

Another mixed week. I received my proof copy of The Old Gods Endure Thursday afternoon, and after looking through it, I approved it for publication on Lulu on Monday and ordered 9 more copies so as to have some on hand for Chokecherry Grove's annual Rocky Mountain Retreat in October. I'm not 100% happy with the cover design, but it's good enough for a first edition since my sales are either person to person or on-line. I also set up a pre-release link at Smashwords for the ebook versions. The print version should show up on Amazon by and by, but if people buy it at Lulu, I'll get more of the money <grin> and you can avoid Amazon, which some people prefer.

No real progress on the next book so far - I'm still half way through Chapter 2, although I've tinkered a bit with Chapter 1 and the manuscript generally. I also need to finish my Oak Leaves article on the Coelbren Alphabet, although that's more than half done now. Having only two balls in the air at once rather than three should be helpful.

We are finally getting cooler weather, with some overnight lows in the 40s F in my back yard. As a result, I've finally got some yard work done, although there's plenty left to do. And the nasty Japanese rose beetles have pretty much disappeared, thank the Gods! Autumn at last!

September 2023 - Update #1

 

It's been a mixed week. After making what I hope were final corrections in The Old Gods Endure, I uploaded the Lulu version and ordered my first proof copy. After that I transferred all my corrections to the Smashwords version -- less trouble than making a new Smashwords version from the Lulu one -- and uploaded that as well. Lulu shipped my proof copy yesterday, so with luck I should have it in a week. Then, if it looks good, I can order a few pre-publication copies to have on hand at Chokecherry's Rocky Mountain Retreat next month.  

After that I turned my attention to the next book for a day or so, before moving on to work on my paper on Coelbren alphabet for the next issue of Oak Leaves for a couple of days. The tricky part there was getting all my illustrations into the correct format to fit them into Office Publisher. This involved something I'd never done before -- removing a table from a Word document and running it through Photoshop to produce a .png file. Having done this, I moved on to do layout for the next issue of Oak Leaves with the other submissions I had on hand. I should finally get back to The Well of Wisdom today or tomorrow!

In other news, we are having pleasantly autumnal weather, and are finally running out of Japanese rose beetles!