Coffee heat rising

Dollars and Ducks

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The ducks are visiting again this morning. They come and go, DuckDuck and her Drake. They don’t seem to be interested in nesting here — they spend most of their time elsewhere. So I doubt if we’ll be seeing ducklings anytime in the near future. But it’s nice to have them drop by and paddle around the pool now and again.

The drake is a spectacular thing. He’s exceptionally handsome even for a mallard, his feathers in prime shape and he obviously at the height of his life. When he spreads his wings and takes off, he makes an astonishing flash of color and motion. DuckDuck is also quite charming, given to standing on the coping and stretching one leg at a time, causing her wing to lift so the long striped feathers and with their bright teal patch fan out… uh oh…she’s over at the old nest and peering in there. Hmmm…..  Is it only that she wishes to eat the cat’s claw leaves, or does she have designs on the old homestead?

Whenever I get back from choir, I’ve gotta do some bookkeeping and pay the S-corp’s AMEX bill. Ugh. Racked up over $900, mostly on consultancy fees.

And truth to tell, the book enterprise isn’t making any money, mostly because I don’t like working with social media, because I can’t even get into Goodreads, and because I have just enough editorial work that it takes time way from the publishing scheme that should be used on marketing. I think I’m probably going to focus on the cookbook and let the others moulder on the Internet. I will take shop versions of the cookbook and Fire-Rider around to local bookstores, but that’s about it. I tire of this enterprise, especially since I can earn as much as I made teaching with editorial work that occupies about a third of my time.

Yesterday at our merry writers’ group, one of the members asked me if I’m interested in ghost-writing. Topic: how to write computer games.

Well…zzzzzzzzzzzz….. Maybe. If the person is willing to pay the going rate for a ghost-written book — about 20 grand — sure. But frankly, most people outside publishing and politics faint dead away when they hear that price. They wouldn’t pay half that  much, and believe me…you do a lot more than $10,000 worth of work when you write an entire book for someone.

Math Magic, which I wrote for Scott Flansburg and for which I did get $20,000, had a one-year deadline. That’s less than $1,667 a month, gross, for full-time work: exactly the amount of one of my net paychecks at the Great Desert University, after taxes and the state’s generous benefits were extracted. Half-time pay for full-time work. That book was done in six months, mostly because as soon as SDXB left town for a stint in the reserves, I spent 14 to 16 hours a day on it.

Oh well. Nothing ventured: I’ll probably look into it, but not hold my breath until the check clears the bank…

But frankly, I suspect that if I put as much time and money into marketing the editorial business as I’ve done for the publishing scheme, I’d  hustle up more than enough work to meet the target I’d like to earn. And NOT have to work 14 hours a day at it…

Friday Frolics

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As it were…if one has an odd idea of frolicking… 😀

Awaken at 4 a.m. Retrieve the computer, open the new Chinese grad student client’s thesis. Mm HMM. As suspected (since she wept that her dissertation director called her English “appalling”…just think of what that one would think of my Chinese!), yes, as suspected, it’s a tangle of Chinglish. But not too awful: the organization is good, the research is adequate, the methodology…uhm, remains to be seen.

By 6:30 I’m done with Chapter 1 and have sent the references off to my honored associate editor, who very likely will assign them to her underlings. Earned about 30 bucks an hour, so didn’t feel bad about that at-tall.

Figure out that the way to keep the MacBook’s external hard drive from repeatedly falling on the tile floor is to Scotch-tape the USB cable into the drive’s connection. Add this decorative touch to Apple’s fine styling.

Feed the dogs, throw in a load of laundry, walk the dogs, eat not much breakfast, read the newsoid.

Toss a particularly ugly shirt, a recent Costco buy, into the car and head down to the Ghetto Costco outlet, where as usual they take the thing back and return my money, no questions asked. Fill the Dog Chariot’s tank with gas preparatory to tomorrow’s endless jaunt to the far, far, far, FAR west side (approx. half-way to Yuma). Yesh: filled the tank for under twenty dollah!!!!!

In living memory, it has cost $40 to fill that thing when it’s 3/4 empty. Dance to spring!

Next: Over to AJ’s, a local gourmet market. Get the avocado. Get the frozen peas. Do not get the MSG.

MSG, you ask? What would one want with such a discredited, politically incorrect product?

{sigh} Those of you who are not dog owners should avert your eyes. Those of you who live with dogs no doubt are familiar with a particularly annoying doggy quirk, coprophagia. Ruby has, of recent, decided to phage copros. But — this one’s weird — not her own. Cassie’s.

Ugh. Humans hate that.

You can discourage this revolting little habit by adding a light sprinkle of MSG to the dog’s food. Of course, I’ll have to add it to Cassie’s, since Ruby’s not interested in her own product. At least, not so far.

When metabolized in the canine gut, MSG taints the dog’s excreta with a flavor so ghastly that even a dog will not eat it! Works like a charm. Within two or three days, your dog will be convinced that this activity is not worth the effort. It’s a quick and easy way to break a dog of that particular irritant.

But damn. McCormick’s meat tenderizer no longer contains MSG. It’s salt and some other chemical, unrecognized. The store did not have any Accent.

Back home, order a little jar of Accent from Amazon. No shipping charge, now that I’m an Amazon Prime member. This is good, because the cost of shipping 4.7 ounces of the stuff probably would have cost more than the product itself.

More laundry into the washer. Water plants, water plants, water plants, water plants.

Dribble Round-Up on weeds running rampant in front yard and alley, having noticed while driving out that the yard is looking a little tacky. The neighbor’s behind me looks worse. And of course, Manny’s is a jungle, since they like to grow poppies in the gravel each spring. At least they grow their weeds on purpose.

Repair the paper towel holder that fell off the wall, out in the garage. Throw lunch on the grill. Scour pan left to soak in garage work sink.

Dine magnificently while reading New York Review of Books.

Grab Cassie, who has become extravagantly filthy, drag her into the bathroom, and drop her in the bathtub. Scrub dog, scrub dog, scrub dog, scrub dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog…dog escapes.

Haul wet towels to garage, throw those in the washer with wet bluejeans.

A dog and her dirt... [Click on the iimage to enjoy its full, soggy splendor]
A dog and her dirt… [Click on the image to enjoy its full, soggy splendor. Yes, the topsoil covering the bottom of the bathtub is from the dog.]
Scrub bathtub. In the process of getting all-purpose cleanser out of the bathroom cupboard, tip over the bottle of toilet cleaner, which tumbles out onto the floor. I can’t get those things open without recourse to a wrench, so once I do manage to break into a bottle of the stuff, I just stick it back in the cabinet, open. Take that, Big Nanny!

Toilet cleaner squirts across the bathroom floor and slops onto bath mat.

Finish the job by squirting the rest of it into the terlet. Wash the caustic cleaner off the bathroom floor. Carry the bathroom rug, which was wet and hairy anyway, out to the garage to go in the washer next. Scrub toilet.

With hair dryer in hand, corner Cassie. Dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog…dog escapes.

Clean up kitchen. Hang clothes, load more laundry.

Dog is limping. If you wouldn’t put up such a fight, Dog, that wouldn’t happen. Place dry towel on bed, atop Dog Blanket. Place dog on bed. Place other dog on bed.

Ruby evicts Cassie from the Wet Dog Towel.

Move Ruby. Pick up Cassie and put her back on towel. Repel attack of The Look from Ruby.

Retrieve computer. Climb onto the sack with the dogs. Consider doing a little more work. Nothing very urgent is pending. One thing ought to be done today, right now. But the world will not end if it doesn’t get done today, right now. Read news. Play games at Washington Post site.

The Post‘s collection of online games, BTW, is primo. Check it out if you like benign time-wasters.

Who Said It: Candidate or Beauty Queen? is not to be missed, BTW.

Write this post. Realize it’s 7:00 p.m. Would like to go to sleep, but it’s too early. Besides, the washer’s still running.

Maybe I can get a little more marketing work in.

BUY THIS BOOK!

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Thank You, El Niño!

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It seems ungracious to be thankful for an El Niño, given the havoc the phenomenon wreaks on the Western hemisphere. But here in Arizona, the effect is not  so much tornadoes and floods but much-needed rain. The occasionally recurring effect of a warm current in the Pacific Ocean, El Niño brings weather disturbances that can have some severe economic and health effects in the countries it affects. In Arizona, though, it brought back the kind of gentle winter rains we used to see every year when I was a young thing.

You get used to drought after it’s been going on for a couple of decades — 22 years, to be precise. Native flora shrivels up, and the springtime wildflower shows go away. Once-flukish 118-degree days occur every summer now. And ornamental plants? Forget it!

So I had pretty much resigned myself to the belief that the beautiful climbing roses that turn the west-side deck into a leafy bower were going to have to be taken out this year. All that remained of them was a few parched sticks, no matter how much water I thought I was pouring on them.

But nay! Check this out!

Who’d’ve thunk it?

RoseVines2016So overjoyed were these plants at actually getting enough water for a change — for the first time in years — and actually getting water all over them, that last January one of them burst forth with a single blossom:

rosevineflowerNeither of the vines has made another one yet, but they’re getting ready to. And both are covered with more leaves than they’ve had in as long as I can remember.

Earlier this winter, in a fit of spring-planting enthusiasm (it’s been spring since January…), I bestirred myself to plant some flowers. It’s the first time I’ve felt like gardening since the marathon spate of surgeries, which really left me very depressed. But spring has sproinged, and oit looks like even the old lady is shaking off the long, dry winter.

Spring 2016 flowers 1Spring 2016 flowers 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring 2016 flowers 2Spring 2016 flowers 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring 2016 flowers 6Spring 2016 flowers 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOL! I give up on trying to force WordPress to put these images where they oughta be! Is there a reason computer technology has to be such an unholy timesuck?

Dogs love springtime, too…probably the more so because they never indulge in electronic distractions.

Ruby on deck

Running in Place

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Ever spend the whole darned day working busily, come to the end of the day thinking, “Gosh, I got a LOT done,” and then on reflection realize you really didn’t do very much?

That was yesterday. A bunch of time-sucks occupied most of my waking hours…

• Breakfast and light shopping with Associate Editor Tina and her sister. Okay.  Not a time suck. That was fun.
• Correspond briefly with new client: her project is delayed.
• Review Big Kahuna Client’s magnum opus. Realize there’s not much more I can do until he gets back to town.
• Decide to use the time thereby freed up by creating a couple of Word templates for future client work: one for APA style and one for Chicago Style. Very time-consuming, but will save time on future projects.
• Acquire Nanyang University’s style sheet (one of them) for Ph.D. dissertations; consider creating another style sheet based on APA but tailored for the university. Decide against it: different departments there have different requirements.
• Consider how I might make a few pennies on these handy-dandy style sheets; fail to figure out how that would work.
• Consider the possibility of using them as give-aways in conjunction from some marketing effort or other, as yet inchoate.
• Write this month’s publishing co. newsletter, only two weeks late
• Publish the same through MailChimp, a PITA
• Publish the same on LinkedIn, easier but still requires tracking down a public-domain image. PITA.

I’ve decided to massage said newsletter so as to downplay the racy books a little and up-play (hee! is there such a word?) the book that’s selling: to wit, the cookbook. Hence, the shift away from news about the enterprise and toward useful information: this month’s newsletter describes three common triggers that can cause Word to crash, and what to do about them.

Also used the LinkedIn post recycling the newsletter copy to add a plug for the editorial bidness. A fair amount of new editorial work has come in. Since we’re not getting rich a-sailing the Amazon, I’m thinking that if we put the amount of effort and money into marketing The Copyeditor’s Desk as I’ve dumped into the publishing scheme, within a few months we would have enough editorial income to matter. And you know…editing Chinglish dissertations is really nowhere near as mind-numbing as wrestling with Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, and other refractory institutions, hour after fruitless hour. Nor is it quite as boring as jumping through hoops to register ISBNs and jumping through more hoops to publish bookoids at Amazon and waypoints.

Meanwhile, though, I’ve hired Jackie Beck to help drive Pinterest traffic toward the Plain & Simple website and found she’s imbued with the common sense I so sorely lack. She has suggested that instead of mounting posts and images on three different websites — Camptown Races, Fire-Rider, and Writers Plain & Simple — it would be smarter to post all the marketing blats at a single site. She proposed that we use the Plain & Simple Press blog for that purpose, since P&S is the imprint for the two books I’m hot to market just now: 30 Pounds/4 Months and Fire-Rider. This will relieve me from an awful lot of jumping around and website hassling. Plus it just makes good sense.

One plan is to post a “riff” on Fire-Rider once a month: all new, never before published vignettes, scenes, and brief stories from the strange and fierce world of Okan.

I think of Fire-Rider not so much as science fiction as a kind of “reverse anthropology.” The story of a future culture, it rides on the science of anthropology to create its imagined world. The first riff (in that link above) shows Kaybrel, an aging warlord famed as a wise man and healer, teetering on the edge of the dark night of his soul, which will come in the next novel. In the latest one, The Women Warriors, we visit the home life of an Okan warrior’s family in a setting where extended families are truly extended. With a chronically decimated male population, the Okan practice polygamy. The elite women, who themselves are trained in the arts of war, have as much political and social power as the men. They decide whom they will marry and, if they please, they decide which other women their men will have as wives.

The first novel (now available in three handsome print volumes, btw, or electronically in three collections at Amazon) follows the men as they spend a summer tromping through enemy territory. The next novel, replete with cryptids (yeah!), will take Kaybrel through a spiritual crisis and show a number of the women in action.

Order the print books through Plain & Simple Press and you get $5 off the retail price.

Welp, time’s a-wastin’…must run to the post office, the credit union, and Costco before getting back down to work.

And so, away!

Images: Shutterstock.
Woman of Okan: © 2016 Jozef Klopacka
 Kaybrel Kubna of Moor Lek. © 2016 Captblack76

Primary Ballot: GAAAAAHHHHHH!

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What can I say? Nothing coherent, that’s for sure: The ballot for the Democratic primary arrived in the mail — I always vote early (but, alas, never “early and often”…). It is, in a word — the only coherent word I can muster — depressing.

Who to vote for, who to vote for, whom to vote for???

Personally, I don’t care much for Hillary Clinton. I don’t trust her, don’t believe a thing she says.

On the other hand, neither do I believe for an instant that Bernie Sanders can win the Presidential election. Say what? A guy who willingly describes himself as a socialist? Not. A. Chance.

Sanders’ message, by and large, is morally and probably factually right. But there’s no way he’s going to win a majority of American voters. Give me a proverbial break! This is not a country whose people vote for the good guys. That hasn’t happened since 1960.

If the Republican candidates weren’t SO toxic, I would vote for Sanders on principle. But given what will happen if a candidate who’s even faintly sane, even vaguely ethical, even sorta-kinda pretends to a person of good will loses to a right-wing lunatic, the main factor for Democratic voters has to be which one can win against a Republican?

And really… I don’t know. Conservatives and even some moderates revile the woman. Those of us who think of ourselves as moderate to kinda liberal suspect her. But I fear that an avowed socialist will bring out droves of conservative or moderate-to-conservative people who would not ordinarily be bothered to vote.

Wouldn’t Hillary have the same effect? I doubt it. Those who dislike her have disliked her for so long she’s part of the wallpaper.

A socialist, though? Definitely the elephant…uhm…the donkey in the room.

The election of an extremist to the White House will herald the end of the American hegemony. Many people think that will be a good thing. I don’t. Having grown up overseas and seen something of the world, I can’t escape the thought that the alternative to American hegemony is something far worse.

Yes. The Greek empire came to an end. The Roman empire came to an end. The Ottoman empire came to an end.  The empire of Genghis Khan came to an end. The Spanish empire came to an end. The British empire came to an end. And of course, the American hegemony will also come to an end.

But I’d just as soon not be here to witness it. Nor do I want to cast a vote that will hurry it along.