Editing is a hard enough task, without the added problem of having a computer – the only computer that utilizes the sort of disk that your work is saved on – out of commission.
Which is to say that I was using a Dell with a zip drive on it, when I published Chronicles of Ordine. I uploaded the PDF files for the book, not the .DOC or .RTF files, by the way. This is a point as, while it was helpful before, I am really kicking my own butt over it now.
So, a word of advice : upload both a PDF and some sort of Word type file when it comes time to publish, if at all possible. The PDF file ensures you get to use the font you want and saves time and trouble. But, you’ll need the other file to add the ISBN later.
At the time, I had no reason to believe I would be needing to add the ISBN, since it was already in the PDF file for the softcover book and I couldn’t afford to publish the hardcover. Then, as it happens, my computer was hacked again and , as a result, I no longer had acccess to the internet via it.
That was bad, but I got a new computer so that was better. Except that Lulu.com decided to run a special promotion wherein you could get the same thing for free that I just paid $99.00 for. Which was annoying, in that if I had waited, I could have got it for free and $99.00 is a LOT of money in my life. But, it was cool in that now I could get some more things published.
Except, of course, that in the meantime, the electricity died in the office where I had been using the Dell. As a result, I had to move the Dell out of there and was intending to set it up in my room.
Then, my father, feeling his manly Mr. Fix It urges, absconded with the Dell, muttering vagaries as to how he wanted to look at it and see about fixing it. The Dell, though, was perfectly fine except that it had no ethernet adapter drivers so that I couldn’t get online. I could use my disks on it, use the art programs on it, etc. It was wonderful in those sort of respects, and, since I have the new computer, I didn’t need it to be online.
Right around the same time that my eldest son, who is learning disabled, decided to scratch the screen on my new computer, repeatedly, because he was upset at my other son and my son-in-law, I also found out that Dad did something strange to the Dell. He won’t explain it, but he says I can now have it back and maybe I can fix it, if I have the right product code number. He says he is unable to input it.
I don’t know why that would be so, or why it would even be needed since I had reprogrammed the whole computer after wiiping the disk clean and that is how the ethernet adapter drivers were lost to begin with.
None of this is unfixable. it is possible to replace the computer screen, with enough money. But, since I still have several hundred dollars to pay on the ever-so-brand new computer , it will be a while before I can afford a new screen for it – even if I could find one second-hand, which i hope to. With the proper disk, i should be able to get Windows Vista working on the Dell again. Maybe, just maybe, I’l even find the disk that came with the ethernet adapter one day.
It’s just that all of this relies on time, money, luck, and patience; all of which are things that, except the latter, I have almost never had any of at all.
Also, while all of this was going on, my youngest daughter went into the hospital for an operation because she had a cyst on her kidney. Oh, and had a baby before that. This has been going on a few months now, the computer fiasco extraordinaire.
So, all in all, it’s been a real skippy great year so far.
Oh, and I found out, just the other day, that the man that I was in love with – the only man I was ever truly in love with – who disappeared without even saying goodbye, had a fairly good reason for doing so, after all. So now I am feeling bad because I do believe I tore him a new arse, via email, over his disappearing act.
Seems he had some sort of seizure, which affected his brain so that he went blind. So, yes, he probably had more important things to worry about then if I was missing him or what I’d think about him not talking to me for a good long whack of time.
And Augles, the greatest writer alive, has been busy trying to die of cancer, getting assaulted by roommates, and trying very hard to get ran over. Which, between him and the other guy, I’m beginning to wonder if I don’t have some sort of curse going that causes men who enjoy my company at all to suddenly have their lives disrupt into total, often physically damaging, chaos.
Date me and find out. I dare you! lol
Whine, whiney, whine, whine, whine!
I wasn’t really whining, honestly! Just, hmm .. explaining my life, a bit.
