Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, December 27, 2023, or: The Settling-In Saga Continues…and a Quick Writer’s Life Update

Late Morning, Wednesday, December 27, 2023, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, there, folks. It’s just past 9 AM Eastern Standard Time here in my corner of New England. Currently, the temperature in my neighborhood is 37°F/3°C under light rain and snow showers; the feels-like temperature outside – which is where I don’t want to be right now – is 43°F/6°C. The forecast for today calls for light rain during the day and throughout the night, with a high of 41°F/5°C. The low tonight is expected to reach 35°F/2°C.

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Patti’s husband, Marc, came by to continue the setting-up part of the long and complicated moving-in process. He brought some badly needed power strips for some of my electronics, and he also set up the 4K UHD TV that I bought back in 2017 for the master bedroom in Lithia but never got to use until yesterday. Marc connected my Samsung 4K UHD Blu-ray player and the soundbar that I bought with the TV over 6 years ago; the Blu-ray player works well – it has performed nicely on the smaller set that will be set up here at some point – but the soundbar does not because of some issue with its power supply. It’s always something.

I don’t remember how big the “big TV” is; I think it’s a 50-inch set, but it might be smaller than that. It works well with the Blu-ray player (I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – or most of it – between 9 and 11:30 PM), but its Samsung TV Plus features don’t work without the player’s assistance. The smaller TV didn’t have that issue back in Florida, and I hope that holds when that set finds a spot in my writing room.

There’s still a lot that needs to be done regarding the shelves – mostly IKEA stuff – and unpacking, but it’s going to take a while for my friends next door to complete the “help Alex move in” phase. So, like Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, I must learn patience worthy of a Jedi Knight in training.

A Writer’s Journey

Even though I left the Tampa Bay area 15 days ago, I have not resumed work on Reunion: Coda. I am presently trying to get used to living in Echo Base on Hoth…er, Madison New Hampshire, whilst trying to not be consumed by the Dark Side of the Force, i.e. depression, resentment, annoyances, and other negative emotions. As I said many times when I was working on the novel’s manuscript back in Florida, I can only write well when – like a Jedi – my mind is calm, at peace. Right now, despite my best efforts to accentuate the positive – like, Yay, my TV works somewhat, and I can watch quite a few things cos I had the foresight to pack some Blu-rays – in two formats – in the “last minute box.” – I’m still sad and angry about why I had to leave the Sunshine State.

Thus, even though part of me wants to return to the world of Jim Garraty, Marty Reynaud, Mark Prieto, and, of course, Maddie, I don’t think I can do that for a while. I hope that the “for a while” thing is only a matter of days, though, because I want to finish Reunion: Coda in time for a release in Spring 2024.

That’s not to say that I have been neglecting my writing – beyond my daily scribblings on A Certain Point of View, Too, I mean. This morning, for instance, I caught another tiny error in Reunion: A Story  – punctuation this time – and uploaded a fix to Kindle Direct Publishing. That was only less than one hour ago as I write this, and the correction has not yet gone “live,” but at some point this afternoon Amazon will let me know that the “fix” is in the system.

(It really is a small mistake, and folks with good penmanship can make the edit themselves with a pen on their paperbacks. If you want to do that and not order a new copy, here’s the section with the glitch, with the corrected bit in bold:

Good question, I thought as I stared blankly into space. Am I going to march up to Martina Elizabeth and tell her that I love her? I pondered the question carefully as though it was part of some unscheduled final exam. Instead of answers, however, all I could come up with was a series of dilemmas.

I noticed that Mark was still staring at me with a quizzical look on his face. “What?” I yelped.

“You haven’t answered my question, man.” – The last sentence of the selected section should end with a period, not a comma, as it currently reads in the paperback and Kindle editions.

Kindle readers, of course, don’t have to do a damn thing – except maybe make sure their device of choice is set to receive automatic updates to their digital content.

Paperback owners can either manually make the fix or order a corrected paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s online store. If you’re lucky – and if I know your address! – I might send you a replacement copy to atone for my lapses in editing.)

Well, that’s all I have in the way of news from gray, cold, and wet New Hampshire, so I’ll close this post here. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, stay warm, and I’ll see you on the sunny side of things.

P.S. I just got an email from Kindle Direct Publishing letting me know that the update to the Kindle eBook is live and will be viewable on Kindle and other Amazon devices within 72 hours. I have yet to hear from KDP about the update to the paperback – edits to the print edition take longer to process.

P.P.S. And now the paperback edition’s update is live as well. If you want the updated version, or if you haven’t yet bought a copy, wait a week before getting this edition. It sometimes takes that long for fixes to adhere to print books.