MY BAD. I forgot to write Friday’s blog. It’s Thursday’s fault.
Some days a writer doesn’t get to write. I had a double whammy: curveballs from an editor, computer drive failure.
Editorial surprises
I was going to write my quota on the current book project that’s underway. But the book that’s on the designer’s desk consumed much of my day. With the book designed, for the most part, they asked me to go ahead and acquire the art I had suggested: photos, paintings, etc.
They also needed me to convert some of my maps into color because their designers didn’t want to wade through the explosion of unorganized layers I created with each of the maps. (Yes, I make the maps for my books. And, yes, next time I will organize the layers into groups).
The maps were fine when the book was going to run in black and white. But after editors and designers saw what I submitted, they decided to run the book larger and in color. So I had to convert the maps. I had done that for most of the maps several weeks ago. The ones that came on Thursday were some lingering ones we missed earlier.
Happy to do this, since the payoff is another beautifully designed illustrated book.
The map corrections and art acquisition took most of the day. At least I contacted the art suppliers. I’ve heard back from only two so far. But they’re the ones I most needed to hear from.
The editor also asked me to create the Art Credits page for the book, which is something I’ve not been asked to do before. I set up a format and ran it by the editor. He said they also need my suppliers to sign an art release form.
Pain in the butt. I understand wanting to protect against lawsuits. But it seems to me if I ask for something from the suppliers and I use the key words that show up in the art release form, it should be enough that the supplier says okay in an email reply and then sends me the art, for which I pay the negotiated fee.
Not good enough. Old School needs a signature on a dead tree.
It’s a little embarrassing to ask my suppliers for this extra step when most of them are giving me a steep discount (as a frequent flier) and some are charging me nothing.
I’ll keep pushing back on this, though it’s swimming up a corporate stream. I’d probably have better luck fly fishing.
Disappearing drive
I have three drives in my computer.
C-drive for the main software programming.
E-drive for my documents, photos and maps.
F-drive for my videos and some backup, though I also have a backup in the Cloud, for the benefit of North Korea or some American kid with no girlfriend.
The F-drive, off and on for months, has gone invisible. Each time it disappears, I freak, then restart the computer. Sometimes the F-drive reappears at that point, as though the restart dragged it out of bed. Other times it doesn’t reappear. In which case I go inside the computer, unplug the cables and then plug them back in. That always worked. Until this week.
I called Digital Storm tech support, the builders of my computer. We managed to get the drive to reappear. Then they had me test it. Afterward, they had me switch the cables with the E-drive. That way, we could tell if the cables were the problem. If the E-drive failed with the F-drive cables, then the problem was the cables.
No such luck. The F-drive failed later in the day.
I had a to-do list for Thursday. Writing Friday’s blog article was there. But not one thing on the list got done.
Some Thursdays are Mondays.
Random book winner this week
Connie Seibel.
I give away one free book a week to a randomly selected subscriber to my free blog and quarterly newsletter.
Connie is random this week.
Remember the old song, by John Denver, I believe: “Some days are diamonds, some days are stones.”