Glimpses of Productivity

Thanks to Stephen's no too gentle prodding, I read through the Amazon KDP terms of service and accepted them.  Then I looked through some stock photos. I created a book for Quin. I found the same photo I'd liked for Quin on colourbox on my stock photo site that gives me a photo a month, so I downloaded that photo and created a cover. It's not ideal, but it's a start. Ideally, I'd make the background transparent or find a way to make the photo a little smaller on the cover so the "an" of Jean isn't obscured by the mannequin's foot. Other niggling things like that, but I have a cover. Maybe the fonts aren't right. Maybe the colors aren't right, but I have a cover. Then I played with the document file. I added the front matter, added the three poems from BFF at the end, and added a bio.

Wendy observed the indentations were too large. I agreed. I made the indent smaller in the file. No change in .mobi. I removed the indentations, and .mobi had no indentations. I added three spaces where every indentation should be. That sort of works, better on some e-readers than others from what I could tell. I'm nearly ready to move to the pricing page, but I'm letting it cool for a while first.

I'm looking for cover images for Glaring Upheaval/Malone's Way. Nothing really grabs me yet, but I'm also looking with an eye for title, subtitle, and name placement visibility. Now that I've seen the cover wizard in action, I see what some of the limitations are and am trying to work with them.

I've kept up with my blog posts. I drafted an opening scene to a post-apocalyptic story. Writing-wise, this is the most productive I've been for a couple of months.

I troubleshot the iMac wake from sleep problem yesterday. After I exhausted all the cures I found on the internet to no avail, I called Apple Tech support. They exhausted everything they had (not much more than what I'd already tried), and the next step is to lug it into the Apple Store next time I'm in San Antonio. At least I have a trouble ticket on it with everything we've done so far, so we shouldn't have to backtrack much. The interim solution is to never let it go to sleep, which works well. I make a point to turn it off if I won't be using it for a while.

Mr. L is on his way back from San Antonio, where he had a productive week, repairing siding, a window sill, painting, and fixing two water leaks. Probably a few other things he's not mentioned which are likely to be impressive, because he does stuff like that.

I got the tree down for a very reasonable price, mowed at the store, tried to trap cats, trapping all the wrong ones (and letting one I sort of wanted to trap escape when I foolishly tried to transfer him to a carrier -- just take him to the vet in the trap; I should know that by now). We probably have some things to do to prepare for the upstairs AC tear out and install next week.  We're looking forward to having a new system installed and hoping it will be more reliable and efficient.

I have physical therapy for a few more weeks and several medical appointments, routine, but important, as well as the evaluation appointment for the VA to determine not only my temporary 100% disability but my request for an increased rating for my right knee (I didn't specifically ask for that, but they interpreted it that way, and I'm fine with that). I know the knees are not 0% disability, but they may still see it that way. A replacement with no complications, according to the chart, is an automatic 30%. I don't want it rated any more than that, because that means I'm having serious problems with the implant, and I do not want that. Thankfully, I don't think I'm having problems with the implant, so I imagine after one year, the temporary 100% will revert to a permanent 30%.

I still need to try to trap Boomer -- he needs medical attention. Junior is in the good to trap category, because he needs to be evaluated for health, neutered if healthy, and vaccinated. He probably needs treatment for parasites as well.

I cannot believe Walter walked into the trap yesterday afternoon and caught himself. Then he cussed me out but good for a couple minutes while I was holding the trap open for him before deigning to walk out and go under the house. He cussed so loudly, Boomer came to the steps to investigate. Not long after, I'd rebaited the trap, and Boomer looked inside but chose not to go in. Nobody even approached the trap this morning.

I've been trying to walk in the mornings and am slowly increasing my time. My knee "clunked" in a disconcerting way (I felt a vibration all the way up my body). I've since learned if I pick my foot up just a little more when I walk, the clunk does not happen. This leads me to believe it's a gait thing, and if I'm clunking, I'm not walking properly. I'm going to run that theory by the physical therapist on Tuesday, but it seems sensible. The new knee walks fine, but my old knee complains at the 8-10 minute mark. That's going to be a problem until I get it replaced.

The Week Ahead:

• Upstairs heat pump installation
• Primary care doctor appointment
• Physical therapy re-eval
• Mowing and yard work
• Walk
• Attempt to capture Boomer and get him in for medical attention
• Publish Quin to Amazon
• Gain traction on other writing projects