Stephen Burckhardt's Blog: My Blog Ramblings, page 85

Be Careful What You Wish For . . .

I missed a few days of posting blogs because,  you know, LIFE. I debated about whether or not to even blog about this. This blog is about my writing process and what affects it . . .  this will definitely have an effect on my work. So, here you go. I have had a lung infection for more than a week now and the first time I went to the docto my blood pressure was a bit high. I went back Friday for a follow up and my blood pressure was even higher. The doctor is keeping me on bed rest. I will end up

I'm So Torn . . .

My books have gone live on Barnes and Noble's website. Part of me is thrilled at this and part of me hopes readers won't buy too many of the books from there. I worked for Barnes and Noble for more than 13 years so it is rather thrilling to have something I have written on sale through a store where I used to stock other people's books on the shelves. However, with the way the royalties are set up for my books, I will only make about 1-3 cents per book when someone buys them from Barnes and

Making Progress

Being sick at home in bed does have it's advantages (and, why yes, I do get sick a lot, thanks for noticing). I have been able to get a lot of work done on the computer. If I have to have a neurological condition that gives me a compromised immune system, at least it gives me plenty of time to lay in bed and write and edit. Into the West: A New Home - Limited Edition is now for sale on CreateSpace. It should be available on Amazon in a few days. This volume is the full text of Into the West: The

Fathers, Exhaustion, and Rainy Days

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. This will be the second time we celebrate father's day in our little family. I have two gorgeous step-daughters now and I hope one day they will feel comfortable enough with me we can drop the "step." It's hard to navigate this situation because I don't want to seem like I'm trying to push out their other parent but at the same time I want to have a close parental relationship with my girls too. It is also harder when you join the family when the

It's Important to Know When to Give Up

For a few months I have been driving myself crazy trying to keep up with everything. I've lost sleep, missed deadlines I have set down for myself time and again, and stressing myself out over it all. Today, I finally decided to give up!Now, I'm not giving up writing! I just want to be clear about that. I am going to give up driving myself crazy and losing sleep. If I don't get my homework done for class, so be it. If I don't have time to make diner, there are so many places I can order delivery.

Into the West: A New Home in Paperback!

I feel so much better now that Into the West: A New Home is available again in paperback. If you go to the Books page on this site you will find links to CreateSpace and Amazon. Currently, the book is available on CreateSpace and should show up soon on Amazon. For some reason it takes a few days to show up on there even though they are both Amazon companies.I haven't been able to finish the last edit on the Into the West: A New Home - Limited Edition because of everything going on with my

Short and Sweet!

This is going to be very short tonight. I had a lot of homework to do and other school projects and then made a wonderful "chicken" noodle soup for dinner. (I will often use quotation marks around meat names to show it's not really meat. We use vegetarian "meat" products for everything.) I am so exhausted right now I am falling asleep on the computer but I wanted to let everyone know, Into the West: A New Home is available again on CreateSpace. The final edits for Into the West: A New Home -

Ugh . . . the Frustration!

I was struggling with the fact CreateSpace messaged me statingthe cover art forInto the West: A New Home was not high enough resolution and might, or might not, pixelatein printing. I had hoped to go live with the paperback today but wasn't sure if I should order a printed proof to check the cover art or just take a chance it would print okay and just go live.Then today the review was finished and there was a problem with the page numbering I had to fix. Once I uploaded the new formatting it

Success! Sort of . . .

The final edit for the paperback of Into the West: A New Home has been submitted. It has a 24 hour review period then it can go live. My only concern now is it said there was a element on the cover that might print pixelated or blurry but it's can't tell me what it is.So now I'm wondering if I should order a copy printed for me to review before opening it up for purchase.I would love to hear from people who are actually wanting to buy this book. What would you like for me to do? Do you want to

One Day I'll Stop Trying to Plan Ahead

It seems inevitable, whenever I say I have a set course plotted out and I'm going to stick to it, something happens to mess that up. I blame Murphy.I had planned to send yesterday finishing up my final edits on the books so they could go in for review and be available online by late today or early tomorrow. Then, I was going to spend today working on my school work. That didn't happen.Yesterday, we ended up having to take Shaggy to the vet. He's okay just scratching himself constantly and acting