Trudy Myers's Blog, page 8

Looking For Wallets

They’re LookingFor Their Wallets Over There.

Here’s anotherbatch of homonyms: they’re, their, and there. With three of them to choosefrom, it’s easy to grab hold of the wrong one. So first, let’s take a look atwhat each of them means.

They’re – This is acontraction, and it always means ‘They are’ (or occasionally, ‘Theywere’). If you have a sentence with ‘they’re’ in it and substituting ‘they are’makes the sentence into garbage, it isn’t the right word for that sentence.

Their – This word means‘belongs to them’.

There – This wordindicates a location that is not here; an area that is some distance away.

Which of thefollowing sentences is correct?

1.     1. They’relooking for a lost dog.

2.    2.  Theirlooking for a lost dog.

3.     3. Therelooking for a lost dog.

Answer: #1 iscorrect, because they are looking for a lost dog. In #2, if you try tosubstitute ‘belongs to them’ looking for a lost dog, it doesn’t really makesense. It is possible the lost dog belongs to the searching party, but we don’tknow that for sure. And in #3, trying to substitute ‘an area that is somedistance away’ looking for a lost dog also doesn’t make any sense. How can aninanimate area look for anything?

Which of thefollowing sentences is correct?

1.    1.  They’relost dog came home.

2.     2. Theirlost dog came home.

3.     3. Therelost dog came home.

Answer: #2 iscorrect, because the lost dog ‘belongs to them’. In #1, ‘they are’ lost dogcame home makes no sense. And in #3, ‘an area some distance away’ lost dog camehome also makes no sense. How can a distant area describe a lost dog?

Which of thefollowing sentences is correct?

1.    1.  Ifound my wallet over there.

2.    2.  Ifound my wallet over their.

3.   3.   Ifound my wallet over they’re.

Answer: #1 iscorrect because the wallet was found in a different location. #2 makes nosense, because the wallet doesn’t belong to ‘them’, it belongs to the speaker.#3 also makes no sense, because it is saying, I found my wallet over ‘theyare’.

Trying to rememberthe meanings of these words will help you figure out which one to use where. Tome, ‘they’re’ is the easiest one to remember, because it always means‘they are’.

‘There’ has theword ‘here’ within it, and they are both locations or areas. But while ‘here’means ‘where I am’, ‘there’ means ‘a spot at some distance’.

Which leaves theword ‘their’, and I don’t have any little tricks for remembering what it means.But if you need to, look it up in a dictionary when you come across it. I don’tthink it will take you long to memorize what it means.

 

 

Taking Next Week Off

Rather than justdisappear from my blog for a week or two, I thought I should let you know thatI will not be here for at least 1 week. Maybe 2. It depends on how things go.

Hubby has surgeryscheduled for April 15, and next week’s blog would be due on 4/11. As the datefor his surgery approaches, my nerves are getting strung a little tighter andtighter. No need in loading myself down with extra chores at a time when I mightbe finding it difficult to focus on things like that.

The following week,4/18, will be just a few days after surgery. He will be in a sling for 5 weeks,is my understanding. I remember when my arm was broken last year, and I was ina sling for several weeks. I started out pretty helpless for the first few weeks,unable to do much of anything for myself. I even needed help cutting up my foodat meals. I don’t know how much help he will need throughout the day, and Idon’t want to over-commit myself.

Hubby’s surgeryinvolves getting a small defibrillator installed in his chest to keep his heartbeating regularly. Kind of like a pacemaker, only different. Sorry, but that’sthe way it was explained to us.

Anyway, this looks tobe the first step in his getting healthier after 1.5 years of variousillnesses. Wish us luck!

New Stuff to Learn

When I was thinkingabout retirement, I took to heart the adage that one should never give uplearning new things. It went hand in hand with the realization that the scienceI knew was too far out of date for me to attempt to write science fiction. So Istarted reading science magazines to try to learn Where Science Was At Now, andwrote in other genres in the meantime.

Shortly after Iretired, I started publishing, and that required I learn things like editing,formatting a manuscript into a book, and things like that. (And Marketing,which is a never-ending challenge.)

Recently, I signed upfor a one-on-one online class. I didn’t think about it at the time, but ideally,this class would require a camera and a microphone attached to my computer. Mycomputer had neither. I tried to make it work by using my cell phone to call into the classroom, but the url was long and complicated, and my fat littlefingers kept hitting the wrong keys. After half an hour of our hour-long timeslot, I suggested we reschedule for the following week, and promised I wouldhave a microphone by then. I couldn’t imagine them being very expensive.

When I mentioned toHubby that I needed to drive to Best Buy for a microphone (about 15 miles ineach direction), he said we had a couple mics he wasn’t using, he’d dig one outfor me. Later that evening, I found a giant box on my desk. Inside was a hugeSnowball microphone.

Procrastination is afunny bird, but it does tend to light a fire under you when a deadline islooming. My next ‘class’ was scheduled for today. Yesterday morning, I decidedI’d better get a move on with getting a microphone set up. I had found aheadset with attached mic a few days ago, so I decided to try that one first.But first, I needed software that would record audio files.

Both my youngest sonand my hubby suggested I download Audacity because it was ‘fairly easy’ tolearn to use it. So I downloaded it AND set it up on my computer, all bymyself! Okay, the computer did most of the work, I just hit a button here andthere. But I basked in the glory of having done that much.

After much studying ofthe Quick Guide and a couple of tutorials, I finally figured out how to make atest recording and then listen to it. I was surprised at how tiny the squiggleswere on my test recording, and when I listened to it, I could hardly hearanything. So more studying and more testing, and I finally figured out how toup the volume. Success! And a good thing, too, because it was time to makesupper.

As we were watching tvafter supper, it dawned on me that I had made the volume changes in Audacity,which I would not be using during my class. Obviously, I needed to find someway to adjust the volume on my computer. To make a long story short (I know,too late), I found a couple of places in Settings to test the microphone. Ifanything, the output may be a little too loud. Maybe I’ll have to whisperduring my class.

Anyway, I learned somenew stuff. Before this, I had some nebulous thoughts on how I could use audiofiles. Now that I’ve got a little bit of knowledge on how to make them, thosethoughts are already blossoming into full-fledged plans.

Wish me luck!

Advice For Writers

Writers are givenlots of advice. Sometimes the advice is good, sometimes it’s not. And sometimesit can only be described as, ‘well-intentioned’.

The first piece ofadvice I ever got when I was first trying to spread my wings was that I shouldwrite every day. I admired my cousin Roy a great deal, and I really thought hiswriting style was great. But I never could manage to write the thousand words aday that he kept advising me to do.

Don’t get me wrong,I didn’t have to labor long and hard to get a thousand words written. Most daysthe words just flowed out of my pen and onto my tablet, and I might get 2 or 3thousand words written in a day. But then something would happen. A bout of flukept me down for a few days. I somehow wound up with a multitude of chores todo one weekend, or a big amount of homework to get done. Possibly the familydecided to drive up into the mountains on Saturday. I was afraid of heights, soI was allowed to take books to read, but not books to write. Of course, mynotebooks never stayed in good shape long enough to finish them, and Icertainly didn’t want to lose any pages, so I didn’t think that was a bigproblem. Except I never seemed to get my thousand words written that day. I hadfailed!

But in hindsight,I had bigger problems than that. I would start a story and work on it for a fewdozens or even hundreds of pages. Then I would lose interest in that story,hide it in a drawer, and start a new one. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s thatI actually finished a few stories. And shortly after that, it occurred to methat SOMEbody needed to go through those stories and edit them. I startedworking with other authors to get some critical feedback.

Eventually, Iarrived at the point where I could retire, and I did, anticipating that I wouldtake the 8 hours a day I had spent working and use them to work on my writing.Somehow, that hasn’t happened. I am at my computer daily, working for at least8 hours, but I am not necessarily working on a story for 1000 words. I have toomany other things to do. I am head of a small press, and I am editor, layoutperson and publisher for my husband. Ditto with my own writing, and editing ismuch tougher when it’s your own work.

So if you ever seeme at a convention, conference, or transportation hub, and I’m pounding away ona laptop, it’s only me, trying to get 1000 words written that day.

Depressing News

I don’t spend a lot oftime on facebook or twitter anymore. I find it too depressing. Every day ortwo, it seems like a friend has lost a family member or a pet to death. Twoother friends are facing a medical diagnosis that means a long haul to get the illnesstaken care of.

It was bad enough whenit happened to my friends. It’s even worse when it happens to my own family.John has been ill since mid-November of 2022. We are waiting impatiently forthe date when he can get his first operation, which we hope will make itpossible for him to get more surgeries done, and he can finally work his waytowards health.

And now I find myselfstumbling over my own health issues. Some of you may know I had surgery on Mar1. What I didn’t know until today was that they found ‘scar tissue’ when theydid that surgery, and so they biopsied it. I was told today that the biopsycame back negative for cancer. Big sigh of relief. But that scar tissue,located where it is, could cause problems in the future, so I’m being referredto another doctor to figure out what can be done with it.

Yesterday, I saw yet anotherdoctor, and she noticed something was abnormally thick for my age. (Normalwould be 4 cm, while mine is 6 cm.) She doesn’t think it’s cancer, butshe wants to biopsy it ‘to be sure’.

Needless to say,sometimes I find it difficult to focus on what I’m doing. But I keep trying tofarble my way through.

To get back to what Iwas saying at the beginning of this; I don’t need any more depression oranxiety in my life right now. I’m on a full load of anti-depressants and myanti-anxiety meds have recently been upped, too. I’m sorry if you are goingthrough a hard time, for whatever reason, and I don’t comment on your post. Chancesare rather slim that I see it, because FB only sends your post to 7% of yourfriends. I wish everyone good health and a relatively good life. Just like I’mtrying to do for myself.

Update: On the day I wrotethis blog, I was unaccountably tired, very achy, and just plain cranky. I feelthat crankiness came through, and I’m sorry about that. My circumstances arenot anybody’s fault; they are just the hand I’ve been dealt by fate. Some daysare better than others, and I will check in on social media when I can.

Indenting Paragraphs

When one starts topublish books, and wants them to look ‘professional’, there are many things onemust think about that you probably haven’t stopped to think about before. Ithink the first thing I ran across that surprised me was the rule, “Thou shaltnot indent the first line of the first paragraph of each chapter.”

Huh? Why not? I thoughtit was a rule that all paragraphs should be indented, unless you are going fora block format, in which case no paragraphs get indented, but you do put a linebetween the paragraphs, so they don’t become a run-on mess (like this sentence).

But the onlyexplanation was that it was to ‘look professional’. They even went further thanthat and said that it would be even better to make the first letter of thefirst paragraph of each chapter oversized and ornate.

For some reason, I foundthat suggestion silly and downright medieval. What are we, monks calligraphingour way through these books?

I’ve read a lot ofbooks during my lifetime. I tried to think back, remember if any of those bookshad indented or not indented the first paragraph of each chapter. I didn’tknow. I apparently never noticed.

Oh, I did rememberoccasionally reading a book that had oversized and ornate first letters foreach chapter, and I vaguely remembered that those paragraphs were not usuallyindented. But it didn’t seem to be the norm in the books I read. Sometimes, Istruggled to figure out what letter it was, it was so ornate and seemed to havenothing to do with the word it started. I probably thought, “How weird,” andthen promptly forgot it as I plowed my way through the rest of the story.

Now I am faced with thequestion of whether or not I will indent the first paragraph of each chapter inthe books that I publish. To be truthful, I want to. It is much simpler toindent all the paragraphs and be done with it. To indent all the paragraphs andthen go back and un-indent the first paragraphs, all while trying not tomake it a global command, making ALL your paragraphs un-indented… It seems likea tedious and unnecessary endeavor. Too easy to make a mistake. And I have mademistakes during formatting. It’s no fun having to rip out ALL the formattingand then go back and put all the formatting back in again.

But I’m taking a veryunscientific survey. What is your opinion of not indenting first paragraphs ofeach chapter? Do you expect it? Have you ever noticed it being done in thebooks you have read? Drop me a comment and let me know your opinion.

Ebook Coupon

Have you ever wonderedwhat MoonPhaze books are like? I’ve got a coupon for you. Let’s try a littleshort fantasy. The title is “Woman on the Dock”, which can be found at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108681. The coupon is to getit for free, and the coupon code is BH45S, which is good through Dec 31, 2024.Check it out, and I hope you enjoy it!

Woman on the Dock

“Woman on the Dock”takes place in my Atlan Universe, where tribes of women have certain powersthat others don’t have, and are thus called Witches. When their island home wasdestroyed by a volcanic eruption, their evacuation boats got separated, andpockets (usually just 4 or 5 survivors, from old crones to infants) of thesewomen set up new homes wherever they could hide. Those women who are calledBlackbirds—one of the Atlans’ best warriors—are sent out periodically by theirvillage disguised as traders, to search for rumors of other Atlan villages. Butas generations go by, it is hard to believe that other Atlan settlements exist.

Inna, coming to afishing village disguised as a merchant, was shocked to find a woman tied tothe dock, battered and near death. She didn’t know the beaten woman, but shewas clearly Atlan! And Inna wasn’t going to let one of her kind be treated likethat!

 

Our Adventures at Syfy Bartow

We knew getting toBartow would be tiring. Neither of us have been at our best the last few weeks,so we started the weekend tired and a little overwhelmed. For one thing, wewere both still working on ‘Bartow Projects’ right up until we started packingthe car. Scratch that, my hubby was still working on projects even as westarted packing the car on Thursday.

One of our neighborssaw us trying to get a folding table and a gazebo in the car and came over tosee if he could help. Those were the big, awkward things we were trying to packfirst. Most everything else was smaller and lighter, and we could manage them.But it’s nice to know we have nice neighbors.

We got most things inthe car on Thursday, and decided we had room to take a fellow Klingon whootherwise did not have a way to get to Bartow. He showed up on Friday about 11amand helped get the rest of the stuff in the car. Then we got on the road about2:18 pm.

I’m a little bit of a nervousdriver these days, especially when I’m driving roads I don’t really know well,so it was tough for me to keep my speed up near the speed limit. It should havetaken us an hour to get to our hotel in Bartow, but it actually took 1.5 hours.We found our stuff we would need for the night and settled into our room. About7, we walked over to Mike’s Grill for supper.

We got up about 7 on Saturday,and went to Mike’s Grill for breakfast, because we knew it was going to be along and hard day. People who come to the street festival can go home when theyget tired, but vendors have to unload their vehicle, pitch their gazebo, set uptheir table and get their wares displayed by 11AM, when the festival starts.Then they are expected to man their table until 6PM, when the festival ends,when they tear down their display, strike their tents, retrieve their vehicleand pack everything up.

We had to do thistwice, once for MoonPhaze and once for the Klingons. Happily, my booth spacewas right next to some friends, so I had help setting up the gazebo and takingit down. And there were many Klingons there for this event, so it looked like amild case of bedlam when I dropped off my two Klingons and all the Klingonstuff we had brought, but I knew they would soon have things up and running.

I assume the Klingonshad fun. I had a great day for MoonPhaze. I had 50% more book sales than I did atthe previous best event, which was a 3-day sf convention. I was very happy.

About 3:30, theorganizers told us that rain was expected in about an hour, so if we wanted totear down and bug out, that was acceptable. Around 4, it started misting, andpeople started packing things away. By 4:30, it was raining, and the organizerscalled an end to the event. By then, most of the visitors had left. I packedall my stuff up and stored it temporarily under a store’s overhang while Iwalked over to the Klingon area to get my car and load up the Klingon stuff.Then we went back to my booth area, where our passenger repacked the car to geteverything in, and we helped our friends in the next booth take down gazebos andload their van.

We were all cold, wetand worn out when we got in our car and headed back to the hotel. We got thereabout 7 and stopped at Mike’s Grill for supper, which included some wonderfulbeef noodle soup.

Tired as we were, wecount this event as a success!

Should it be it, its, or it’s?

I don’t know what thiscollection of words is called, I don’t think they fit the definition ofhomonyms. But there certainly is a bunch of confusion about them, so why don’twe try to figure them out? The truth is, I even catch myself trying to use thewrong one from time to time.

It

It is a pronoun used torefer to an inanimate object or animal that has previously been mentioned or isabout to be mentioned whose gender is either unknown or disregarded. I think weall have a pretty good idea of how to use it, but the other versionsleave us confused.

It’s

Let’s look at thecontraction next, it’s. This is not the possessive of it.As a contraction, it always stands for it is or it was. If youhave a sentence with it’s in it, and substituting in it is or itwas turns the sentence to nonsense, it’s is not the correct word touse.

“It’s décor wasunusual” is wrong because “It is décor was unusual” doesn’t make sense.

“It’s a shameshe did so poorly on her test” is correct because “It is a shame she didso poorly on her test” does make sense.

Its

I’ve had people tell methat its is the plural of it. But if you have more than one it,you usually switch pronouns to they or them, so its is not the correctplural to use for it.

Despite its nothaving an apostrophe, its is the possessive form of it.“The dog wagged its tail” is correct. “Its a beautiful day” isnot correct because it doesn’t possess the day. In fact, if yousubstitute ‘it is’ for its, you’ll find the beautiful day sentencemakes sense, so the correct word to use is it’s.

I hope I’ve cleared upany confusion you might have had about these words. Usually, if I run across itsor it’s in a sentence, I simply substitute it is to see if thesentence makes sense. If it does, then it’s is the correct word to use.If not, then I look to see what it possesses in the sentence. And ifthat doesn’t work, then I will probably rewrite the sentence.

 

SyFy Bartow!

MoonPhaze willhave a booth next Saturday (Feb 17) at the Syfy Bartow street festival. This isa festival we try to attend every year, but sometimes, life intrudes, and wedon’t get there. For instance, last year, my husband was sick in February, andwe didn’t make it.

This year, we willbe located in the next to last block on the east end of Main Street in downtownBartow (FL), between Florida and Hendry Avenues. This will be a new area for us;we have mostly been located on the western end of the festival. Booths will belined up along Main Street and several side streets.

We are planning totake books and some small cosplay prosthetics (ie, wounds, cyborg pieces, and soon) to sell. But our vehicle also needs to carry displays and stuff for the KAG(Klingon Assault Group) area, so I am limited in how much I can take. I alsohave to take a table, at least 2 chairs, a gazebo to provide shade, a cooler ofcold drinks and some snacks to get us through the day.

The festival runsfrom 11 AM to 6 PM. Hundreds of vendors, cosplay, a costume contest, foodtrucks, a car show, music and other entertainment… what more could you ask for?Attendance is free. Cosplay is encouraged. Hope to see you there! 

Our Adventures at the Book Festival

We spent last weekend at the Sunshine State Book Festivalin Gainesville, FL. This was the second time I was there, and the first timefor my hubby.

We drove up Friday afternoon, arriving just around suppertime. We unloaded our car (except for the books we’d brought) to our hotelroom, and then went to the hotel bar to have supper. The hotel also had arestaurant, but after seeing the prices at the bar, the restaurant was probablytoo pricey for our budget. At about 7 pm, we went down to the conference centerfor the meet & greet reception. We talked with several other authors, andran into Joe Haldeman and his wife, Gay, which made hubby happy. But before toolong, hubby either got uncomfortable or tired, so we went back to our room,watched a little tv, and went to bed.

Check in for the festival started at 8 AM on Saturday. Ourtables were supposed to be set up and ready to go by 10 AM. I wasn’t worriedabout getting there right at 8, because I knew it wouldn’t take very long toset up our table. Hubby must have been tired, because he didn’t get up until 8,and he was worried about missing out on the breakfast that the festival wasproviding for the authors. So we went down and found our table, then I sent himoff to have breakfast while I unloaded the books from our car. I wasn’t worriedabout breakfast, because I’d had a couple pop tarts with my morning pills.

After I brought in our books, I unloaded the 3 boxes andbegan to set up the table. Hubby arrived in the middle of that, so we were alldone by 9:30, ready for the crowds of customers to come in.

At noon, I sent hubby to the buffet being supplied by thefestival. When he got back, he sat at the table and I went to get some lunch.Lunch consisted of build-your-own tacos, churros and key lime pie. When I gotback to the table, I could tell Hubby was tired, so I sent him to our room torest. He came back a couple hours later, feeling a little better.

Throughout the day, we talked to various people. Onechildren’s author told me where he got his books printed for a lot less thananyplace I had found. Of course, getting them printed is only half the battle;then you need a distributor to get them into the book stores. He wasnegotiating with a distributor.

Another author told me how to indicate the reader was goinginto a flashback. One of our books has multiple flashbacks, which at least onereader found confusing. Now I can fix that problem.

Another author gave me information on two cover artistshe’s worked with and recommended. He also gave me some information onpotentially getting our books in his wife’s bookstore.

And then a potential customer stopped by, and we startedtalking about book covers. I always thought the book cover should be anindication of what you would find inside the book, which should make it fairlyunique. She agreed but had gone to a publishing seminar a few months ago whereeverybody was saying, “No, you want the book cover to look like every otherbook in your genre.” In any case, she had nice things to say about our bookcovers.

And then, at the very end, the President of theorganization that hosted the festival came to us and said, “I sold 2 books, howdid you do?” We told her we hadn’t actually sold any books, but we did hand outlots of coupons to get our eBooks at a discount. At least one person came byand picked up one of each coupon, while her mother picked up one. We ran thegamut of coupon dispersal; some took several while others took only one.

In the days before the festival, I had repacked our books,trying to get it down from 5 boxes to 4. I actually got them down to 3. But,when it came time to pack them all up again, I didn’t have room for the twocoupon holders. I had to put them in with my laptop and hope they didn’t getsquashed and broken. (They didn’t.)

We took the books back to the car, had supper in the bar,and went back to our room for the night. Hubby doesn’t seem to think thatselling our books face to face is the way to sell our books, but he doesn’twant me to ‘waste’ my time studying marketing, either. But I’m not ready togive up.

Believe it or not, I had fun. I also had a disadvantage. Wewere located near one of the entrances, which was good. But sitting right nextto me, even closer to the entrance, was a very out-going author who greetedevery potential customer with, “What do you like to read?” Which is what Iusually say. And then, depending on what they said, he would regalethem with some variation of his elevator pitch for his series of 5 books. Ifelt a little silly asking the same question as him, and so I fumbled several times,looking for something to engage their interest. Also, he had dragon stickers hewas giving away, and I only had boring coupons.

I’m still processing what I can learn from this experience.I’ve often thought of having things to give away, but I’ve never gotten aroundto doing it. Maybe it’s time I do that. Among other things. Then if the personnext to me is asking, “What do you like to read?”, I can fall back to “Wouldyou like a free sticker/trading card/temporary tattoo?”