Okay, this post is not going to be about Genghis’ name.* This is a digression on the clear indisputable fact that technology is possessed by demons.** Also, yes, there is a reason why I’m scrambling*** to get back on line now rather than a week/month/decade† from now & supposing the freaking technology lets me there will be an interesting announcement to this effect on Monday.††
We only found out about the forthcoming interesting announcement a little over a fortnight ago ourselves.††† The public announcement was originally going to happen last Monday, & I had gone into meltdown.§ Then Merrilee, may her crown in whatever heaven-equivalent she prefers be blindingly studded with gold stars, suggested that people would probably pay more attention the Monday after Thanksgiving rather than the Monday before.
Now despite all (true) protestations about my aversion to the world, I have actually kind of . . . missed writing the blog?? §§ & seeing what, you know, other people say in response. Also, I do still need to sell books,§§§ I may have to declare myself Permanently Hopeless on the subject of social media, & everyone, repeat everyone says that in our modern on line world a writer has to be out there somewhere. So with the interesting announcement came a sharp, painful little jab of inspiration saying, this is the moment to update the web site & get the BLOG going again. & we have an extra week! SURE we can do it!
Blogdad is a hero. Poor man, he already has a full schedule, mostly of nice conventional well adjusted business accounts, where nothing much worse than the Giant Rat of Sumatra noshing on all the wiring ever happens. So he had to fit me in at all & then stuff kept BREAKING, which is what stuff does, even when it’s virtual. I, meanwhile, was frantically trying to remember how to write blog posts, plus an updated (long) biography for the new web site & an updated (short) biography to go with the interesting announcement.‡ I also started Things I Do When I Should Be Doing Other Things, over there on the web site . . . & stopped. It’s a long list. Kinda longer than I realised.‡‡
So Blogdad was finally going to give me a how-you-do-it lesson: how you post a blog, how you hang a photo, how you check the forum before you set comments free to mingle with other comments made by other blog readers. That was going to be Thursday afternoon.
AND HIS WIFI WAS DOWN. He’s a professional computer wizard! He doesn’t have WiFi like the rest of us have WiFi, he has WiFi with teeth, claws & a deflector shield guaranteed proof against Romulan Warbirds!‡‡‡
Well, we rescheduled for Friday afternoon. Which left no time for superfluities like test runs. You can guess the rest!
At the moment I believe there are a working web site & a working blog, although I don’t think there are working links between the two. There is no forum, although I think the ‘contact me’ works. Or anyway some of you are getting through that way. The RSS feed doesn’t work, but apparently the Yo, author news, thingy on Goodreads does. All the photos on the web site are placeholders & will be swapped out later. The photo on the blog is my own darling, but you’ll have to wait for the flying part.
I could go on. But I think I won’t. Also I have a book to finish writing.
We’ll get there eventually with this back-on-line, me, thing. ¥
Thanks in advance for your patience.
* * *
* Next time. Really. Well, probably. Unless something else goes wrong.^
^ WHY WOULD ANYTHING GO WRONG??
** I said, several times, in the old blog, that computers were invented by the Borg, the purpose being to so undermine human confidence that we never would get around to exploring the galaxy & possibly providing some minor hindrance to their plan of universal conquest thereby, & while we’re destroying our poor substandard organic brains with the injurious algorithms they are beaming at us, they could come by & assimilate us at their leisure. THIS IS WORTH REPEATING. SO I’M REPEATING IT.
*** With the vital assistance of several people, particularly but not exclusively Blogdad, who are probably sorry at this point that they’ve ever heard my name.
† Ha, ha,‘decade’ is my little joke. Maybe.
†† Okay. As of now I’m also resurrecting ‘frelling’ from the old blog. FARSCAPE ended in 2003??? How time flies. On giant black Peacekeeper wings. I still have a crush on Aeryn Sun. John Crichton, meh. Just the name tells you he’s going to be a boring standard American guy.^
^ & no, I have even less, if that’s possible, idea about popular culture now than I did twenty years ago when FARSCAPE was young. However, I do want to say that AVENGERS ASSEMBLE is one of the best movies ever made. & while it probably won’t do a lot for Oxbridge lecturers in advanced plate tectonics+ with no sense of humour, I think anyone likely to be reading this blog would have a really good couple of hours watching it. Possibly even including Oxbridge lecturers with a sense of humour.
+ I keep wanting to spell this techtonics because I’m not in a good mood
†† No. Sorry. The announcement is not that I have a new book coming out. But that will happen! & blog readers will be among the first to hear about it! So please keep reading!
††† Had a somewhat wary email from Merrilee saying, I have lovely & amazing news! This is her tactful way of declaring you are going to find this news lovely & amazing, & you are going to behave accordingly. Merrilee has over forty years’ experience of my somewhat unpredictable reactions to news that may require me to interact with the world in some manner, even news that any normal person would have no problem recognising as lovely & amazing. The critical word there of course being normal. & it’s true, my hermit tendencies are proliferating. I have a dog & 1,000,000,000 books, what more do I need?^
^ It is lovely & amazing news, just by the way. Especially amazing. I have a very strong reaction of, What? They what? Well, you’ll see. Check back tomorrow.
§ See: negative reactions to prospect of interaction with the world
§§ I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that.
§§§ House renovations ran waaaaaaay over budget. Which is what house renovations do. I hear hollow laughter echoing through the on line aether here. Yeah. Back at yah.
‡ All booklists & annotations thereof are courtesy of My Overachieving Librarian Friend, who for something she considers a worthy cause apparently gives up sleep to organise. She needs a blog name^, but I haven’t figured one out yet.
^ for newcomers to my method of blogging: everyone has an alias. People, dogs, houses, towns.
‡‡ Which explains a lot. We won’t go there.
‡‡‡ But not the Borg. Clearly.
¥ & neither Blogdad nor I will have lost our minds. My answer to undue stress is chocolate. I’m not sure what Blogdad’s is, but I trust he is applying it liberally.