FM and Bandwidth

Yeah, it' s just going to be one of those kinds of days. FM will likely be up and down all day, but it should reset tomorrow and all will be well, at least for a while. I'm going to be making a few changes at the site and trying to arrange for more bandwidth. We'll see if it helps

My sff.net site and my Jatol site are due for renewal. I'm trying to figure out which one I can do without. Lazette.net at sff.net has Vision and my main web site. Seems wise to hold on to that. zettesworld.com at Jatol has DTF and the zoo site. Ack.

Go buy more copies of Muse. LOL.

My email is acting goofy today, too. First it's there, then it isn't, then it says it's downloading, then it isn't.... So who knows what email I might miss today.

By the way, did you know that rays and sharks are closely related?

Anway, I'm looking at things that can be done. We're getting a lot of new people at FM who are interested in the different boards and checking things out. I think we can get it settled down soon. 

Forward Motion...

FM has gone over bandwidth tonight. We'll be having troubles all day (March 31st) until it resets for April. Just so some of you are warned if you happen by here.

It's not a surprise. We're getting a lot of hits lately, and a good many new poeple who are checking out the site and wandering from place to place, soaking up as much as they can. I hope by the end of next month to have the bandwidth problem better in hand, though.

The first step is going to be to get rid of the bios, like I said. Then I'll look at some of the other stuff and decide how much new bandwidth I can afford to buy.

So, go write for a while. We'll be back soon. 

Well....

I think I have the 2YN book mostly finished. I'm working on the bibliography. I need to work on a couple notes for it, and then go in and cut down some of the examples. If I'm lucky, I can get it down to under 130k.

And yes, this is just year one, though year two won't be nearly as long.

I'd be done already except that as I was finishing up last night my computer started making 'you know, it's getting kind of crowded in here' sounds, so I've spent the rest of last night and most of today copying and clearing files. Pictures! Pictures everywhere!

I need to do more work on Return today, too, though I'm actually so pleased with the 2YN thing that I don't care if I'm not doing well in March Madness. Chances are that I'll have the book done and turned in by the 1st. That was a lot of work!

I have not worked much on the zoo site for obvious reasons -- the lack of hard drive space and the need to get the 2YN stuff finished. I might be going to the zoo around April 7th, and I'd like to have most of the work caught up by then so I know if there's anything in particular that I want a picture of this time.

Russ should be home today. I haven't had an email saying he won't be, so I'm kind of expecting him soon. I could be wrong.

We have spring, by the way. Snow is gone, dog is out on her chain and quite happy barking at the birds.

I'm going back to work now! 

Changes....

I'm closing down the bio section of FM. We're having misuse and bandwidth problems, and I don't think the bios are important enough to the site to let them cause a problem. I will provide a page where people can link to their own websites if they have them, though. It's unfortunate, but like most else that happens like this, the people who misuse the trust of the site will affect everyone's choices. The choices that have to be made running a site like this are sometimes unfortunate, but there are always children (of whatever age) who think only of themselves and don't care about what happens. After all, they'll just move on as long as they can't have their way.Second, Dragon Tooth Fantasy (and Double Dragon Publishing) is closed to submissions until this fall at the very earliest. Deron had already closed DDP's submissions and suggested that I do the same with DTF, especially since I'm behind on reading manuscripts. And we still have about ten books from 2005 to get published. This is going to help because I can turn my attention from the slush pile (once I get it beaten back down) and work on both production and promoting.

This is going to help. The DTF stuff is falling too far behind, partly because I need copyeditors. Here's the catch -- copyeditors work for a cut of the book's sales, so if the book goes well, they do all right, and if not -- well, basically, you have to get many books done so that you make decent money because it's not much at the best of times. It is excellent practice, though, and some people have told me it looks good on the resume.

I am about ten pages from being done with the 2YN book. Yay! I still have to do the bibliography and check through the formatting for each chapter, but overall, it looks damned good. There are quite a few people who have taken the class or who are taking the class now who have said they'd really like to have the book. Since this is a revised and better written version of the classes that will help, too.

But, it's been a busy, work on stuff that is not writing, day. Only got a little over 1k done on Return. But I'll get more tonight and tomrrow! 

Getting there... but slowly

I'm working on the 2YN project. I'm also working a little bit on the March Madness fun because, well, I'm crazy. Both are going pretty well.

Last night I finally figured out how I wanted to do the new section of the zoo site so I started that, too. I don't know why. It's looking pretty good, though.

I'm fighting one of those horrid woke-up-with-it headaches, not made any better by a couple stupid Vision/Fm problems that should have been settled by now.

There are days when you just want to yank your hair out.

But I'm sure it will all be better now that I've taken some asprin and plan to do about an hour's worth of writing, just to enjoy myself. Return is going all right -- a bit boring, I think, but it comes from just not having the opening right yet. I can fix that later. I'm about to hit some serious trouble/fun stuff now, though, so it might pick up a bit here. Still have one or two scenes to go through before my two characters find themselves out in a dangerous storm, running from the enemy, and having to rely on each other to survive.

Sounds like fun to me.

Stress does awful things to me. Even though things are starting to get better, I'm still apt to get horrid headaches when things look even a little bleak. But they aren't really. We've pulled through the worst of it....

Which reminds me...

Thank you to everyone who bought Muse.

The income from that book saw us through a very tight spot. The fact that many of you appeared to really like it also reminded me that I can write, and I love it, and there's a reason why I'm still pounding away at the computer. This was the year I was going to get serious about sending out submissions again...but that hasn't happened because, quite honestly, it costs money that we didn't have. Kat Among the Pigeons is still sitting here, ready to go. I hope to get it out early next month, and then another one after that. Such Gifts as These did go out, and back again, but that's not a surprise. (The surprise, of course, will be if any of them find a publisher....LOL.) I think Such Gifts as These may start making the ebook rounds next. I'd like to get more ebooks out, because that's really the way to make it in the ebook market. That and get lots of reviews. Hmmm.... Need to work on that too.

So yeah, I'm just babbling here. Time to go do some writing on something that counts! 

Last Night's Sunset

It was a spectacular sunset. I really love the way this one turned out.

We went out for a while this afternoon. That was really nice. Got to take some pictures and just get a break from the house. Unfortunately, we are into March Madness at FM and that cut into my writing time. I'm finally getting into the story, though I'm slow today. I have far too many other things that had to be handled. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow!

Of course, there's still a few hours for tonight, too! There's no telling what I might yet do. I'm about to have the second bad confrontation between one character and his step-brother, and I think that's going to be fun.

Yes, writers are such warped, silly people. Bring on the fist fight! Bring on the shouting! But never in real life!

It's a fun life. 

Yay!

Just a quick post to say that at 9 pm I crossed the 500 page mark on the 2YN book. I'm very happy about this. I have less than 100 pages to go now, although I expect the book to be over 600 pages when I finish the intro, bibliography and whatever else I intend to add in.

But I can actually see the end. I'm on week 40 out of 52.

Russ isn't home and I'm not sure if he will be tonight. We have it planned that he'll stay down there, but he might not be able to reach a computer connection to let me know. And no, I don't have a phone. We couldn't afford one in both houses, and it's far more important that he have one for business. And, quite honestly, I find phones intrusive. If you want to reach me, email. I get to it eventually. (grin)

Anyway, all is well here. Getting more done than I expected to. I'm going to stop soon, in fact, and work on the zoo pictures. I have some wonderful new ones and I want to get the site updated as soon as I can. That means having the pictures ready to go up!

I'm not getting many warnings about bandwidth now.

I expect that the ones for FM will start hitting pretty soon, though! 

Winter melts away

I am starting out today at page 417 of the damned... ummmm... of the 2YN book. It's really very close to done, but there's going to be some tough work in the last 150 pages. I don't know how much I will get done a day, but I won't have it done by Saturday.

No problem. I am giving myself until April 15th. I still have a bunch of outside things to do for it -- Table of Contents (may have Word generate that one), bibliography, intro note and cover art.

Really, though, it's almost there. And it's only grown by about 20,000 words. So far.

Russ is in Omaha today and he may spend the night. I'm picking up the house and trying to get stuff organized and catch up on my email, which has fallen a few days behind again. My fault this time -- I keep falling into the 2YN book and not paying enough attention to everything else.

I did have to go in yesterday and do a lot of upkeep/changes on FM, though. We kept getting hit by spam, so I reset the forums so that you have to be a member to post on them. There were a few that were still public, but there was no reason for it if all it's going to get us is 20-30 spams that have to be deleted.

March Madness starts Saturday. I think I'll still take part, but in a less than totally crazed way. Just get some work done on Return, which I think will be a fun book to write. I could use that kind of fun. Once I get the 2YN book finished, I'll be throwing myself back into 'real' writing again. (grin) I plan on the second 2YN book being out in about four to six months. I need more time for part two because it's going to be harder to organize. I have moved things from late in year 2 to middle of year 1, and I need exercises for everything. It shouldn't be as long as the first book, though. I'm thinking about 90k.

So, yes... time to stop talking about it and doing it.

And time to print out two short stories for submission, too! 

Snow, snow, snow

Yes, we do have a lot of snow. It'll be gone in a day or two, but what an incredible storm! We got lucky that there was no wind with it, or we'd have had six foot drifts like they had in South Dakota.

I am up to page 321 in the 2YN book. About 240 to go. It's actually going better again, but that's going to end soon. I am about to hit spots where I'm going to be doing more than adding just a few hundred words, and that's going to slow me down again.

But still.... not bad. I'm having fun with it, even though I would just really really like to be done about now. I don't have much left, though, so I'm thinking good thoughts and hoping that I don't get slowed up too much when I hit the harder part again.

I had an odd day, email wise. I had two letters from teachers -- one asking about an article of mind to use in a class, and another asking for permission to use some of the zoo pictures for her grade school science material. That's kind of amusing, when you think about it. 

A zoo picture

I don't know why, but I'm getting bandwidth notices on my zettesworld.com site. That's where I keep the pictures and art work. Apparently someone is looking at it... but it means that I can't load up any of the new zoo pictures until I get that sorted out.

This is one of the new ones. The Amur Leopard is a very rare big cat. The only other picture I had of this one was very dark -- it came out nicely in some ways, but I am still very happy to get this one.

I've worked a bit on the 2YN book today and mostly just played around. I needed a slight break, and the zoo pictures have been a wonderful distraction. I just wish I could get them up. I need to buy more space/bandwidth from Jatol and... well, I also need to pay for my sff.net site, and since it has Vision on it, that's going to come first.

Maybe I should try to sell calendars or something to help fund some of my personal sites. It might be fun to try something like that at LuLu.com. It might be worth seeing if I can get a little income from the pictures.

Or maybe not. It's not like I have time to take on another project right now, but I might consider it for the future.

Or something like that, anyway. I need to start making some of this extra stuff pay for itself.

The weather people have been calling for snow for the last couple days, and we've seen none of it. It should hit tonight, which will be the worst time since Russ goes to Omaha tomorrow. We're not happy about it. He may end up spending the night down there tomorrow, which is fine. Better than driving back in bad weather.

Other than that... just working away at the 2YN stuff and pretty much certain I'm not going to have it done by March Madness. It's just taking longer than I expected, mostly because I can't stay focused right now. I'm going to take the rest of the night off to play with pictures, and not worry too much about anything for a while. I think it'll help. 

A bit of green for the day....

I'm messing with some pictures tonight. Mostly I'm working on the zoo pictures from the last trip -- my, a couple nice ones there! But I pulled this one up from the old FD91 collection so that I could have bit of green for St. Paddy's Day. The zoo pictures will go up soon, I hope. I'm just having fun with them. And today I got a new, updated ID so I can get into the zoo without Russ. LOL. I'll be able to there any time now during the next year. I am so looking forward to this!

Russ has the first part of the 2YN class. I don't know when he'll get a chance to look it over, but I'm starting the final edits on the second part and writing the last needed material for the rest of it.

We keep hearing that there's going to be a lot of snow on Sunday. This is about right, of course. Russ goes back to Omaha on Monday, so of course we'll get the worst snow storm of the year the day before and into Monday. This is just another clear sign of what we've been calling the "Don't go to Z'Ha'Dum" syndrome. You know you shouldn't do it. You know you're going to go anyway.

I have discovered something interesting as I've been working the last few days. While I can write fiction long into the night, I need to stop with the nonfiction no later than around midnight. I think it's just too much work for my poor brain to handle, and by that time of night my eyes are starting to wear out and I'm not comfortable any more. Fiction lives far more in my brain and I don't have to see what I'm writing. Nonfiction, especially of this type, is far harder to do and takes a great deal more attention. I've known that on one level, having been working on the 2YN stuff for over two years now, but I hadn't really thought about it.

Oh, and the other good news! I finally located both parts of my Adobe Acrobat program so I can finally get the PDF versions of Vision done again! I'm going to try and get all three of them this weekend.

And that's the news from me today. I have about three hours until midnight. Time to get back to work on the 2YN book! 

2YN... closer, closer....

I am editing the last ten classes now. I have the book in the basic format that I want, though I will still have to go back over everything to get subsections in the right format and to make certain everything is in the right place. There's been a lot of moving about.

But I do have 52 classes for year one in the order I want them. I don't have exercises for all of them, but a lot of that will be easy when I get to them.

It's probably going to take me another week of work, but at least I can finally see the end. Well, the end of book one, at least. Book 2 won't be as long, but it's going to be far harder to put together, I fear.

But I mustn't look a head and get discouraged. Book 1. Get book 1 finished and then I can go back to the lovely fiction writing for a while.

Oh yes, great. Wonderful. The Internet is suddenly down.

Goes to do some editing....

There we go. Back again. Not that I really have anything to say. I'm just coming here to moan about the work because it 3:17 am and I'm still on Class # 41.

I think it's time to go to bed! 

This is hard work!

Yes, I'm still complaining about the 2YN book. (grin) I want to get back to fiction writing, but really, this is going well.

Russ is working for the second day in a row in Omaha. The weather is better today, at least, and he doesn't have a meeting to go to afterwards, so he should be home about seven or so.

In the mean time, I have found myself cleaning house rather than looking at the book. Not a good sign.

Really, it's going very well. I think I'm just starting to feel a little spring fever here. It's bright and sunny out today, though still not warm enough -- 44f -- and I would really like to get out with the camera again.

But right now... time to get back to Chapter 32. Only twenty more to go! 

Thunk....

May I say at this point that if I never look at another 2YN class it will be too soon?

Okay, so I'm having some trouble editing these things into a book form. There is a lot of things -- like html coding -- that has to be stripped out. There are references to the boards and posting that has to be removed. Introductions for each section, a better order for the classes, and assignments and examples for ones that I stopped doing once people began working independently.

I have been fluttering around the first 14 classes now for days, as well as moving, rearranging, regrouping, and rewriting later material.

I hope to have this done by the end of the month. I think I can do it. It's coming together, finally.

But I am going to be really tired of this stuff by the time I'm done. I want to go write some fiction!

(Grumble.)

Right now I'm back again to Week 7, and about 70 pages into the material. This should be the last time I have to go through this first fourteen classes, though, so I'm feeling better. I have just kept changing orders, formatting and such.

I'm doing a lot of Daz and photography stuff on the side, too. This is keeping me sane. Oh, maybe sane isn't the word I'm looking for, right? Well, it's keeping me from running screaming into the night. That and the fact that it's cold out there -- we have snow again.

The entire wrong day for it, too. Russ drives to Omaha in a few hours to teach classes. So of course we've had an ice storm and snow.

You know, running screaming out into the night keeps sounding better again.... 

Yes!

We went to the zoo today. I have only a handful of good pictures -- I need far more practice with this camera! But one thing I did learn was that this camera's flash works far better thn the previous one when shooting through glass. If you can get the lens right up on the glass, the flash is often great. Sometimes even back from the glass. Other times it has the 'bounce off glass' problem -- you should try to shoot at a 45% angle to the glass, but too often the creature is moving....

Maybe I should do a book on digital photography for writers. LOL.

Anyway, had a really nice time. Poor Russ... he really doesn't like wandering around zoos as much as I do, but he was a great companion today. And he liked quite a bit of the zoo, especially the desert.

We bought a season pass! I can go down any time for the next year and get in for free now. That was Russ's final present to me. Since he's (we hope, hope, hope) going to be down there once or twice a week, I might get quite a few chances to go. As long as we don't have to come up with the money to get me in. And the two of us going in today already took 1/3rd of the price of the membership.

So this is a very good thing. We had hoped to do it today, while the price was still relatively low, and our enthusiasm was helped when Russ stopped by the training center where he'll be teaching next week and they told him that they had not two, but three classes for him to teach.

We still have a few weeks of 'eek' ahead of us. But, if things go well, we can see light again.

And that, I think, is the best birthday present of all. It's been a rough year, and I would like to see things even out. We don't have to go back to making a lot of income, but if we can just keep our heads above water, it'll be fine.

It's amazing the number of people who have spouses out of jobs, though, or who are without work themselves. Frightening, in fact. The economy around here is horrible, and that's one of the big reasons that Russ is oging to be working 100 miles away from home. He'll be spending as many nights down there as he can when there are some classes that are two or more days in a row, because a cheap hotel is less expensive than the gas and time involved to drive both ways.

Anyway, all is going well. I'm taking the time to relax, unwind, and try not to worry. They are calling for a pretty bad snow storm on the first day Russ is supposed to teach, of course. He's going to go down the night before, and hope that they don't cancel the class. If it's snowing, it's better for him to be down there than driving the 100 miles in an early morning blizzard. If they don't cancel the class, far better for him to be there and ready.

But you know, this worry about the snow (which is supposed to go on through Tuesday, I think), is just typical of how things have been going for us.

Still... I am still feeling less stressed again! And now to go play with some more photos! 

Reflections in the Rain

I will be going to the zoo in a few hours. Yay zoo! Yay Camera and testing it out real time!

I'm looking forward to it, of course. I now have a nice little 512 card for the camera and it works very nicely. I'll still be shooting at 3megapixel so that I don't run out of space. (And trust me, even with about 300 shots on a card, it's going to be a near thing!)

I had cake for my birthday. I haven't had cake in years on my birthday. That was really very nice. And we watched the new Harry Potter movie. It was nicely done.

In a few yours I'll be at the zoo. I'm going to go take a nice, long bath, relax and get to bed early.

Oh, and we mailed off one novel submission and a short story submission today. No real hope for them, but it's good to get them out.

I'm going to have my hands full with some nonfiction books over the next few months, though. Lots to do there. I've made good progress on one of them, and I'll be getting back to it on Friday.

But right now... off to rest! 

Alas....

No zoo for my birthday. I kind of expected this, so I'm not shocked. We might get a chance to go the next day, but that depnds on a check arriving. It didn't come today, and I can't expect that it will show up tomorrow.

We'll get there eventually.

I am editing the 2YN material for a book format. It's a lot of work. I'm going to try and do two books, but I fear that the second 52 weeks will be too weak to stand alone. I'm working on it. It's probably going to be my major work for the rest of this month, too. I've been putting it off for about half a year now, and slowing editing each week. I think I need to get it done and stop messing with it.

So, that's it. Back to work. 

Better

I love the clouds in this shot. Lovely pattern.

Thank you to everyone who bought Muse. It really did help things out.

Thank you for the lovely review, Jean! I am worried about the typos you found, though. Now I fear I sent Holly the wrong copy. Or, just as likely, the stress during the time drove me nuts and I just missed too much. The good thing is that with electronic publications it's very easy to correct mistakes. I just need to know where they are.

Russ starts teaching classes in Omaha on the 13th. He'll have two classes a week for a while, and he's hoping to get more. If this keeps up long enough, I'll be able to go down and go to the zoo while he teaches. That would be wonderful! Yeah, the job is 100 miles away, but he'll be able to stay down there some nights when he has classes two days in a row, and that will help, too, given the gas prices.

And Russ says that we're going to the zoo on my birthday. I'm waiting for the world to end before now and then, so you're warned. But he says he's going with me this time. I got a nice little royalty check the other day that will pay for the trip and a small card for my camera. The people who owe Russ money supposedly cut the check today. It could be here tomorrow, but I'm betting late Wednesday or Thursday... but knowing it is on the way means we can spend the other money. We probably shouldn't, but quite honestly, I need some small fun stuff right now.

Temps are supposed to be up in the 40's, and it may rain in the afternoon, but that's okay. I've gone to the zoo in far worse weather than that. In fact the best day I ever went was during a major snow storm. There couldn't have been more than 100 people (not counting the employees) who were there. It was wonderful to walk from the snow to the desert, out into the snow, and into the jungle. (grin)

I hope things go well.

I've just started my second year working with Daz and I finally learned how to do reflections! Yay! I'm really happy about that... there are some pictures I'd love to do. I need to work on bump maps now. I would like to get good enough to do occasional cover art -- more than I do now. I think the cover to Muse turned out to be very good, though. And I really like the cover to Illuminated Manuscripts as well.

Vita's Vengeance slowed down during the the work with Vision, but I'm ready to pick it up again. And I have the outline for a short novel to start on my birthday. It's called Return. I've technically done the first chapter for the class, but I'm going to rewrite it a bit.

So, yes, things are slipping back to normal. I will do my best to be in a better mood and not go all odd again. (grin)

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the help and the support. And those two novels and short story are about to go out, too -- so wish them luck. 

The Geese are Back!

Actually, some of them were at the Crystal Cove Park all winter, but now a few have moved to the newly cleaned out pond, away from where people take out boats and fish. This is a wonderful development for a photographer like me. One of the things that does drive me nuts is that there are so few areas just to watch nature, without the birds and animals being chased off by people who have to be RIGHT THERE.

This pond is about a mile from where I live. Russ and I used to go down there and park by the road, watching ducks and geese. Sometimes I would have him drop me off with a ton of camera equipment and I'd spend the whole day, just watching. That was back in my film days. I look forward to doing it with the new camera. I've been too busy and too lazy to go down there the last few years, but I hope to change things this year.

Things are looking a little better tonight, thanks to some generous people who made donations to the site (which means I can pay for Vision articles!), and those of you who have been buying the copies of Muse. I also just learned that I have a small royalty check on the way, so that's going to help a lot.

I hope people who read Muse enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Sometimes there are books that are just fun to do, and this was one of them. Even through the countless rewrites, I still enjoyed it! 

And an hour later....

Things are not looking as bleak. Russ heard from a training group in Omaha who really really want him to work for them and have already set up days for him to do trainings. While the one place has not paid us, another sent a little money and Russ got a partial refill on the blood pressure medication I'm still taking. Probably a good plan, given the stress of the situation.

But it is nice to breathe a little again. We're far from out of the woods. We don't have the funds to pay most of our extra bills (Internet, websites, etc.), but it is possible that it will come through in time.

By the way, I am NOT celebrating my birthday this year. I'm going to wait until things are better and then convince Russ that he has to go to the zoo with me.

I did write and say there was no way I could attend the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference and be part of the Ebook pannel. There's just no way we could pull together enough money to do something that expensive by June. I know that some people at FM wanted to do a fund raiser for it -- but quite honestly, when you're not certain you are going to make the next electric payment, raising money for something that frivolous... well, it just wouldn't have worked out.

But things are looking better! 

Go buy Muse

The books Russ sold were just the start of trying to find anything we can sell to make some quick money. Comic books went next and even part of the DVD collection followed. We were able to get enough to pay utilities and the car license. Barely.

This means that we don't have money for gas (which would have been handy since someone in Kansas City wanted to see Russ on Friday about a training position). Russ will have about $50 on Friday and maybe another $20 on Saturday, though that one is iffy.

I can't pay my Internet bill, of course. Or for my lazette.net site on sff.net where I house Vision. Or pay for Vision articles for that matter. I took the last of my blood pressure meds yesterday (and I'd already dropped one of those weeks ago and hoped for the best). I'm hoping to get enough money to buy some cheap cat food to keep the guys going. Russ and I can eat cheap and that's all right. We just have to have the utilities to be able to cook the stuff. The cats really don't care about that. (grin)

To say that things are not going well is kind of an understatement.

We have not yet sold the camera. It is going to be the very last thing to go.

The odd thing is that I still have faith we'll pull out of this pretty soon. But if I do just disappear for a while, you'll know why!

In the mean time, go buy Muse. It's a fun story. You'll like it. And it gives me some income to look forward to. Besides, I like to think the writing should count for something. If I get enough money I can even send off those two books and short story... though I don't know. That would be a waste of the money, and I don't know if I can do it.

Fret, fret, fret. No, no. Must not fret.

Okay, things are not great -- but they're not horrible. We still have the house and the cats. Russ has a ton of applications out and if he could get just a couple local trainings again, we'd pull through for a couple more weeks. There are places that owe him money, but he's called one at least once a week and gotten the 'oh yeah, we'll get that out to you this Friday' runaround for over a month now. And this isn't a small company -- it's a place that can afford to pay him and aren't. Those are the annoying ones. Or the place that told him they would pay X amont per article he wrote on some events and wanted two or three per event -- and as soon as it came to pay him, said no, they were only going to pay the X amount per event, no matter how many articles he wrote. This is the part that's driving us nuts because it's not like Russ hasn't been doing the work, it's just that people are screwing around with the payments.