Sigh....

Yesterday was a nice day. Russ took me down to my favorite wildlife refuge and I took a few pictures -- not many because I still don't have a Memory Stick for the new camera, and the old camera -- well, it wouldn't turn on most of the time while we were there.

But I had a lovely time and I got a couple really nice pictures. I hope to do a website dedicated to the refuge soon.

Today, however, was not as good.

Russ sold two of the books from his private collection -- two very important books -- the signed President Johnson and the Signed President Truman. He didn't get as much for them as they are worth, but it is enough to keep us solvent for another month.

This really upset me. I would have rather sold the camera first -- we can get another one of those far easier. I hate to see him selling his stuff.

We've discussed selling the houses -- one that is worth something, and one that has the only worth in the land it's on. The other, better house, is not paid for, of course and keeping up the payments is difficult, but if we could find a buyer who would take them both (they're side by side) for about 80k we could pay off the one and still have about 20k.

This would, of course, be our last, really desperate choice.

With luck, someone who tried to contact Russ on Friday about a job will have some part time training work for him this next week and some of the rest of this disaster will be averted.

In the mean time, I've done the 2YN classes for this week. I've been playing around with different photo challenges to keep myself occupied, along with working on Vita's Vengeance -- which looks good or bad, depending on my mood. (Yeah, it stinks today....)

I've been happy with the posts in my Photo Blog, though.

And tonight I started another one just for Daz/Bryce type work.

Go take a look at them and tell me what you think of the pictures. It's been the most fun I've had lately! 

Work and Work and Other Work

And just as I started typing out that title I remembered something else I need to get done tonight!

Okay, I have a confession to make. For several years I've gotten two submissions out a month, no matter what. While I have sort of kept it up this year, the truth is that the last two novels and short story to the big publishers are ready to go... but they aren't gone. This is a novel from December and a novel and short story from January.

Why?

Because every cent we've made in the last few months has gone to keeping us afloat. We haven't had the money to send the material out. This month I've worked around that problem by suggesting two nonfiction books to Holly that she likes, so I'm good for February.

It's not as though I really believe that the books are going to sell, mind you, but I also believe that they don't have a chance if they never go out. They're good books.

Muse is a good book too. Really. I don't say that about a lot of my work, but this one... well, I think people will like it if they give it a chance. I had planned to send it to more print publishers, but the truth is that even if it only makes a dozen or so sales, it will be money enough to send the other material out. I needed something that might bring me a few dollars a month over our bare survival funds right now.

If I don't get some income soon I'm probably going to sell my new camera. I'll hate to do it -- it's the only really nice thing that's gone right for quite a while. But we bought it at a time when it looked like Russ had another job, but it hasn't quite panned out.

So, yeah, I'm looking at all the worse-case-scenarios right now. I've certainly lived through worse times when I was younger, so I'm not panicked, but I am prepared to do whatever we need to. That probably means that I'll be getting a job as well if I can't make some of the rest of this start paying.

And there's the bad spot, of course. Not the idea of getting a job again. I've done that in the past too, after all. No the problem is that I do so many things for free that take far too much of my time -- Vision, FM, Estand, even the photography. If I start working outside of the home again, then it's going to mean dropping some of that stuff. I've virtually stopped working on Estand already. I'm trying to set up all kinds of things at FM to get it moving, and with all the great moderators, I think it has a chance to go without much trouble. Vision is a problem because not only does it take time, it takes money to pay people.. I have some funds in PayPal still, so people who opt for PayPal payments will get paid first. Maybe some other funds will come in soon.

Being at this stage sucks, of course, but like I said -- I've lived through far worse.

But why does is always seem to get worse right before my birthday? (snarl) 

The new book!

I am very happy to announce the publication of Muse by Holly Lisle's OneMoreWord Publications. This is the first fiction she's published, so I'm really happy to see it there. It's a story that I really believe people will enjoy.

You can buy the ebook here.

I did the cover as well, and I'm even happy with it.

Getting everything done for it has put me a little behind on other work. And then there was the post 'look at that!' high where I might as well not even try to work. I'm getting back to normal though, I think.

Not that I'm getting a lot more done, though. Vita's Vengeance is moving along fairly well, despite that yesterday I hated every word of it. Bad mood moment, I guess, because today it looks much better.

I also cleaned my office up quite a bit yesterday, and I think that's helped too. I had stuff stacked up everywhere around my desk and I was starting to feel trapped. Today there's open room around me. Even the cats have moved off to other places for a little while.

It's supposed to be up to about sixty or so tomorrow... and snow next Wednesday. Hmmmm....

Russ is applying for jobs far outside of our area which means there is a possiblity we could be moving. That means giving up the two house system, which would be too bad -- for the most part it's worked very well for us. On the other hand, there just isn't work in this area since Gateway virtually closed down, and the part time stuff he's been able to get hasn't been enough.

So go buy Muse. I need the funds. I don't want to be dead broke on my birthday, so you have a couple weeks. Buy! (grin)

In the mean time, I think I'll go write some more. 

Good stuff! (And behind on everything else!)

First the good news:

Tangent Review

I'm happy.

I love the colors in the picture here. This is straight out of the new camera. I wish I could afford to get a damned Memory Stick or two for it... of course, then I'd want enough money to go somewhere with it as well. Like the zoo. I know, I know... I'm just never content.

I have not gotten the contracts done. It's 1:30 am and I really can't tell you much of anything I did today, except find that review, have a nice lunch with Russ, do some grocery shopping.... and napped.

So now I'm going to do the contracts. Really. Right now. In fact, I'm not even going to post this until I get the damned things done.

It's 1:41 am.

It's now 2:50 am. I just sent the contracts off via email. That's done at last!

I have one more rather large project to get done tonight. After that I can stop feeling guilty for a while. (grin)

So, off to work I go! 

Photography

Some of you may not realize it but I have a blog devoted only to photography -- Visions of Now -- and I use it for entering various online photo challenges. For a long time I only did Photo Friday, but in the last couple weeks I've joined the Theme Thursday one and the Black and White Challenge.

The Black and White Challenge has turned out to be considerable fun. Tonight I sat up boxes, cloth, a white curtain to diffuse the light from the overhead source, and found a small flashlight to create some highlights. I took two glasses from my cabinet and set them up. I set the new camera to black and white, and I played with it for about two hours taking dozens of shots at different settings. The one to the left was originally a black and white photo, but I played with it in a couple programs and added in some color again. I have a black and white version (though not exactly the same shot) on the other blog and it's entered in the black and white challenge for this week.

There are times when I knew I shouldn't be working on the photographs. I am behind on work. But sometimes I just need a break, and if I can't actually get out of the house, I can at least get away from the computer for a little while -- and if not away from the computer for long, at least not stare at words and words and more words.

I got my writing done early. (grin)

Wht I really need to do, though, is get the contracts database updated and contracts out for this issue of Vision.

I'm going to go to work on that right now, in fact. Yes, at a quarter to four in the morning because now I feel guilty about taking the time to do the photography.