Dun dun duuuuunnn!

Good morning, friends! It seems we have another slow weekend ahead of us, but Deea made up for the lost time by almost killing herself with exhaustion, advertising, reaching out and doing whatever she does for the project (because I just don't want to know). 

I bashed her pretty hard this morning, not for taking a break, but for being too bloody hyperactive! If you haven't figured it out yet, this journey we both embarked on is not only about publishing a fantastic book (not flaunting, merely stating a truth); it's also about evolving, learning, honing our skills, and also have some fun with it. From my point of view, Deea's the best person to handle my P.R. campaign. She's invulnerable to pessimism, she's unflinching and she goes for the throat, no matter whose throat it is! ...She also shares another characteristic of mine: the A.D.H.D. that makes us unable to focus on one thing for a longer period of time, and we end up bored. It's because of this that I sometimes have to pick up the slack. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy working side by side with her very much! But while I keep interfering, cleaning up or just adjusting the finer details, she doesn't learn. So, from this point on, if you see something that doesn't seem right or thought through, let us know! While I'll try to keep my nose out of my agent's activities, I would appreciate your input very much.

We had a hell of a time with our Facebook page and it felt like the old IRC days (for those of you who might remember them), when we spammed the main channels like fanatics with all sorts of crazy ads about some new chat room. So much so that I've received a messaged from the admins telling me to stop. Or else. Still, we received 65 Likes in 24 hours and we are very happy about it! It would be truly great if we could keep the rate constant, though I am aware there is a certain cap and people are lazy or just suspicious about such a (seemingly) minor project. I just want you all to know how thankful we are for your continuous support and be assured that this will be mentioned in Crux after it's published!

What else did I do...? Ah, yes. Except advertising on all the English publisher pages I could find, I tried to contact the Romanian ones as well. Surprise, surprise! As it goes, our local publishers do NOT own pages, but regular user profiles that don't even allow posting. For a moment, I felt frustrated: 14/15 English pages let me advertise The Angellove Society, while 14/15 Romanian profiles made me turn tail and go home. But then I amused myself by realizing that our F.B. page makes the local publishers look like a Mini next to a Ferrari! 

I also e-mailed Total Biscuit, whose shows I've followed for years! He's one of the most annoyingly smart and funny people I had the luck to stumble upon, and he's the one responsible for my discovery and growing admiration of Sir Terry Pratchett. But as I know T.B., he's probably very busy with his many projects (or too cynical to mind me). So I pushed it even further and messaged one of the owners of his Facebook page who, as it turns out, he's -ta daaa!- Romanian! Hopefully my explanations had been interesting enough for either of them to call back. Fingers crossed!

And now for the fun part! Yes, I will explain the picture above. "Hobbit With A Shotgun" is the title I chose some weeks back for a short story meant to introduce a future Angellove Society novel (possibly Book 3). It has nothing to do with the terrible subject of the film "Hobo With A Shotgun" which is a horrible waste of money and time; I do not endorse gratuitous violence nor scenarios written by untalented people, and that movie is the pinnacle of both concepts. This story however is funny and explosive and, I hope, a typical Steampunk fantasy! It's still 'under construction', so I ask you to be patient for a few more days until I manage to sort out the newly developed matters here, on my ship. It appears that we must sail for Tampa, Florida, very soon, and considering I am the one responsible with planning the trip (a process that is quite complicated), these matters will require my full attention.

I will however check in with you guys as often as possible and, seeing how my poor agent is forced to teach a class about teaching methods (yes, you read it correctly!) on her birthday, messing up her entire weekend, I'll try to update you on whatever news we receive or new tasks we might get involved with. But it's summer so most of you will most likely run outside to enjoy the sun and lovely weather, so no biggie, eh?

Be back soon! Have an awesome weekend!

My 2-hour weekend

For the first time in a very long time I managed to do everything I had planned. And more! Sunday started pretty grim, but as the saying goes, things aren’t always as bad as they seem.

First, I had a chat with Deea as soon as she jumped on Facebook, still sleepy and not entirely coherent, but enough to make me feel like a dumbass. What looked like a novel missing a chunk of text turned out to be a mistake on the behalf of yours truly: the text was there, but while I searched for one of the characters using a certain name (and found nothing), it didn’t occur to me that the name might not be the right one to begin with. In fact, it wasn’t the wrong one either; when I introduced this character I was thinking about naming him Adam, but I went with Athos and forgot about it. The moment when I had to use him again, I could clearly remember that his name was Adam. Of course, before this point, Crux had no reference of the name Adam to throw at me… So I guess that’s good news! No extra stories to be added and I can still claim that the novel is finished!

More good news came a couple of hours later, when my inbox suddenly received a new message from Webs.com. And then another. And another...

The first made me laugh because, after submitting a message to their help center, I got back this little gem of a reply, telling me to try all the idiotically simple and logical steps I had already tried! Such as re-typing my password or making sure the spelling of my username / e-mail address is correct. …I know there are a lot of cretins with internet access, but seriously? That’s your advice? Oh, such valuable tips! And, on top of it all, the message ended in “and if you still can’t access your account, reply to this e-mail with the details!”. I spent 10 minutes writing in detail that I had already tried all the steps and your solution ends with “Give us the information AGAIN“?! Who is managing this company anyway? Monkeys?

The second and third messages came at the same time. And they were the same: Welcome to Webs.com! Please click the link to verify your account! …Now, I may be exhausted but I’m not a complete imbecile. Wasn’t I supposed to receive that e-mail… hmmm… let’s say… 4 days ago!? When I actually signed up for this stupid free server and hosting? And furthermore, why in the hell would you send me 2 identical messages out of which only one confirmed my authenticity while the other just told me “ERROR! Check your account settings!”. Oh, you mean the account I can’t access. Sure, I’m on it!

Overall, however, I did manage to validate asociety.webs.com and log in. Which means that tomorrow I will be correcting the awful mistakes in those texts. I do speed writing when I’m inspired and, as it seems, my hands / brain coordination isn’t so great…

But let me get back to my initial thought which was: BEACH DAY! Yes, I went out on deck; changed into some raggedy clothes and flip-flops, with Pratchett’s book, my camera and a can of beer I found in the cabin when I moved in. I was inspired enough to grab my backpack which served me well as a pillow and some ice cubes from the fridge in a bag (because the beer was warm), I went forward and just enjoyed 2 hours before the sun set. The air and weather are fantastic here, and I was actually happy I couldn’t smoke (‘cause we’re still fully loaded with 8000 m3 of gasoline and the next thing you’d probably have read about me would have been my obituary).

I went through 50 pages only because I was enjoying myself too much. Nothing but the waves and the breeze and quality literature. I’m only a tad frustrated that I couldn’t find Reaper Man in English because the Romanian version is hilarious! I can only imagine that the original is hysterical; I own a copy in electronic format but it’s just not the same as a paperback.

To conclude, I’m really glad I actually forced myself out of my room. Normally I wouldn’t step outside unless we are entering or leaving a port, but it was about time that I felt the sun on my skin again. Thought of the day? Must do this again!

Setback

It's Sunday which means people are taking a break from... everything really. I know I certainly would be asleep until 1-2 PM and probably recover from a night of dancing and drinking, if I were home. So I'm not expecting many of you to read this until Monday morning when you're sitting at your desk and procrastinating big time... Which is actually good news!

I just finished crosschecking Crux, after Deea so excitedly announced the correcting was done. Far from me to undermine her skills, but she did rush to finish the process and I found enough omissions to know she's going to have to go over the text again. Worst of all, I noticed there's a missing chunk; I wrote the novel in more than three separate documents (which were supposed to be just three) and somehow I mixed up the two versions of Part II. It means I'll have to re-write the missing chunk because, without it, two secondary characters, that mainly interact in Part III, would just pop up out of the blue. Not a dull moment...

And there's more bad news... It seems my free server at Webs.com refuses to cooperate since yesterday. I tried to add a Guest Book page for all of you loyal readers to use, but I couldn't connect; I remember (almost) clearly that I used my regular e-mail address and password when I signed up, but their log in system apparently disagrees. I even tried reseting my pass, but so far none of my e-mail addresses contain any message confirming this. I can only hope it's just a bug that will be fixed - I'm really not thrilled about the idea of re-designing another web page.

The last bastion of hope for Sunday not to be a complete and utter disappointment is Mana. We spoke earlier and she mentioned she'll try to make time today to read the synopsis Deea wrote. Maybe we're lucky and she likes it enough to advertise us on her blog...

In other news, I'm still not fully recovered after the past week's marathon, but there's a silver lining. Leaving aside the very few hours of sleep (most of them interrupted by workmates or caffeine + nicotine induced nightmares), I pretty much split my time between my job and this process. What pleases me is the fact that neither of them influenced the other and I proved to myself that I can handle both like a professional. It may not seem like a true accomplishment to you, but trust me: keeping a clear and focused mind when handling a eight thousand cubic meters of gasoline products is pretty damn important! One slip and you can end up polluting the beautiful waters of the Caribbean.

As for today, I'm rewarding myself with a break. My agent better have some good news for me, otherwise Crux will have to survive without my attention for the next 20 hours or so. I think I may pull out the Terry Pratchett novel Deea lent me and give it a try. So far, Sir Pratchett didn't disappoint and, after rocketing over the first few pages when I bought Reaper Man for her, it seems like the funniest one from the Discworld series. 

I wanted to write another background story for Thomas and Lexi, but locked out of Webs and rest remaining a foreign notion, I cannot push myself to do it right now. Boredom is a writer's worse enemy. Hope you all have / are having a better Sunday. See you Monday! (unless a miracle happens)

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you:

Yes, it's finally complete! I wrote a whole novel and I couldn't be more excited. Well, for now anyway. I'll probably bounce like a hyperactive bunny when I'll hold it in my hands, on paper and with a better cover than what I managed in Paint.

The point is: it's done and looks really good! My agent is working out the kinks, crossing the T's and dotting the I's, and I'm told I'll soon be the proud owner of a professional website. But untill that website is online, you will be able to check out the news about the changes and development of Step 2 of my master plan on a sister blog: http://deeaswritersgallery.blogspot.com/ and, of course, here.

I'm extra excited about the Felicia Day initiative; I sent an e-mail today to this lovely and talented young lady, after exchanging a few words with her website admin, and I'm hoping she will be interested in reading a few pages of Crux. Hoping even more that those pages will prove interesting enough for her to read the whole book. So fingers crossed, guys!

I also left a comment on Terry Pratchett's official website, being as I couldn't find an e-mail address. Even so, the chances of the God of Discworld noticing a literary ant like myself are... [insert giant number here] to one. Still, had to try and I'll keep on trying. I've spent two years writing this and I won't stop until it beats the crap out of Twilight in sales! :))