Deleted a blog, anticipating challenges on the book, and editing woes.

I have deleted one of my fiction blogs. The story of Angel versus Xenogen will be coming back but as an e-book. The science fiction story is a bit convoluted but I anticipate that it should come together and be finished by February. I have most of the story line plotted out. It is just a matter of writing up the sentences based off of the bullet points.

I am going to probably still write it in small chunks. The holidays are going to be blisteringly busy and writing time is going to be at a premium. It is also going to take a little bit of work to 'shift gears' from fantasy to science fiction. I have my little notebook of ideas and some of the earliest stuff that I wrote relating to this story kicking around. I'll be dragging it out after a little while.

Right now, I'm just trying to focus on the various projects I have kicking around and organizing my workload. I am a bit stumped on how to clean up some of the enormous manuscript of the fetish novel. There are elements that I am pretty sure that I need to re-envision but the original work just is all that comes to mind.

I feel like editing for grammar is the easy part. This editing for content business, however, is utterly maddening. I have also noticed that my consumption of tea has increased dramatically. I am now consuming it by the pot rather then by the cup. Thank goodness my cupboard is well stocked.

Joke found on the interwebz

One day, a man is walking along the beach and comes across an odd-looking bottle. Not being one to ignore tradition, he rubs it and, much to his surprise, a genie actually appears. "For releasing me from the bottle, I will grant you three wishes," says the genie.

The man is ecstatic. "But there's a catch," the genie continues. "What catch?" asks the man, eyeing the genie suspiciously. The genie replies, "For each of your wishes, every lawyer in the world will receive DOUBLE what you ask for." "Hey, I can live with that! No problem!" replies the elated man.

"What is your first wish?" asks the genie. "Well, I've always wanted a Ferrari!" POOF! A Ferrari appears in front of the man. "Now, every lawyer in the world has been given TWO Ferraris," says the genie. "What is your next wish?" "I could really use a million dollars," replies the man, and POOF! One million dollars appears at his feet. "Now every lawyer in the world is TWO million dollars richer," the genie reminds the man. "Well, that's OK, as long as I've got MY million," replies the man.

"And what is your final wish?" asks the genie. The man thinks long and hard, and finally says, "Well, you know, I've always wanted to donate a kidney."

Credit to Bob G.

Fiber fest and other stuff.

So, last weekend I went with my mother in law to Fiber Fest over in Hemlock. It rained all day but I think it did me a bit of good. The rain kept the crowds down to a minimum. I spent most of my time wandering around and avoiding crowded areas. I think the touch of sinus issues that I have right now is a combination of allergies and the lingering effects of that jaunt.

I dropped some coin into spinning supplies. I picked up two new spindles. One is a little 4 ounce supported spindle. The other is a small sized bottom whorl spindle with a lovely clay whorl with celtic knots inscribed onto it. I picked up some fiber too, because you can't buy spindles with out getting something to spin, right? I also bought a set of US size 2 double pointed knitting needles. I realized that I needed a set to make that pair of socks I wanted and I couldn't pass by getting the set for $1.00.

I had a lovely time admiring the horses that were drawing the wagon around the festival and the fiber producing livestock that folks had brought with them. This year, there was only one llama. It was an indifferent beast, seemingly ignoring his handlers with the same aplomb as he ignored his admirers. I was impressed with the Icelandic sheep that I got to pet.

It was the yearling ram who headbutted my hand for more pets that I really enjoyed. I'm familiar with cats and dogs doing this. I never expected a sheep to do that. I was sorely tempted to buy some of the fiber that came from that black coated ram but the price was just outside of my budget, so I contended myself with pets. The owners were amused with how charmed I was by their rams. I think it was the fact that I talked to him, where as others just stared or patted the nose once or twice, that amused them the most.

I did what I usually did when I encountered an animal, I talked to them. As such, the horses, sheep, and rabbits all got a bit of attention and babble directed at them. Most people just looked at me funny. Not even the kids there were willing to talk to the animals. I found that kinda curious. I don't know, maybe I am the weird one. *shrugs* I'm not going to try to figure it out.

I have been really busy over the last several days. I am working on prepping two manuscripts for publication via Lulu. Last week, I sent out the second version of my prayer book. I published it as an e-book and a paperback. I hope to have stuff sorted out so that I can get my other works up on Lulu soon. I'm at something of a loss for how to market it, but I'll figure that out after I get stuff up there.

Open Letter to a Troll

Dear Troll 'John Oputa':

Your attempts to troll are amusingly pathetic. At some point in time, I highly suggest that you pick up a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, a thesaurus, and the AP Style manual. Those three items will assist you dramatically.

Please, allow me to expound upon the reason why you are in need of these three books. You wrote:

Dear Miskell,Your earliest response would be appreciated on the regards.

I am Mr John Oputa, a legal practitioner in Togo Republic West Africa

and personal attorney to Engineer A.Miskell, a deceased client of mine

who died in a car accident along Kara express Road On the 21st of

April 2008, with, his wife and their only daughter.

I have contacted you to assist in the distribution of the funds left

valued at US$8.5 million.

For more explanations please reply to my private email johnoputa55@gmail.com

Yours faithfully

John Oputa.

Line one of your missive is a glaring error. The greeting of a letter is to be presented upon its own line. Additionally, your sentence is passive. If you are in the business of exhorting people to do things, you must use more active voice. As such, consider rephrasing the sentence thusly:

I would appreciate your earliest response on the matter.

Line two of your letter is simply atrocious. Mr. Oputa, if you are truly an educated man who is versed in English as well as your native language, you would have recognized that your run-on sentence is awkward to read, at best. If you wish to use this in the future, please, rephrase this into two separate sentences. This does not fatigue the reader's eye and maintains active voice. Maintaining active voice serves to engage your reader and makes them more pliant to your persuasions.

Additionally, Mr. Oputa, you failed to use proper punctuation in your title. This does not bode well for someone who is of your supposed level of education. I will not state the obvious errors you have made in capitalization, the use of comma-splicing, or your poor execution of conveying the urgency of the situation.

Line three of your letter is by far the most legible of the missive. At the same time, however, your passive voice continues to plague your writing. I will not insult your intelligence by presuming to give you a better phrasing. I am certain that this simple error is quite easily resolved with a little bit of thought.

Line four of your letter is marginally better then line three. Failure to use proper punctuation at the end of the line is something that I can forgive. Inserting e-mail addresses into the final clause of a sentence is difficult and can make punctuation problematic.

Mr. Oputa, your failure to impress me with your missive most assuredly means that you will fail to impress me in other areas. If you, an educated man, can not write a simple e-mail to me that properly expresses the urgency of your mission or presents a compelling argument for me to contact you, I highly doubt you can muster up anything truly of interest. If you wish to try again, I will be happy to assist you.

The fee for my services as a beta-reader and editor begins at $100/hr. This can be negotiated, provided you are accomplished enough in the language to engage in such a discussion. If you are unable to do so, Mr. Oputa, I would suggest that you speak with your colleague, the most unimpressively named Tom.

I am most disappointed. Mr. Oputa. If I were grading your work, I would give you an 'F' and have you re-write this letter until it is correct. At which time, I would then have you copy it thirty times, to ensure that the proper methodology of how to compose correspondence is burned into your feeble brain.

So, I published some stuff.

The Red Chair has finally made it through the editing process. It is up on Lulu as both a paperback and an ebook. My next task will be to distribute the links through out the blog-o-sphere and the social networking sites I am on. They're both inexpensive works. It's the first time I have something out there under my real name.

I'm a little nervous but at the same time I am excited. It's not everyday that I do this. Who knows, I may get this thing to work out pretty well for me.