I made reference to a medical situation the other day.  Things have developed to the point I can say something with certainty.

My wife went in for her annual mammogram a couple of weeks ago.  They can do these things in 3-D now. They can tilt, rotate, and spin the image with just a click of the mouse.  Ain’t video game technology grand?

There was a small spot that wasn’t there last year.  They did an MRI and a biopsy.  My post was from the day before the biopsy when we met with the doctor.  The results of the biopsy came back yesterday afternoon.  It’s cancer.

We’ll meet with the doctor on Monday and have an appointment on the 18th with the surgeon who’ll perform the lumpectomy.  At this point, no one is freaking out.  They caught it early, and I expect they’ll be able to get everything.  We’ll know for sure on Monday, but the nurse told my wife she should expect to beat this and that she wasn’t going to die.

So that’s what’s going on.  I’m not sure who this is going to affect things.  I’ll probably miss some work here and there.  I’m still waiting on the university to tell me when (or if) they’re going to send me to inspect the labs at the new Costa Rica campus.  Depending on the timeline we get on Monday, I may cancel that whether the university likes it or not.   Blogging, reading, and writing?  That remains to be seen.  I may blog everyday or multiple times a day just to have an outlet for stress.  I may drop off the radar for an extended period of time.

Right now, we’re doing fine, although a little tense.  I’ll post updates as we learn more things or if there’s a big shift is the situation.

The title of this post refers to selling books I own, not ones I’ve written.  Just so we’re clear.

Not my house (yet).

I’ve been kicking some thoughts down the road to avoid dealing with them around to see if any will fall out of one of the holes in my head.  I’m pretty much out of space for physical books and need to clear some of them out.  I’ve also been looking for ways to generate small but hopefully semi-steady streams of cash.

I’m not sure I want to deal with ebay.  I’m also not looking to become a book dealer.  I just want to clear a little space.  We’re talking pizza and beer money amounts of cash, nothing that will pay my mortgage or utility bills.  I’m not sure it’s worth dealing with ebay for that.  I was thinking from time to time posting a picture or pictures of a few titles I’d like to move, naming a price, and selling to the first person who wanted them, assuming anyone wants them.

Most of my books I’m keeping.  There are two categories where I would choose what to sell, each with two subcategories.  The first is duplicates.  In some cases these would be paperbacks I have more than one copy of.  If the book is scarce, I would probably put it up by itself.  Otherwise, I might offer them in small lots.

The other duplicates are hardcovers from small presses, such as Cemetery Dance and Subterranean mostly.  These are titles I’ve picked up in grab bags that I already had or in a few cases things I pre-ordered and later forgot I’d ordered them and ordered a second copy.  These would probably be offered singly at less than cover but at least half of cover.

There’s a second category, and that’s review copies.  They also fall into two categories.  The book as you would purchase it in the store or online, and the ARC.  The ARC’s would probably be sold in small lots, with multiple titles by the same author or of similar type.  Many of these would be crime and mystery.  The ARC’s are not as high a quality as the store copies.  They have low quality binding, and the cover art might be different.  In come cases, not all editorial corrections will have been made.  As a general practice, none of the review copies would be of any titles released in the last six months.

Would there be any interest in trying this, or would I be wasting my time?  Thoughts?

While the dog days of summer may not have officially started, as far as I’m concerned they’ve been here since the second week of May.  That was when we started hitting triple digit temperatures on a fairly consistent basis.

The temperatures may be one reason I really haven’t felt like writing anything.  Or even reading.  The heat can be pretty draining.  Or maybe I’m just getting old.  There have been one or two reviews, a report on Howard Days, and a tribute to Harlan Ellison.  I’ve hardly done any fiction writing, even though I’ve had more time than I did in the spring.

OTOH, my time hasn’t been nearly as structured as when classes are in session.  I’ve done a lot of traveling:  Austin for the State Solo and Ensemble Competition, Howard Days, a week in Dallas for my son’s trumpet camp (those tweets about the BDSM convention showing up at the hotel we were in weren’t jokes, in spite of the humorous wording), and I just got back from a weekend in Cloudcroft, NM.

Classes start Tuesday, so I’ll be back into a routine, like it or not.  (That would be not, but I need the money.)  So I’m hoping I’ll be more productive by the end of the week.  At least you know I’m not dead yet.

No, I’m not referring to the song.  Just an update on what you can expect to see here at the ol’ blog.

First, I had attempted to read the nominees for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award.  This goes to best first fantasy novel. I’ve read two (reviewed here and here).  I’m almost finished with Kings of the Wyld.  I’ll review it.  I decided a few days ago that it would be insane to try and push myself to finish the remaining two.  I have copies and will read/review them at some point in the future.  Right now I want to focus on shorter fiction as well as getting back to reading more Jack Williamson.

I also want to read some Robert E. Howard.  Howard Days starts in less than a week.  I’m really looking forward to it, even though I think there have been more triple digit temperature days in the last few weeks than not.

I’m not teaching Summer I, so I should have a more flexible schedule.  That means I can get some writing done.  That’s all I’ll say about that for now.

What are the rest of you up this summer.

So tonight I was fiddling around with Scrivener trying to figure out how to get it to automatically do a couple of formatting things.  I’d had to do them manually before, but I’ve got some stories I want to submit over the next few days. I wanted to know what I was misunderstanding.

I solved the problems I was trying to figure out, but then I noticed something odd.  The word count on Scrivener was 18.1k.  When I compiled it into an RTF docuement, it was 12.8k.  That’s a pretty big difference. I compared the words in the opening section, and the RTF count was two words less than the Scrivener count.

Anyone have any idea what’s going on here? I’m inclined to trust the Scrivener count because when each section’s word count when tallied adds up to the total.  And the words in each section are only the words of the story.

I want to send this out, but not with such a discrepancy in the word counts.

First, Happy New Year, everyone.

Second, I’m not doing a best of the year post this year.  I simply didn’t read enough new books to have a clue what the best material was.

I am going to give a recap of my year and lay out some goals for 2018. Continue reading →

In addition to the book signing on Saturday, there was some other excitement in our world.  My son is in the band, and the Area marching competition was Saturday in Odessa.  It was successful.  For the first time in decades, the band from his high school is going to be competing in the state competition.  It’s just after the World Fantasy Convention, and like the WFC, it’s also in San Antonio.

Because Texas has so many high schools, only half of them are eligible to compete at the state level in any given year.  I don’t understand all the details, but it’s based on the size of the school.  From what I understand (and I may be wrong), 1A, 3A, and 5A compete one year and 2A, 4A, and 6A the next year.  Or something like that.  All I know is  that he only gets two chances to go to state while he’s in high school.

Needless to say, my wife and I will be attending.  Yes, I’m going to come home from San Antonio and return two days later.  Because I need to get a lot of work done in advance of both trips rather than one, I’m going into radio silence on the blog for a bit.  The Halloween reviews will resume in November.  I might post a short item or two while I’m at WFC.  If I don’t, then the after convention report will be delayed by about a week.