Saturday, August 17, 2013

Another long day


I'm still a tired puppy.  I've been working flat-out on Book 3 of the Maxwell Saga, which is tentatively scheduled for publication on December 1st.  I've got about a third of the way through the third draft, only to hit that frustrating stage when I realize that some of what I've written is really redundant, and needs to be chopped out, and meanwhile the story is drifting off in a new direction that I hadn't planned, but which looks interesting, and meanwhile . . . you get the idea!

I switch tasks next week.  My prison chaplaincy memoir is scheduled for publication on September 15th, so I have to finish final revisions and format it for Kindle and print editions.  This one is more complicated than usual, because it involves end-notes that have to be hot-linked to the body of the text.  I'm still figuring out how to do that on a Kindle book.  Miss D. will be helping, which makes life a lot easier!  Oleg's casting around for pictures to use for a cover illustration, and we'll tackle that next week as well.  I'll get back to Maxwell Book 3 in the second half of September.

Today I took my pickup to have a load-bed cover fitted.  Miss D. says that even though camper shell covers can store a lot of stuff inside, they obscure too much rear vision for her liking, and block out a lot of light.  I therefore went with a Bakflip F1 folding cover.  It's expensive, but seems very well made, and I think it'll be just what I need to keep things out of the weather (like boxes of books for conventions and other promotional events), and keep valuables secure from prying eyes and fingers. After it was fitted, Miss D. and I went for a short road trip to make sure it was properly attached.  We both noticed that the truck's a lot quieter with it on.  We headed down to the George Dickel distillery in Normandy, TN, and enjoyed a tour of the facilities.  It did me good to get away from the computer for a while, and rest my tired (and by now probably screen-shaped!) eyes.

Not much else to report.  I've had a quiet evening, and I'm going to turn in soon.  More tomorrow.

Peter

4 comments:

  1. What, the plot and characters are going their own way? No, never happens. [studies ceiling] And novellas never turn into a four book series, either. :P

    LittleRed1

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  2. I think you'll find the bed cover improves your gas mileage by about 5%. Mine did.

    Somewhere out there is a "scholarly" paper produced by some engineering undergrads on the topic of aerodynamics of pickup trucks. They tried several different bed treatments and found that a bed cover like yours over just the rear half of the bed worked best. The full bed cover came in second.

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  3. Yep, more security too... And characters that take on their 'own' personas? Say it ain't so!!!

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  4. Strangely enough on a Mythbuster's TV show on pickup milage, the worst case was to drive with the tailgate down, I am still trying to figure that out, must be some strange push associated with it being up.

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