My buddy Michael Sherlock of the London metal band, Storm the Gates, has done me the honor or reading “The London Eye.”
Here’s the link to the podcast : The London Eye as read by M Sherlock.
And here’s the link to the story itself at Every Day Fiction.
My freshly minted collection of mother/daughter stories is now available through LULU.COM and will soon be available–autographed by me–on my blog and over at http://www.gaydegani.com/.
I just have to figure out how to make the paypal link work properly. LOL. Since I don’t think you can get it before Christmas for gifts anyway and since my ordered box of books is still on the way, I’m not going to worry about the paypal until after the holidays. BUT if you want to email me about it and I know you, I’ll gladly take a personal check. If I don’t know you, money order? And the shipping is on me. Oh and there might be a little discount thrown in. The box is due today or Monday.
My email address is gaydegani@yahoo.com.
I know I’m tooting my own horn a lot lately but think of the months years you never heard a peep from me. A confluence is happening for some reason. Maybe Vermont and Banff had a part in it. Maybe I should blame Emily and Toby for the editing skills and encouragement. Or Hillary for being an amazing reader. Whatever is going on, I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Yesterday “Flash Flood” at Every Day Fiction and today an interview at K. C. Ball’s 10FLASH.
Here’s the link to the interview: A Look at Pomegranate
So has anyone seen the recent commercial for Kahlua?
It features a man and woman stumbling onto Montezuma’s throne room. Being the king of the Aztecs, Monte demands to know how dare they intrude.
He asks “Are you kings?”
The girl starts to tell the truth, “NO we—” but she’s hastily interrupted by her friend.
He shouts, all full of confidence, “Yes! Yes we are kings!”
And the crowd in the throne room explodes with cheering and demands for more Kahlua!
Now where can the genesis of this scene be found???? Who you gonna call?
You guess it. At least I think so.
On the roof of Dana Barrett’s building, our guys with proton-packs stumble into Gozar. Here’s the scene:
Gozer: [after Ray orders her to re-locate] Are you a God?
[Ray looks at Peter, who nods] Dr Ray Stantz: No.
Gozer: Then… DIE! [Lightning flies from her fingers, driving the Ghostbusters to the edge of the roof and almost off; people below scream]
Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “YES”!
Dr. Peter Venkman: All right! This chick is TOAST!
My story “Flash Flood” is up at Every Day Fiction today. If you get a chance, check it out.
I’ve been going nuts trying to solve a problem at LULU, and I finally did it.
If you read my previous post you know I was over the edge. And no one seemed to be able to help me exactly, but the suggestions evenutally led me into new areas of exploration so thank you Trish, Hillary, Sylvia, Dave Fujioka, and Madeline.
My goal was/is to create a collection of my stories to give as Christmas presents, to take with me to Vancouver when I go up for Every Day Fiction’s Best of Every Day Fiction Two Launch in January, and to have available on my website. While I have a couple stories in anthologies, I don’t have anything with just MY stories. My friend Angela Carlton had create a book Between the Clouds using Lulu so I thought, “I’d like to do that too.”
If you want to be blasted with my frustration, check out the previous post, but here is the solution that worked for me.
My difficulties came from never ever having a bit of trouble with a PDF before and suddenly having trouble. I was hindered by the fact that I’d never really explored the Adobe site with PATIENCE.
By last night, after a long nap and several deep breaths, that’s what I did.
1) I opened my Adobe Acrobat Profession 7 as a program. I did not open one of the many PDF documents I’d created during this project but OPENED THE ACTUAL PROGRAM FIRST.
2) I explored and after a while, under the EDIT menu, when I highlighted PREFERENCES I hoped maybe I would find something. There is a category list on the left-hand side and it doesn’t look as if it has a thing in it to help. I’d retreated from here before because of that but this time, I studied every category carefully.
3) Eventually, again eventually, I clicked on “Convert to PDF.” I didn’t think it would work, but….
4) Converting to PDF opened a new window just to the right of the category window. I studied that . Clicked on–what else–MSWindows. Then on edit settings.
5) Remember that “ensure embedding” instruction” you downloaded if you too have had embedding problems???? Well the screen comes up looking just like that. Who knew? Not me.
6)I clicked on fonts. (When I did this in the Lulu version, nothing happened because obviously it’s just a picture of what it looks like, not an actual linking program or if it is linking to help, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work) BUT here in this newly opened screen of my on Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro, All my fonts were listed and all of them were in the “do not embed” box!!!! No wonder!!! I highlighted all the garamonds and all the timesnewromans and added them to the embed box. And Clicked OKAY.
7)I then opened my Word document that I’d been trying to upload into this particular window of Acrobat. And I made a PDF.
AND returned to Lulu fingers crossed. At Lulu
1) I uploading my new PDF document…or I tried to, but it wouldn’t go. I guess it gets sleepy if it’s open too long or if like me you’ve uploaded thirty times in the last 48 hours.
2) I closed it and restarted my computer. The best solution I have when something doesn’t work.
3) I tried again with my new PDF doc. And miracle of miracles it worked. Hooray. Nervously, I opened the print ready doc….
4) It was… wasn’t my new document!!!!! Had I messed up?? I studied the mess. Realized it was my very first document that I’d uploaded before I knew what I was doing. Crap. What to do?
5) I looked down where my files were listed on that Lulu upload page and deleted both my new PDF and my old word document.
6) Restarted my computer again, re-uploading my brand new PDF and…IT FINALLY WORKED. I checked it out. It was gorgeous and I was finally ready after 48 hours to move on to the cover….
So here I am ready to do the cover.
I started it last night and of course, I have a big warning sign that my 6×9 photo cover (I did the cover in photo shop so I could choose my fonts) probably wouldn’t be clear!!! Today I’m going to first try making the whole cover a pdf and if that doesn’t work I suppose I’ll take my cover apart and fit it into one of their templates.
You guys recognize how this adventure follows a three-act structure? The act one goal set out, the optimism, the catalyst, then the BIG PROBLEM, the long second act of figuring out how to defeat the enemy (sorry, lulu) and then giving up (my marathon nap yesterday) and then the breakthrough. I’m embarking now on act 3. I’m on the edge of my seat.
LULU, my story collection called “Pomegranate,” the frustrations of the last week, and especially my inability to grasp any instructions written online that are supposed to solve my problems, all of these make the list of what is pissing me off today.
What do I want to vent about today? (There’s always something: grocery store bag boys/girls who think lettuce is made of steel and will survive the gallon bottle of milk dropped in on top; friends who call and hang up as soon as they hear my voice mail message and then later tell me”I called and you didn’t pick up!” WTF! And everybody who is more interested in talking than listening. People who ask me a question, but before I can get the second word out of my mouth have cut me off. If you want to talk without having to listen to someone else respond, get yourself a blog!)
O, yeah. Venting. Today is generally about technology and what it offers, those who offer it but make it crazy-making, and aging. Specifically, my aging or rather me being too old to figure out all the nuances of technology.
I am competent when it comes to everyday technology. Not great, no hacker abilities whatsoever, but I can do a lot of photoshop things, I can build a website, I understand basic html, and I’m not stupid. However, whenever I’m trying to do something new, whatever the “site,” the download, the program is, I usually struggle because it isn’t clear what it is I’m supposed to do.
I had this crazy idea the last couple weeks that since I’d pulled together eight short stories to enter into a chapbook contest, I should at the very least print them up at lulu.com since give them to my family and friends for the holidays. The more I thought about this, the more I wanted to do it. I’ve given away books with my stories before but they’ve been anthologies and suddenly I had the desire to put something out there that was just mine.
So I started about a week before Thanksgiving. I’d gotten it pulled together in September to send out to win something, so it had to be in great shape, right? Wrong. It is amazing to me how a piece can be proofed by me three or four times, by an editor at least once or twice, and then still have problems. But it’s true. I’m talking typos, where I’ve deleted something or copied and pasted and left extra letters and words behind. I’m talking punctuation. And my fault completely, unclear or awkward sentences.
Great I thought. Maybe not as polished as I would of wanted, these six pieces published elsewhere and two not published. It’s okay. I’ll just be more thorough so my collection will be in much better shape. No problem. And it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I loved doing it and was surprised at how exhilerating it was for me to realize how “professional” I felt when I saw a problem and knew it wasn’t right and how to fix it.
After I went through my stories, I gave them first to a friend to proofread and edit and then with her notes, I fixed what I agreed with and gave them to my daughter. That girl is amazing. She is 99% right with her suggestions, especially in the areas of logic and clarity. So I worked to get this done and planned to upload to lulu in what I’d hoped would be plenty of time to have gifts.
But formatting is a bitch. And I just realized I’ve blogged for a half hour and haven’t even gotten to the part that is sending me over the edge.
****SPOILER ALERT****DONT READ BEYOND THIS POINT ****IF YOU WANT TO THINK IM A SANE AND PATIENT PERSON
If anyone out there knows why I can have a whole document in garamond (double checked for stray fonts page by page by highlighting and looking at the font box: garamond only) and be told by lulu that they can’t take it because I haven’t embedded a timesnewroman STP (I can’t remember the real letters) when I don’t even have that font on my list in my computer, then please help!
Every Day Fiction’s
December Table of Contents
Dec 1 Timothy Miller Vaccine
Dec 2 sn wright The Smell of Rust
Dec 3 Dee Martin Ladies Night
Dec 4 Deborah Winter-Blood Deadache
Dec 5 Therese Arkenberg Ameran Theatre
Dec 6 Wayne Scheer The Naked City
Dec 7 Larkin Cunningham Knowing Her Priorities
Dec 8 Michelle Klein Mutilation
Dec 9 S.J. Higbee A Boy’s Best Friend
Dec 10 Sarah Hilary Water’s Edge
Dec 11 Kevin Jewell Holiday Party Subjunctive
Dec 12 Debbie Burgess The Sacrifice
Dec 13 Stephen Taylor A Day at the Fur Auction
Dec 14 Gay Degani Flash Flood
Dec 15 Michael Mallory The Bite of War
Dec 16 John Brooke Bummer
Dec 17 Jim Reine The Last Patient
Dec 18 J.C. Towler EF 5
Dec 19 Brian George Dave Is Still Talking
Dec 20 Laura T Praderio Lynn Wheelchair Memories
Dec 21 Chris Allinotte Code Mustard
Dec 22 Oonah V Joslin Song of Everything
Dec 23 Mary Baader Kaley Giant Snowflakes
Dec 24 Ty Johnston Milk and Cookies
Dec 25 Cathryn Grant A Christmas Package
Dec 26 Sylvia Hiven Safe in Sparrow
Dec 27 Katherine Periam The Potion
Dec 28 Richard M. O’Donnell The Perfect Fit
Dec 29 Claire Webber She’s Fixed
Dec 30 Mickey Mills Fire on Falcon Road
Dec 31 Tanya Byrne Forever is a Locked Door
People all over the world are waking up and saying “November 28th? Already??”
I realize that maybe somewhere it’s November 29th or maybe November 27th. I’m not very good at these kinds of factoids. Actually, time confuses me. Clocks confuse me. Hate digital because you have to count forward or backward in your head if you need to calculate. Hate standard big hands and little hands because if anyone is talking I can’t focus. When I taught school and didn’t use my egg timer, I had to tell students going on their break to be back at 10 minutes before it’s three-thirty. Anyway, that’s how I remember it.
So if I struggle with daily time you can imagine the trouble I have with yearly time, decade time, lifetime time. It’s going by so fast now I try not to blink. Blinking seems to speed things up. But as with so much that happens to us in life, blinking refuses to be controlled.
Watching Big Bang Theory on my Tivo last night, Leonard who eats a cookie chocked full of weed screams that the earth is moving way too fast–“I can feel it!”
Raj puts on the brakes with his face and the earth slows. Would that it be that easy!
Sometimes I feel as if I’m surfing the earth, that there’s a long unsteady board under my feet and I’m definitely NOT in the tunnel. Wish Raj would use his magic squinchy face for me and slow everything down.
My friend Carson has a good idea. He thinks that perhaps since the holidays swoop down on us with ever increasing speed, we should change the calendar so that we only have “holiday season” once every two years. Now this is a frigging brilliant idea. I love it. And why CAN’T we change the calendar? Julius did. We called it the Julian calendar. Then we got the Gregorian one. I assumed it was named by some pope after himself. (Was reminded of this on Jeopardy after I asked the question, ‘What is Julian?’ to a question I even begin to answer).
Anyway, if folks updated the calendar in the past, they can do it again.
And if Obama decrees it, then it should happen, right? It would be fun too because we’d get to rename twelve months. We’d keep the twelve we have, of course, but those month would be in the second part of the calendar so that Thanksgiving and Christmas could remain in November and December. The second twelve months would stay January, month 13, February, month 14, March, month 15 and so on…
We wouldn’t worry the names don’t make any sense because many of them never did. December, after all, isn’t the 10th month. November isn’t the 9th, October isn’t the 8th, and September isn’t the 7th. Clearly, we can do whatever we want since historically that’s what people do.
So what do we name the 12 new months???? In the old days, months were often named after the gods, right? (I’m not researching this post, so if I mess it up, I’m just making some of this up, leave me a kind commentary. Consider this a discussion). Like I think January could have been name for Janus? March for Mars. June for Juno. And then there are the “gods” who walked the earth like, you know, the aforementioned Julius Caesar (July) and Octavian Caesar (August) who must have changed his name to Augustus so that when he added his month, it wouldn’t be confused with October.
Who are our gods today? We have to name one of the new months, Baraktober. Maybe month one. Month two Jacksonary for Michael? Those two probably have had the most air play lately, but who else. I’ll leave it to you guys. You have 10 more months to name….
Here is the calendar of stories to be published in November by Every Day Fiction.
November’s Table of Contents
Nov 1 Richard M. O’Donnell The Inheritance
Nov 2 Stephanie Scarborough 8-Bit Procrastination
Nov 3 Jessa Marsh Us In Tapes
Nov 4 Barbara A. Barnett Mind Games
Nov 5 Ben Werdmuller Meaningless Battles
Nov 6 Alexander Burns With the Band
Nov 7 Aaron Polson Faith
Nov 8 Celestine Trinidad Fifty-five Percent
Nov 9 Christian Bell The Art of Stealing Sharks
Nov 10 Grá Linnaea Your Own Personal Genie
Nov 11 Mark Partin Sergeant Smith
Nov 12 Patsy Collins Overlooked
Nov 13 Brian Dolton El Mystera Del Tempo
Nov 14 Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz Game On
Nov 15 Oonah V Joslin Dock
Nov 16 Ian Rochford Dog People
Nov 17 JR Hume Tears of the Android
Nov 18 Laura McHale Holland Invasion
Nov 19 Jennifer Tatroe Daddy’s Girl
Nov 20 David J. Rank Friday Midnight Five Stars
Nov 21 Stef Hall Back from the Hills
Nov 22 Nora Offen Lessons Learned
Nov 23 K.C. Ball The Maple Leaf Maneuver
Nov 24 K.C. Shaw Fall or Fly
Nov 25 Deven D Atkinson How the Human Got His Free Will
Nov 26 Bob Jacobs Broken Waters
Nov 27 Finale Doshi The New Pet
Nov 28 Wanda Morrow-Clevenger Heineken Haze
Nov 29 Jameson Parker Layaway
Nov 30 Frank Roger Mirror, Mirror
BLOGGING
Okay so I know absolutely know no French other than firme le bouche (sp? My apologies) But I can’t believe how much fun roadtripping in ca is. The highway up to Quebec City is gorgeous even in a non-stop drizzling rain. It seemed to take it us forever but I have to say the colors were amazing. So many patchwork quilts out there climbing up into the mountains.
Second day Nick and I went to Maison Bellanger-Girardin which is a small stone house on Avenue Royale in Beauport. I’ve wanted to visit there ever since my cousine Claire told me that she and her father had visited and both felt that it was possible that the Nicolas Belanger who lived in the house when it was just a cabin is an ancester of ours. Unfortunately all the information was in French and therefore nothing was proven to me, but I still got a thrill being in the house. Even if this Nicolas Belanger isn’t OUR Nicolas Belanger, our family most likely lived in a house just like this before heading down the Mississippi to Houma.
Gay Degani 