announcing "how to build an e-book" (aka book comments 27)

Heads up, friends, fellow bloggers, lurkers, various, and sundry! Somebody has written something just for you, and I'm here today to share that good news with you. Sha-ZAM!

There's a lot of advice out there on the Internet these days (I suppose you've noticed), especially concerning writing, selling said writing, and marketing said writing. Specifically, folks are telling other folks to Blog! Collect posts into an e-Book! Sell the e-Book and watch the dough come rolling in, no pun intended!

*ahem* Sorry. I got a bit carried away there for a second.

But that's 'cause there's an exciting new product available...a product telling you HOW to put together an e-Book and get it out there to a reading public. See, there's a lot of advice being flung about with cyberspace abandon--and yet very little practical help to get you on that glorious e-Book path to satisfying accomplishment.

And that's where my friend Aaron enters the picture. Aaron is this hard-working, hugely brilliant guy who has bent his considerable writing talents toward offering the exact kind of help all you wannabe e-Bookers need. His most recent creation, "How to Build an e-Book" gives you a step-by-step process from start to finish. In this, his own e-Book, Aaron answers your questions, details your e-Booking process, and even soothes your doubts about your own ability to do this thing. "How to Build an e-Book" is exactly what it promises to be, and more.

I'm not just talking out of loyalty to a good friendship. I've read Aaron's book--and though I never had interest in writing an e-Book of my own, the fun process he outlines and the challenge he presents convince me it would be worth my while to try this myself! Plus, reading Aaron's work is just a great time in general, because he's a skilled wordsmith with a great sense of humor and a quirky personality that shows through in every line of his writing.

Details and purchasing info are here. What's way cool is that Aaron is offering a launch-week discount code, SYLLABLES, which is good for 25% off any purchases! The code expires on Sunday night (May 9th), so git it while the gittin's 25% off!

If you're still wondering if this might be for you, I recommend Aaron's blog post, in which he describes the genesis of his project and what "How to Build an e-Book" can do for you.

Happy reading!

hey programmers, two technical questions for ya

Edit: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a toolbar. I repeat, we have a toolbar. Thanks, Aaron!!!
14:44pm

1. How do I get the Blogger toolbar back? (Toolbar has search function and "next blog" option, etc.) I used to have it, but when I changed blog templates, it disappeared. If you'll tell me where to find the toolbar code and where it goes in the template code, I can probably fix it myself. If I can't, I'll ask. :o)

2. What would need to be done to set up a reply-to-comments function on Blogger?


Thanks! I give you all virtual chocolate.

typing woes

My computer does a weird thing when I write comments on people's Facebook pages: As I type, the words take a loooooooong time to appear on the screen, and they appear one slow letter at a time. So, as I'm typing away, I can't see what I'm actually writing until the computer catches up to my fingers. This has some odd results, including the following tidbit:

themv lnbt uIdknwhow to g bolengtkin ovunerbindincy argeale...

I don't even know what I was trying to say!

the internet might have to go

Fundamental truth: Time I spend on the Internet--blogging, Facebooking, reading Yahoo comics, reading articles on writing or on the mating habits of the South American aardvark--all is time I could be writing.

Should be writing.

Want to be writing.

I try to explain to people that I get a kick out of sitting at my computer for 4-7 hours a day, putting words to screen (or, as I've been doing recently, editing and revising two huge ringbinders full of double-spaced, double-sided manuscript). Many of said people are encouraging. Many of said people look at me as though I have a multi-warted fungus sprouting between my eyebrows. The point, however, is that I *love* to write, and I don't necessarily need anyone else to validate that.

(Though I will freely admit that said validation is balm to a writer's soul; and I am blessed to have a husband who supports me fully in my creative endeavors. Thanks, Schatzi!)

Anyway. So, I get a kick out of writing. I also get a kick out of my online activities. What with all the kicking--and in opposite directions, most of the time--I'm starting to feel a little bruised.

The Internet is a black hole that sucks me in and, when it does spit me back out again, does not necessarily deposit me in the known universe, much less in the universe I would like to occupy: the novelling one. I just read a great quote here from Jeff Vandermeer, who says,

"The writer me is monosyllabic, doesn’t care if his beard grows down to his ankles, scribbles notes on little bits of paper, takes long walks in the woods mumbling to himself, maps out character positions in rooms and notes where the light is coming from, doesn’t answer the phone, and isn’t fond of talking to people.

"The other me is, in general, chatty, sociable, likes talking to people and putting people in contact with one another, and uses the Internet to make friends, advance projects, and communicate a love of books."

That pretty much describes me, except for the beard part.

On that same webpage, Carolyn Kellogg asks,

"What if typewriters had also been telephones? What if you could press the top of your legal pad and have today's newspaper pop out? What if your fountain pen broadcast your favorite talk radio station? Today, when the tool of novel-writing is also the primary tool for all kinds of communication, it seems like a miracle that anybody ever gets anything (longer than a blog post) written."

I'm not announcing my renunciation of all Internet activities.

I am, however, reminding myself on one hand of my priorities and of the insidious nature of distractions.

On the other hand, I do know that all work and no play makes Courtney a *very* grumpy, *very* emotionally strung-out writer. Note to self: That's not okay.

The gripping hand (and major bonus points to those who get *that* reference) is that without the Internet, I wouldn't be writing this handy little reminder/informational in the first place.

*sigh*

ruminations of the sleep-deprived

As I write, it is Saturday morning, 5:04 a.m. Even if you don't know me well, you probably do know that I am rarely awake this early in the day. Even as a new intrepid jogger, I do not get up this early. Just on general principle. Please note that this is 'principle' not 'principal.'

Anyway...so there I was, fast asleep and minding my own business, when I suddenly realized that I was wide awake. Instead of fighting it like I usually do, I decided to give in and get up.

Hear that wailing? That's night owls everywhere screaming, "Noooooooooooooooo!"

;o)

So here I am, blogging just after five in the morning. And rather slowly, too, as I'm sitting at Ed's desk, using his Mac and his Mac keyboard. (Would that be a MacKeyboard?) Just for the record, I love the Mac, but I hate its keyboard. I have to pound each key with something like vehement fury in order to get it to produce anything. I fIjust tyoe the wayI usually do, i get something like this. Oh,a nd didi mention that the keys are space somewhtdifferently than on my laptop?

In case you haven't already noticed, I have no particular reason for blogging at this time. Meaning, I have no particular subject in mind. I am simply awake at 5 a.m. and needed something to do but didn't feel like doing anything that actually needs to be done. Besides, it's Saturday.

I have a zit on my chin, and it hurts. When I was a teenager, I thought that adulthood was supposed to be free of such things. (Zits, that is, not chins.) Well into adulthood now, I have discovered, to my dismay and disappointment, that this is not the case. I feel somewhat hoodwinked by this.

My parents, who are living with us for the month of July, are currently in Greece. Part of their trip is a cruise, and I guess they must be on it now, because yesterday evening, Mama called and left a voicemail: "Hi, we just wanted to call and let you know that we're having fun," etc. I was amused, even through my envy. ;o)

Although I suppose that I shouldn't be too envious......considering that I get to go to Scotland in less than a month! Wahooooooo!!!! I am so excited about this! We were supposed to go with Clint and April when they went last year, but it didn't work out. So Ed gave me this Scotland trip as my Christmas present. Brief and very vague itinerary: One day in London/Corby with our friend Patrick; one day of fellwalking with Patrick in the Lake District (and maybe with Kevin, too???); then head to the Dundee area and see Dundee, Stirling, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Glasgow?, and hopefully drive to the highlands for a day. And we hope to see our friends Tristan and Leslie in Stirling! I have no clue if this is all possible in a 9-day trip (5-day, if you don't count London/Lake District/travel), but that's our current inkling of a conceptual hypothesis. I haven't had the time or the brains, so far, to study all the travel materials we've collected and look into specifics. However, Ed and I are going to sit down together sometime this coming week and figure it all out, so I'll keep you posted.

Yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy, we're going to Scotland!!!!!!

Oh yeah, speaking of voicemail messages... Over the last month or so, Ed and I have received two phone calls to our Skype number in the middle of the night. Both times, neither of us woke up in time to get to the phone--although we *were* woken up--so both calls left messages:

Call #1: 4 a.m. Rustling, music somewhere in the background, then talking as though from a distance. No words distinguishable. More rustling. Then, a new voice talking, but this one sounds like a toy. And it sounds like several toys talking at once, overlapping each other: "I need a hug!" "What are we going to do today?" "(something-something-indistinguishable) hooray!" "I need a hug!" "What are we going to do today?" "(something-something-indistinguishable) hooray!" "I need a hug!" And so forth. More rustling. Then the toy voices start up again. The voicemail message continues in this vein for five minutes before stopping abruptly.

Call #2: 1 a.m. Rustling. Talking in the background. A kid's voice (real, not a toy), or maybe a toddler's. More rustling. An adult's voice, words indistinguishable. Then the adult says what sounds like "No, no, no!" More rustling. End.

Ed and I can't figure out who in the world is leaving these weird messages! The voicemails sound as though the person didn't know they had called, like they'd accidentally dialed the number or something. It's gotta be someone we know, but we can't figure out who it could be. Both times, the computer has been off (which is why our regular phone rang), so we haven't been able to see the number that was calling. It's just all very weird.

The first message reminds me of the time Ed and I (before we were married) used his talking Alf toy to leave a message on my roommate Tamara's voicemail, and she thought she was getting an obscene phone call. ;o)

Okay, it's now 5:45, and I think that's enough for one blopgost. If you read all of this ramblingness, you get a cookie. Enjoy.

Me, I'm gonna give the keyboard a rest from my vehement fury.

lotsa update-type-stuff

Did you know that on a 4-year-old laptop, it takes more than three hours to zip-compress 5.1 GB of digital pictures? I didn't know that until I started the process more than three hours ago. I store every current year's digital pics on my external hard drive. At the end of every year, I move the pics from the hard drive to a DVD, thereby freeing up hard drive space. This year, I'm a bit behind. I only just got around to working with year 2006 pics this morning. And now the eternal wait for compression. I can't believe that in one year, I took more digital pictures than can fit onto a 4.7 GB DVD-R. Good grief.

By the way, the laptop's name is Frodo. The external hard drive's name is Andromeda.

I really don't have much of a purpose in writing this current blogpost (or "blopgost" as I like to call them), except for the fact that I know I haven't blogged anything in a few weeks, and I'm waiting waiting waiting for Andromeda to do her thing.

Here's something funny: My mom brought me a box of old letters that I had saved. In it was a card from Susan Morris, who worked with the Chemnitz church with the Sullivans in the mid '90s. This was before I'd ever even heard of Chemnitz, and I certainly had no clue who the Sullivans were. Susan came to visit the church in Frankfurt in late 1994 or early 1995, when I was 17 years old. I met her briefly, and I vaguely remember speaking with her. Now, twelve years later, I re-read a card she sent to my mom. I never even suspected that one day, I would be living and working where she lived and worked. When I first saw the card again, I was amused by it but decided to toss it with the rest of the old letters. But now I've changed my mind. I'm going to stick it in my journal and keep it as a reminder of how God's plans are so much different from and so much more fulfilling than my own. It's funny and fascinating how he works out my life.

Pippin is lying next me, asleep, curled up into a ball, and snoring.

I am currently possessed of a grand sense of accomplishment. For four years, I have been working on a series of Bible lessons on some of the basics of Christian life and faith. (These are lessons that my friend James asked me to write once-upon-a-time. So even though I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to study them with him, I at least have him to thank for putting the idea into my head.) The lessons themselves, barring revisions, have been finished for a long time. But for over a year now (or two years? can't remember), I've been working on a Teacher's Guide for these lessons. Yesterday, in a thrilling flurry of hunt-and-peck typing, I finally finished the Teacher's Guide! The lessons themselves cover more than 100 pages, and the Teacher's Guide is 178 pages long. I still want to write intros to the Lessons and to the Guide, but other than that and minor revisions, I am done!!! YAY!!!!!! Several people have shown interest in using the lessons as material for their own one-on-one Bible studies, so I'm glad that something I've written can be of service to someone. If even one person can make use of the lessons, then all my time and effort was well worth it. :o)

In other news, I know I'm severely behind in answering comments. I'll get to that as soon as I reasonably can. Dear Commenting Readers, I haven't forgotten you!

And just FYI, in the time it has taken me to write this post, the zip-compression still hasn't finished. The wait continues...