I posted a quick update at my new website:
http://tianevitt.com/2017/06/13/quick-update-2/
I am still trying to get this blog connected with my new website, so I don’t have to cross-post like this, but it is not connecting properly. I have submitted a help ticket and can hopefully resolve this soon!
This post is at my new site at:
http://tianevitt.com/2017/05/01/so-i-had-the-good-fortune-of-losing-my-fitbit/.
Jetpack, the tool I would ordinarily use to point my WordPress subscribers to my new site, is misbehaving, so I’ll cross post here until I can figure out how to get it to work.
Please bear with me and thanks for subscribing!
I took today off and over the past weekend, I have been moving my website to a self-hosted wordpress blog. I have been meaning to do this for two years now, but something comes up every spring.
Well, this year, I was determined to get it done. I pulled all my media over to my new hosting site, and the DNS servers have been re-pointed. This website should continue to exist as a free website under my username, tianevitt, and I’ll have access to all the premium features until next month.
WordPress is simply funner as a self-hosted site. WordPress.com is quite frustrating in a number of ways. I found a webhost that takes spam and hacks seriously, which was what drove me away from my former self-hosted site. I even paid extra for hack monitoring service.
However, I have a problem. AÂ number of people have subscribed to my site here, and I have no way to point you to my new site. So I think I will double-post for a while, posting at my new site while putting up a post here with a link that points to the new site. That way, the post with the link will reach subscribers here.
The new site will look a bit spartan when it comes online, but it should be fun to build it and tweak it over the next few weeks. I even have a subdomain that I want to set up as a separate site, because I have would like a blog dedicated to my job as a business analyst.
See ya there!
. . . cut, cut, cut again.
And so, East of Yesterday (or Highway to Yesterday, I can never quite decide), which was once over 116,000 words, is now a trim 95,000 words. My latest cut was 11,400 words all at once, when I decided some pretty lengthy scenes were unneeded backstory that was written from the wrong character’s point-of-view.
I’ll be able to rewrite what is needed for the story from the right character’s point of view, and I don’t expect to take anywhere near 11400 words to do so. I may even be able to cut some additional things toward the end.
I just wanted to celebrate that little triumph with you. Back to the rewrite.
Oh! Do you have a preference? Do you like East of Yesterday as a title, or Highway to Yesterday? I find the first title nicely subtle, but the second title is a little more obvious as a time travel novel, and it is my current working title.
So a few years ago, it was bifocals. Now, for the second time after an x-ray, I heard the A word.
Arthritis. So.
On the one hand, at least I know what is causing this new, unwelcome pain.
On the other, it’s chronic. I gotta learn to live with it.
On the one hand, I also have arthritis in my shoulder, and after some therapy, I have learned to live with the pain, and most of the time, to avoid experiencing it in the first place. When the pain strikes, I know what to do.
On the other hand, in order to get to that point, I gotta have that therapy. For which I must wait.
In the meantime, it’ll take gentle back stretches, heat packs, anti-inflammatories, and time. Oh, and Aspercream. I may also look into tai chi.
There are some other things that might be contributing to this issue, one that can be somewhat controlled with diet (and which I manage to control most of the time) and the other which may be fixable with surgery. Maybe in the next year. Not now. I’ll try the therapy first.
So, now that I know what’s going on, and now that I know that the painful act of sitting is not actually causing any damage (even though it feels like it is), I am going to attempt to resume my usual activities. And, with a little discipline, I hope for that to mean that I resume a more regular blogging schedule. 🙂
There are few simple activities that I enjoy more than a walk in the woods. I’m fortunate in that in this part of North Florida, we have some pretty nice woods–not too swampy most of the time.
Today, I wanted to take a walk in the woods, but for whatever reason, I didn’t. Therefore, I thought I’d post some pictures of my last walk in the woods just a few short weeks ago.
The Shadowy Ones — my daughter and me
It’s just a simple park–really, a woody spot that run alongside a highway, where no one would have build anything, anyway.
Note the highway beyond the trees.
After another bend in the path, or two. Seems like hours had passed, but we were only there thirty or forty minutes.
In the next few photos, I’m trying to be artsy.
I love taking these dizzying “up” photos.
And I try to frame things.
This up photo has a more prominent subject.
And finally, a small field and a swamp … er, a pond.
This is probably the biggest field in the woody part of the park. (There’s also a soccer field and a playground, but I don’t count those.)
A swamp that tries to be a pond.
Dig those lilly pads!
I must admit that I do miss the more vibrant–and less buggy–woods of Northern Arizona. And I have some fond memories of wandering in some woods in Northern Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Northern England. Each had their own charms.
Do you have a favorite outdoors spot?
It seems like a year since I posted last, even though I know it hasn’t been so long. But it HAS been a rough year. Not terrible–just a little rough.
After the most productive writing year of my life, during which I completed two novels (2015), I had the LEAST productive writing year of my life. I blame insomnia for making me just tired enough to make writing (including blogs and submitting said books to agents) a chore rather than a pleasure.
Chores are no fun.
My insomnia seems to stem from persistent intestinal gas that strikes at about 4:00 AM every night. No matter what I eat. I don’t like to go to bed particularly early, since I like to squeeze as much living into my life as possible, but when I am up at 4, it makes it difficult to function when I don’t go to bed until 11. When I went to bed earlier, the gas would merely strike earlier. I’d still be awake for about two hours, resulting in oversleeping, getting into work later than I wanted, and therefore working later into the evening than I wanted, resulting in a vicious cycle.
The good news is that melatonin seems to be helping. I still wake up with the gas, but the melatonin makes me sleepy enough most nights to be able to get back to sleep without lying there for hours. I am still working on getting a solid week of at least 6.5 hours of sleep. I’m not there yet, but I’m closer.
So that’s all.
I’m thinking about renaming my blog to something like Life, Writing, and Stuff. Yeah, I know that name sucks. I may play with formats and titles over the next few weeks. I also need to figure out if I want to move this blog out of wordpress.com and into a self-hosted site. I meant to do it last year (and the year before, and the year before), but I had that terrible infection. Yeah, yeah, excuses. And–oh, yeah–I did say that was all, didn’t I? One more thing …
What I’m Reading Now
I am slowly reading The Dreaming Hunt by Cindy Dees, which is the sequel to The Sleeping King. I meant to review The Sleeping King last year, but see above. I’m almost done with it and it has been pretty entertaining because it is much like reading the adventures of a RPG group going through a long-term campaign. Five adventurers (or maybe six) fighting their way through battles with all kinds of fantasy races, while constantly being healed and even resurrected when necessary. Maybe I’ll review both books together when I’m done. (However, any such review will be WAY more informal than those I used to write. I am still not considering myself a book reviewer. It’s just stuff I’m reading.)
That really is it, this time. What have you been up to? Any good fantasy book recommendations?
Hey, everyone. I know I’ve been on a long, unannounced hiatus. Since I finally have a “down” weekend this weekend, I’m planning on posting an update then, probably by Sunday afternoon.
I hope everyone has been well!
I hate it when I start a post, and then I can’t finish it for days! The original title of this post was Summer’s Over Tomorrow! My life is too hectic.
Since I live in Florida, the end of summer is definitely something to celebrate. Now maybe, I’ll come out of my hibernation. The weather has actually been much better than usual in recent weeks. We had a brutally hot July and early August, but a tropical storm passed by a few weeks ago, and brought milder weather with it. I’m hoping the hot summer means we have a nice, cold winter. We have not had a cold winter in several years.
And now I can feel autumn in the air! Our Chinese Flame Tree is ready to flame up!
I have not been reading as much as usual. When I do read, it has been nonfiction. The first is Cicero by Anthony Everitt. I have a fascination with Rome and especially Cicero, who Everitt brands as “Rome’s Greatest Politician”, and I’ve had this book for quite a while, now. I’m slogging through the chapters on his early life right now. I’m hoping I’ll see more of the writings by Cicero in the chapters ahead. Also, my boss is being a good mentor and sent me home with a technical book called Design Patterns. It’s actually much more engaging than you might think.
We did not go anywhere this summer, other than two trips to Melbourne. We keep talking about taking a trip to Pensacola, and I hope to make that happen sometime this fall or winter (or spring).
That and writing is most of what I’ve been up to. How about you?
~*~
Got a book in the mail called The Dreaming Hunt by Cindy Dees. It reminded me of a book I read a while ago called, The Sleeping King. I intended to review it, but never did, so I hope to work on that this week. I don’t normally review books anymore, but every once in a while, I make an exception. I do still like to read, and I do still like discussing books, after all!
I was looking for something else on my hard drive when I stumbled across this infographic that I had written a few years ago, and which turned up missin
g. I remember looking for it and not being able to find it anywhere. I gave up, assuming that I had closed Word without saving.
But it turns out, I had dumped it in the root My Documents directory. Where I never put anything. Or so I thought. Turns out there’s all kinds of miscellaneous stuff in there, which I now should go through. Maybe I’ll find another hidden treasure.
It’s based on this post:
https://tianevitt.com/2013/05/30/how-to-troubleshoot-and-rewrite-a-scene/
It now has top billing at my Infographics page.
Tia Nevitt 