Recording the My Abstract Life Audiobook

Tonight I recorded the My Abstract Life audiobook. It's going to take a fair bit of editing to get it cleaned up and releasable, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. There are a lot of starts and stops that have to be edited out, not to mention false starts, but it was an interesting experience.

Once I have it done, I'll be releasing it and the new version of the eBook as well. I want to do a simultaneous release because I'll be including a link to the audiobook in the eBook, so bear with me while I get all this worked out. It's essentially a podcast I'm creating, now that I think of it, and that's a whole new world for me, at least on the creation side.

Stealth-Mode Failure

THAT didn't take long. I got deep into planning my "stealth" story and worked on it so late I don't have time to work on anything else; I could try, but I'll be asleep in minutes, I'm sure.

I won't make a habit of this, but I thought it only fair to post and let everyone know that yes, I did write, but this status update is all I can share.

Unfortunately I don't know what the terms are for the publication I'm targeting. All I know right now is they're looking for unpublished work, but I don't know how strict that requirement is. Until I find out, I'm going to assume it's very strict.

An Exciting New Project

No story update tonight; I have an exciting new science fiction writing project I'm working on. I don't want to say too much about it just yet, because it's something I'll be submitting elsewhere, hopefully for publication. This means it will NOT be a piece of writing that will be posted here as I write it, or even after I write it, I'm afraid.

What I can say though is that going forward, I'm going to try not to use this project as a reason for not posting. I'll write it in "stealth mode," meaning if I spend a chunk of time working on it, I'll spend another chunk of time working on one of my existing works in progress as well, so that I still have something to share here.

This doesn't necessarily mean that nobody gets to read it though. I'd very much like to get feedback on it, once it's into a first-draft form that's readable. When that time comes, or likely just shortly before that time, I'll be looking for beta readers to critique and point out things that need to be fixed.

CES is Just About Done

CES has been crazy even though I didn't set foot anywhere near the States, let alone Las Vegas. It's almost done though. The show is pretty much over, everyone's coming home, all the video that's going to be shot has probably been shot. All that's left is to keep on working through the backlog.

There is quite a backlog, but I've also long since found my groove with all of it, as I did last year, so I think it's going pretty well. And this means I can probably start writing fiction again in the next day or so. I can't wait; the long pause is not sitting well with me. I suppose it's probably just as valuable as I've found the genre-switching though. A cleanse of the palette to revive and refresh.

ANOTHER Catastrophic Computer Failure, and CES

So this has been a fun week.

As you may recall, yesterday I suffered a catastrophic computer failure when my laptop decided to (I believe) lose its graphics card to some unknown hardware issue. I got myself set up with an older laptop as a backup, and all seemed pretty decent.

Until this morning.

THAT laptop ALSO died. ARGH!

So I had to go out and get a cheap NEW computer to replace those two, because I do need something to work with. Ugh. Not really what I needed right now, but at least I'm back up and running... again.

I ended up with an HP Pavilion p7-1418. It's a desktop, which makes it very cheap, which was very good for me, and since my original laptop was getting a bit older by now, it actually represents a little bit of an upgrade in some ways.

So a fiasco of a start to the week AND to the new year, but some good came of it. The job search is truly kicking into high gear now though. Unexpected expenses like that really hurt about now.

In other news, it's CES (the Consumer Electronics Show), and that means my duties for GeekBeat kick in. I am stepping into the shoes of Dave Peterson, our lead editor, while he's off at CES with Cali Lewis and John P, covering all the news that's fit to cover that they can fit into just a few days. I'll try to get some writing done this week, but it won't be tonight, that's for sure. Not after the last couple of days I've had.