A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
So, computers. It’s times like this I’m ashamed to admit to a degree in Computer Science (or half of one, anyway). The computer problems are not shifting very fast at all.
I’ve got a new hard-drive (solid state and wow is it good) for the OS on my desk-top. It’s still Windows XP because I prefer it, but I’ve had to reinstall from scratch and I’ve lost a lot of my pictures and music because I was lazy. I haven’t lost anything else because I’ve always run two hard-drives: one for “system” and one for “data” – except for the stuff Microsoft tends to file under “My Documents”, which I shall eventually have to pay someone else to rescue for me. It’s all up and running except for losing the driver for my wireless connection. I also have to sort out the new printer so I can start spamming submitting print copies of my writing. You never know, I may even get to do some genealogy soon. Funny how you always want to do what you can’t…
The laptop is on Ubuntu 10.04 – or “Lucid Lynx” for some reason best not looked into – and now actually recognises the wireless connection. It even networks. But when wireless networked, it’s very very slow. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong in the first place (now a fortnight ago) because it worked fine when I did the install. I may just do a reinstall but I’m nervous of potentially loosing Internet access with both computers at the same time.
I have, of course, been avoiding working on both problems whenever possible. I have other things to do in my life and so they only get a couple of hours at the weekend a piece. As well as work, Finn and turning up for fencing, I’ve been concentrating on writing.
The latest New Dryas set stories have been sent out to various readers and are being polished off. I had hoped to put Down-Time in for Warrior Wisewoman [External Link] but I’m not sure it has the sense of wonder that Roby James looks for. Otherwise, they’re shaping up nicely in my very loose time-line.
The Alex Jones world is now also back in my thoughts. I’ve completed another method in 25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf and I think the whole collection just might work. It’s intended as a stand-alone novel and it’s unlikely that Alex (or Conn) will drift into it but never say “never”, etc. Because the werewolves so definitely follow the same rules as Alex’s do, there’s no doubt that these characters are running around in the same world. It’s also be good to working on an idea I put aside for so long – it’s good to know I can pick an idea up several months later and find it still works (or appears to). Also, the latest news on The Dog Handler acceptance: it looks like it will be published in the online version of Title Goes Here [External Link] in September 2011.
My final bit of writing miscellany: remember I went to Alt Fiction’s Other Worlds event [External Link] in Derby? Part of the event was a couple of workshops run in parallel. I went to the fantasy workshop led by Mark Charan Newton [External Link]. I now have a short story (about 1500 words) as a result of the cues he gave us. Sanctuary (working title) needs a bit more spit and polish before I decide what to do with it.