I was pleasantly surprised this week. Despite my concerns about where to publish my next book (and yes there most certainly WILL be a next book), I decided what the hell – I’ll throw up my WIP (work in progress) on the bookcountry.com review board. The idea is for peer reviews to help you craft your masterpiece. In reality it tends to be largely a dead end even at best, though I got a couple of reasonably insightful comments on my one previous one-chapter post.
I’m on chapter 7 in my current WIP, so figured it would go through (again) several months of being ignored by everyone who wasn’t 1) me or 2) a friend. I posted it a few nights ago, along with the comments that this is draft #1 with NO edits whatsoever.
Much to my surprise, the next morning I got an email from Book Country highlighting that my story is one of their top ten picks for the WIP board. I’ve read some really atrocious stuff there, granted, and some excellent work. What puzzled me is how soon my name was added to their mass mailer. I might have assumed it was standard operating procedure for anyone, but I know from experience that isn’t the case. I don’t know if it’s because I’d been recognized once before for another work, or if it’s because they changed their algorithm. Just… puzzling.
I do know this time out I plan to do print simultaneously with ebook and audiobook. G’s trying to hint that I get rid of my audio equipment. Ain’t happening, baby. Tough shit. The first book isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever done, but neither is it the best. I’ll edit the print version because BC can’t quite get its head out of its ass to fix what I sent it to fix on the eBook. I’ll probably go ahead and do the audio book, too. The first effort is a learning project, not a best seller. It’s a throwaway, my kindergarten before getting to the real stuff.
Good, bad or indifferent, I’m not crawling under the rug over my writing, not even the dragon book. It got done and it got published. That fulfilled a long-time promise to myself and if I’m not perfect on the first outing, so be it.
The most immediate crises was averted last weekend, by the skin of my teeth. This week’s been exhausting, and I still have a heck of a lot to achieve over the next couple of weeks. Not sure how to fit it all in.
Those of you who know me know I work in the tech industry. I deal with server issues, day in and day out. If you’re not in the tech industry you probably don’t know that over the past 48 hours a really nasty digital hole was discovered in the Linux platform, one dubbed Shellshock because it attaches itself to the bash process in shell/SSH access levels. In plain English, it attaches itself to the guts of the computer and we don’t know yet what it does once it’s there. If you’ve got a Windows or Mac computer at home, you’re probably shrugging and asking yourself what difference that makes to you. Well guess what? Probably 75-80% of all websites are built on Linux servers, and nobody knows the extent to which the exploit has compromised information. If your bank account and medical files are on servers that spilled their guts to Russia, China or N. Korea, it’ll matter to you.
Oh, and Macs are vulnerable to it, too. Ironically, this one doesn’t impact Windows machines.
With all of that, we spent the day fielding calls on how to fix the exploit, and asking us to fix it, etc. It wasn’t a bad day but it was definitely a busy day. None of the people we were talking to were frantic because they HAD been hacked, they were simply trying to protect themselves against the possibility.
I started writing this on Friday night, but had to contend with a sick toddler for the majority of the weekend, one who didn’t want to be parted from his grandma. I love him to death, but I was very much ready for a break when he went to spend time with the other half of his family.