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So, Kathy, work and no pay, eh? That's a real bummer. The worst effect of the Federal shutdown for me (so far!) is I'm not getting my astronomy picture of the day from NASA.
I agree, sorry to hear that Kathy. Hope your salary starts again soon.
Yes, I am working but without any guarantee of pay. Even if Congress decides to pay me eventually, it will be a while before I see that money, so I am living on savings at the moment. Fortunately I have some, but I am limiting my spending to food for me & the dogs, incoming bills, the gas to get to town, and personal products I can't reasonably live without. On top of that, we lost electricity for 17 hours the other day, and twice since then for shorter periods of time, so I've lost some of the food in my fridge. The dogs are getting some interesting meals as they seem a bit better able to handle some stuff 'on the verge' than I am! I spent today convincing people that no, they really can't go in the park. It really is closed. Most people have been quite nice - one was worried about me having enough food. I feel worse about my seasonal employees, who make less and have less savings than I do, and my neighbors, a family of five with a single income. Stuff is crazy.
Rant over.
That's really rough, Kathy. Hope the situation gets fixed, soon. I've been working seven days a week for a year now, as my wife has been sick. It's draining, and we're still barely getting by. She's been working on building some home businesses that she can do to whatever capacity her health will let her, and that money is probably going to be what pays our heating bills this winter. It's hard when you know the things that keep you struggling are completely beyond your control. I hope that your employment situation resolves quickly.
Wow, that's some work schedule, Nicolas! Hopefully your wife can find some work-from-home job - I hear medical transcriptionist is an up-and-coming career, done from home usually, but it does require some up-front training. Today I was ordered to shut more areas, so I've been running around trying to scrape together old materials to create more barricades, as we're out of the official ones. Pallets, trash cans, run-over traffic cones, odd wooden bits, and down limbs from the recent storms are all coming in handy.
Recent electrical outages have put our lift station (sewage transfer) out - not sure what to do about that. Poop happens.
Nicolas and Kathy - you make me feel ashamed of myself, feeling down just because the w/e is over and it's another Monday in work made worse by a meeting all afternoon. FFS! Get real, girl!Hope it works out for you both.
It's not so bad- my weekend job doesn't actually give me anything to do, I'm a placeholder. So I can write. And, hey, publishing four novels in a year, while working seven days a week, it's something to be proud of.We'll figure something out, Kathy. She's a very creative person, and the problem is largely that in addition to the more acute health issues of this last year, she has joint problems that prohibit her from doing jobs with a lot of handwriting or typing, or even staying on her feet or in one sitting position very long.
In the old days, she was continually struggling just to stay functional for "easy" entry-level jobs. Toward the latter part of her workweek, her joints would be so bad that she couldn't get dressed without my help. Trying to write a few pages of paperwork each day strained her wrists to the point that she couldn't close her hands. I've got my own health issues, but I can't imagine living with something that disruptive. I can't conceive not having the option to be a workaholic.
Sounds downright post apocalyptic, Kathy. It'll make for some weird stories, I'm sure.
Taking a break after having been chewed out by an irate German visitor. There was someone here to fix the sewer, though, which is a relief (not because I've been holding it the whole time, either.)
Oooer, missus, mustn't let it all back up...
I am fascinated by words, their accurate meaning, etymology, how the use of the word changes over time. This is the latest from one of the sites I enjoy:http://cjewords.blogspot.com/
Epizeuxis
Posted: 09 Nov 2013 10:22 PM PST
In linguistics, an epizeuxis is the repetition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis. Damn, damn, damn - that's another word I need in my vocabulary and will probably forget.
Have you come across any interesting words lately? Do you have a favourite word/word you loathe passionately? If you come across an interesting word do you use it or fear alienating your readers?
Breviloquence. It's actually in the dictionary. I thought it was just an overenthusiastic TV writer smashing words together.
I'm annoyed that I can no longer use 'gay' with its original meaning - such a lovely word.
I used 'plethora' in a spoken sentence today. Much to the consternation of my employee. Jay, the Rainbow Tavern around here changed its name to the Highway Bar & Grill recently for similar reasons (it's a biker bar).
Just finished your Words and Water story, Kathy - I really like your take on the many nations thing, many nationalities all wanting to help someone in trouble, and absolutely everyone caring about the missing dog.The other one I've had looks at music as the universal medium.
Please let me know if you'd like any edits!
Speaking of music, I just bought a banjo.
I bet that's fun, Kathy - what do the dogs make of it? Do they join in the songs?
One of them runs, the other one gets in the way. Of course, I'm not sure I can call it 'music' yet...
And here's an item of interest - views of non-Americans living in America, the things they find amazing/strange compared with their home countries:http://thoughtcatalog.com/michael-koh...
I'm amazed to hear that vegetables are so expensive in the States - they're much cheaper to produce than any meat, and so easy to grow for yourself. Also, there has to be a cost associated with producing processed food, so how can that be cheaper than raw vegetables? Vegetables aren't a health food, they're a basic on the same level as bread. Whenever I've been really short of cash I've relied on the ready availability of cheap vegetables, dried beans and pulses, to produce hearty and very tasty meals. For me, in times of hardship it's the meat that gets rationed in my weekly shop. It is really strange to me to find that there it's the veg that gets the chop (sorry about the pun!).
Another issue here is "grocery impoverishment", where people in inner cities with limited transportation or funds for transportation, do not have easy access to actual grocery stores, only to fast-food restaurants and gas-station mini-marts. The groceries are often in other areas of the city. So those people eat fast food and mini-mart meals. Ironically, though I live in a rural area, most of the crops here go to feed beef cattle and most of the cattle are shipped out of the area since there are no local slaughterhouses. There are very few slaughterhouses in the U.S. and they are virtually all owned by large corporations. So the local beef goes out of the area for slaughter and butchering, and is then shipped back in - jacking up the price.
That's abysmal - I hate waste of any kind, but to destroy food when people are hungry, just to keep the price up (so they couldn't afford it anyway) is diabolical.We've lost a lot of abattoirs in the UK as well - too many government restrictions for the smaller ones to survive financially - and the result in the recent past has been rapid spread over a very wide area of foot and mouth. One department exhorts us to reduce unnecessary travel at the same time another forces extra food miles. Crazy.
OK, I have to try the ice cream bread. I have my round of Soup Day at work coming up soon (going for spicy carrot soup) so I may experiment on my fellow employees.And hey, everyone needs to be able to watch videos while lying in bed!
The importance of cover fonts:I just ran across this book: Nefertiti's Heart and read the title as "Heferitis Heart". I assumed it was a book about mad cow disease until I deciphered it.
As long as it's not a mad cow who wrote it... oh no, that would be me lol! Which reminds me, this mad cow must knuckle down and get some writing done.As you're snowbound, Kathy, it's a great time for you to get cracking on another novel. How many snow days does it take for a first draft?
An interesting - and saddening - article on how humans have messed up dog breeds for exaggerated looks that win shows.http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.c...
I'm so sorry for your loss, Elizabeth. It's very hard saying goodbye to family members. I'm sure you made the right decision for your friend's sake, hard as it must have been for you.
Oh, I'm so sorry, Elizabeth! We live with our pets day in and day out, they are often closer to us than many members of our family. I'm a 'dog person' too, and have adopted four rescued cattle dogs (well, one was born after the rescue! it was her mom we pulled off 'death row'). I still light a candle for my dogs on the anniversary of their deaths. What wonderful little buddies they are!
The soonest I've ever been able to add another canine friend to the family is about 3 months, and that was after Nitro, who had an auto-immune disease and I'd expected to die for a couple years, finally passed away. I think it was a bit easier with him, since I knew I'd done absolutely everything I could, including taking him to some of the top vets in the country. Not that it was easy! But yeah, you need that time in between, I think. After Galyn, who I had for 15 1/2 years, died, I used to comfort myself by putting my face in her dog bed so I could smell her distinctive doggie odor!
I believe I have just read a modern Christmas classic.Unfortunately, it's not only unpublished, it's apparently been relegated to the dust-heap by the author!
I spent the last two days at the Winter Craft Fair at Centennial Mall in Craig, CO. At the table next to us was a gentleman doing a brisk business with his wood-turned pens and other small items. This morning he approached and handed me a small sheaf of papers, telling me that his 'army buddy' doesn't sleep well, and writes stories in the middle of the night. then he just tosses them in a stack in a box and forgets them. Apparently dick (the wood-turner) rescued this one and read it. He wanted to know my honest opinion.
I started out laughing. I ended up crying. It was a five-star story in my opinion, winding it's way from a modern high-school classroom through the Seven Years' War and ending up with the re-imagining of a well-known fairy tale, all with a Christmas theme (and all within 41 type-written, double-spaced pages).
I offered my email to Dick to pass on in case there's anything I can do to encourage this guy (I don't even know his name!) to get some of this stuff out there. Right now I'm just crossing my fingers...
K.A. wrote: "I believe I have just read a modern Christmas classic.Unfortunately, it's not only unpublished, it's apparently been relegated to the dust-heap by the author!
I spent the last two days at the Wi..."
My guess is there are lots of 5* stories out there, unpublished, unknown. The best authors are often the ones who either don't feel the need to have their work known or, more commonly, don't believe they are worthy of publication. Unfortunately the other side of the pendulum swing is the authors whose arrogance knows no bounds and they cannot accept that readers do not see the 5* quality they believe the tripe they're written deserves.
Yes, it's driving me nuts. I was at a booth with the bookstore where I sell some of my books, and they were selling small, Christmas-themed books, of which this story was the equal or better. I feel privileged to have been able to read it, if it never gets out of 'the box'.
Count me in if help with any prep for e-publication is needed.Any chance of a contribution to the 2014 anthology from this author?
I have no idea - I have no direct communication with him, only gave my own email address to his friend at the booth. I hope he will make contact with me but have no assurance that will happen. He might just not want to publish, though I really hope he does. At one point I was so engrossed in his story that I didn't realize someone had walked up to our booth and begun talking to me. Rude, I know!
Elizabeth wrote: "I had the unfortunate opportunity of witnessing the issues with inbreeding while working at an animal hospital. All of it done for the sake of keeping the line "pure bred". W..."Firstly so sorry for your loss Elizabeth, I find the 'rainbow bridge' poem a great comfort when I've suffered a loss.
re the pedigree breeders, as an insider to the world (cats, not dogs) it is often the rules registration bodies impose that make a huge difference as well as individual breeder choices.
In-breeding to a certain extent is impossible to avoid, because unless you breed like with like, you can't ever register the offspring as whatever 'breed' it's meant to be, even twenty generations down the line.
This is why I now register with TICA, because they allow outcrossing as you can register 4th generation cats as the breed you are working with. It takes years, and the lower generation kittens are harder to find homes for, but I want people to be able to enjoy my breed (birman) in a hundred years, and outcrossing for genetic health is necessary for that.
I'll get off my soap box now!
Hi all! when I first joined this group I was somewhat overwhelmed with information in the how to, and "welcome" discussions. I was looking for a forum like this to get answers when I needed them.
I don't have questions yet, but is is good to have a way to meet other authors in this group.I am a 17 year old author, and I published my first two books last year. I like Outdoor fiction, what is your favorite genre to write?
Then I thought 'well why haven't I already done so?' (!) so here we are - an idle chat thread.