Sunday, September 22, 2013

Back to the intense pain

For the last couple of months, the chronic pain in my ribs has been hanging out around a two or three, with only an occasional flare up, but since Wednesday, we've been spending our time around an eight, with occasional shots of pain that go right off the scale.  Most of the 10+ pain incidents happen when I have to lift or move something heavy at work...unfortunately, this seems to happen quite often.
NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH: My guess is that the ribs have flexed into an unnatural position, which is causing them to strain everything around them, and until they "pop" back to where they need to be, I'm going to be in this intense pain.
Even taking heavy duty painkillers at night isn't really helping, and I'm exhausted from being woken up by the pain.  I'm so glad that the quack of a surgeon they sent me to couldn't find anything better to do than put me on medication that didn't work, and mostly made me want to blow my brains out.  Unfortunately, I'm currently uninsured, so I can't even go to my regular doctor.  I should have insurance again by the end of the year, but that's assuming that I keep my job, an assumption that isn't safe given the merger we're undergoing.
Some may think that Obamacare is the work of the devil, but as someone who suffers from chronic pain, I'm looking forward to it...especially given that insurance companies of the past could have denied me coverage.
For now, I'll suffer quietly, and hope that the little one stops trying to jump on me...

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Water water everywhere

For those of you following the news, Colorado has been seeing some of the worst flooding ever, and some of you may have noticed that Aurora (where we live) has been hit quite hard.  So far, there's no reason to worry about us.  In our area, we have seen quite a bit of street flooding, and the creek near us actually came over its banks yesterday, but it's several hundred feet away from us, and a good thirty or forty feet lower than us in altitude, so it would take some incredibly substantial flooding for it to get to us.
We are expecting another inch or two of rain today, but after this, we're supposed to dry out, and we're all more than ready for it.
Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed or messaged me asking how we're doing.  Your concern is appreciated.


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Maybe I should have said something...

Most of you will remember that at the beginning of the year, Sam's Dot Publishing was taken over by White Cat Publishing.  It was only a couple of months later that I left Sam's Dot.  At the time, I said that it was because I wanted more time with my family, and more time for writing.  There was some truth to that, but it wasn't the whole truth.  In actuality, I wasn't getting paid on time, I wasn't getting information on when titles would be published, and authors and other editors weren't getting paid at all.  I decided to take the high road at the time, and not discuss it openly, but I'm now seeing that another round of editors has quit for many of the same reasons, and the authors still aren't getting paid.
When I was with Sam's Dot and ProMart, we always made the writers a priority, and now I feel like maybe I should have said something when I left in the hope that some of the writers who are now going through hell with White Cat wouldn't have had to go through that hell.  I feel like I owed it to those authors, and now I'm sorry that I didn't give them a warning about the things I saw going on.
I hope that those authors will find homes for their work, and I also hope that White Cat will someday learn how to treat their editors and writers, but in all honesty, I'm not hopeful for the latter.  Considering that it would seem that we were all intentionally purged because we knew Tyree is quite ridiculous.  The publisher had a fully trained editorial staff in place, and could have been quite successful, but I guess that was never going to happen...


Sunday, September 08, 2013

Another one of my crazy ideas?

As I'm working on expanding and growing Nomadic Delirium Press, the idea of doing novellas suddenly seemed like a good idea.  What I was thinking about was doing something like the old Ace Doubles.  Basically taking two very different novellas and slapping them together.  I'm not really sure if this is a good idea, or if this is just my sleep-deprived mind sending me some sort of hallucinations.
I'd be curious to know if anyone else thinks this is a good idea, or do I just need to get more sleep...


Tuesday, September 03, 2013

We've lost another one

Yesterday, Frederik Pohl passed away.  He was a very big influence on me.  From the time I first learned to put a subject and a predicate together, I've been writing stories...even then, mostly science fiction.  But it was after reading Gateway that I decided that I really wanted to be a science fiction author.  I loved all of the Heechee novels, and there was something in the telling of those stories that had a huge impact on me.
Like, love, or hate my fiction, Frederik Pohl is a big reason why my writing is out there for others to read. So, I thank him, and say goodbye.  He will be missed.

Monday, September 02, 2013

Glad that week's over

August started out well, but it faltered quite a bit at the end.  Last Monday, Rebecca got a call from her district manager telling her that they were transferring her to a new store effective Sep. 1st.  She had to leave all of the good friends she'd made at her old store, and wasn't thrilled about it...but she's a trooper, and she's going to make the best of it, and be the best damn supervisor her new store has ever seen.
About an hour later, she found out that her parent's dog, Missy, had to be put down.  Missy was such a great dog.  The first time she met me, she climbed onto my lap and tried to stay there all day.  She was a 70-80 lb black lab, so lapdog is quite the misnomer.  She was always very protective of our girls, and was one of the best dogs I've ever known.  She is definitely missed.
We have reason to believe that there is more crap headed our way, but hopefully it won't happen.  I can't really talk about it...