Many Things, unless the children wake up
I blocked myself from getting onto Tumblr until tomorrow morning, mostly because I could feel myself being dragged back into the pro/anti-Mary fight all over again, and since that particular battle nearly pushed me into leaving the fandom two years ago, I'm pretty wary about going back there.
Also, I spent a good chunk of last night's writing time on it already, and I'd really rather not procrastinate any longer from working on the stories that need writing.
Which is why I'm writing an LJ entry instead.
1. I think I should formally get a copyright for The Country Omega. I've been thinking about it for the last week or so, and I've done a bit of research. Technically, I don't have to register for one - the book is pretty much considered mine once I've published it and stuck the little (c) symbol on it. But part of me thinks that it would be a very good idea to do it, because I'm using a pen name, and right now, there's not very many places that have both my RL name and my pen name as the same person. (Amazon, yes. Wordpress, yes. That's about it.) My thought is just to have something official somewhere that says, "Yes, Sharon XXX is actually P.P., look, here's the proof.)
(That poor man's copyright thing where you mail it to yourself? According to the Copyright Office's FAQ is not actually valid.)
Anyway: copyright is only $35, and it appears that I can do it online (even though it appears to take flippin' forever for it to actually go through the system). I am wondering what you all think, though. I think I'd only do it for the first book - just to have some record somewhere that I'm the same person.
This is probably paranoia. If so, I'm okay with that.
2. Also on the research end of it - most of what I was reading talked about how you should start early to create a website and buzz about your book, prior to its release. I've tried that - and I think I'm doing it wrong. Possibly because I have no idea what I'm meant to be doing in order to create the buzz. If I were going through the traditional publishing process, I'd have something to talk about - galley copies and decisions about the cover and bookstore appearances and all that - but I'm not. There aren't galley copies, there wasn't a big decision about the cover, and you don't really do bookstore appearances for ebooks. (At least, I've never seen anyone do it. How do you sign someone's Kindle?)
Plus I feel kind of stupid saying, "HERE, LOOK, IT'S A BOOK I WROTE, but you can't buy it yet because it's not out and it's not up for pre-order because I'm not entirely sure I see the benefit to having pre-orders lalala please reblog this post for me because you're the only advertising I'm gonna get."
(This probably just reinforces the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing. This is also proof that Future Me never meets the Doctor and gets offered a free ride in the TARDIS, because otherwise Future Me would have shown up by now and told me how to do this better.)
3. That said... I wish there was a better network of fandom authors who have published books. One of the pieces of advice I've seen is to link up with author friends and use each other to promote each other's books. And another piece of advice I've seen is to know your audience, and use them.
Well... I know my audience. Problem is, at the moment, it exists primarily in fandom spaces. (I have two guaranteed audience members who are not from fandom spaces, and I am related to both of them, so they don't count.) And that's one space that I share with a bunch of other writers - and I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe there is a secret Fandom Author Turned Published Author of Original Works Club out there, and I just haven't been given the secret handshake yet.
4. This all ties into my own wondering on exactly how seperate I want to make my fandom writing and my original writing. It seems that the norm is UTTER SECRECY, or at least non-admittance. As in, if you don't know someone's pen name already, you'd never know it to look at their webpages. I'm beginning to wonder why that is. I mean... don't get me wrong, I'm still not going to publish this book under my own name... but is it truly necessary to make the effort to keep "azriona" and P.P. separate, when I've kept my last name from being associated with "azriona" in the first place?
(No, really. I keep my last name off - which is kind of silly, it's a super common last name, but it makes me feel safer.)
Argh. I do not think I like this part of the writing process.
5. In other news... I have not done much writing so far this year. I have, however, done a shit-ton of editing and adding and fixing, so I'm feeling very productive in that regard, at least.
6. Andrew started back at kindergarten yesterday. I practically hugged the bus driver. I did tell her she was my favorite person in the world; she said she'd been getting a lot of that lately. :)
Andrew's settled in really well - the first morning was a bit rough, but for most of the two weeks he had off, he was asking about why he wasn't going to school, so I think he was very glad to actually go. And he's back to wanting to play school at home (he's the teacher, and Bill and I have to raise our hands and ask questions or answer questions or something, and usually I get in trouble for completely random reasons or no reason at all).
Best part is that I don't think he slipped much over the two weeks - his reading has really improved, he seems to have the concept of word down pat, and his writing, if not perfectly neat, is at least inteligible. Some of the returning work he's done at school indicates that we might need to focus on numbers a bit more, but otherwise I think he's doing pretty well.
7. Which leads to the main Andrew issue: therapy. For the last two calendar years, we've had trouble convincing the insurance company to pay out for his speech and occupational therapies. According to them, he's got a developmental delay. According to the therapists, his issues are nothing to do with developmental delay, and we've all read the insurances's rulebook back and forth and there's no reason at all why his therapies shouldn't be covered.
And yet... every year for the last two years, I've spent six months on the phone and making copies and mailing things in order to get Andrew's therapy covered.
Except in August, when we finally got the therapy covered - the insurance company told me point-blank that they weren't going to cover Andrew's therapy in 2016. Period. No exceptions. They were basically going to deny him the coverage before we even tried to claim it. (Which now that I type it, I'm not sure they can legally do.) And we're supposed to move in six months; I really, really don't have time to deal with the phone calls and the run-around and the ridiculousness of getting them to pay out the $126/week for Andrew's therapies.
Andrew's therapist wants to try submitting anyway; to an extent, I'm okay with that. But I absolutely do not want this to drag on forever. If they deny... I'm really tempted to just say, "Screw it", and start paying for his therapy out of pocket. (Particularly if she's willing to give us a self-pay rate that is less than the $70/session insurance requires she charge. She was willing two years ago; not sure if she's willing now.) And of course this is exactly what insurance wants us to do, and the fact that I'm just giving in does sort of grate, especially when everything they've put in print indicates that he should be covered.... but I just don't have the energy or patience or time.
Tied into this is my uncertainty that he needs it. I mean... he still needs the speech therapy, but I don't think it's quite as dire as it was previously. His grammar's not all that great, and he's still a whiz at circumlocution, and there's some letters he just can't say ('th' is one), but otherwise? He does all right. His current speech therapist (who is not the same as the woman who runs the office and handles the billing and was Andrew's original speech therapist when we began two and a half years ago) didn't even think he needed speech therapy twice a week, and that was the norm up until the school year started, partially because he was behind. And OT? The school's not even worried about that anymore; they cut back his OT hours during his last IEP, and seemed to think he'd be all caught up within a year.
Again, argh. Again, no idea. Again, where the hell is Future Me and that TARDIS?
8. Charlie, in the meantime, is doing very well. Big events in Charlie's world include:
--the near-acquisition of teeth. He has two. They are RIGHT. THERE. You can see them under the gums, it looks like there's only the thinnest membrane covering them, that a single push with a fingernail would pop those pearly white suckers clear. They've been like that for at least a week now. They are driving me insane.
--Crawling! Yup, he finally crawled. It's adorable. Early efforts were that weird crawl where he was on one knee, and one foot. We called him Peg-Leg Charlie for a little bit. Now he's doing the traditional double-knee crawl more often. He also does that thing where he sits, and falls forward on his hands, only to rock back up to sitting but in a different location, so eventually he gets to his destination but in a very circular pattern.
--Cruising! (That's where he's holding onto things like furniture or walking toys or parents and using them to hold himself upright as he walks.)
--Things Charlie Likes: the cat, his big brother, chicken and sweet potatoes, teething crackers, the dishwasher, the swings in the playground, bathtime.
--Things Charlie Doesn't Like: sleep, his carseat, sleep, the bitter cold that makes the playground impossible, sleep, Momma combing through his hair. And sleep.
9. Cleo has tried three times to go outside today. All three times, she whined at the door until I opened it, at which point she daintily stuck out her nose, stood in the doorway so I couldn't close the door, and then changed her mind because today was FLIPPIN' COLD OUTSIDE and went back to sleep on her warm windowsill.
Anyway, that's all I can think of, and I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed where I will curl up with my current book and read until I fall asleep or when Charlie remembers that he doens't like to sleep through the night. Usually these things occur simoultaneously. Which might be why I'm exhausted.
p.s. oh, yes, the Sherlock special was awesome and I loved it tons and it might be my favorite of ALL the episodes, I haven't decided. and someday, when Charlie is in kindergarten, I will write a review of it.
Also, I spent a good chunk of last night's writing time on it already, and I'd really rather not procrastinate any longer from working on the stories that need writing.
Which is why I'm writing an LJ entry instead.
1. I think I should formally get a copyright for The Country Omega. I've been thinking about it for the last week or so, and I've done a bit of research. Technically, I don't have to register for one - the book is pretty much considered mine once I've published it and stuck the little (c) symbol on it. But part of me thinks that it would be a very good idea to do it, because I'm using a pen name, and right now, there's not very many places that have both my RL name and my pen name as the same person. (Amazon, yes. Wordpress, yes. That's about it.) My thought is just to have something official somewhere that says, "Yes, Sharon XXX is actually P.P., look, here's the proof.)
(That poor man's copyright thing where you mail it to yourself? According to the Copyright Office's FAQ is not actually valid.)
Anyway: copyright is only $35, and it appears that I can do it online (even though it appears to take flippin' forever for it to actually go through the system). I am wondering what you all think, though. I think I'd only do it for the first book - just to have some record somewhere that I'm the same person.
This is probably paranoia. If so, I'm okay with that.
2. Also on the research end of it - most of what I was reading talked about how you should start early to create a website and buzz about your book, prior to its release. I've tried that - and I think I'm doing it wrong. Possibly because I have no idea what I'm meant to be doing in order to create the buzz. If I were going through the traditional publishing process, I'd have something to talk about - galley copies and decisions about the cover and bookstore appearances and all that - but I'm not. There aren't galley copies, there wasn't a big decision about the cover, and you don't really do bookstore appearances for ebooks. (At least, I've never seen anyone do it. How do you sign someone's Kindle?)
Plus I feel kind of stupid saying, "HERE, LOOK, IT'S A BOOK I WROTE, but you can't buy it yet because it's not out and it's not up for pre-order because I'm not entirely sure I see the benefit to having pre-orders lalala please reblog this post for me because you're the only advertising I'm gonna get."
(This probably just reinforces the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing. This is also proof that Future Me never meets the Doctor and gets offered a free ride in the TARDIS, because otherwise Future Me would have shown up by now and told me how to do this better.)
3. That said... I wish there was a better network of fandom authors who have published books. One of the pieces of advice I've seen is to link up with author friends and use each other to promote each other's books. And another piece of advice I've seen is to know your audience, and use them.
Well... I know my audience. Problem is, at the moment, it exists primarily in fandom spaces. (I have two guaranteed audience members who are not from fandom spaces, and I am related to both of them, so they don't count.) And that's one space that I share with a bunch of other writers - and I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe there is a secret Fandom Author Turned Published Author of Original Works Club out there, and I just haven't been given the secret handshake yet.
4. This all ties into my own wondering on exactly how seperate I want to make my fandom writing and my original writing. It seems that the norm is UTTER SECRECY, or at least non-admittance. As in, if you don't know someone's pen name already, you'd never know it to look at their webpages. I'm beginning to wonder why that is. I mean... don't get me wrong, I'm still not going to publish this book under my own name... but is it truly necessary to make the effort to keep "azriona" and P.P. separate, when I've kept my last name from being associated with "azriona" in the first place?
(No, really. I keep my last name off - which is kind of silly, it's a super common last name, but it makes me feel safer.)
Argh. I do not think I like this part of the writing process.
5. In other news... I have not done much writing so far this year. I have, however, done a shit-ton of editing and adding and fixing, so I'm feeling very productive in that regard, at least.
6. Andrew started back at kindergarten yesterday. I practically hugged the bus driver. I did tell her she was my favorite person in the world; she said she'd been getting a lot of that lately. :)
Andrew's settled in really well - the first morning was a bit rough, but for most of the two weeks he had off, he was asking about why he wasn't going to school, so I think he was very glad to actually go. And he's back to wanting to play school at home (he's the teacher, and Bill and I have to raise our hands and ask questions or answer questions or something, and usually I get in trouble for completely random reasons or no reason at all).
Best part is that I don't think he slipped much over the two weeks - his reading has really improved, he seems to have the concept of word down pat, and his writing, if not perfectly neat, is at least inteligible. Some of the returning work he's done at school indicates that we might need to focus on numbers a bit more, but otherwise I think he's doing pretty well.
7. Which leads to the main Andrew issue: therapy. For the last two calendar years, we've had trouble convincing the insurance company to pay out for his speech and occupational therapies. According to them, he's got a developmental delay. According to the therapists, his issues are nothing to do with developmental delay, and we've all read the insurances's rulebook back and forth and there's no reason at all why his therapies shouldn't be covered.
And yet... every year for the last two years, I've spent six months on the phone and making copies and mailing things in order to get Andrew's therapy covered.
Except in August, when we finally got the therapy covered - the insurance company told me point-blank that they weren't going to cover Andrew's therapy in 2016. Period. No exceptions. They were basically going to deny him the coverage before we even tried to claim it. (Which now that I type it, I'm not sure they can legally do.) And we're supposed to move in six months; I really, really don't have time to deal with the phone calls and the run-around and the ridiculousness of getting them to pay out the $126/week for Andrew's therapies.
Andrew's therapist wants to try submitting anyway; to an extent, I'm okay with that. But I absolutely do not want this to drag on forever. If they deny... I'm really tempted to just say, "Screw it", and start paying for his therapy out of pocket. (Particularly if she's willing to give us a self-pay rate that is less than the $70/session insurance requires she charge. She was willing two years ago; not sure if she's willing now.) And of course this is exactly what insurance wants us to do, and the fact that I'm just giving in does sort of grate, especially when everything they've put in print indicates that he should be covered.... but I just don't have the energy or patience or time.
Tied into this is my uncertainty that he needs it. I mean... he still needs the speech therapy, but I don't think it's quite as dire as it was previously. His grammar's not all that great, and he's still a whiz at circumlocution, and there's some letters he just can't say ('th' is one), but otherwise? He does all right. His current speech therapist (who is not the same as the woman who runs the office and handles the billing and was Andrew's original speech therapist when we began two and a half years ago) didn't even think he needed speech therapy twice a week, and that was the norm up until the school year started, partially because he was behind. And OT? The school's not even worried about that anymore; they cut back his OT hours during his last IEP, and seemed to think he'd be all caught up within a year.
Again, argh. Again, no idea. Again, where the hell is Future Me and that TARDIS?
8. Charlie, in the meantime, is doing very well. Big events in Charlie's world include:
--the near-acquisition of teeth. He has two. They are RIGHT. THERE. You can see them under the gums, it looks like there's only the thinnest membrane covering them, that a single push with a fingernail would pop those pearly white suckers clear. They've been like that for at least a week now. They are driving me insane.
--Crawling! Yup, he finally crawled. It's adorable. Early efforts were that weird crawl where he was on one knee, and one foot. We called him Peg-Leg Charlie for a little bit. Now he's doing the traditional double-knee crawl more often. He also does that thing where he sits, and falls forward on his hands, only to rock back up to sitting but in a different location, so eventually he gets to his destination but in a very circular pattern.
Click to view--Cruising! (That's where he's holding onto things like furniture or walking toys or parents and using them to hold himself upright as he walks.)
--Things Charlie Likes: the cat, his big brother, chicken and sweet potatoes, teething crackers, the dishwasher, the swings in the playground, bathtime.
--Things Charlie Doesn't Like: sleep, his carseat, sleep, the bitter cold that makes the playground impossible, sleep, Momma combing through his hair. And sleep.
9. Cleo has tried three times to go outside today. All three times, she whined at the door until I opened it, at which point she daintily stuck out her nose, stood in the doorway so I couldn't close the door, and then changed her mind because today was FLIPPIN' COLD OUTSIDE and went back to sleep on her warm windowsill.
Anyway, that's all I can think of, and I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed where I will curl up with my current book and read until I fall asleep or when Charlie remembers that he doens't like to sleep through the night. Usually these things occur simoultaneously. Which might be why I'm exhausted.
p.s. oh, yes, the Sherlock special was awesome and I loved it tons and it might be my favorite of ALL the episodes, I haven't decided. and someday, when Charlie is in kindergarten, I will write a review of it.