The Good, the Bad, the Coffee
Charlie woke up at 4:30 this morning, and didn't go down for a nap until 10am. Incidentally, coffee is not working. I made myself a very large mocha (I figured out that if I add cocoa powder to the coffee grounds in my French press, it turns out super smooth nom nom nom) and I still want a nap.
Nap not possible today. Charlie's gonna wake up and Andrew's coming home from gymnastics and Bill has a co-worker's funeral to attend.
A couple of negative reviews for the book the other day put me in a bad spot. Thing is - after I thought about it for a while, I realized they've probably the first negative reviews I've received in years. Most people in fandom don't leave them - the back button is pretty easy to hit - and for some reason, while there are some who get hit hard with trolls and flames and the like, I've been super lucky and never got one. (Or if I did, I didn't recongize it as such.) And basically, all the reviews said was that they didn't like the book. (One went into a bit more detail, but it was essentially the same thing.) And that's... okay. So three people didn't like the book. I'm pretty sure there are more than three people who don't like Mise or Power Play or the Hearts 'Verse either. No one gets universal accolates online, it's silly to assume anyone deserves them.
However, someone left the most GORGEOUS review for me on GoodReads this morning, and I read it with hearts in my eyes and it made me feel so much better.
(Fictional hockey boys kissing was also helpful, but fleeting. Along the same lines, there must be people who don't like Check Please either. I bet they're all running for the Republican nomination, though.)
(Was that catty? That was catty. Bad me.)
I finished a second book on Thursday - Draft 3, if we're going to be technical about it. I want to do a read-through before I send it to Mildred for a first pass, though. I would have started that today, but honestly, I'm so tired, I would certainly have missed something, so it'll wait until tomorrow. But I'm glad I finished it - the goal was to have it ready to send out by March 1, and I'm going to meet that self-imposed deadline easily, so I'm pleased. It's not quite as polished as TCO was at this point - but I think it's good, and I know there's room for further tweaking. The ultimate goal is to have it out by the end of April, which I think is still doable. We'll see. The nice thing about self-imposed deadlines is that I'm pretty sure that I'm willing to wiggle a bit on them when necessary.
In other news... Virginia primaries on Tuesday. I'm not sure how to vote. I mean... I know who I'd like to vote for, but I'm not sure if I vote that way, it'll do much good, and I really want my vote to make as much impact as possible. I'd like to vote for Bernie Sanders, but most of the polls at this point say that Hillary is going to win Virginia by a fairly large margin. So I'm tempted to go with the Republicans on this one (because in Virginia, you can go either way if you're registered as an independent, which I am, for this reason exactly). And while I like Bernie better... if Hillary wins the nomination (or even the presidency) I don't think the country will be going to hell anytime soon.
Thing is... on the Republican side, I'd like to vote for Not Trump (probably John Kasich, definitely not Cruz), but the same polls say that while Trump is greatly disliked, he's also the most likely to win.
(Which just makes no sense. If you don't like him, why the heck are you voting for him, Virginians? This is not like voting someone OFF the island, you know.)
And the second most popular Not Trump is Rubio, and I'm not all that fond of Rubio, either. Argh argh argh argh. I was really, really hoping that Trump would be well out of the race by now, but... no such luck.
Thoughts and theories welcome, if anyone has them.
Nap not possible today. Charlie's gonna wake up and Andrew's coming home from gymnastics and Bill has a co-worker's funeral to attend.
A couple of negative reviews for the book the other day put me in a bad spot. Thing is - after I thought about it for a while, I realized they've probably the first negative reviews I've received in years. Most people in fandom don't leave them - the back button is pretty easy to hit - and for some reason, while there are some who get hit hard with trolls and flames and the like, I've been super lucky and never got one. (Or if I did, I didn't recongize it as such.) And basically, all the reviews said was that they didn't like the book. (One went into a bit more detail, but it was essentially the same thing.) And that's... okay. So three people didn't like the book. I'm pretty sure there are more than three people who don't like Mise or Power Play or the Hearts 'Verse either. No one gets universal accolates online, it's silly to assume anyone deserves them.
However, someone left the most GORGEOUS review for me on GoodReads this morning, and I read it with hearts in my eyes and it made me feel so much better.
(Fictional hockey boys kissing was also helpful, but fleeting. Along the same lines, there must be people who don't like Check Please either. I bet they're all running for the Republican nomination, though.)
(Was that catty? That was catty. Bad me.)
I finished a second book on Thursday - Draft 3, if we're going to be technical about it. I want to do a read-through before I send it to Mildred for a first pass, though. I would have started that today, but honestly, I'm so tired, I would certainly have missed something, so it'll wait until tomorrow. But I'm glad I finished it - the goal was to have it ready to send out by March 1, and I'm going to meet that self-imposed deadline easily, so I'm pleased. It's not quite as polished as TCO was at this point - but I think it's good, and I know there's room for further tweaking. The ultimate goal is to have it out by the end of April, which I think is still doable. We'll see. The nice thing about self-imposed deadlines is that I'm pretty sure that I'm willing to wiggle a bit on them when necessary.
In other news... Virginia primaries on Tuesday. I'm not sure how to vote. I mean... I know who I'd like to vote for, but I'm not sure if I vote that way, it'll do much good, and I really want my vote to make as much impact as possible. I'd like to vote for Bernie Sanders, but most of the polls at this point say that Hillary is going to win Virginia by a fairly large margin. So I'm tempted to go with the Republicans on this one (because in Virginia, you can go either way if you're registered as an independent, which I am, for this reason exactly). And while I like Bernie better... if Hillary wins the nomination (or even the presidency) I don't think the country will be going to hell anytime soon.
Thing is... on the Republican side, I'd like to vote for Not Trump (probably John Kasich, definitely not Cruz), but the same polls say that while Trump is greatly disliked, he's also the most likely to win.
(Which just makes no sense. If you don't like him, why the heck are you voting for him, Virginians? This is not like voting someone OFF the island, you know.)
And the second most popular Not Trump is Rubio, and I'm not all that fond of Rubio, either. Argh argh argh argh. I was really, really hoping that Trump would be well out of the race by now, but... no such luck.
Thoughts and theories welcome, if anyone has them.