Playing catch-up

Have you ever played catch-up?
And no, it's not a game.

It's what you do when circumstances of one kind or another have caused you to get behind, and you're getting caught up on stuff. That's me, getting caught up on stuff.

Does the stuff ever totally get away from you?
I don't think any of mine has totally gotten away from me, but I do have a good bit of catch-up to do. But it's not as bad as it has been before. Over the past year, I've gotten a good bit of that catch up stuff done, but there's still more to do.

Then there's emails .....
Yeah, those can be so easy to get behind on. And then you just have to wade through them and get caught up.

Something not catching up related .....
I finally found myself an easy to use app so I can upload pictures from my computer to my instagram account. That's a lot of fun. I love to take pictures, so I have loads to upload. You can find me on instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/jdriggsky/

Also, I've given my links tab on here the once over, and that's up to date.

Well, back to my catching up. Take care
-- jd --

Hello, it's me ... update

Well, 2016 got off to a rather rough start for us. We did the traditional New Year's Day foods and all that, (which we won't be doing again I don't think), and we've had some problems. If you've read my previous blog posts, you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about. But thanks to some friends, we made it through the rough spot; and one of those major issues has resolved itself.

Things are better now. We're not on easy street by any stretch of the imagination, but things are a bit better. And I find myself in the position of being able to spend the next several months working on whatever I want to. I've decided I'm going to enjoy it.

One thing I've decided is that I'm going to shelve, for now, my monthly newsletter.  I mean, we all only have a finite amount of time each day to do things. So you have to make choices on what you want to spend your time on. And here are some of the things I want to spend more time on:

This is a temporary working cover for my science fiction romance novel, Chasing Zane. I want to spend more time working on it. It's the tale of a girl from a ranching planet who takes off in search of her best friend Zane, who has suddenly went off planet, without a word to anyone. It's her first time off her home planet, and I'm still working on what she encounters along the way. One person she encounters is Zane's college friend Harrison, who she has a slight crush on, and has never met in person before. Does it sound good to you?

Another thing that I want to work on is a cookbook. I have all the recipes, it's just
a matter of sorting them and coming up with sections for them. The recipes are some that I collected back when I was in my teens and early 20s. There's some wonderful recipes there and I want to publish them in a cookbook. I'm thinking I'll make it a no frills, recipes only cookbook; a lot like the homemaker cookbooks that have been popular in my area. Here's the working cover for that.

So that's 2 of the things I want to spend time on.

Also, like most everyone else on the planet, I have some sorely neglected to do lists; plus, I'd like to post more stuff on wattpad. I'm going to be putting all my links under the links tab on here. That's one of those things off those sorely neglected to do lists. Plus, I'm going to pull out an idea I had previously shelved, of putting up an online review index for my book review blog, The Leisure Zone.

Also, I want to give more time and attention to this blog and my other blogs.
Take care for now,
-- jd --

Why my plans for my old review requests have changed

Lately I had some free time, and started working on something I had been working towards for a bit, and that was putting all my review requests from my book review blog, The Leisure Zone, in order. Here's a link to my previous blog post, talking about it:

Going through my review requests

I indicated that I would be contacting some of these authors. Well, I've changed my mind on that front, and won't be contacting them after all. All these other authors have one author to thank for this. 

Now, lets go back to yesterday evening. I was on my computer, going through the last of my review requests, some of the very oldest ones, dating back to when I first started the blog.

Back then, I would agree to review about any books. I didn't make a preference between genre or anything, and I didn't have my books to review list as organized as I do now. Since the beginning of my book review blog, I've sunk a lot of time into it; working on it and making it better, tweaking it and streamlining it. And I'm quite proud of the blog I created.

Well, one of the books that I had agreed to review, sounded like something I would still like to read; so I thought I would check in with the author. 

BOY WAS THAT A BIG MISTAKE! 

Seems she is in the process of getting ready to re-release the book I asked her about, and is editing it. First off, she wanted me to let her know if it was going to a bad review and just tell her and not post the review. Also, she wanted me to review the copy I had, and not the version she was getting ready to release. If you're confused, join the crowd, because I still am. She didn't seem to understand that I would need to review the version she was going to release, and not the old version that I had. So naturally, I declined to review the book, under these circumstances. Then she proceeded to get pissed at me, and told me she wouldn't recommend my blog. Hey, I didn't ask her to. I was going to discuss it further with her when she blocked my messages and unfriended me. So I blocked her.

But afterwards, I did get concerned that she would badmouth my blog, and harm all the hard work I have put into it. I know first hand what damage unfounded rumors can do. So I felt I needed to get ahead of anything she might do, and put up a post on my facebook timeline talking about it. Then this morning, I decided I would move the whole thing over to a blog post, where I could explain better; and it also went with the previous blog post as well.

So, I'm taking some actions regarding this very unpleasant experience:

• I won't be contacting all those old review requests, as I had thought about doing. I still have them, and they're nicely organized now, and I'm not sure what I'll eventually do with them. Right now I just know that I'm not in the mood to go contacting any authors. I have a nicely filled read and review list to pull books from.
• On The Leisure Zone blog site, I have put up a Review Request Rules for Authors tab, in order to try to protect myself and my review team from such unpleasantness.
• In my blog, The Book News Journal, I'm going to start a series of articles for authors, about contacting book reviewers.

So hopefully these steps will help. 

-- jd -- 

Going through my review requests

Well, I'm finally going through all the tons of review requests I've gotten over the past 3 years, going all the way back to fall of 2013. I started doing reviews back in 2012. But it wasn't until 2013 that I discovered using google drive forms for my review requests.

Over that span of time, I've tweaked on my blog till I got it like I wanted it, and, the review request forms have undergone some changes too. But I have all the responses from those forms, always aiming to go through them. 

Now there's something you need to understand about me. I'm a packrat to a certain extent, a keeper, a list maker; and going through these review requests have been on my list for a while now. But . . . 

I've finally gotten my review blog site in good shape, finally getting down to those last details that I hadn't gotten around to yet. And the review requests are one of those details. 

Going to be surprising some authors with a long overdue email.

P.S. Another of those details is finally putting the review index online. Check out my blog, The Leisure Zone, here:

Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/jdspg3

Blog site:

http://jdslzone.blogspot.com/

A new year arrives

Well, it's that time of year again; the time when we begin a new year. 

What will the new year hold? Do you think much about that?

What about resolutions? Do you do those?

What about New Year's Day? Do you have any particular traditions in that area?

Hubby's favorite thing is all the football games. Soon the superbowl will be here, and he'll be football-less until about August of the coming year. 

Me, my main traditions have been watching the rose bowl parade on tv, and eating sauerkraut and sausage and black-eyed peas, on New Year's Day. To prosper in the new year, so my mom said on the food. I've now figured out a way to microwave single servings of it. No muss, no fuss, no dishes to wash. (:-)

Hope you and yours have had a good 2015, had a great Christmas, and hope you will have a wonderful new year.

-- jd --

The first step in writing a book is . . .

So, what is the first step in writing a book?

What would your answer to this question be?

My first answer would be that you need to have a gift for writing; that's the first thing.
Next, would come an idea for a book; no idea, no book.

But let's assume you are a writer, you have that innate yen to express yourself in the written word; and you have an idea for a book. Then what? What's next, after that? Where do you go from this point?

Well, for one thing, you write. You open up a word processing file, and start writing. Write when you can, whether it be for a few seconds or an hour or so. How long you write for is up to you; it depends on your schedule and routine.

As to the software you use, I like Microsoft Word; but if you don't have word on your computer, don't despair. There's some good free software out there available to download. One that I have heard my other author friends say they use, is Open Office. Also, there is documents on Google Drive, accessible through your google log in; same one you use for youtube or google plus or gmail.

So now you're all set up to write.
But what else? What else should you be doing?
Is there something else you should be doing in addition to writing your book?

Yes, there is something else that you could be doing. You could be building your online presence, and getting your name out there; prepping for when you have a book to market. Here are some additional things that you could be doing:

• website, you can get a free one via wix.com
• author page on facebook, get it set up and start posting and getting likes
• twitter account
• newsletter via mailchimp
• street team group
• join author group on facebook, and read and learn

Those are just a few other things you can do while you're writing that first book.

Ta-ta for now.
--jd--

Just one more time, and pow! Right in the kisser.

I'm so very sick of getting emails from people that I've reached out to for help, to tell me:

clear your cache,
update your flash player,
update your browser,
etc.

COME ON PEOPLE! I'M NOT A DAMN MORON!
PLEASE STOP ASSUMING THAT I AM AND ADDRESS THE BLASTED PROBLEM!

Getting your problem addressed takes twice as long because they automatically assume that you're a dummy and haven't done this.

I equate this advice to:

unplug it,
wait a minute,
then turn it back on.

That's another of their stock in trade responses to help requests.

These people who are supposed to help need to actually start helping and quit assuming that folks are idiots.