Tag: kindle

Juggling Life

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Finished the Fablehaven series last night at 2:00 am.  I should have put the book up but I just couldn’t.  It means I’ll be tired today.  I have to figure out what book I’ll be reading next.  I know it may seem strange but I usually have a book on my kindle, one on my fire, and sometimes a physical book all going at once. 

I’ve got one audio book going in the car.  I find myself looking forward to it everytime I head to my car.  I have some extra driving to do today which means extra time in the car.  This also means I’ll likely be hearing more of the story as well since I won’t have any passengers with me. 

I’m going to shift though from reading non-stop to working on writing again.  My todo list has gotten much longer while I’ve been off in other books.  I have managed to check off some things from this list.  I corrected an error in my front and back material in all my books; made the final decision on the cover for the next poetry book; submitted some articles and a variety of other things. 

I can tell I’ve not worked on writing items for a while, I’m starting to get antsy about them.  I feel like I’m behind schedule but I keep reminding myself it is my own schedule.  However, this is a pay weekend so we have errands to run and Sunday we have friends coming over.  I’m looking forward to having them come – it reminds me to keep that balance in my life.

In between all of these, I have to put a bunch of manuscripts away (they are edited versions of a story) and clear off some space on my desk so I can work at it.  Ken got the furniture organized in my craft room which means I need to go in and organize the room.  Right now I have containers of crafts sitting around which annoys me.

I need to find a balance of getting all this done.  Some of it I can do in my recliner with my feet up so I will save those tasks for when my legs hurt and I can’t do the other stuff.  The craft stuff I will try to start first thing in the morning so my legs are in good shape but this means I need a non-pay weekend to do them.  Hopefully next weekend I’ll be able to work on both the craft room and the office. 

My biggest problem when I’m working on the office is I get into decision overload.  I’m cleaning and organizing which means making tons of decisions of where and how things are going to be organized.  I get to the point where I can’t figure out the best place for one more thing. This means I don’t quite finish the room.  Life happens and things get put here and there and suddenly my office is a mess again. 

My second biggest problem with the office is I’d rather be writing and working on submissions than doing the cleaning and organizing.  I can spend hours at my computer working on a story, submitting work, researching and so on.  I get lost in what I am doing and forget that I was going to organize the room instead.  I just need to stay on track. 

Technical Difficulties

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing
Every day this week I’ve worked on cleaning up images and getting the document ready for print format.  Unfortunately I’ve had technical difficulties. 
First I had to learn how to change the dpi (dots per inch) of each image.  Fortunately it was fairly simple once I had the right program. 
Second I had to take the new images and clean it up.  Because my images are drawings that have been scanned there was a lot of gray surrounding the lines.  For a digital image that has to be cleaned up as well which I did but when you increase the dpi then more imperfections appear.  In print , the gray surrounding the lines makes the image blurry or fuzzy.  With 45 images for the entire manuscript it is time consuming to pull each one up in Paint and use the eraser to go along each line.  However, every spare moment I’ve had this week I’ve been working on them.
Unfortunately, I’ve had additional technical problems.  I sat in my office chair early in the week and one of the wheels broke off.  Now if it had just fallen off, duct tape would have fixed it but it actually broke.  This meant I didn’t have my comfortable chair.  At first I was using a dining room chair which is okay for short periods of time.  When I spent any amount of time in it though, my back and legs hurt worse than normal.  Ken brought up an old office chair from the basement last night and it is okay but still not as comfortable as my chair. 
This mean after I worked on fourteen pictures last night I couldn’t stand to be in the chair any longer and had to give it up for the recliner.  With the precision work I have to do, I need a desk and solid surface for my mouse to be on.  I’m down to eight pictures with each one taking about an hour or so depending on how complex the picture is. 
Since I had to redo all the images, I made a point of double checking that they were working.  I uploaded a partially finished manuscript to CreateSpace to see if their system liked the new photos.  This gave me a double check that all was well and I just needed to finish the images.  I was thrilled to find that the document had no errors and the images looked amazing.  Plus by doing that I was able to rearrange images so they worked better. 
Images in a digital format have to be in line with the text.  There is no creative placement.  With print I’m able to move them around and place them where I think they look the best rather than where they work digitally.  While it has been a lot of work to change up the images, I feel like it has been a good lesson learned as it has allowed me to produce a better product.
At this stage, all I want to do is work on finishing the images.  Unfortunately, I have a lot to do this weekend.  My todo list is filled with grocery shopping, errands, gift wrapping, food prep and so on.  I’ll still carve out time though.  Barring any more technical difficulties, I’m hoping to have a paper version ready by the end of the weekend.  Fingers crossed and chair situation resolved, I hope to accomplish this.  Then I can look at poetry books next.   
Smashwords:
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While you are out shopping, take a look at Secret Past too.  It is available here:
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Productive

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized
Work, school, writing, family, and the beginning of a new semester means I’ve been feeling just a touch overwhelmed. Okay maybe more than a touch.  Today I was able to tackle some of the tasks that have been giggling on the corner of my desk because I just haven’t had time to get to them.  Now a number of them are done. 
My to-do list was over a page on a standard pad of paper.  I had notes in the margins and scribbled every which way.  Today I rewrote my to-do list and discovered all the things I’d crossed off meant that I was down to about 2/3 of the page.  This is a giant leap forward. 
I’m exhausted.  Partly because I’ve not gone to bed before midnight all week with all my homework and other things I need to take care of and partly because I got a lot done today.  It feels good. 
I’m trying to savor this good feeling.  I am going to breathe and enjoy it for at least thirty seconds.  Tonight I have to page through my homework to-do list and hope it isn’t too extensive.
Good news is I discovered on my Kindle that I have the Oxford Dictionary of English.  It is an amazing dictionary and quite extensive.  I am using it regularly.  I also purchased a calendar program which allows me to put in appointments and a to-do list.  This has become my closest friend right now.  I look at it multiple times a day.  It helps keep me on track which is something I definitely need right now.

The Perfect Sunday

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

Today is the last day of vacation for me and I wanted it to be relaxing.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted it to be mellow. 

The hardest part of my day was answering all the phone calls and text messages I was getting.  It is funny how when you are into what you are doing everyone seems to want to talk to you.  My day was PERFECT.  Ken, Vicki and I sat in the living room listening to music with each of us reading.  We each had our kindle and were involved in our different books.  I spent the entire day (nearly) reading a really funny, good, sexy, tear jerking, romance novel. 

I answered phone calls, texts, and handled other interruptions.  At one point I turned to Vicki and asked at what percentage did the 100 page rule apply.  For those who don’t have this rule it says that if you have less than 100 pages left to read in a book unless there is a catastrophe going on you don’t bug the person reading.  She said it was at 75% so I’m going with that. 

Nothing exciting happened.  Nothing dramatic happened.  The music was on the tv and we all had our kindles.  We lopped in our chairs and on the couch to read with each other.  Who knew that reading could be a group event?

It was definitely a great lazy Sunday and the perfect ending to a really good vacation.