What I hope to accomplish

Gentle Readers: Now that I'm blogging again I thought I would like to ahow you what I have in mind for my future Blogs. First and foremost, I hope to answer your questions about writing a book, some of the pitfalls to avoid, and to give you some easy rules to follow. Did I just use the word "easy"? The only "easy" part is writing it! As they say, "The devil is in the details." But: You can't get anything published until you've written what you have to say. So have fun if you're writing your Memoirs, dredging up all those details from 70-80 years ago, and chuckling all over again, or maybe shedding a few tears. If you're writing fiction, anything goes and if you're writing a mystery, I'll assume you've got a new spin on whodunnit. As the chapters pile up you move them to a large carton next to your computer desk, and start going through old photo albums if you intend to include photos of the interesting places you traveled to, autograph albums which you had hoped to sell to an Antiques dealer, and also toss in How To suggestions to incorporate into the first drafts of each memory. Since I assume you were already smart enough to have joined a Writers Group at your local Library, they will have torn each chapter apart as you presented them each week, and your next step is to start the Revision Process. Read their suggestions thoroughly. Some writers who have been published think they are the smartest creatures God ever created, and your first task is to acknowledge that fact. Then when you start analyzing each little "e" (written with a curlicue) and see them scattered all over your first draft, accept the fact that you need to eliminate everything that has an "e" on it, and TIGHTEN UP YOUR WRITING. You will probably be amazed at how much more interesting and pertinent your chapter has become. Then try moving entire paragraphs to the beginning, to the end or delete them and see if it "reads" better. The key word here is "flows". Oh, my goodness, these critics do know what they're talkming about. By the time you've made all the corrections, you begin to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in what you've created. You're becoming a Writer. Hope you're taking notes. There's a lot more to come. Love, Janice

Here we go again.

Hello, Everyone!

    After a long hiatus, today I was inspired by my Writers Group to make one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  I have decided to make a determined effort to finish my book of memoirs, so I'm opening up my Blogpost again as well as a website and will keep you updated weekly as I forge through the potholes of editing and preparing the book for publication.

    To explain my long absence I moved in January 2019 to a new Independent Living Facility, called Atria Valley Manor, after they raised my rent at the old address to $4,000/mo.  In my new place, I am much happier: I have a two-bedroom apartment, ground-floor with huge patio, so it's more like living in my own house again. At $1,000 less per month, what's not to like about THAT!  It's smaller, only 74 residents, the staff is kind, generous and helpful, and the residents well educated with interesting professions.  I intend to start teaching jewelry classes as soon as we don't have to practice social distancing. It's been a long journey to get everything unpacked and organized but I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and hoping it isn't the train coming at me.

    I'm revising already-written chapters, have only a few new ones left to write and add to the large carton next to the computer desk.  I already have a Formatting Expert lined up and the cartoon cover is drawn.  I'm serious.  This time we're going to go through all the steps of writing a book and publishing it, and I will give you clear instructions on everything as it happens.  Cheers!  Janice

Bienvenidos. Mi casa es su casa.

Yes. Mi casa es su casa.  So states a ceramic plaque on a shelf outside the front door of my new residence. 

I've only been here not quite three weeks, and they have been pretty hectic.  I moved on Sept. 14th, a sort-of-symbolic date.  It would have been Fritz' and my 72nd Anniversary.  I wonder what he would have felt about this rather dramatic change.  Well, he definitely would not have liked being in a more social element. He liked his silence, his dominating the situation, and doing everything his way.  But he also liked a strictly-followed routine, so having to take his meals between defined time limits would not have bothered him, although having to pick and choose what to eat would have created a dilemma for him.

But for me, it has been a fairly complete change and a fairly complete pleasurable experience.  I still have cartons to unpack and my daily dilemma is not what to eat but where to put all my jewelry components that I can't bear to part with yet.  I hope to continue teaching classes, but downsizing from a four bedroom, studio-garage house to a one bedroom, one closet apartment is a bit of a challenge.  I wonder if renting one storage locker will turn into a two storage lockers situation....

I continued my writing today with the first report of life in a Senior Living environment.  I'm sending it to my former writing group so they can see what my life is like now.  I have joined the Writers Group at Atria Bell Court Gardens, and they do two writing challenges for two weeks and every third week you present something you have written, so I'll continue to get feedback on my chapters.

With all the other activities presented every day, plus the writing, plus the jewelry classes, I'll be kept on my toes. 

And there are still all those cartons waiting to be unpacked and a space found for the contents! Gotta go!

Good Morning, All!

It seems like I have a knack of finding all sorts of things to slow me down on finishing the book.
Last month it was all the things going wrong with the computer, printer and telephone.

This month it is because I suddenly decided the house was getting to be too much for me and I began looking at Independent Living facilities.  The second one I visited, had a nice apartment that had been vacated two days earlier and had not been listed yet. The business manager said, "I have someone coming to see it tomorrow and he will take it, I'm sure."  Since there were only three of that floor plan in the complex, I didn't take much convincing and got out the Visa card. Never did anything that rash in my entire life, but told myself, "Sometimes the rash decisions turn out to be the best decisions."

So everything has come to a halt while my time is now spent arranging appointments with the realtor to sell my house, getting the carpets cleaned, having the photographer take the photos for the newspaper ad, and deciding that I am going to need two enormous garage sales, one for all the furniture I can't use, and one for all my jewelry tools and materials.  The house is covered with Post-It notes. I'm delaying the sale of this house until after I've been in the new apartment for at least a month to see if I like it.  If not, I just move back here.

In the meantime I have managed to write a chapter every week for my Writers Group. The last two were about my Dad and Mom.  If you'd like to read them, let me know in the comments and I'll email them to you.  In my new place they have a Writers Group also, with published authors so it will be fun to see and hear how they think. They also have a Book Club, water-color group, Knitters and Sewers groups, and an interesting discussion group named What is Going On in the World Today.  If they have that figured out it's worth the rent right there!

I'm exchanging jewelry classes with a young lady who graduated from Cartoonist school this summer and she has three different versions of a cover for Life as Observed from the Middle Seat.  We're getting there, Friends, getting there!  TTYS

I'm so sorry for the lack of recent Blogs.  Not what I intended at all when I started one.  But when your printer stops printing, when your modem breaks, when the company supplying the new one never ships it to you, when you finally get it and the installer neglects to activate the telephone setting, when your phone dies for five days, followed by your MedAlert, all the settings on your computer change, the telephone tech doesn't come on the appointment day.  Finally get the telephone on, and the printer goes out again.  Now the phone rings, but the Printer says "Not connected to the Internet..............................You get the picture?

Up to my neck in techsupport calls, online chats, 3-hour tech support calls with three different techies, one dumber that the one before.  And I'm PAYING for all of this!!!

Never mind.  I've been writing chapters for the book, getting them critiqued, and making the revisions.  We're getting there. The next Bio photo may show a woman with totally white hair.  Don't worry.  It's me,
Janice

The Chapters continue...

I have decided to cut down on my jewelry classes for July and August and limit them to just a personal request from someone who wants to finish a project or make a specific piece which they missed doing when it was originally scheduled.  I will add an occasional piece to my website. That way I can concentrate on my writing, and hopefully get closer to the book publishing by the Fall.

Ruby Lane sent all of its shops an email two weeks ago, stating the the Supreme Court had come down with a decision that as of immediately, all the States must start charging a sales tax on everything sold, instead of playing fair and not charging  a State Sales tax for all out of state purchases.  I have never sold one piece in Arizona and do not participate in craft shows or consignment to a gallery.  I sell only to other states and international customers.  Now I will have to collect an additional charge of 9½% Arizona tax on every piece I sell, even if it is to someone in Australia, who has to also pay customs charges.  Last Friday I signed a petition to revoke this latest ruling which will go to the State Legislature.  What with the latest increase in postage charges, it can now be that the taxes and postage will come to more than the cost of a pair of earrings I make.

So what is the use of trying to run a small business any more?  Especially at my age?  I need the income, and am physically able to do the work, but the ENTIRE PREMISE of why I make jewelry to sell online was to offer nice jewelry to people who couldn't otherwise afford to buy custom pieces.  The fact remains that I'm not rich enough to warrant tax DEcreases.  Mark my words, friends, if this Supreme Court ruling remains in effect, you will see small businesses fall by the wayside all over the United States. When on earth will the government realize that you will increase sales by decreasing taxes, not adding more?  And that when you increase sales, you increase income which results in higher income taxes, which is the only fair way to do business.

So another small business bites the dust.  Who cares?
See you next week.  Janice

Watch out for fraud

You have not heard from me for awhile.  I have been dealing with problems with my printer, which has obviously frustrated me and I feel that I should warn you about getting mired in the same way and the costs I am experiencing from the problem.

Last year I bought a new HP printer, a 4-in-1 color printer, because I thought I needed to have one that sent faxes as well as scan, copy, and print.  (Since then I have not sent one fax so I should have just kept the Canon that I had before.)  When my computer geek installed and hooked up everything, he knew that I was a writer and asked if I would like to halve the costs of ink cartridges.  Of course I would!  I have to print out 12 copies of each chapter I write for the Memoirs and they average 5-6 pages each, four times a month.  This is so that each chapter gets critiqued by the members of the Writers Group at Dusenbury library. So the Tech enrolled me in the Instant Ink plan HP has for people who print a lot.  I chose to subscribe to the 300-page/month plan, since the numbers I just gave you multiply and add out to 288 pages a month.  The cartridges they mail you automatically are supposed to contain twice the amount of ink as those sold in stores like Costco or on Amazon.  They charge you $11.85/mo. to subscribe, including taxes.  The contract says you can cancel any time.

Well, after they had mailed me two cartons of cartridges without my ordering them or the printer showing that the ink was running low, I decided that since I hadn't opened the cartons and my black cartridge was still printing clearly, I should cancel the monthly payment scheme and then go back on it when the two batches of cartridges would eventually run out.  I cancelled online and it was confirmed.  Then three days before the year's subscription was supposed to end anyway, I get another email from HP saying that because I had canceled my subscription, the ink cartridges would no longer work in the printer, and they were discontinuing my use of the ink.  I was astonished, because no ink had run out, I had paid $130 for the year subscription, they had sent me the cartridges, so I felt that I had bought and paid for them, and they had absolutely no right to cut off the ink and leave me high and dry, and that's not meant as a pun. Nowhere in the contract do they indicate that it gives them the right to cut off the ink.

I was so angry that I looked at a great many possibilities.  Buying a laser printer, too expensive. Going back to buying ink cartridges in stores, came out to be around $180/year, because they now put so little ink in them that they would only last me 3-4 months.  I decided the only choice I had was to renew the subscription even though I considered it a form of blackmail, thinking if I renewed, they could automatically turn my printer back on.

I called HP on Wed. at 11:30 a.m. ; I hung up in utter, complete frustration and stress at 4:30, having spoken to three HP techsupport people.  The first one was of course in India and I could not understand a word he was saying.  The second was an American woman who was on the phone and computer and printer with me for two hours, re-setting the password FIVE times and each time it was rejected as unacceptable.  She finally turned me over to another techie who could not get the computer to be cartridge acceptable and finally at 4:30 I just gave up.  I couldn't take it any more.

I called the computer experts I deal with two blocks from my house, and one showed up the next morning at 9:30 and after he had tried for a half-hour, he called HP and finally after an hour on the phone with them he got the printer networked to the computer, the router, the wireless and whatever else is down in the crawlspace under the desk, and the computer started blinking in blue again.  I am now on a $95 an hour service charge and it took him an hour and a half.

So, dear Friends, take heed of my sad story.  1. Do not buy any HP products.  2, Do NOT sign up for their Instant Ink scam.  Be aware they can get into your printer remotely and cut off the ink flow if you dare to cancel.  And, 4. the tech support people don't know a damned thing about how to turn the ink back on and you will waste precious hours of your precious time messing with them.

Resolution:  As soon as I get the rest of the chapters of my Memoirs written and I don't need to make so many copies each week, I will consider tossing the printer in the Dumpster where it belongs (and maybe the HP computer as well!)  I've had it.

See you next week in a better mood.  Janice