I had basal cell carcinoma on the side of my nose, which required Moh’s surgery, where they slice it out layer by layer, taking 60-90 minutes between cuts to biopsy what they removed until the tumor is gone. I knew this would be a long day, so I packed food, water, and my laptop, looking forward to a quiet writing retreat.
Here’s what actually happened.
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The last leg of our journey was to my sister’s house near Cleveland. Once again, all the nearby relatives descended. We made Hungarian kielbasa from my grandfather’s meat grinder and sausage press–intestinal casings and all. If this grosses you out, please scroll quickly.
Just outside the garage, my dad set up the smoker his dad had made to complete the first stage of cooking, but then… the rain came.
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Remember that time I got dressed up to meet Sensei at the library for zucchini? It wasn’t just for zucchini. We were plotting and scheming a Taekwondo class at my kids’ school.
Here’s the thing: everyone in my family is a Taekwondo black belt except Little Joe. That makes me sad for him. When my daughters and I did Taekwondo, we were Sensei’s last students before he essentially retired.
I’d like to argue that, since the very last black belt he handed out was to me, he broke the mold. How could anyone top that? But I pulled him out of retirement to help me start this class.
As a quick refresher of my post, Because I go to stupid lengths for humor, I had decided to forgo my usual ratty clothes by wearing my fanciest dress for a library meeting. At our next meeting, Sensei, who likewise typically arrives in the same red sweat pants and yellow or blue T-shirt, attempted to show me up.
I could also say: Ojalá estuviera aquí.
And soon it will be: [whatever “Wish I Was Here” is in French].
The publisher asked authors if they’d like their Kindle e-books translated into German and Spanish.
“Sure!” I said. “Why not?”
“They’ll be up within 72 hours,” was the response.
Clearly, that means they’re AI-generated. I hope the robots did a good job. Not that humans can’t make mistakes, of course. In fact, as well-refined as AI has become, maybe it did a better job than a human could. Still, some carbon-based life form proofreading after the fact would probably be prudent. I’d like to say I could do it, but…
Conozco ein bisschen Español y Deutsch pero nein Français. And certainly not enough of the first two to be a decent judge.
If anyone wants to 1) test their foreign language knowledge, 2) help out a blog buddy, and 3) enjoy a good book, especially as a fun summer read, try Wish I Was Here in the lingua of your choice! [Click/tap See all languages and editions then choose a language from the drop-down menu. It’s only $6 or free if you have Kindle Unlimited. Yes, I have an affiliate link, FWIW.]
The Travel Architect emailed me a pic of my book on her lap at the airport as she awaited a flight to Copenhagen.
“Oooh! Send me a pic of it at cool places,” I requested.
A couple of days later, I received an email titled Malmo City Library, Sweden.
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First, thanks to those who offered their editing opinions in response to my last post. Most significantly, I amended that troublesome sentence to: “One way or another, we would’ve wound up The Crazy Freshmen, aka Space Cadet, me, and Beaker Brain, Isaac.” That takes care of that, yes?
I had combined short paragraphs, as instructed by the editor, but most of you agreed they were better separate. Later, I went back and looked at the combined sentences, and it just didn’t feel right. So, I separated them back a little more.
The comma after “Hopefully” will come over my cold, dead body!!! Okay, fine, maybe not, but what about here: “Hopefully Ben could avoid being named publicly.” I need a comma after that one? Really? I might point out that my blog editor friend didn’t flag either of these on his read… I might point that out, but I won’t because that would be rude.
I have until August 16 to turn in my final draft of Wish YOU Were Here. Shouldn’t be a problem. But do you know what I AM seeing as a problem?
Friggin’ Book 3!
Book 2, Wish YOU Were Here (Not to be confused with book 1, Wish *I* Was Here), came back with edits for the first 20 pages. Remember when I went through this last time? You writers came out of the woodwork to offer your expertise.
I loved it. So let’s do it again, shall we?
The main thing this editor said was that I had too many one-sentence paragraphs, which weakens the impact when I want those quick grafs to really stand out. I get that. The challenge then was finding which short paragraphs to combine. For instance:
“How much money is it?”
“Seven thousand five hundred and eighty dollars.”
My mouth fell open.
“It’s a start anyway.” He jogged across the parking lot.
I stared after him, dumbfounded.
He gestured for me to follow. “Ana, come on.”
I shook the bewilderment off and joined him. “Keep a look out, will you?” He dropped to his knees and opened another compartment of his bag.
Everything after “How much money is it?” could be combined into one paragraph, really. But should it? I combined a few in the middle. What would you do?
I’ve been back at Jiu-Jitsu for three months but am still discouraged by the slow climb to where I was before my foot broke.
Sometimes I wonder if I should stay home, watch TV, and eat garbage with Hubby instead of go to class.
Sometimes I’m just tired and not feeling it.
Sometimes I go anyway.
Then I find myself smiling and fist bumping the friendly students who greet me and ask how I’m doing.
Class begins and Her Royal Highness and I get the giggles over our inability to properly execute the moves. I’m grateful that, rather than be annoyed, Instructor laughs with us. I consider whether he’d be so amiable if it had been me with someone other than his wife.
I had somehow managed to throw her on her back while flipping myself over on my head rather than over my shoulder. It’s a wonder I didn’t hurt my neck, but since that’s not a lower extremity, it was fine. Later squashing my toe and needing to ice it after class is par for the course, however.
A title like that can only mean one thing: more weird Jiu-Jitu sh*t. (Sorry.)
A recent class was front attack defenses: guns, knives, and, I guess realistically it would be a baseball bat? Whatever. Rubber guns, knives, and big sticks were tossed in the center of the mat for us to practice with.
HRH and I got turns with the knives and sticks, but the guns were in short supply. When class ended, I lamented not getting much gun defense practice, so HRH, face full of compassion, asked, “Want me to shoot you?”
Naturally, “Yes, please,” was the response because #OnlyInJiuJitsu.
At one point earlier, I was looking at a 45 degree angle, talking to Instructor when HRH tried to overhand stab me with the fake knife. With zero hesitation, I stepped in and forearm blocked without looking.
Instructor said, “Daaaangg. That was instinct!” and walked over to fist bump me.
I didn’t want to tell him that was the first Taekwondo defense you learn as a white belt. I’ve done it a million times and have been teaching it to my son and others at his school as part of an after school TKD program.
I’m glad I had the opportunity to discover it had become instinctual.
Another post already?! Yep! A rare “double header” from Ilsa.
I wanted to touch on that other half of my blog’s title for those of you who care more about news from the writing front.
Let’s just take a moment to let the fact that there will be an audio version of Wish I Was Here in the world, and how cool that is, sink in.
Okay. Now continuing…
I’ll tell you right now that the moral of this story is it pays to complain advocate for yourself.
I was told ads for my book were running. I had paid for those ads, so I asked the new orders lady I had befriended if she could get a hold of them to send me.
She did. One ad was just a “Quote Card” with my book cover and a reviewer’s blurb. That was fine, I guess.
The other two had good wording, but the AI images of the people looked like children, not 18-year-olds. I felt this was misleading and confusing to the viewer.
I pondered. I waited. Then I acted. I harnessed my newfound friendship with Orders Lady to see if she would advocate on my behalf. This morning she reported that my ads were on the docket for the company’s weekly meeting. They discussed it at length, and it was now in their hands.
I thanked her and let it go for the time being. Then maybe an hour later, I got an email from the publisher himself informing me that they’d run a full audit on my ads, which hadn’t done well [shocker] and the Amazon page. He believed the problem was the cover, so he sent me a new design he’d like to start using immediately.
“Let me know what you think!” he said.
Writing and Martial Arts 