Longing for the Good Old Days

I'm dashing around getting ready to leave for England tomorrow and I find myself longing for the good old days. And I don't just mean the days when flying was fun, airport workers were courteous, friends strolled right up to the plane to bid farewell, and they actually fed you real food.

I'm thinking more of the speed of our lives. Of the need for instant communication. Of all those people who whip out their cell phones as the wheels touch the tarmac and shout, "We just arrived."

When a member of my family went to Australia in the early 1900s the family didn't hear for six months that she had arrived safely. Actually when I went across Europe alone for the first time at the age of 12 I wrote my parents a letter to say I had arrived. Telephoning would have been unthinkable--expensive and the long distance lines were one big crackle.

I've been reminded this morning of all the annoyances and inconveniences that this age brings with it. I find on my computer two lots of contracts I have to sign and return. While I love getting contracts it's one more thing to do today. And I'm having major Facebook troubles: someone I didn't know tried to friend me on my personal friends page. This page is now reserved for a few personal friends. All my activity is on my author page. (Rhys Bowen, author) So I sent him a message telling him this--and got blocked with a warning by Facebook for trying to friend someone I didn't know.  Is this screwy or what?

One more small frustration that makes me long for the days when the cheery mail man came up my path at seven in the morning. When people actually met to have chats. And spoke in real sentences. And children played real games involving balls and bats and didn't kill people on Gameboys.
Oh my goodness--I am sounding like an old timer! But do you wish for a return to a slower, simpler age?

Off tomorrow. Stay tuned.

News from Rhys

This isn't a real blog post, just a quickie, to say that I have had to move across from a Facebook friends page to a Facebook fan page now that I've reached my 5000 friends limit. If you want to see my updates and musings you now need to come across to Rhys Bowen, author and LIKE me.

(Isn't it funny the way we can write these things so easily now. I'd have died of embarrassment a few years ago asking anyone to officially LIKE me, or even 'friend' me.)

I'll be posting my daily updates from England, Olympics and Paris there.

New Ways to Waste Time Or How I learned to Quibid.

If you know a writer, you'll be aware that we will do anything rather than write. We will throw a load in the laundry, polish our jewelry, take the dead heads off the roses, all the while knowing that we should be sitting in front of the computer and the deadline is getting closer. I don't think any writer can sit down in relaxed manner at the computer every morning and say "Now to get on with today's 1500 words."

At least no writer that I know. My latest distractions are mostly social media, of course. I have to read my email, comments from my website, my blog, my group blog (Jungle Red Writers), Facebook, Twitter, my Amazon stats... and all this takes precious time I should be writing. I tell myself every day that I must write first and do meaningless stuff afterward. But I can't seem to learn the lesson.

And yesterday, when I have a book to edit and tax to finish, I stumbled upon Quibids. It seemed that people were buying iPads for fifteen dollars so I had to check it out. I signed up so that I could see what was going on, and next thing you know I find I have just bought $60 dollars-worth of bids. Now I have to use up $60 somehow. It turns out that isn't hard.

I don't know if you know how Quibids works, but each bid raises the amount by one penny (only the bid costs the bidder sixty cents). When the time gets down to zero the auction is closed and somebody has won. It goes very fast with people bidding like crazy and just when you think you have won, someone else jumps in. Some things went for 25 cents, and on some the bidding went on for hours. (and remember each bid is 60 cents.)

So I tried my hand and won a $25 gift card to Applebees for 25 cents and a professional steamer for 2 cents.  But along the way I had somehow spent $18 and then had to pay another five for postage.
So I guess there are small savings, but nothing like the bargains people feel they have scored. I have to use up the rest of my $60 and then I'm out of there. Maybe I'll use it all trying to score and iPad. Or maybe I'll stick to a Target gift card!

A Wrinkle in Time

All I want next Christmas is a time machine.

I don't mean the H.G Wells type that takes you back into the past, although that would be useful to observe the world my characters live in. What I want is the sort of Time Turner that Hermione has in the Harry Potter series. A nice little hour glass so that I could do an hour's work and then flip it over to do another hours work in that same hour.

Because there are never enough hours in a day to get through everything. I'm sure this is a familiar lament for most of us but right now I'm really conscious of it. I'm trying to write my new Molly book, but slower than normal because I have to stop after about 3 pages because my wrist hurts too much.
And at the same time I'm conscious of all the things I should be doing to promote my books. I read other writers' blogs about what works for them in e-book promotion and Facebook and Twitter and I wonder--do these people ever sleep?

Facebook I really like because it connects me with people I consider my friends and readers. And it only takes a minute or so to read and post. Twitter I'm sure is wonderfully useful if one has a zillion followers. I don't have time to search out those zillion to follow and thus to follow me in return. And I haven't caught on to the use of hashmarks or whatever they are called.

I'm part of the fabulous Jungle Red Writers blog and have to comment daily even when it's not my turn. I try to post on my own blog at least once a week, which is not enough but it's all I can manage. Apparently I should be reading other people's blogs daily and making witty, intelligent comments on each of them, thus leading people to my blog.

Then there is Amazon. I'm supposed to comment on relevent online communities, to Tag books similar to mine, to keep up my Amazon page, even to post phoney reviews of my books under other names. (not going to do the last of these)

What I need is a full time secretary who knows me well enough to be able to comment as I would have done. Or maybe just a time turner.
I'm off to Tucson tomorrow to speak at a fabulour Brandeis fundraising luncheon. It will be a terrific event but it's taking time from my writing.
Anyone have a time turner they can lend me?