NOVEMBER RECAP

 

November, 2014, wasn’t a month of great joy in this house. Well, the dogs remained happy and contented all month long, but I lost two very dear friends in November, and I resent it like fire.

Yes, I know that once you’re here, there’s only one way out, and we’re all going to die one day. However, when my dear friend, Sara Hoge, died in the early part of the month, her passing hurt. Heck, I even made a flying trip (literally) to California in order to attend her memorial service at the glorious Neighborhood Church in Pasadena. Sara’s last remaining brother was there, and so were her three daughters and all of their children (they’re all grown-ups. Funny how that happens). Anyway, it was great to see everyone, including both of my daughters and my younger grandson Riki. Riki and I pretty much ate our way through Pasadena. I stayed with another great friend, Barbara Masters, and I’d forgotten how much fun we used to have together. So even though the occasion for getting together was solemn, the trip was a huge success. This, in spite of arriving at the Hollywood-Burbank Bob Hope Airport at 9:30 p.m. and having to drive from there in a rental car to Altadena, CA, and Barbara’s house. On the freeway. In the dark.

It’s been sixteen or seventeen years since I’ve driven on an L.A. freeway at night. Trust me when I tell you that FAR more people live in Southern California than live in Southeastern New Mexico. The rental guy talked me into getting a GPS device for the car, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that, because the GPS lady, Ms. Ratchett (I’d just read a Jeanne Glidewell book in which the GPS lady was Ms. Ratchett, so it came naturally) directed me to Barbara’s house perfectly. I was terrified the whole way there (all those headlights; sheesh!) but she didn’t miss a tip or a turn. Whew!

Later on in the month, a sadder death occurred, mainly because the dead guy, a wonderful man named Steven Dierks, was only sixty years old. He’d recovered from a battle with stomach cancer and he and his wife Kate were blissfully looking for houses to buy so they could get away from the New Jersey town in which they lived. Then, out of the blue, Steve was diagnosed with stage-four renal-cell cancer. Steve and Kate went through four months of hell only to be told on a Friday that he was cancer-free. Then he died Saturday night. Not fair. I don’t approve.

I met Kate and Steve through dog rescue. They were into Sheltie rescue, kind of like I’m into Dachshund rescue. They’d driven through Roswell (which very few people ever do, because Roswell isn’t on the way to anywhere), noticed a scruffy little terrier mix at the Roswell Humane Society, and fell in love with her. They left her there, but kept in touch with the RHS folks. Finally, the little doggie’s time was up. Carole Rogers, the RHS kennel manager, called to ask me if I’d be willing to foster a terrier until transport could be arranged to get the pup to Kate and Steve in New Jersey. What the heck. So I fostered the dog who eventually came to be called Bridey until Steve could make arrangements to fly to the Albuquerque Sun Port to pick her us. My wonderful neighbors, Barry and Ann Lasky, drove Bridey to Steve, and Steve (after trying and failing to put a diaper on Bridey) put her in a little crate, and flew her home to New Jersey under the seat in front of him on the airplane. And now Steve is gone, and Bridey, Kate, and Harper (Bridey’s Sheltie sister) are left to mourn.

There are aspects of life of which I just don’t approve, and this is one of the biggest. Phooey.

I’ll be giving away advanced reading copies (ARCs) of Thanksgiving Angels some time after the first of the year (because I’m going on a planned trip to Southern California for Christmas and won’t be home until after the beginning of 2015). If you’d like to enter, just send me your name and home address at: alice@aliceduncan.net I’ll drop your name into my winner-picking wiener dog’s special contest doggie dish, and Bam-Bam (my winner-picking wiener dog) will select winners when the time comes.

There’s a bit of good news, though! STRONG SPIRITS, Daisy Gumm Majesty’s very first adventure, is FREE on Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook for the time being!

Also, please feel free to visit my web site at www.aliceduncan.net and my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

Thank you!

　

INSPIRATION (and stuff like that)

I sold my very first book, One Bright Morning, in January of 1994. That was a Big Thrill. Unfortunately, even though I’ve had more than fifty books published since then, everything’s gone downhill from there.

Well… maybe not everything. There have been a few bright spots along the way. The first one came shortly after the publication of that first book, One Bright Morning, when a bookstore owner in Nebraska (whose name I’ve managed to forget) wrote to tell me she’d named her newborn palomino colt (or do you call newborn horses foals? Well, never mind) Maggie Bright, after the heroine of the book. Therefore, somewhere in Nebraska there’s now a twenty-year-old palomino horsey named Maggie Bright, and my character was the inspiration for her name. I tell you, that note made me cry. Actually, thinking about it made me teary-eyed for years.

Plod forward twenty years, and there have been some ups along the writing road, but not a whole slew of them. This may partly be because I’m the George C. Scott of writing contests and don’t believe you can truly judge the worth of one book over another unless you’re talking grammar and punctuation, word usage and imagery, and stuff like that. Besides, I write funny stuff. It’s usually dark stuff that wins awards.

Very well. Confession time here. The main reason I never enter contests is ’cause I’m poor as a church mouse and have a whole bunch of dogs to feed. One tiny bright spot in an otherwise colorless career was winning the Arizona/New Mexico Book of the Year Award (for mystery/suspense) in 2012 for Mercy Allcutt’s rousing adventure, Fallen Angels. The glow fades slightly when I admit I entered the contest because the mere thought of New Mexico as a literary state makes me chortle inside. And sometimes even outside. That, and the fact I had a few extra bucks lying around that the dogs didn’t consume in one way or another.

However, in recent months, something really quite nice happened as a direct result of my books. A woman named Julie Turjoman e-mailed me a while back to ask if I’d mind if she used a character from one of my cozy historical mystery series as a model for a hat in the book she was then writing, A Head for Trouble: What to Knit While Catching Crooks, Chasing Clues, and Solving Murders. Her book would feature knitted creations appropriate for the Roaring Twenties, when the books are set. Would I mind? Was she kidding me? Naturally, I gave her my wholehearted permission.

And you know what? She actually did it! A Head for Trouble: What to Knit While Catching Crooks, Chasing Clues, and Solving Murders is now in print, and she used Mercedes "Mercy" Louise Allcutt (from my "Angels" books, including the aforementioned Fallen Angels) as a model for the following stunning creations:

Julie was kind enough to send me a copy of her book, and it’s truly wonderful. I recommend everyone who knits (or even those who, like me, don’t) go out and buy one or two (or three or four, because, after all, we all have relatives and friends) copies. Here’s a link: http://www.julieturjoman.com/a-head-for-trouble-2/

Of course, you can find my books on-line, too, if you’re interested. They’re all on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle and/or Smashwords (if you have a Nook, Kobi, or whatever). In fact, here’s the cover art for my next Mercy book, Thanksgiving Angels, which will be published in April of 2015.

 

 

I’ll be giving away advanced reading copies (ARCs) of Thanksgiving Angels at the end of November. If you’d like to enter, just send me your name and home address at: alice@aliceduncan.net I’ll drop your name into my winner-picking wiener dog’s special contest doggie dish, and Bam-Bam (my winner-picking wiener dog) will select winners at month’s end.

Also, please feel free to visit my web site at www.aliceduncan.net and my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

Thank you!

FINE SPIRITS, The Audiobook!

 

 

When Amazon created its Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) site, I was thrilled to think that maybe some of *my* books might end up as audiobooks, mainly because I love and adore audiobooks. So I stuck a lot of my books up there, and waited. And waited. And waited. And slowly but surely, folks began to audition. I regret to say that I jumped a little too fast on the first audition, because she really wasn’t right for the book, but I learned.

 

　

I needed someone special for my Daisy Gumm Majesty books, because Daisy’s my favorite character of all time. Imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from Denice Stradling one day a couple of years ago, asking if I’d mind if she auditioned for some of my books. Would I MIND????? No, I would not. Denice and I had met donkeys’ years ago at the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America. I think I’d already moved to Roswell by that time, but I’d gone back to RWA/OCC for a visit.

 

　

Well . . . let’s just say that I consider Denice’s contacting me about auditioning for some of my books one of the majorly fortuitous events of my life. Denice started with ONE BRIGHT MORNING, my very first published book, and she was great (click here to listen to a sample): And she is PERFECT for Daisy. So, in this month’s blog, we (actually Denice) thought it would be a good idea　to interview each other　about FINE SPIRITS, Daisy’s second adventure, and recently released via ACX on Audible.com (click here to listen to a sample)

　

So . . . here we go. We'll go back and forth, sort of (and one of my questions of Denice isn’t about FINE SPIRITS because . . . well, just because):

 

　

Alice: Why the heck did it occur to you to get in touch with me in the first place?

 

　

Denice: First of all, thank you for this opportunity, Alice, to share your blog with you this month about something we both love. Having said that,　I have to agree that contacting you through ACX was something I was SO GLAD I did ... connecting with you and the 'Daisy' books has been such a joy!　　

I've been writing and acting -- either one or both -- for most of my adult life. 　When we met at that long-ago Romance Writers of America meeting, I remember how active and helpful (and funny!) you were on their website ... and so when you were a guest speaker at their Orange County Meeting, I went to hear you, and that's how we met. 　I did a little voice acting in the late 90's and really loved it, but my acting career just seemed to go in different directions then -- mostly theatre. 　But when I first became aware of audiobook narration in the early 2000's, I got absolutely passionate about it. 　As a writer, an actor, and a fanatical reader, it was my perfect fit. 　I took classes, got a little work, built a home studio, and then ACX was created, and I got some work there. 　Then, one day I was researching some audition opportunities -- and there you were! 　I was thrilled when you chose me to narrate ONE BRIGHT MORNING. 　And we just keep moving forward, don't we?

 

　

Alice: Indeed we do, and I hope we continue doing so!

 

　

Denice: How do you segue from one book to the next … for instance, Flossie was a minor character in FINE SPIRITS, but then became a major one in HIGH SPIRITS … did you get that idea while you were writing FINE SPIRITS , or …??

 

Alice: Um... I dunno. That is to say, I guess I felt sorry for Flossie. I mean, another character in the books, Stacy Kincaid, is rotten to the core and has been from birth. Poor Flossie just seemed to be a victim of her circumstances, and she ended up with a rotten gangster. So I wanted to make life easier for her. Therefore, she got a bigger role in the book after FINE SPIRITS. FINE SPIRITS sort of grew from STRONG SPIRITS, and I *really* wanted to use Mrs. Bissel’s house, because it’s the house my aunt owned and I used to live in! So, here's another question for you:

 

　

You do such a great job with the characters in FINE SPIRITS. dId you find any of them particularly difficult (or easy) to create in audio?

 

　

Denice: I actually found them easy -- your characters are quite well defined and I can hear them in my head when I first read through the book. 　My biggest prayer is that you'll hear them the same way I do! 　You have a lot of humor in your books, and sometimes there's a tendency to go over the top with a character because of that, do you know? 　I really work on NOT doing that ... I don't want the characterization to get in the way of the story.　

I'm in the middle of recording HIGH SPIRITS right now ... having an absolute ball with the gangsters and floozies ... a bit harder not to go all out ... but I think, creating a bit of a back story and motivations for them keeps me from doing that. But you'll let me know, woncha??　

 

　

　

Alice: Oh, yeah. I'll let you know :-)

 

　

Denice: With the advent of audiobooks, has your writing changed in any way?　 Now that your characters have ‘voices’ – and not just your Daisy Gumm Majesty books, but all of them -- do you find that　 it affects what you write.　 Do you think your choices of narrators have informed your characters at all?

 

　

Alice: Oh, my, yes. With the advent of audiobooks, I no longer name people weird names. For instance, in one of my other series, I have a guy named Franchot. I STILL don’t know how to pronounce that name, so the reader and I just chose a pronunciation and went with it. I also realized that I have a pretty large vocabulary (nothing to brag about. Words just stick to me, kind of like dachshunds do) and I’m more conscious of using words that maybe the whole world doesn’t know just because they pop into my fuddled brain. I have learned to ask the audio readers of my books to please ask me before they assume they know how to pronounce certain words. For example, in another of my books, the woman’s a dancer, and the narrator mispronounced one of the dances and took exception to my correction. She corrected it anyway. That has nothing to do with FINE SPIRITS, so please forgive the diversion.

 

　

Denice:　 What I love about Daisy, is that she is so willing to call herself out when she realizes she’s being too judgmental or making assumptions without having all the facts.　 And I find this to be even more of the case with each book!　 This adds humor, as well as being a little ‘life lesson’!　 Is this something you planned, or did it just kind of evolve as her character evolved?

 

　

Alice: To tell the absolute truth, Daisy is me, only with a supportive birth family, none of my crippling neuroses, and with an infinitely more outgoing personality than I have. I love Daisy because she’s from my own home town and she and her family live in one of the houses I used to own. She travels to all the places and sees all the stuff I saw when I lived in Pasadena. Daisy is bold and daring. I’m definitely NOT. But in spite of that, I still think Daisy is the character closer to my heart than any other who’s popped up in my brain. In an upcoming book, Daisy will take Spike, the dachshund she earns in FINE SPIRITS, to the Pasanita Obedience Club’s obedience classes held in Brookside Park. I took my very first dachshund to Pasanita’s obedience classes in Brookside Park. Mind you the Pasanita Obedience Club started in 1940, and Daisy takes Spike there in 1922 or thereabouts, but I got permission from the Pasanita folks, so it’s okay. I used to buy fabric at Maxime’s, I shopped at Nash’s, and I haunted the Pasadena Public Library (although it was in a different place in the early twenties). I took my kids to see Dr. Benjamin. I mean, Daisy and her gang mean the world to me. And, yeah, she does get down on herself, but nowhere near as much as I get down on myself. It was difficult to write about Daisy’s hatred of Germans, but face it, Kaiser Bill tried to take over the world back then, and the entire USA (and most of the rest of the world) held a grudge against Germans. Besides, Germans ruined her poor husband, Billy. Not the soldiers’ fault, but there you go. Some folks even went so far as to call dachshunds liberty hounds and sauerkraut liberty cabbage!

 

　

And so, here's my last question for you: My part in the ordeal of getting FINE SPIRITS into the public’s hands was over a long, long time ago, so all the scratches and wounds incurred in the writing of it are healed. How long does it take you to get, say, an hour of audio prepared for folks to listen to (did that make sense?) Another friend of mine who read a couple of my books for audio said he wouldn’t do any more of them because it takes hours and hours and hours of work for one listen-able hour of a book to be ready. I think he was already mad at me over something totally not involved with audiobook production, but it sounds like a laborious process. Is it?

 

　

Denice: It is VERY laborious and time-consuming, but again, that's where the passion comes into play. When I work in my home studio, as I am doing for your books, for every hour of finished audio, I average approximately 3-8 hours of work -- with editing, cleaning up the sound, and mastering. Sometimes it can be longer -- if I don't like how something sounds and decide to do it over. It is definitely a labor of love! I've done a few books in other audiobook producers' studios -- with directors, engineers, etc. -- I have to say, that is heaven! But I also feel like with each book I do in my home studio, I get better in all aspects, including the narration. And narrators having home studios is almost mandatory at this point as the field keeps growing, so it is vital that I stay on top of my game!

 

　

Alice: Okay, now I feel guilty. But not guilty enough to stop giving you my Daisy books to narrate!

　

 

I'll be giving away copies of the audiobook copy of FINE SPIRITS in October, so if you'd like to enter, just send me an email to alice@aliceduncan.net, and I'll throw your name into Bam-Bam's special contest doggie dish!
　

The Suckiest Month of the Year So Far

Was what August, 2014, was for me (and many people I know).

I don’t mean to whine, but I had to have a dog put down, my cousin’s daughter committed suicide, two dear, dear friends are battling cancer, and my plumbing stopped up twice on two consecutive weekends. Okay, so that last one isn’t as bad as suicide or cancer; it was a pain in the patoot and extremely expensive. And Robin Williams killed himself. What’s up with that???

Very well, so life is life, and you never know when it will hit you upside the head with a brick, but this August seemed particularly cruel to many of the people I know and love. I don’t like it.

About the only good thing to happen all month was the release in audio format of A PERFECT STRANGER, the first book in my post-Titanic historical romance series. A PERFECT STRANGER tells the story of Isabel Golightly, a young single mother from Yorkshire (actually she came from Upper Poppleton); her six-year-old genius daughter, Eunice; and the hero of the piece, horticulturist Somerset Fitzroy. Ha! And you didn’t think horticulturists were hero material. Well, he is. The book takes place in San Francisco, California, in 1912 (cuz that’s when Titanic sank). The narrator, Lisa Baarns, did a lovely job reading the book, and Melissa Alvarez created a fabulous cover for the audiobook. The couple on the cover are Isabel and her dance partner at the Fairfield Hotel, Jorje Luis Savedra. Jorje is definitely not hero material. But he sure can dance.

Buy it here!

I’m holding a contest for audio copies of A PERFECT STRANGER (originally published under my pseudonym Anne Robins, in case you missed it in print form). I’ll get in touch with the folks who won paperback copies of DARK SPIRITS as soon as I can.

Here’s hoping September will be better to all of us. Oy. I just remembered that September 11, a date that will live in infamy thanks to Osama bin Ladin, is also the second anniversary of my lumbar surgery. Gah. Maybe September will suck, too. I sure hope not.

Please visit my web site (www.aliceduncan.net) and my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925) Thanks!

Termites Ate My Blog

Oh . . . very well, termites didn’t eat my blog. But they ate my bathroom floor, and I had to have a new one put in, and the disruption in the household turned me into a basket case, and I didn't write a July blog. I regret to admit that I'm easily upset. I think it's because I’m old and set in my ways and like things to stay the way they are. Just the wieners and me in this dumpy little house, editing, writing, eating, and walking (well we all do the last two. I do the first two by myself).

Shoot. I honestly didn't realize what a slave to routine I was until termites ate my bathroom floor. But everything’s better now, including the bathroom. Good thing it’s a small one, or the termites might have eaten the whole house (the issue being money):

　

　

Not only that, but a new Daisy Gumm Majesty book, DARK SPIRITS, was released in July, and I darned near missed it! I’ll be giving away copies of DARK SPIRITS this month. If you’d like to enter to win a copy, send me your name and home address at alice@aliceduncan.net

　

 

Here's the Kindle link for DARK SPIRITS 

　

I’ll be in touch with the folks who won copies of RESTLESS SPIRITS individually. Sorry I’m so late.

Things are back to normal now. I have too much work to do, too many dogs to care for, and still live in the Middle of Nowhere. But at least I have a new bathroom. And a new book out! And, to add to the excitement, I’m in a running battle with the local newspaper (which is really, really bad, but it’s the only game in town). It’s odd how a good fight can perk a person up J

 

Please visit my web site (www.aliceduncan.net) and my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925) Thanks!

Doing New Things

Years ago (decades, actually) I discovered that, while I like to know how to do new things, I hate learning how to do them. I want to know now how to do what I want to do. I don’t want to endure a frustrating learning curve in order to master a new skill.

The reason I mention my quirk at this minute, is ‘cause it’s Saturday, May 31, 2014, and I was supposed to have learned how to use a thing called Mail Chimp to send out my monthly blog and any other newsworthy things I choose to send in order to plug my books. But I haven’t learned how to use Mail Chimp, so I’m stuck doing it the old way.

Rae Monet designed a gorgeous new web site for me (http://www.aliceduncan.net) and gave me the Mail Chimp URL. She even uploaded all the addresses of my contact list so that I didn’t have to do it myself. But did I go to Mail Chimp and figure out how to use it? Noooooo. I did not. Perhaps this is because I’m an idiot. Perhaps it’s because I was really, really busy in May. Perhaps it’s because my younger daughter, Robin, came to visit last weekend, and I used up two working days playing with her.

 

But the fact of the matter is that I just didn’t want to strain my brain learning how to do something new.

So now I feel guilty. Will I reform my lazy ways and learn how to use Mail Chimp before next month’s blog is due? Probably, but only because I hate feeling as though I’ve totally failed at something. Not that failure is necessarily a bad thing, oddly enough. I mean, we all fail from time to time, but generally we get back up, dust ourselves off, and try again. The real failure is in not trying at all, which is what I did with regard to Mail Chimp.

Bah. I hate learning how to do new things!

Oh, my goodness, I just realized Rae altered my blog site page, too, so her gorgeous heading is now up there. Now I feel doubly guilty.

But that’s not the point of writing a blog, either, at least for me. The point of writing a blog is to plug my books. So here’s this month’s plug: RESTLESS SPIRITS (originally published by Jove Haunting Hearts under my Rachel Wilson pseudonym) is now available in audio format. Read by my extremely old friend, Jim Hull (actually I’m older than he is, but who’s counting?) this is the story of how Harry Potter, Penelope Potter’s brother (unfortunately this isn’t the one made up by J.K. Rowling, or I’d be rich) swallowed the soul of a bad guy named Chester Pease, who was shot dead after trying to cheat John Wesley Harding in a card game in Cimarron, New Mexico Territory. It’s a fun book. If you don’t mind listening to books by people who have failed to master Mail Chimp, click on title beneath the book cover, and it will take you to RESTLESS SPIRITS’ Audible link.

 

RESTLESS SPIRITS

I’ll be giving away audio copies of RESTLESS SPIRITS in June’s contest, so if you’d like to enter (although it would be nicer if you’d buy it, but I understand how people don’t like to purchase books by people who haven’t learned how to use Mail Chimp), send me an e-mail with your name and e-mail address to alice@aliceduncan.net.

Thank you!

The Cost of Doing Business

 

　

Writing for a living is different from having a day job. Believe me. I’ve had lots and lots of day jobs. Hated every one of them.

But that’s not the point. The point is that if you’re an author and want to sell more than a book or two, you have to invest in yourself. For some of us, that’s hard to do. For one thing, a lot of us don’t have a bunch of money to fling at our careers, and for another, some of us aren’t accustomed to tooting our own horns and feel mighty uncomfortable doing so. For instance, it nearly kills me to write this blog, even though I only do it once a month. Go figure.

However, in today’s world, an author either invests in herself (or himself) or nobody’ll ever know who s/he is and that s/he writes books. The world of publishing has changed drastically since I sold my first book a little over twenty years ago. Back then, you either got published by a big New York house, or you published your own novel using what people sneeringly called a "vanity press". Vanity presses were considered beneath contempt, or very nearly so.

Nowadays, though, there are lots and lots of venues available for an author, some of which cost a good deal of money. For instance, I’ve recently delivered my most precious creation, Daisy Gumm Majesty, over to a newish publishing house called ePublishing Works. They make me pay for the privilege. So far, even though they’re costing me, they’ve been worth every penny, and I’ve earned several dollars for each one of those pennies. So bless their hearts (and I don’t mean that in the snidely Southern way, either. I DO appreciate them).

There are also venues available for authors to have their books rendered into audiobooks. If you’re a wildly successful author (think Nora Roberts or Janet Evanovich), you’ll have audio publishers banging on your door to publish your books in audio format. If you’re me or someone like me, whom very few people have ever heard of, you can now go to Audible/Amazon’s ACX site and offer your book for narrators to read, if they’re of a mind to. ACX itself doesn’t cost money. However, you need a cover for your audiobook, because the one that originally covered the book isn’t yours for the taking. It belongs to the original publisher and/or cover artist. Therefore, you have to find someone to do the cover art for you. So far, I’ve been lucky. Melissa Alvarez (at www.bookcoversgalore.com) has made me some gorgeous covers. And Aaron Heath Thompson (aaronthompson79@gmail.com) has done some wonderful ones for me, too. His wife, Heather, moreover, is narrating several of my books (PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL and PECOS VALLEY RAINBOW among them). Another friend of mine (Jim Hull) has just finished reading RESTLESS SPIRITS for me, and Aaron also created the cover for that, which is here in all its glory:

 

Oh, yeah. This brings up another point about authors having more control over their careers these days than they ever had before. When RESTLESS SPIRITS was first published by Jove Haunting Hearts a billion years or so ago, I didn’t want to call it that. I wanted to call it THE SOUL OF CHESTER PEASE, because it’s the soul of Chester Pease (who, in life, was a Very Bad Man) that causes all the trouble in the book. However, Berkley (Jove’s mommy) used only two-word titles. What’s more, they gave the book a blood-red, sinister cover, but it’s really quite a jolly book if you forget the fact that poor Penelope Potter’s brother Harry (yes, I had Harry Potter first, dang it) has been invaded by the soul of Chester Pease. You can see Chester in the glass of corn whiskey Harry imbibes if you look hard at the glass.

I’m also paying someone (Rae Monet) to re-create a web site for me, since the one I’ve been maintaining for myself for lo, these many years, is ungainly and difficult to manage. So there’s more money gone. With luck it won’t be money down the drain, but it’s still money, you know? Piffle. Maybe I should just go get another day job.

Naw . . .