Late Autumn Updates (FRUSTRATION)

This sums up my writing career this fall.

I’ve had a hard time dealing with a lot of what fall has dished out this year. In no particular order, my car went into the shop for two weeks, my roof began leaking like a mf-er, I’ve lost power twice for more than three days at a time, and I’ve taken on a butt-load of extra work at my day job. I’m struggling to get into a new work-out routine, the house is routinely a mess, and raccoons ransacked my barn and threw my trash EVERYWHERE. To say that this makes me frustrated is an understatement.

But I’m going to say it because the strung out expletives that I’d rather use are a bit too vulgar for this blog post.

I had really wanted to do that five part Halloween short story. I wanted to finish it. The losing power and tension headaches made that not happen in a timely fashion. But make no mistake…

I’m going to finish that bitch.

I have a week off staring me in the face next week. That’s right. A whole week. And I intend to use it wisely.

Not only will I be finishing Backstreet Bloodbath, I’ll be giving you a daily account of what I get done. While I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, I will be finishing my novel, The Wild Dark, which has been in the works since 2013. I’ll also be running or ellipticaling every day and cleaning a room in the house. Last but not least, I’ll be doing one old fashioned Cooking Adventure (not a video cooking adventure) for you by the end of the week.

I know, I know. I have promised a lot and not delivered. Life happens. The chances of me losing power yet again are statistically very high. We’re getting our first snow on Friday and that might come with high powered winds and all that crap. I live near the wimpiest trees in the state. If you so much as whistle at them, they’ll collapse on a power line.

I just need to make it to next week. Then, a little bit of writing time, self-love, and self-pampering can go a long way.

Until then,

KSilva

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Formatting with Microsoft Word: A Guide to Frustration

NOOOO!!!

Yes, the above picture sums up my reaction every year I must format and layout a paperback with Microsoft Word. I am currently undergoing this mission again as I work on the paperback version of my latest novel “Memento Mori”. I am fully aware that there are other programs I can use for this task; but since I’m practically surviving on rice and bread right now, I’m not in the position to make that kind of change. I’m also aware that there is a 2013 version, which doesn’t seem to have cleared up some of the issues that have caused me problems in the predecessor. After having spent a substantial amount of time dealing with page alignment, headers and footers, page numbers, glossary writing, and the always tricky page breaks, I’ve decided to create a guide to how I feel about each one of them.