Category: Ramblings

Posted in D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

A Change of Pace

Posted on by Nememiah

I’ve been considering this situation for quite some time. Being bipolar means my ‘feels’ are sometimes exploded beyond what is rational, my decisions are spur of the moment, and taken without thought of the ramifications.

So it is with no small amount of consideration that I’ve come to this decision, a decision based on what I think is best for me.

As of this week, I am unlikely to update this page, or my blog page in regard to D.S. Williams and Leah Dempster’s writing work. Promoting myself is something I’m increasingly uncomfortable with, and in all honesty, the effort doesn’t seem to make any difference.

There are so many authors out there. So many. It makes my head spin when I see the amount of writers who are publishing, and trying to get their work noticed. And it suddenly occurred to me, a few weeks back, that what I’m doing isn’t fun. I’ve gotten myself caught in a Catch 22 – I’m publicising to get my books noticed, I worry because I don’t get sales, and in all honesty… it occurred to me that I don’t want to reach the next level. Or the one after that. I don’t want to publicise myself, or my books, or try and cajole people to read them. I don’t want to attend meet & greets, or conventions, or book signings. It isn’t my style, never has been, and never will be. I don’t want to be ‘famous’. I don’t want to be well-known. And in all likelihood, that would never happen anyway, so why flog myself to death trying to achieve something I don’t want?

The past six months, I think, for all writers have been tough. Tougher than I’ve experienced before now. Quarter 1 of this year netted me a grand total of $36… that’s for three MONTHS. I’ve just received advice regarding my Quarter 2 royalties and they amounted to just over $28.00 – again – this is my income from writing books for THREE MONTHS. Clearly, if I’m relying on this gig to get rich, it isn’t going to happen.

And I’ve found, more and more lately, that I don’t write much, and if I do, I write with one eye on what readers are going to like or not like. I’ve forgotten to write what I like and that’s a real shame, because I’m at my happiest when I’m writing from my heart, rather than my head.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write for me, write for the fun of it, write as though nobody is ever going to read it but me.

My books will remain available, although I suspect I’ll be following through with a decision to part ways with my publisher at the end of this upcoming quarter. The books will revert to being self-published, available for anyone who has a desire to read them. New books might end up available, if I decide they’re worthy of being shared. But the decision will be based on my heart and gut, rather than a need to please others and with one eye on the bottom line.

The next few months are going to be stressful as we move into a new chapter of our lives. We’re leaving our (adult) kids behind here in Western Australia while we move to Queensland for a few years. There will be lots of changes, lots of new things to get used to, and I hope, new writing adventures for myself without the pressure of being ‘a published author’. In the majority of instances, those pressures are ones I place on myself, but I think it’s time to step back, and take a good look at the direction I’m heading in.

Posted in D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

It started with a snowball… in her gloved hand…

Posted on by Nememiah

snowball

Pheweee.  It’s amazing what you come across when you’re editing a first draft, stuff you didn’t even realise you were writing.  Or repeating for that matter.

In Tokens of My Confection, which is heading towards publication in (hopefully) the not too distant future, one scene involves my heroine Cady, who is hanging out with her sisters in Garrison Park, making a snowman on Christmas Eve.

When I wrote the first draft, like a lot of writers, I was just trying to get it out of my head, getting all those little bits and pieces and all the ideas in a pile on the page.  At that stage, I try not to think too hard about the final product and avoid, wherever possible, editing while I’m still getting the story out of my head.  (Of course, I’m completely hopeless at that and do get bogged down with the editing part, because let’s face it, I’m OCD and anxiety-ridden – I strive for ridiculous levels of perfections.  But that’s a post for another day.)

The editing process has been a little choppy, particularly because the Darling Husband surprised me with an announcement last week that we would be moving at the end of the year.  He’s a nearly thirty year veteran of the Australian Air Force, and we’ve outstayed our welcome here in Western Australia, but this time we’ll be moving without our Gang of Four – seventy five percent, at least, will remain in Western Australia while we post to a base on the other side of the country.  (Another reason for OCD and anxiety issues).

Consequently, the editing of Tokens, which started of swimmingly, has stuttered to a less than auspicious pace, while I try to get my head back in the game.  (And simultaneously worry about my beloved family being split apart for a couple of years).  Today, I’ve been working on Chapter Twenty Six, which includes the above-mentioned snow scene which has turned out to need a considerable amount of editing.  The scene itself is fundamentally good, and I’m happy with it, but its the persnickety details which are giving me grief.  And in this case, it’s the snowman the girls are building and the amount of time I’ve mentioned ‘snow in their glove-covered hands’.  Obviously, I wanted to set the scene, and give the reader a ‘vision’ of what is happening in that scene – the scenery, the women, their outfits, what they’re doing.  But I obviously (obviously!!!) got bogged down on those glove-covered hands.  They’re EVERYWHERE!  And repeated with endless abandon.  And way too much.  Over and over and over…

You get the picture, and as a writer, and an editor, it’s one of the things I warn people (including myself) to avoid.  Don’t ever hit your reader over the head with information.  Don’t repeatedly repeat the same piece of information.  Give your reader some credit and know that they can invest themselves enough in the story so that when you mention someone’s eyes, you don’t lead with the color of them each and every time.  (This is something I’m guilty of doing!).

And once you’ve put those gloves on those characters, and set them to making a snowman in a park in the middle of winter, don’t keep beating the reader over the head with THE GLOVES!  They’re there!  We know they are on their hands!  Don’t beat this snippet of information to death!

And now, I go back to the grindstone and beat those gloves into submission!

‘Til next time.

 

Posted in D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

Finding Inspiration…

Posted on by Nememiah

As a writer, finding inspiration can come in many shapes and forms.  For myself, it’s usually in the form of photographs, images which evoke a visceral response and spark the voices in my head.

Ghost town

These photos, of Bodie, California are those type of images for me.  Looking at those old, ramshackle buildings from a bygone era, still upright and standing despite the passing of decades evoke such emotional responses I can’t help but find myself trying to find a way of getting them into a new story.

Bodie (/ˈboʊdiː/ BOH-dee) is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States, about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe. It became a boom town in 1876 and following years, after the discovery of a profitable line of gold, and suddenly attracted several thousand residents. It is located 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport,[5] at an elevation of 8379 feet (2554 m).[1] The U.S. Department of the Interior recognizes the designated Bodie Historic District as a National Historic Landmark.

Also registered as a California Historical Landmark,[2] the ghost town officially was established as Bodie State Historic Park in 1962. It receives about 200,000 visitors yearly.[6] Since 2012, Bodie has been administered by the Bodie Foundation, which uses the tagline Protecting Bodie’s Future by Preserving Its Past.

(Courtesy of the Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodie,_California )

There’s something special about these buildings, as though their inhabitants and their memories are still making their presence known, even now in modern times.  I’ve never visited Bodie myself, but it’s certainly one of the places on my bucket list of things to see.

Old cars

What about you?  What strikes a flame to the wick of your imagination?

Posted in Ramblings

Musings from Over Here…

Posted on by Nememiah

 

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It’s been a wet weekend here in Perth, and on my walk this morning, the duck jetty was on it’s way to disappearing under water.

Forced myself out on the walk, even though my throat feels as if I’ve swallowed a couple of razor blades, because I have a bad habit of finding reasons not to walk (because I love exercise so much). I always feel better about myself if I force myself out there – even if it is people-infested.

And now that I’ve gotten back home, I’m about to do a Google search for the components and operations of sniper rifles, in preparation for a scene I want to write later today!

 

Posted in D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

Writing and Editing and Publicity… Oh My

Posted on by Nememiah

One of the absolutely hardest things about being a writer, is firstly, the writing.  I watch some of the other writers I know, who publish six to eight books a year, and I take my hats off to them.  I know it involves a great amount of dedication, and more importantly, a lot of self-discipline.  None of which I seem to have in any tangible amounts 🙂

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I started off this year with a bunch of good intentions, and plenty of enthusiasm.  I was going to finish off six… yes, you read that correctly… SIX of my WIP’s.

It’s now May… and I’ve finished one.

What’s the problem? I hear you ask.

That would be Procrastination: and that capital ‘P’ is deliberate.  I can find absolutely anything in the world to do, other than writing a book.  There’s reading, of course, which is a wonderful alternative to actually doing anything constructive.  And then there’s organizing my movie collection.  And photo collection.  And downloading new pictures from Pinterest for inspiration for new books…

You see the problem.

But the thing I find even worse, the most difficult part of walking this path of being a writer… it’s the publicity stuff.  I am so incredibly impressed when my fellow authors announce they’re going to a convention, or doing a book signing.  I think they’re all so incredibly brave!

Me.  Not so much.

But this past week, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to this writing gig, and my role in the writing world.  I think I’m brave enough now to say I’m an author.  With six published books, and another one in pre-publishing, I guess it’s a moniker that fits.  Even if sometimes, I don’t have the confidence to believe it myself.

But what I need to do now, is commit to this writing gig, believe in myself a little more, and work harder on sharing my stories and progressing and improving.  I don’t think I will ever, ever go down the convention/book signing path (Good grief!  How terrible would I feel if I had a signing and NOBODY TURNED UP!) but I am taking the advice of a very good friend, who tells me I should have a newsletter.

The prospect immediately filled me with fear, because who would want to hear anything from me?  What could I possibly have to say that was interesting?  Although I still have a tonne of doubts, I’ve taken my friend’s advice, and I’m formulating a newsletter to share with my readers.  And I’m telling myself, every day, that I am an author, and I do write things people like to read.

Now to push that procrastination to the side, and get on with those other five books scheduled for 2017…

’til next time,

D.S.

 

Posted in Book News, D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

Nememiah 5 – Coming Soon!

Posted on by Nememiah

It’s been a long (long, long, long) time coming, but the final book is now in the hands of my editor and beta readers, and will soon be winging its way to my publisher for final approval and publication.  I know everyone waiting for the book has been incredibly patient, and in many cases, have begun to get frustrated with the long delay between this book and the last one.

I have no excuses, other than the fact that real life got in the way.  No.  I’m not dead.  No.  I didn’t run out of ideas.  And no, I never intended to finish the series where it ended at the end of Book 4.  The fact of the matter is that I had a huge, unplanned blip on my radar in the form of a catastrophic mental health breakdown some two and half years ago, which was followed by a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder.  Which actually came as a relief, after years of being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder which didn’t quite cover all the stuff that went on in my head on a day-to-day basis.

In recent months, I’ve finally gotten settled onto a good level of meds, which has led to my previously stifled creative flow being back in full force.  And so, I’m delighted to let people know that if they’ve hung around for this long, all the answers are going to be revealed.  And I love you and thank you for putting up with an abysmally long wait.  First reactions from beta readers have been extremely positive, and I’m hoping that you (the readers) will be satisfied with the final journey.

Teaser 3 - I was Archangelo's wife...

Posted in Ramblings

The Bright Spots in the Mania

Posted on by Nememiah

In what most would see as complete insanity, I’ve managed to find some bright spots in the current mania I’ve been struggling with.
When I’m feeling particularly anxious, repetitivity is the key to retaining whatever sanity I might have left. Consequently, in the past three or four weeks, I’ve been reorganizing my book collection (I did mention it a few weeks ago… and since then it’s become bigger than Ben-Hur in terms of the battle of Deb vs her books.)
It all started because I don’t like the arbitrary way in which Kindle organizes my books – mainly the fact that it doesn’t necessarily keep my books in the order in which I like them, nor does it necessarily keep series in order. So I went in search of a new program and decide to use Calibre to fix the metadata, and Moon Reader Plus for reading. Yes, yes, I know I could have used Calibre to do both, but Calibre isn’t ‘pretty enough’ for my reading tastes.
So I spent a considerable period of time organizing my books in calibre, placing them together in series, tagging them regarding subject and ensuring that all the names etc. were uniform in their writing. (I’m so OCD currently, I can’t stand initials not to be uniformly punctuated.)
Now keep in mind, I’m a book lover. I have all sorts of books, ranging from old classics (which I’m definitely going to read one day) to reference books for writing and publishing. We’re talking about roughly 1200 books here – although it has been boosted by about another 200 in recent weeks as I’ve struggled with the swings through depression and mania. So this has taken some time.
I was a little perturbed when I reached the ‘transfer the books from Calibre to Moon Reader’ because a lot of my changed metadata got lost in translation. Normally, al things being equal, I would have thought this through more clearly, but being the way I am… I didn’t. I proceeded to ‘tweak’ the roughly 1200 books until they were the way I wanted them in Moon Reader. Which took about a week – day and night – while I’ve struggled with rampant insomnia..
Which was about the time I realized that perhaps I should have thought harder about this and put the books onto my SD card, rather than the main memory on my tablet, which is kind of full..
‘No problem’, I thought. ‘I’ll just transfer all the book files to the SD card, and we’ll be all good. It’ll take a couple of minutes.’
Nope.
Moon Reader lost the plot, I lost the plot, and I decided to start all over again because I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. (I’m nothing if not determined when I’m manic. See? There’s a bright spot.)
So I began again, and noticed that when I returned the books from Calibre to Moon Reader, SOME (and I’m talking a minimal amount) of the books now had the right metadata,. Hmmm. Have no idea how that happened. Proceed to ensure all the book records are now safely stored on the SD card, and proceed with reorganizing all the books in Moon Reader. Again. Which has taken about another week, day and night. (I’m nothing if not persistent when things get in my head. See? Another bright spot.)
Got all the books nicely organized, then decided I might like to have a copy of them on my phone as well. (You know, for those emergencies when I don’t have my tablet and urgently need to read a book on a specific subject.) Don’t laugh. It could happen.
Go to put them on my phone, and realize I’ve got a problem, because now I have them transferred onto my phone… they all need reorganizing again. ‘No problems,’ I think. ‘I’ll just back up from the tablet and restore to the phone.’
It didn’t work. And I screwed up all the files on my phone. And just to make doubly sure I’d screwed up the theory, I managed to bugger them up on the tablet as well. (Don’t ask… this is just a side effect of my Bipolar madness.)
So I’m mooching around on Google, trying to find a solution to this issue (that determination kicks in again, because I’m not good at giving up in these circumstances)… and I come across a little message from some kind soul on one of the forums.
‘Don’t forget that you MUST resave your book files after amending the metadata to make the new metadata overwrite the old’.
Ah-HA!
Set up Calibre to rewrite the files overnight, and after a double dose of bipolar meds, go to bed. And actually sleep, which is such a blessing after weeks of insomnia. (See? Another bright spot!)
This morning, I take my brand spanky new book files, upload them onto Moon Reader… and everything is just about perfect. Everything is there, exactly where I want it to be, other than a few small tweaks to reorder book series which stretch into double figures. I hate them to be out of order, i.e. 1, 10, 2, etc…
And while my tenacity on this particular project has known no bounds… I decided to just upload exactly the same files onto my phone and leave well enough alone.

And in a postscript to those people who are going to come up with some reason why I shouldn’t have bothered, here are my reasons in advance.

1. Yes, I could just forgo the issue and put up with them on Kindle out of order and with incorrect punctuation – but that agitates me no end.
2. Yes, I’m aware that ‘real’ books don’t have the same issues. But they also tend to come in different sizes, and quite often, halfway through a series the publisher changes the ‘scheme’ of the covers, which just shits me to death. So they would drive me just as nuts as ebooks do when they’re ‘wrong’.
3. Yes, I’m nuts. But I think that’s already been well-established. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

And now, at last, I’m off to read a book in peace. And hopefully, get another night of sleep tonight.

 

Posted in Ramblings

Why I Need to Learn How to Say NO…

Posted on by Nememiah

Have I mentioned how much I hate the GPS in my car? This is not a new situation, I’ve hated the GPS in my car since… well, since I got the GPS. Perhaps I’m too much of a free spirit (or too stubborn) to listen to a very annoying voice telling me which direction to head in, or perhaps I just cringe every time she mispronounces a street name. (i.e. Pinaster Parade in Ellenbrook somehow becomes ‘Penis-ter’, and for some reason she insists on pronouncing Mirrabooka Drive as though it’s a spell out of a Harry Potter book).
Anyhoo… yesterday, Bonnie picked up an extra shift at Gamesworld – not at Cannington, but over at their other store in Booragoon.
Now all things being equal, the answer to ‘Can I do a shift at Booragoon’ should have been a resounding no. I’ve swung from a manic episode, plunged into a depression, and swung back into manic in the past month – consequently I avoid driving because frankly, I’m probably dangerous behind the wheel and I’m not focused enough to be driving (in my opinion). But years of conditioning to automatically say ‘yes’ to all and everything I’m asked to do (regardless of whether it’s something I want to do, or I’m capable of doing) got in the way.
I said yes.

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And immediately began to stress over it, because Bonnie couldn’t get to Booragoon by public transport, and the boys were all at work, and Steve is currently in Sydney working – which meant I had to get her to Booragoon.
Which leads back to the GPS. I kind of know the way to Booragoon, but thought it would be better to use the GPS, because that way, (supposedly), I wouldn’t have to think about where I was going.
We set off (happily, leaving plenty of time at the other end for Bonza to figure out where in Garden City the Gamesworld Store happens to be) and ‘Miss GPS’ automatically shits me to death by insisting that I should turn left at Wharton Road, which I knew would lead me to Armadale Road, and from there, onto the freeway… which is the one road that I do NOT want to drive on. The freeway on the best of days makes my anxiety peak… and trust me, you do not want to suffer a panic attack on a freeway – it’s not good ju-ju.
Consequently, I tell Miss GPS to mind her own business and continue around the roundabout to continue up Nicholson Road. She decides she should ‘recalculate’.
We get along amiably until we get onto South Street, at which point she announces we should turn left onto Roe Highway… which leads us back to the freeway…
I can begin to feel tension rising in the my shoulders, and I’m clutching the steering wheel to the point where my fingernails are digging into the material, a sure sign that I’m heading towards panic. The roads around here are busy, and as I mentioned above… I probably should have said no.
Tell Miss GPS to mind her own business and continue down South Street.
She decides to recalculate.
We reach Murdoch and sure enough, Miss GPS is all ‘turn right, turn right’… onto the freeway.
At this point, I find myself in a turn right only lane, (to go onto the freeway) surrounded by traffic, and my stress levels increase.

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Manage to get out of that lane, call Miss GPS a few choice words in my head, and sail on down South Street. We get to the next intersection, and again, Miss GPS insists we should turn right, but by this time, I’m convinced that it’s a plot to get me back to the freeway…so I ignore her and continue.
Which is followed by Miss GPS assuring me, regularly, that now I need to TURN BACK.
Sigh.
Decide I have no choice but to turn back (and South Street is a very busy street too) and find that Miss GPS was actually right and we DID have to turn.
By now, I’m practicing my breathing exercises to avoid having to pull over, my palms are sweating, my heart is racing and I’m not a happy bunny.
Finally get to Garden City and I spend ten minutes in the carpark, punching random buttons on Miss GPS until I come across a ticked box which says ‘Always use freeways where possible’
Unticked the bloody thing and came home, where I proceeded to collapse into a chair and remind myself again why I shouldn’t attempt these things when I know the answer to the request should be ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t do that.’
I live in hope that I’ll learn this lesson.

Posted in D.S. Williams Worlds, Ramblings

So, it started with a desk…

Posted on by Nememiah

The start of 2017 has seen me ‘prepping’ for a whole lot of book writing, with plans (in concrete, and written in blood, I swear) to publish six books by December.  I’ve organized, prepared, reorganized my whole approach to social media and cut back on how many ‘things’ I need to keep updated. (Hence why this blog page is now the home of me, my alter ego Leah Dempster, and my editing counterpart The Pedantic Punctuator – one blog is much easier to focus on than three.)

I got a weekly diary, planned out my writing/editing/publishing timetable, gave myself strict instructions on how many words a day would be written, and this week was set aside for ‘prepping’, before ‘writing’.

Hence why it started with a desk.

We have a little study in our new house, which I share with the Darling Husband.  When I say the study is little, I mean tiny.  Minuscule. And it is filled with computer equipment,  bookshelves, printers and all my crafting supplies.  (I used to do craft, until I started editing for a living, and writing books in between edits, so now I have a lot of craft supplies, which take up a lot of space, which require regular dusting, but otherwise don’t come out much.)  And my Darling Husband, although he’s the love of my life, is the antithesis to my OCD Bipolar nuttiness in that he keeps all his stuff EVERYWHERE… He is a lover of flat surfaces and covers them all.

Which leads to that desk issue.

Part of the ‘getting ready for my big 2017 writing projects’ is that I wanted a little space to do my writing.  I had it in our old house, because I had my little desk in our bedroom, with a potted plant, a cute little lantern, a candle and it was… my space.  In the new house, we made the decision to share the study, because there wasn’t quite enough room in the bedroom.  But the prospect of trying to write in the study, with all that… stuff…

I knew it would never work.  I’d be more inclined to start tidying up than do any productive writing.  So I woke up yesterday morning and decided to move the desk.

But first, I needed to rearrange some of the kitchen.

Why I hear you ask?  Well, it began with a need to make some space in the linen cupboard, because I decided that to get the desk out of the study and into our bedroom, I needed to get some of the stuff out of the study.  And while I was at it, I might as well begin organizing the study a little better because you know how it is when you move into a house, and you get to that point where you’re sick of unpacking and things just start getting shoved into the rooms willy-nilly?  The study kind of ended up like that.

So I wanted to reorganize some stuff in the kitchen, to fit the extra kitchen stuff which had collected in half of the linen cupboard, so that I could move some stuff into the linen cupboard from the study, and then I could get the desk out and into our bedroom

Simple.

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But then while I was at it, I had a brainwave.  We recently inherited a wonderful display cabinet from BIL & SIL, and we were considering getting rid of our old cabinet, but then I had a thought.  I could use the old cabinet in the study for better organization!  And get the desk out of the room, and while I was at it, completely rearrange all the shelves!

Perfect.

So consequently, to get my little desk out of the study and seven feet down the hallway and into our bedroom, I moved kitchen stuff around, got kitchen stuff out of the linen cupboard and got it into kitchen cupboards, moved blankets and things out of the laundry cupboards and into the linen cupboard, moved crafty stuff out of the study and into the laundry cupboards… and got the desk out of the study and set up in our bedroom.  Where it looks beautiful, and it’s my own little space and I’m going to be very happy writing in there with the morning sun streaming in through the window.

Which left me with a study which looks like a bomb had hit, shelves half-filled, other shelves empty, a filing cabinet which didn’t look right where it was, and numerous stuffed toys (I’m an addict) which needed to be organized.

So it turns out, moving my little ‘writing space’ into the other room constituted an all day marathon, ‘voluntolding’ the help of Son # 2 and Son #3 to help lift the really heavy stuff, and completely rearranging the kitchen, the linen cupboard, the laundry cupboards, the study and our bedroom to make it all ‘work’.

Mission accomplished!  And now, I’m ready for Monday to roll around because I’m all ready to write!

 

 

Posted in Ramblings

A Random Update…

Posted on by Nememiah
Oh goodness, it’s been a huge month for my family, with a move from one end of the city to the other, after ten months of my DH and I living apart while he works on the Naval Base and the Gang of Four and I continued to live in Ellenbrook. With the beautiful daughter finishing up her secondary education in Ellenbrook, it was a strategic decision as a family to stay there and allow her to complete her final year.
Now though, with her last few weeks nearly finished we’ve made the big move which has been both wonderful, and as anyone who has moved house knows, extremely stressful.
We are, if I may say so, reasonably professional at moving house.  During our thirty years of marriage (and with twenty six years of those having a DH who is a serving member of the Air Force), we’ve moved quite a bit.  In fact, I think the count is up around sixteen or seventeen moves, in five different Australia states.
Despite this regularity of making moves, it never seems to get that much easier.  Sure, we’ve got the prepping and organising sections down to a fine art, but that final get-everything-packed/get-everything-moved/settle-into-the-new-house section of the agenda is always tricky, and always sheer hard work.
Since we moved in a couple of weeks ago, we have been dealing with trying to get our internet up and running – started organizing it a week or two before we moved, and now, here we are, two and a half weeks into the new house and still we don’t have internet available.  Honestly, you would think we were living in a third world country, but no, this is Australia, we are supposed to be a first world country, and yet, getting internet is probably one of the most difficult things to manage 🙂  Consequently, the DH and I have been providing internet to the Gang of Four (and ourselves) on a very limited trickle system.  While the DH has one of those teeny tiny internet boxy things, which provide wireless internet (he needed it when he was living on the naval base) – it costs a lot to use (we’re talking 50 bucks for 50 gigs, which doesn’t sound bad, but when you have a family of tech-savvy teenagers and young adults, 50 gigs lasts about 50 seconds!).
Consequently, everyone has been on a drought of internet access.  In desperation, I’ve been using my mobile phone as an internet hotspot to gain access to ‘the rest of the world’, but it runs at an internet equivalent speed of using a chisel on a block of stone.
We live in hope however, and after having two internet providers telling us they could provide ADSL2, only to turn around at the eleventh hour and say no, in fact, they couldn’t… this week, we’re hoping to at least get ADSL1.
It won’t be fast, but at this stage, we’ll settle for anything which actually works, is reliable, and is available on a full-time basis rather than our current erratic program.  And now folks, I’m going to sign of from my ‘hotspot’, and get back to writing.