Connection problems

I've had no network connection for the last day and a half. I spent half an hour on the phone with the techie guys yesterday at AOL checking my set up - I was eventually passed through to some other guy who told me that British Telecom were having trouble with their broadband line. BT had kindly let AOL know. They'd been working on it for fifteen hours and would get it up and running asap. The guy actually gave me the time in hours, minutes and seconds :-)

Last night we were having a meal with friends and on our way out of our village (we live right out in the countryside) we saw three or four BT vans parked on the roadside. So the problem was apparently there. A strange place, but still. Anyway, it was nearing midnight before we returned home, and the vans were still there, with two deep holes dug on the grass verges either side of the road, bright lights shining into them. So we stopped and asked - and the answer was that some mindless vandals had dug down, cut into the copper wire, and pulled a whole lot out to sell. Copper must have a high price. We were told it's happening all over the place.

My thoughts are, how do the culprits know where to dig? I guess eventually the copper wire will be replaced with fibre optics, but meantime, how often is this going to happen?

On a brighter note, I have the go ahead for my book. I wrote two pages yesterday, so at least it's a start.

Third Time Lucky

I have today sent another revised synopsis to my ed. If this doesn't work I shall give up on the whole idea and start again.



Now I have proofs to read of my last book. It will be published in March next year with the title of Married Again To The Millionaire. I'm hoping that by the time I've finished them I will have heard from my ed and it will be all systems go. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms from not writing.

Troubles

The netbook internet connection has been solved, after about two hours on the phone to the techie guys. Both AOL and Dell. I had a headache by the time I had finished. But now I'm happy.



I'm not so happy though that my ed still has reservations about my synopsis. Basically the whole story could be resolved by a conversation. Apparently! Am I losing the plot? I'm going to take another look at it over the weekend and then if it still doesn't work, I'll bin it and start again. At least I have another idea sitting waiting to be looked at. One that excites me.



Have a good weekend.

New Contest

I feel in limbo waiting to hear from my editor, but the good news is that my new contest is now up and running - until the end of September.

It's very simple. What was my first book called? I thought that after 75 books you might find it interesting to see what sort of titles the books had way back in the 70's. You'll find the answer on my website (all you have to do is email me with the words August/September contest in the subject line) and the first three names pulled out of the hat on October 1st will receive copies of one of my back books.

I didn't get any further with Skype as my sister in law forgot to get in touch. So another time.

Computers

I'm playing about on my computer while I'm waiting for my sister in law to get in touch on Skype. Then we'll see what happens. We have it set up on my DH's computer and he's having sound problems with it. A loose connection somewhere I think. There always seem to be problems with computers and for someone who's not computer savvy it's a headache. I've just invested in a netbook, which I thought would be better than carrying my heavy laptop around whenever I'm away. Now I have the problem of setting up an internet connection. It doesn't have a disk drive to add my AOL to it - and external ones are pretty pricey. There must be a way around it, so that's another headache on the horizon.

And by the way I'll soon be running a new contest on my website so do look out for that.

Skype

This is a plea for help. I've recently downloaded Skype so that we can talk for free with my sister in law in Australia. She has downloaded it too. Now all we have to do is fathom out how it works. Does anyone out there use Skype? Can you advise me? I guess I would figure it out eventually but thought a little help from my friends might be an easier way of doing it.

Plots again

You would think that after writing for all these years that I’d be able to write a synopsis easily. The truth is, I can’t. I’ve always written ‘into the mist’ and I find having to plot out the whole story beforehand is a time consuming and frustrating experience.

I keep reading about how other authors write their synopses, and Nicola Marsh’s method which she blogged about last week was excellent. As was one by Heidi Rice some time ago. So why can’t I do it?

I guess I’m more interested in writing than plotting.

Does anyone else struggle with synopses or is it just me?

Plots & synopses

I’ve spent the last three days tackling the weeds that have dared to grow over the last couple of weeks. Plenty of rain and sunshine really did it’s job, but all is looking good again and I’m back to struggling with my new synopsis.

My thoughts are that if I’m finding it difficult now will the story work overall. With a bit of luck I’ll complete it today and send it off to my ed. She did say it had potential – it’s a matter of finding it.

So fingers crossed everyone.

Fun while it lasted

I'd forgotten how much energy thirteen year olds have. Two weeks in his company and I'm worn out. It was fun, though, and the house is very quiet now that he's gone home.

I religiously kept away from my computer, knowing full well how much time it takes up. Then found I was snowed under with emails. Which I have still to read. I've sorted the good from the bad, so that's whittled them down. But there are so many that need my attention that it looks like being a few days before I actually get down to work. By work I mean writing. I'm in discussions with my editor regarding my recent synopsis. She has reservations, so it might be back to the drawing board!

One piece of good news. I've been told that Bought For Marriage was number three in the Borders best seller list last week.