A Poet's Diary 2013: Stress Teaches This Author Changes Must Be Made

May 24, 2013
Merritt Island, FL

So yesterday was a rough day.  Having never illustrated a book before, never worked with digital images before, never published my own illustrations before, getting the file of Ermengarde the Expansive  in suitable form to be published in Paperback was a "learning experience."  Yesterday was chock full of "teachable moments" for this author.  

It took me eight tries at uploading the main body of the manuscript for paperback publication.  Each time I received notes on suggested revisions I thought I had already made.  To be honest, I was baffled and more than a little frustrated.  I was *sure* I had done exactly what the good folk at CreateSpace told me to do, but each upload resulted in a note for the same revisions.  I started to wonder of I was simply not understanding something I needed to do.  As it turns out, MS Word was the culprit.  It seems Word will "help" you without your having asked and without telling you it has helped.  In this particular case, MS Word was changing the resolution on the images I was using in order to keep the total doc size down.  Well, I *need* these images to be at least 300 PPI.  Otherwise, they will be blurry in print.  Blurry is bad.  

Unfortunately, I did not learn of this MS Word quirk until this morning.  Last night around 10, having gotten all but three of the illustrations to the right resolution and having really reached my breaking point, I told CreateSpace to go ahead and review the manuscript for publication.  They have done so and I have it back now.  Luckily, I can still revise it again, which I will do later this afternoon.  At that point, I will do what I now know how to do to get MS Word to mind its own business regarding the resolution of my illustrations.  I will also make one other revision I thought of while sleeping.  Then I will submit the thing again and it will be out of my hands for a few hours at least. Once the paperback is set to fly, I will do the layout for Kindle and upload that to Amazon.    That will no doubt be challenging as well.   Wish me luck!  

Anyway, having said this has been a learning experience, I have taken  some of what I learned and made some revisions in the timeline for upcoming publications.  This is supposed to be a pleasure, not exhausting drudgery.  Knowing what I now know about layout and illustrations as well as my own editorial process and Amazon's KDP program, I have adjusted the time allotted for bringing future publications to life.  I have also decided never again to schedule a book launch event before the book is actually, well, launched.  That is more pressure than I need.  

Haiku Throw-down! Topic: Scifi!

This week's topic was suggested by one of our regular contributors, Bill Keck.  He sent me this haiku in slightly altered haiku form to get the tiny poems  rolling.  

Robby the robot
to Iron Man's Armor
Little has really changed.

Here's my own.  

The Doctor changes
faces for no good reason
Like my Whos snarky

Your turn!

Her's another one from Bill Keck!  

Sexy women of sci-fi
Lt. Uhura,Yeoman Rand
Barbarella and The Rowan 

Here's one from ReeNee Cummins!  

Are they green or grey?
Do they come in peace or not?
Just stories...or more? 

Here we have a quatriliogy of Haiky from Brian Knoderer!  

Two slices of bread 

A perfectly normal beast 

Arthur makes a sandwich 

(Referencing "Mostly harmless" by Douglas Adams)

Many low bulkheads 

Warriors are much too tall 

Bumps on Klingon heads

Photon torpedoes 

Beings who piss off Captain 

Matter goes Ka-Boom

Dark vacuum, bright stars 

No air to transmit sound waves 

In space, silent fart

Here is one from Nathan Hamm in Columbus, Ohio.

Great hi tech gadgets;
Secret under the radar;
We have them right now

And four more from Brian Knoderer!

One Pissed off robot
"Klaatu barada nikto"
Gort destroy earth, not

UFO in sky

waking from painful dream state

anal probes can hurt

Eggs, row upon row

Shiny, glistening, waiting

Coiled spring Hugger

Noodles for supper

Much laughing, clutching, gagging

Chest Burster springs forth

A Poet's Diary 2013: Stormy Monday Pics For a Blah Wednesday

May 22, 2013
Merritt Island, FL

I don't have a lot to report today, so thought I would share a couple of pics taken at Cape Canaveral on Monday.  There was rain, but it was still good to beach in the morning.

It has been one of those days when I have energy for nothing.  I did manage a beach outing and am getting a very late start on the day's work.  Life goes on.  Some days are just like that.  

I completed a first attempt at laying out Ermengarde the Expansive yesterday.  This is the paperback version.  In a little while I will upload it to CreateSpace to see how it looks there.  Then I will do three more edit runs through it before submitting.  Let's hope for smooth going, but I am realistic enough to know I will most likely want to do the layout over.  That is just the nature of the beast.  

Live In Shinglehouse!

Dream Sequence, May 15, 2013

This poem, Dream Sequence, May 15, 2013, is my entry for the 1000 Words of Art exhibition, which opens in UUtopia, Second Life on June 9. My poem is inspired by the virtual sculpture, Dancing Thoughts, created for the exhibition by Nitro Fireguard.

Dream Sequence, May 15, 2013

by Stephanie Mesler 

In sleep she flies

past the sugar plum fairies

over the counted sheep

through a cloudless sky,

soaring on gusts of tropical wind

that crossed an ocean to lift her

up and out, beyond her day,

her body surf dynamic

in sleep without limitations.

She conjures a jungle call

whispering on the wind;

the thom, thim, thumping of drums,

elephants’ clarion song,

boars’ grunting gluttony,

cicada dirty dancing.

They call her to herself

lusty in her sleep

home across an ocean

in a place she’s never been.

Morning finds her glimmering

at the foot of a Bodhi tree

lain in a bed of blossoms

surrounded by sweet figs.  

Roused, she reaches,

stretches toward the beasts

that came to her in darkness

now just out of reach.  

A Poet's Diary, 2013: Who in their right mind chooses to be a professional poet?

May 19, 2013
Merritt Island, FL

Yesterday was not one of my better days.  I woke up cranky and tense.  Not used to deadlines, even self-imposed deadlines, my body and mind have started objecting to the stress.  

As a writer, I have always worked better with deadlines than without.  I once paid the fee to reserve a theater for two months and started hiring the cast for a play production before the play was written in order to assure that I would actually finish the blasted thing.  It worked.  So I know my current schedule of deadlines is a logical tool for my employment.  It's just I have never before committed to a schedule of creative and editorial deadlines that goes out for years.  

On top of deadline stress, there is the stress of learning new technology in order to upload manuscripts digitally and, in some cases, illustrate them digitally.  To be honest, I had never even used MS Word 'til three weeks ago.  Man, oh man.  That was not an easy climb.  

And then there is the stress associated with watching sales reports.  I really, really need to not even look at those figures more than once a week.  Looking more often than that is fruitless and panic inducing.  At one point yesterday, because Soul Hill Lullabies is the subject of a special Amazon promotion right now, I was looking at sales reports every quarter hour or so.  Let me tell you, that is like watching paint dry, only with the added pleasure of realizing you are an idiot for ever thinking of being a poet.  I mean seriously, a poet?  Who in their right mind chooses to be a professional poet?  

I woke up yesterday with a headache, heartburn, and in a fowl temper.  I did some work in the morning, but it was decided by my very wise partner that I needed an afternoon and evening off.  We went out into the Florida sunshine and it had some palliative affect.  

Today I still have the heartburn and did not sleep all that well, but I'm ready to hunker down and finish the illustrations for Ermengarde the Expansive.  I want that puppy laid out, proofread one last time, uploaded to amazon by next weekend, on the market by June 1.  

I need to not forget that SHL will be offered in a Goodreads give away starting tomorrow.  There are three copies of the paperback up for the winning on Goodreads from May 20 to June 19.  

Soul Hill Lullabies FREE on Kindle this Saturday and Sunday (May 18 and 19)!  

No Kindle? No problem!  You can download the FREE kindle reader to your computer.  Seriously, this deal is too good to ignore.