Goodness, what a short week! But I've gotten two queries out, should have a new pair of slacks that fit by this evening, and made some progress putting together the necessary submission package to make Widespot available for download at the hosting sight where I'd like to see it, and where it's most likely to find its proper audience.
Queries I've griped about before. One afternoon of sewing resulted in successful installation of a single zipper. And the submission process for the hosting site is proving to be one big learning curve, as it involves fitting a lot of information into a maximum of 15 .jpg files and one .png - and we don't have Photoshop. The minimalistic photo editor we do have is not great at producing montages, which is the only way to fit all the information into the space.
And once again I am struck by the unity of experience. Whatever you want to do in this world, you either go out and get the skills and tools necessary to do it, or you decide you don't want it that much and do without. Slacks that fit, books in print, a round-the-world trip in your own yacht, it's all the same basic process.
This is the advantage of the mature brain, this recognition of underlying unity and the knowledge that you have the skill of acquiring skills. If, in fact, you used your youthful flexibility of brain to learn how to learn. If you didn't, you're in a bind. Learning gets physically harder as we get older, unless we've been learning right along and didn't let the ruts dig in too deeply.
Odds are poor that I will ever be good at translating two dimensional figures into three dimensions at this point, and therefore zippers will remain difficult. The synapses that would have been necessary are no longer available, probably occupied by an axiom of story logic. But the skill of making notes to myself, of puzzling out instructions, of patiently ripping out mistakes and trying again - yeah, I've got that. I don't have Photoshop, but I have PhotoScape and the will to experiment and the capacity to judge a point of diminishing returns in an endeavor.
You know how to tell what you really want?
Look at how much time you spend working on getting it.
Slacks that fit. Access to the correct audience. I will get them. If not one way, then another.
I hear you Peni.
ReplyDeletecongrats on getting two queries out. that seems to be the hardest part! new follower, here, hi!! :D
ReplyDeleteYeah, I reckon you know as much about that as I do, Bish!
ReplyDeleteWelcome aboard, Tammy. I hope you find it worth your while. Queries are certainly the hardest part for me. I hate meeting new people, and selling things, and a query is both. But the days of sending a new MS over the transom and selling it (which is how I sold my first book) are well and truly over, and whining about it won't change anything.