2024-06-24 23:11:53 PM I had completed Robbing the Cradle, proofread it on my Amazon Fire 10, highlighting typos and changes and making notations, ready to make corrections. Then I had to start work that would actually pay (some of) the bills and had to put the project on hold April 14, 2024.
As I was still working on Robbing the Cradle, I kept having ideas for both Scot Gets Free from Charlotte's Web and Charlotte Gets a Soul Mate, so I also have various chapters and/or chapter parts for both of those novels.
After my two bill-paying clients completed their projects and I had free time again, I had to transfer two of my email accounts to another server and then another server. Then I had to transfer two of my websites to a different server, as well. Then I've been working on these reformatted sites and creating the Books pages. Tonight, I think the Blog page is finally working and suitable for "going live," so that's my next step.
Then comes fixing dinners for me and my three feeling-neglected collies! Another late night! 2024-06-25 16:34:22 PM And today, instead of getting back to work on the actual novel(s), I started designing the webpage for Robbing the Cradle. I would upload it as "live," but I want to create a different background score for the masthead video, and I haven't yet tested it on phones and tablets. 2024-06-26 20:24:56 PM Finally!! After discussing it with Microsoft's Copilot AI, I finally got the image and blog info to align properly (or at least successfully) on my Galaxy phone, iPad, and Fire tablets. Hopefully, that means it will look acceptable on all devices. I didn't really use Copilot's solution, but one phrase in it gave me the hint I needed.
Then I spent the rest of the day creating the theme for the Robbing the Cradle webpage, getting it converted from midi to mp3 and then getting rid of the gap in the loop. The process included using a legacy program on a virtual Windows XP, transferring form XP to server to Windows 10, three programs to prepare the mp3, transferring it to server, testing, rinse, and repeat!
I may get back to working on the actual novel tomorrow...or Friday? 2024-06-27 20:13:18 PM Today, I started the website pieces for my other two romance novels but had difficulty with the midi to mp3 conversions, so I finally put a microphone next to my speakers, played the two midi files, recording them with a program that only saves WAV versions, converted the .wav files to .mp3, trimmed the silence on one (still needs work), and had time to write the copy for the Charlotte page, test, proofread, edit, and, as above, rinse and repeat, until it was ready for Live! So now you can read about both Robbing the Cradle and Charlotte Finds a Soul Mate on their respective pages.
I also fixed the misspelling of "soul mate" on the Romance Novels page and corrected my inconsistency about whether Charlotte gets a soul mate or finds a soul mate, at least one error in that title found in the above posts! (It should be "Finds"!)
Tomorrow, I'll be finishing Scott's page, so work on the actual books probably won't resume until Saturday. 2024-06-29 17:03:15 PM Well, I spent much of yesterday and two-thirds of today updating my blog-writing page so I could see what my post looks like before actually posting it. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent editing Charlotte's and Scott's themes and putting all the pieces together for the Scott Gets Free from Charlotte's Web page. The good news is that all of the 'Romance' sections are complete and "Live"! The bad news is, of course, that I have yet to get back to work on the actual novels. I may try to get the rest of the 'Books' sections done first, or I may try to get back to writing tomorrow. I make no promises I cannot, that is, may not, keep. :) 2024-06-30 22:38:02 PM Well, I did the Mother's Biography section instead of working on my books, including the masthead picture, video, and music. It also has its own blog! I will probably do the Poetry section tomorrow, as that book is already written and available on Amazon. The 'How To" section is just past work and reviews, but I may do it after Poetry to complete the Books section. Then back to finishing the biography book and first romance novel! 2024-07-02 16:46:29 PM I won't start today's post with "Well," — a writer should be more versatile than that! :)
The video for my poetry book was a little more complex than some of my other videos and took longer to produce, so I spent most of yesterday and today working on the Poetry section. But the good news (for me, anyhow) is that the Poetry section is now done (with its own blog) and "Live"!
I'll probably go on to do the "How To" Books section, which is more part of my "vita" than anything new or current and maybe start getting back to my actual books Thursday or Friday. In the meantime, go back and check the Poetry Book section, read about Love, Springs, Eternal(s) —Or Is It Love?, and then purchase it!!! Ummm...., please? 2024-07-05 09:43:52 AM New "Click to read..." bar with privacy note added to all the Books sections and Romance Novels sections! I may try to update the rest of richardgmills.com similarly, but I really want to get back to finishing the in-progress books. I will probably start with the Biography book, as I think it has less left to do. And then I will get to Robbing the Cradle! Sorry for all the delays. 2024-07-20 15:34:41 PM I ended up updating and finishing (with some pages still "Under Construction") all the sections of richardgmills.com before returning to my books. Today, I started adding the edits made on the Kindle preview version of Robbing the Cradle on my Fire tablet to the Word manuscript on my computer. I got to Chapter 26 and noticed a bookmark icon on the first page and discovered that was where I had left off proofreading in April! So I have 12 chapters (65 or so manuscript pages) left to proofread on the Fire before I can add those edits to the manuscript! Have I said "Argh" recently? 2024-07-20 15:38:38 PM BTW: I also added a direct link to my Books: books.richardgmills.com 2024-07-21 19:41:05 PM I finished proofreading Robbing the Cradle, including checking the crossword puzzle, earlier this afternoon. And I just now finished adding the corrections and edits from my Fire tablet to the Word manuscript on my computer. It's too late to preview and format the book in Kindle Create and/or Kindle Previewer; and, once that's done, there will have to be another proofreading before the book is ready to be published. But I'm getting closer to the actual publication date. :) 2024-07-23 15:03:30 PM I can't believe it took between five to six hours just to create the table of contents for Robbing the Cradle!! But that's as far as I got today! It might have gone faster if Word hadn't kept crashing. I've uploaded the manuscript to Kindle for another tablet proofread. As I did the table of contents, I found some errors (a couple of chapters claimed to have taken place in 1024 instead of 2024!), but I don't know how many of those corrections made it through the multiple Word crashes.
This is Tuesday. I think maybe I can have it finalized and available online by the end of the week? 2024-08-02 14:44:49 PM Argh. Two, maybe three, proofreadings and still catching errors! A few sidetracks along the way, getting other things done that had to get done, and it's August already! I also added the end matter and need to finish checking that, and then corrections back to manuscript and another proofreading! I am now aiming for uploading to Amazon by the end of next week, but I never was a way good aim! 2024-10-18 15:30:53 PM Well, I missed the target by more than two and a half months! Sorry about that. I got rather sidetracked with other things. Yesterday, I started adding the August corrections into my manuscript and finished today. I need to do another read through with the changes, but I may wait until after I have formatted and, possibly, uploaded the book. 2024-10-31 19:04:44 PM Book formatted with Kindle Create. Formatted version uploaded, downloaded, with proofreading finished this evening. I can’t believe I am still finding typos and errors, but only a handful this time. I’ll copy the changes to the Create version and the manuscript version tomorrow and re-upload. I think I’ll only check the changes this time and maybe the formatting. If there are any errors left, please let me know while reading or here.
I Intend to have the book “live” over the weekend; but then, I have well paved my road with good intentions with this book and throughout my life, so…… 2024-11-04 19:21:33 PM The pavement was only extended by a day!
The Kindle version of the book has been proofed and proofed and proofed and finally submitted this evening! Amazon says it will be available within 72 hours! Stay tuned for the link, here and on the Robbing the Cradle Books page. 2024-11-04 22:35:33 PM It's alive! That is, it's live! — Robbing the Cradle —A 'May-December' romance novel
I've already shut down my computers, so I won't add the link to the Books page until tomorrow, but for now, click the link above! 2024-11-05 16:22:53 PM And now Robbing the Cradle is available for purchase from its Books page on this site! 2024-11-05 16:43:46 PM On to either Scott Gets Free from Charlotte's Web or a quick finish of Mothers Biography — "quick" being a relative term here (not relative as in my grandmother, but relative as in my paved road to helll; see above for that reference)! 2024-11-11 15:42:00 PM I spent a couple of days creating the paperback version of Robbing the Cradle and finally got it submitted and approved. It should also be available now or at least soon. I am reminded of Elaine Stritch singing “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch” in Stephen Sondheim’s Company: "Does anyone still wear a hat?!" Does anyone still read a paperback? But I guess they do, and hopefully mine! 2024-11-11 15:43:34 PM I also have the first eight chapters of Scott Gets Free from Charlotte's Web written. I may update this blog to have separate sections for each book. We shall see.... 2024-11-15 14:03:40 PM I decided to update this blog with separate sections for overall blog entries and respective book blogs. It seems like it took forever to get the script to work (Copilot didn't find the error this time; I found it this morning as I was about to start over the entire form!), but I guess four days isn't that bad. Anyhow, you can see now that it is finished. 2024-11-17 01:40:45 AM I've updated this page to show the dates of the most recent posts. 2024-11-17 15:28:22 PM I reformatted the dates section so that the dates are flush-right rather than immediately after the title as they were originally. That makes it easier to read and compare latest updates. 2024-11-19 15:51:03 PM I just noticed "Web" was missing from the Scott book title above and replaced it! Have I said, "Argh!" lately? Or maybe Derrick's "Duh"! :))