In my February 25th blog I promised you a post a week at my Association of Temporal Anthropologists blogsite. My last post was March 25th and it is now May. I apologize for the neglect but I cannot say I am sorry. I have been busy on family business.
I spent April in Montana helping my sister-in-law to take care of my mother-in-law, Jo, dying of cancer. My sister-in-law is disabled and couldn’t do it on her own. I was not the only one helping, but I was the only one without a nine-to-five job I had to get back to. Indeed my nephew and his fiancée postponed their wedding to help.
Before you say what a nice person I am, I did it for the sake of Karma--not my Karma but for Jo’s Karma. My mother-in-law has been the primary care giver for at least three people dying of cancer. Indeed her biggest regret was that she had brought my sister-in-law to Hamilton to take care of her, and now her daughter was taking care of her. Jo was an excellent patient, always cooperative (at least as much as her failing body would allow her to be) and she forced herself to stay upbeat. To the end she was doing what she could to take care of those caring for her.
April 1st Jo was given the final diagnosis of 4 to 6 weeks. She slowly slipped into a coma and passed away peacefully on May 1st. Her last words to me were “I love you.” She was the best mother-in-law one could ask for, never treating me as if I was not good enough for her son, but rather treating me like I was somehow special.
It’s difficult to write when you are hovering over someone who is too weak to press a call button or yell for help. And grief is a bit distracting. However life goes on. I have a second book to edit, which I promised Jo I would dedicate to her. And of course I need to keep up my blog--my attempt at getting attention without being too obnoxious.
To make up for the silence I am posting a short story I have been working on: High Stakes Poker on the Mississippi. This is one of Dr. Wendell Howe’s last projects as a Temporal Anthropologist before disappearing and presumed dead by the 27th century. This tale takes place a couple of months before my book Walking a Fine Timeline.
Click here to link to my short story. I hope you enjoy it.
Showing posts with label Dr. Wendell Howe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Wendell Howe. Show all posts
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Where's Wendell?
TimeTweets, which allowed Dr. Wendell Howe to tweet to the folks back in the 27th century from the 19th was an experimental application. Unfortunately the Institute of Time Travel Enforcement Agency has found out those tweets were somehow bleeding into the 21st century! They had no choice but to try to convince everyone on Twitter this was all a hoax. The Enforcers were also forced to erase Wendell’s memory of Twitter and all the friends he made. He will miss not being able to Tweet on those lonely nights in the field...except he doesn’t remember so he can’t really miss it. He will however feel there is a void in his life.
Soon Wendell will disappear mysteriously on his trip to 1851 in a few months. After a long hunt, the Institute will announce they found bits of him in the past. The University of Cambridge and the whole town will have Wendell’s funeral in 2662, but don’t worry, he is very much alive. And you will just have to read my book to find out what happens to Wendell. (Okay, the free 14 chapter preview will tell you where he went, but not the whole story. For that you have to buy the book.)
My @Wendell_Howe Twitter site was an experiment in marketing. (Gawd, I feel cheap.) But writers have to market their own books nowadays, no matter how they publish. In reality, the aim of a writer is not to make everyone buy his book, since not everyone will like it, but to just let as many people as possible know it exists.
I was going to promote myself on Twitter back in 2009, but after a couple of months I discovered just how boring my life is. So I decided to Tweet as one of my characters. I set Wendell back four years before the events of the book. I figured I would have the book published in a year (naïve me.) Now I have to stop Wendell's Tweets, or I will have to rewrite the book with him Tweeting all the way through it. If I had been smart I would have set @Wendell_Howe back twenty years.
But then maybe that would not have been good, either. Wendell’s tweets were taking up a LOT of my time. I had to do a lot of detective work to find out if a certain building was where Wendell was in the past. What did it look like then? What sort of food would he be eating? How long would it take in 1894 to go from point A to point B by ship? Could he run into a certain person on that date or were they somewhere else? I would spend hours tracking someone down only to learn they were out of town that month. And I’m such a stickler for accuracy, it had to be right.
Not that it wasn’t fun. I’m one of those crazy people that actually likes doing research. I also learned more about Wendell. If you have been following @Wendell_Howe all this time you will recognize some of the things he mentions in the book as things he did while on Twitter. (Like seeing Central Park being built or the driving of the Last Spike on the Canadian Railway.)
@Wendell_Howe was cutting into time I could have been working on my novels. I have a first draft for my second book I need to rewrite, polish and get edited. I also need to finish the draft on my third book, but keep getting distracted by scenes in my head from the fourth book I have to write down. (Yes, there are voices in my head and it’s usually my characters having conversations.)
Also things have come up in my personal life that require more attention. No, thank God, my husband doesn’t want a divorce. My Mom is pushing 80, is having health problems and needs more of my help.
Though Wendell is gone, he is not forgotten. Archibald Cocker, the student Wendell was mentoring to become a temporal anthropologist, will have a Dr. Wendell Howe (@Wendell_Howe) memorial Tweet site. He will also be the webmaster of the Association of Temporal Anthropologists blog. On the blog will be articles by other temporal anthropologists out in the field, doing things Wendell could never do in eras he could never go to. Archie will also occasionally put up old articles written by Wendell before his disappearance. Since I won’t need to know where every building and person in town is, I can just concentrate on one event. I plan to do a post a week. And Archie will announce it on Twitter.
Keep in mind I love forgotten historic trivia, so I promise some surprises. I also have other Temporal Anthropologists I want you to meet. They are from my next book (as well as in my head.)
Thank you for following Wendell and keeping him company...yes, I do think of him in the third person (and so does my husband.) And I know you will all make Archie feel welcome.
Go to Scablander.com and download the 14 chapter preview of Walking a Fine Timeline. Try it on for size; see if you like it.
Ebook available for $2.99 at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes.
Trade Paperback available for $13.99 at Amazon and AmazonUK.
Soon Wendell will disappear mysteriously on his trip to 1851 in a few months. After a long hunt, the Institute will announce they found bits of him in the past. The University of Cambridge and the whole town will have Wendell’s funeral in 2662, but don’t worry, he is very much alive. And you will just have to read my book to find out what happens to Wendell. (Okay, the free 14 chapter preview will tell you where he went, but not the whole story. For that you have to buy the book.)
My @Wendell_Howe Twitter site was an experiment in marketing. (Gawd, I feel cheap.) But writers have to market their own books nowadays, no matter how they publish. In reality, the aim of a writer is not to make everyone buy his book, since not everyone will like it, but to just let as many people as possible know it exists.
I was going to promote myself on Twitter back in 2009, but after a couple of months I discovered just how boring my life is. So I decided to Tweet as one of my characters. I set Wendell back four years before the events of the book. I figured I would have the book published in a year (naïve me.) Now I have to stop Wendell's Tweets, or I will have to rewrite the book with him Tweeting all the way through it. If I had been smart I would have set @Wendell_Howe back twenty years.
But then maybe that would not have been good, either. Wendell’s tweets were taking up a LOT of my time. I had to do a lot of detective work to find out if a certain building was where Wendell was in the past. What did it look like then? What sort of food would he be eating? How long would it take in 1894 to go from point A to point B by ship? Could he run into a certain person on that date or were they somewhere else? I would spend hours tracking someone down only to learn they were out of town that month. And I’m such a stickler for accuracy, it had to be right.
Not that it wasn’t fun. I’m one of those crazy people that actually likes doing research. I also learned more about Wendell. If you have been following @Wendell_Howe all this time you will recognize some of the things he mentions in the book as things he did while on Twitter. (Like seeing Central Park being built or the driving of the Last Spike on the Canadian Railway.)
@Wendell_Howe was cutting into time I could have been working on my novels. I have a first draft for my second book I need to rewrite, polish and get edited. I also need to finish the draft on my third book, but keep getting distracted by scenes in my head from the fourth book I have to write down. (Yes, there are voices in my head and it’s usually my characters having conversations.)
Also things have come up in my personal life that require more attention. No, thank God, my husband doesn’t want a divorce. My Mom is pushing 80, is having health problems and needs more of my help.
Though Wendell is gone, he is not forgotten. Archibald Cocker, the student Wendell was mentoring to become a temporal anthropologist, will have a Dr. Wendell Howe (@Wendell_Howe) memorial Tweet site. He will also be the webmaster of the Association of Temporal Anthropologists blog. On the blog will be articles by other temporal anthropologists out in the field, doing things Wendell could never do in eras he could never go to. Archie will also occasionally put up old articles written by Wendell before his disappearance. Since I won’t need to know where every building and person in town is, I can just concentrate on one event. I plan to do a post a week. And Archie will announce it on Twitter.
Keep in mind I love forgotten historic trivia, so I promise some surprises. I also have other Temporal Anthropologists I want you to meet. They are from my next book (as well as in my head.)
Thank you for following Wendell and keeping him company...yes, I do think of him in the third person (and so does my husband.) And I know you will all make Archie feel welcome.
Go to Scablander.com and download the 14 chapter preview of Walking a Fine Timeline. Try it on for size; see if you like it.
Ebook available for $2.99 at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes.
Trade Paperback available for $13.99 at Amazon and AmazonUK.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)