With computer problems, not much done, most immediate on the agenda:

• To Jean Lauzier and the Book Tour next month, this week should get the material together, more I hope.
• Back to WVU: and the MFA Short Story, specially to Grumps, Raven and Susan F of the Sisu
• Tales of Chestamovarado : A collection of my short stories; I’ve postponed this far too long. Begun ten years ago - ten? Good Grief !. I wanted to develop the first of them with WVU/MFA classrooms… They must be at week sixteen there by now, or more.

The little e-book, on mistakes writers make about firearms is only sixty pages is hardly a book, but I’m pushing it for several reasons:

• I think it is genuinely useful and has actually turned out better than I thought, for it’s purpose: a quick reference to guns and their working specially suited for writers that are not gun enthusiasts (and even anti-gun). I daresay that I’ve often found among my fellow gunslingers that many are not very well versed outside their particular area.
• The ‘marketing’ experience is brand new to me. Much of it goes against the grain and I suspect most writers feel the same. Peddling one’s wares like groceries. It distracts time from creative work (although there are many I know that can think of marketing as creative work and it well maybe, as in advertising). Somehow I think we have to come to terms with it. Staying honest. Telling it on the mountain is fine if there’s really something to tell - and there is someone listening!
• The marketplace has always been there. Writers used to be shielded from it by agents and publishers, but not for beginners, not nowadays and perhaps never. But being forced to look at it I’ve found many feature of it interesting and intriguing. Nowadays is the key word: At this time when Amazon, Penguin and other big publishers and retailers are going digital: we “live in interesting times”. More about that later.
• I do miss the company of that wonderful group at Writers Village U. and often feel that the time hassling with this computer and software crashes could be spent better there.

At least the ‘Image’ inserting thingum is working on this WordPress installation: It hadn’t been and with great trepidation I reinstalled WP 2.5 - apparently without dropping anything on the way - and picking up whatever had to be. .

Windows XP Pro SP2 Bless Bill and Company (Praise Gates! no blasphemy intended, just sarcasm): This Windows had to be re installed from scratch (see post below) When I get Ubuntu I’ll be throwing it out of the window.

Now someday, I’ll have to learn formatting. And the original web page, BYKNIGHT.COM: I’ve yet to work on that (Komposer or Dreamweaver, that is the question - any answers?)

Your comments are welcome

Q

For reasons unknown, with about 50 GB of files. So while it runs self checks, reloads and re installs, I’m on an ancient laptop left thinking about the immortality of the crab - means … just that, but may be found on Wikipedia with this Illustration y Greg Williams and generously licensed under the Creative Commons “Share Alike” attribution.

First (well for a long time now MS Word wasn’t loading properly, it would attempt to install itself on opening (a fragment of a previous installation, which in turn was provided by the machine’s vendors, turned out to be pirated and these good people went out of business before I could claim). Then Images stopped loading, this WordPress setup began crumbling on (on that computer, so it was OK on the server), and it began burbling like a coffee percolator. Backed up what I could ( a lot of stuff, with AutoCad drawings and pictures too). Now reinstalling as I test this old backup with something better than Lorem impsum or ‘ thinking about the immortality of the crab, a Spanish idiom for day dreaming and blank mindedness in general. Surprisingly, the expression is commemorated by Spanish Philosopher Miguel de Unamuno but expresses the state of mind one is in when watching Windows load. Next stop: Linux and Ubuntu, Open Office now: With writing assignments pending and no word processor program other than notepad.txt.  Handrwiting of course, i do most outlining and brainstorming on large spiral notebooks. The archive of those is two pillars on the floor, at teetering height. So OK, back on the main computer now,  back to work. Tomorrow i guess, it’s late now.

Q

Yesterday (my birthday): Most of the day - at least ten hours of it, trying to work out this web log’s presentation. I erased Amateur Alligator Wrestling Association. I will get back to that, after all, the good people that wrestle amateur alligators need a home - I claim the name anyway: a future and separate project.

Which is the point: I’m spending far too much time on this fiddling (learning I suppose, and necessary) with software and setup things that I’m getting behind schedule with more basic stuff:

• To Jean Lauzier and the Book Tour next month, this week should get the material together, more I hope.
• Back to WVU: and the MFA Short Story, specially to Grumps, Raven and Susan F of the Sisu
• Tales of Chestamovarado : A collection of my short stories; I’ve postponed this far too long. Begun ten years ago - ten? Good Grief !. I wanted to develop the first of them with WVU/MFA classrooms… They must be at week sixteen there by now, or more.
• The ongoing commentary on what I’m learning from the WorPress WordCamp Dallas videos, just rough draughts for now.
• The biggest nuisance of all is getting this property finished: the legal stuff (get the deed, register with Municipality and Revenue ) and settling outstanding issues with architect, condo tax, real estate and value.
• Whatever.

I doubt I’m the first that has found that getting ‘online’ can be frustrating and exasperating, more so when one starts out as a net newt nitwit.

There are advertisements appearing on this page, which I’m not seeing (I get them when I’m on another computer). If they are too intrusive and don’t produce much by way of income (!), they will have to go. Comments, as always, most welcome.

Q

April 11th. Note: The video is no longer available: I’m still looking this stuff over (11 April). I will post links to them where possible (links, as the embedded videos makethis site’s loading speed much slower.

This is the first in a series of videos from the WordPress WordCamp Dallas 2008. I’m finding them so useful that I’ll try and embed them into this site, and add comments as I go along: As much for my own use (from the very bottom of the learning curve) as anything else: For a start I see that the setup I’ve done here so far has so many faults that Mostly by Knight will just serve as a testing place. If this works, I’ll open separate windows such as these, and edit them as I go along.

John Pozadzides brilliant blog.

The videos are about an hour each and very instructive. I may come back and add comments as I find things that have been particularly useful to me: I encourage anyone that should wander by to see the video itself. Later, from all this, I may try and sum up ‘lessons learned’.