Normally, I like to announce in advance that I'll be attending and signing my books at an event, but this time it got away from me. There were issues with my latest books which needed my attention.
Timing is almost everything when preparing for such an event, and my timing was way off. When I discovered that they had not been properly edited, said books were already on their way to my door.
Thanks to my good friend, Heatherly Takeuchi, we shored up both Echoes lll and A Compilation of Echoes ... and then came the mad dash to republish, reorder, and receive them in a reasonable time.
To be honest, I am totally blind to my own typos, no matter how many times I scan a page looking for mistakes. Since, it was crunch time, I hurriedly ordered my books, thinking, "they'll be fine ..."
At first, as Heatherly's edits came rolling in, I figured they were miner enough to let them pass on the first run, (a comma here, a period there), but I was terribly, inextricably mistaken. /(O_O)\
It felt like the time when a police officer pulls you over for driving a bit fast and tells you that you would have made your appointment on time if you hadn't been speeding. Aarrrrggghhh!!!
Alas, those reordered books languished for a week before they were finally shipped, and then they dawdled at the local delivery site while someone tried to determine my well established street address.
Suffice to say, I was galvanized ...
Now, that's an interesting word: galvanized. It is the namesake of Luigi Galvin, (1737-1798) who observed that muscles contracted on contact with dissimilar metals. This led to the Galvanic Cell and the electrical theory of muscle control by nerves, (Bioelectromagnetics.)
In any case, my focus was fixed on my inbox awaiting news of their impending arrival, while I spent my energy on the phone, calling the shipper, then the delivery service, and back again. Where were they?
I was told that delivery was being delayed by a storm. "What storm? Where is this storm on such lovely sunny day?" I asked. Then, "I'm sorry, but there's only one sorter in the building, and it's going slow."
All at once, late in the afternoon, the day before we were set to leave for the venue, I was told that my books had been sorted, and that I could go down to the delivery warehouse to retrieve them. Yay!
All in all, the Steamposium Convention was fun and successful. I reconnected with old friends, met many awesome attendees, makers, and artists ... and I sold all but one copy of A Compilation of Echoes!
On the face of it all, I realized too late that I had followed a page out of John Madden's book, and ran with it: "Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon." Sorry, John. Never again.
Image: http://seattle-steamposium.com
Timing is almost everything when preparing for such an event, and my timing was way off. When I discovered that they had not been properly edited, said books were already on their way to my door.
Thanks to my good friend, Heatherly Takeuchi, we shored up both Echoes lll and A Compilation of Echoes ... and then came the mad dash to republish, reorder, and receive them in a reasonable time.
To be honest, I am totally blind to my own typos, no matter how many times I scan a page looking for mistakes. Since, it was crunch time, I hurriedly ordered my books, thinking, "they'll be fine ..."
At first, as Heatherly's edits came rolling in, I figured they were miner enough to let them pass on the first run, (a comma here, a period there), but I was terribly, inextricably mistaken. /(O_O)\
It felt like the time when a police officer pulls you over for driving a bit fast and tells you that you would have made your appointment on time if you hadn't been speeding. Aarrrrggghhh!!!
Alas, those reordered books languished for a week before they were finally shipped, and then they dawdled at the local delivery site while someone tried to determine my well established street address.
Suffice to say, I was galvanized ...
Now, that's an interesting word: galvanized. It is the namesake of Luigi Galvin, (1737-1798) who observed that muscles contracted on contact with dissimilar metals. This led to the Galvanic Cell and the electrical theory of muscle control by nerves, (Bioelectromagnetics.)
In any case, my focus was fixed on my inbox awaiting news of their impending arrival, while I spent my energy on the phone, calling the shipper, then the delivery service, and back again. Where were they?
I was told that delivery was being delayed by a storm. "What storm? Where is this storm on such lovely sunny day?" I asked. Then, "I'm sorry, but there's only one sorter in the building, and it's going slow."
All at once, late in the afternoon, the day before we were set to leave for the venue, I was told that my books had been sorted, and that I could go down to the delivery warehouse to retrieve them. Yay!
All in all, the Steamposium Convention was fun and successful. I reconnected with old friends, met many awesome attendees, makers, and artists ... and I sold all but one copy of A Compilation of Echoes!
On the face of it all, I realized too late that I had followed a page out of John Madden's book, and ran with it: "Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon." Sorry, John. Never again.
Image: http://seattle-steamposium.com
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