I fell off the face of the earth...

Okay, not really. But sort of. Why have I been away for months now? I'm sorry in advance if this post is depressing, but it can't be helped. But I will mention that there is some light-hearted thoughts at the end of this.

After submitting my manuscript to my editor, I sunk into darkness. Depression is a hard thing to overcome, which only time can mend. I don't like talking about this, nor do I like even posting about it, but I am human and it is what it is. I felt that I was drowning and no matter what I did, I fell deeper into despair. Several things contributed to my downward thoughts; finishing my book after three years of working on the story was a huge 'loss.' It's like a chapter of my life closing and another one opening. It's a cornball way to put it, but it's the truth. Postmortem at it's finest. I know that 'Fragments of the Heart' is not officially out (I'm finalizing the line edits now to send to the proofreader to publish), but in a way, it's done.

Another thing that has been a real let-down is the restoration of my vintage Zeos 486. I had been cleaning the innards, replacing cables, drives, any and all corroded parts etc etc. I got it to boot up! That's great, right? Well, the trouble came to this: my computer crashes when it tries to format/read/write to my hard drive. All vintage PC forums point to a bad hard drive. After three SD cards, one CF card, two completely working vintage hard disks...they all seem to work fine until I try and install ANY software. It couldn't be the hard disks. I went back, made sure all cables were good, everything was plugged into the motherboard properly. Then a great comment on a vintage forum came to me: Try replacing my RAM. So I did. It was my last ditch effort to get this thing running, as I had spent every Saturday and Sunday for the past three months getting this thing up and running. Nope. The new RAM didn't do squat. This crushed my mood even further, and just led me further down the spiral. At this point, I just want to give up on this and get a working one off Ebay. But knowing how much time, money, blood, sweat, and tears (literally ALL of these things), I feel like I can't justify another model unless it's a really good price.

Another thing I have been going through is my dog. I rescued him two years ago. At that time, I didn't know but he was sick with Valley Fever. After an Urgent Care visit and several Vet appointments, he was diagnosed with Valley Fever and put on meds forever. This means that at times he will be sickly, and other times he will be normal. The meds is the key factor for keeping the Valley Fever at bay. If he catches any other sickness, it's hard for his body to fight it off, as his immune system is compromised. I won't go into the whole Valley Fever explanation, but essentially it's a fungal infection that can't be cured. Every six months, he gets tested to see how well his body is, and his meds are adjusted accordingly based off the results. Anywho, there was a big bout of sickness with him the past six weeks. But in the past few days, I'm seeing his normal self once more.

Okay, one last thought and I will move on. I don't ever want to be one of those Sarah Connor's, afraid of the machines. But when you look at AI, it's pretty frightening. I can't stand the fact that whatever I post, where I post (even on my own freaking site), that my art, photos, writing will all be gobbled up by AI's learning. Now I am at a crossroad, what to do. I can't just be ignorant of online and AI, refusing to ever log on. But it makes me think twice, you know? Added to this is Microsoft's flipping invasive Windows 11. Win 10 is already bad enough and acts like malware. Now we have Windows taking snapshots of our personal information - which includes login and credit card info. Linux is looking like the way to go. I have been wanting to install Linux and give it a go, but never had the time. But as of right now, my writing laptop is failing me (due to Windows running all sorts of crap and taking up large amounts of processing power), I'm tempted to try it in the next few weeks.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll move on to lighter stuff. I have been devouring books like no tomorrow since my last post. I can't even begin to say how many I have read. I have also picked up several beta reads the past few months. I do shuffle around my reading genres, between fantasy, scifi, historical romance, romance, and other random fiction. But these past three months, I have been choosing more titles in the DragonLance world. It's a comfort thing, since I read a ton of them as a teen. As of right now, I am finishing up the Elven Nations series (on the last book.) I didn't remember much of the story, since the last time I read this series was back in the mid 90s. But as I read these today, the first book is by far the best. I couldn't put it down. The second and the third (as far as it's turning out to be) are a bit disappointing. Oh well.

An exciting thing is happening next month: I am going on a family vacation to Yosemite! It's my most favorite place on earth, and now, I get to share my love of the valley with my kiddos. Does anyone remember Yelp? Well, back in the mid 2000s when I used to camp at Yosemite every year, I would choose a different campground and Yelp about it. I had three first reviews for Yosemite's campgrounds! Since Covid, the park's rules have changed, meaning, there is no first-come, first-serve campgrounds anymore. All campgrounds need a reservation five months in advance, to two weeks until the date. I have one reserved, but I am trying to get a better spot in the park once they release more campgrounds in July. We'll see.

In the meantime, I am running every other day and doing karate to keep with my physical and mental health. I just recently got promoted to blue belt! I'm pretty excited about that. As mentioned above, I am finalizing the copy edits with my editor now (these are different than the developmental edits that I had been working on this past year.) I know that I had mentioned that this book would have been out by now. It is what it is: twice now I have said this but it's a perfect statement to encompass this book's release. From where the editing process stands, it looks like the book will be published in August. I don't want to jinx it, but at least there is a finish line as of now. When it's out or nearing the time, I will make a post here and also on my mailing list (check your spam occasionally to those of you who have subscribed to my mailing list.)

Well, it's late and time to sign off. I promise that it won't be another three months before I make another post. I just wasn't in a good place at the time, but now I am doing much better. Not my 100% self, but almost.

Until next time!

-Beth

#book #novel #yosemite #camping #dragonlance #fantasybook #vintagepc #vintagecomputer #vintagecomputing