I think I may have mentioned in one of the recent updates (or maybe on the Kickstarter project blog?) that my PC has been making unhappy noises, and in fact, I can no longer count on it to boot up if I make the mistake of turning it completely off. When I mentioned this to Spouse, he suggested we get ahead of the inevitable failure by getting a new computer now and while I was dithering about this, took care of it for me.
So I now have a new computer!
It is a Mac.
I have been running a dual-OS system since I bought Vellum, which is my ebook-and-paperback layout program, and exists only for the Mac. I regret nothing about the investment into a cheap Mac mini (bought off eBay!) to run Vellum because it has saved me tremendously in time and money—it’s the reason all my books now have paperback editions simultaneous with my ebook editions, requiring no special Kickstarter campaign to drum up the cash to pay a graphic designer. But it’s meant that I’ve had to kludge together a workflow across platforms based on legacy systems for the PC that I’ve had, in some cases, for 20 years. (“Your copy of Photoshop is so old we have to trick the software into thinking the servers that used to check the license are still operating. That’s not going to last forever.”)
Gamely, thus, I have plunged into attempting to switch over to the new system, with the attendant learning curve. If you wonder why I’m so quiet, it’s because I’m attempting to port everything over (or find alternatives for them) while juggling other things. Let me tell you more!
The New Scanner – One of my biggest priorities was ensuring the new Large and Fancy Scanner still works. It does, in fact work… sort of. The scanner utility will scan for me, but if I try to open it from inside any piece of software, it fails. This is obviously a scanner driver problem, but we have the latest driver… so for now, I am experimenting with the utility, which will scan and then open the resulting file in a program you designate. Which brings me to…
Replacing Photoshop – I did all my scanning in Photoshop, and all my editing not only of those scans, but of all the book covers and interior illustrations, with their billion layers. I’m not willing to shell out the amount Adobe wants, so I’ve been looking for alternatives and it turns out Affinity (which I already got involved with several years ago when I bought and then forgot Publisher) has a Photoshop competitor, Affinity Photo. Using it, I am not only fighting my lack of familiarity with its interface, but also my lack of familiarity with the Mac interface (why are the buttons to close windows on the left!!), but so far I think it’ll be “good enough.” And no, I don’t want freeware. I want to buy a license from someone who will be forced to answer my emails if I run into problems! What good is being a business of my own if I can’t write off the ability to pay other people to fix my problems??
Replacing Office – Turned out to be easy, because I don’t have to. I did try (pluckily!) to use Pages for a while, but looking at decades of accumulated Word files made me nervous and the last straw was discovering that Numbers, the Mac spreadsheet program, didn’t correctly open my accounting files. Buying a license for Word/Excel/PowerPoint was pretty cheap and took care of that headache.
Consolidating Files – Which brings me to the biggest headache, and thus the biggest opportunity in the whole endeavor: combing 20+ years of documents out of my old computer’s four (!) hard drives and reorganizing them logically.
I’ve been thinking about this for over two years now. The amount of detritus that I’ve been passing from computer to computer is immense, and even includes backups of my old student accounts from college UNIX servers (did you know that old-style mailspools were stored as single, enormous text documents? Lordy, I do). I realized there was no way I could gracefully share or pass on my business to anyone else, whether they be assistant or heir, because of the mess, and I told myself I’d fix it and never did.
And here I am now! So I have been laboriously picking through the flotsam, tossing out junk and saving lost lambs into their proper places, and the intention once I’m done is to turn this new, streamlined, single-point-of-data into the source for my daily backups to cloud and external drive. I’d say about about a third done and weirdly… I’m enjoying it? It’s a little like housecleaning, and a little like finally tackling that looming project that was looming like a looming thing, and a little like treasure-hunting. Sometimes the treasures are fun, like the specs I sent the artist I was thinking of hiring to do the covers for the Jokka novels, showing the relative heights of all the characters. Sometimes they’re heartbreaking, like the shared folder with the friend who died, that demonstrated that she and I had been at work on an art book project. But all of it is necessary and I’ll admit it would have taken a step as extreme as ‘switch platforms’ to get me moving on it.
There are other issues I’m going to have to resolve, certainly, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that the Mac solves some of the problems I had with my PC:
Microphone Volume – It’s a known issue that the same microphone, plugged into a PC will record at a ridiculously low volume; but plugged into a Mac will record at normal volume. There are dozens of hacks to fix this but they’re all bad and rickety and stupid. I was already experimenting with recording on my old Vellum Mac in order to get around this problem; having one computer means I don’t have to mess with it. If I want to record, I just hit the ‘record’ button and the output is no longer a hushed murmur I need to apply a billion filters to boost.
Printer Woes – Here is where I mention that earlier this year I had to move my label printer from my PC to my old Mac mini because for no reason I can discern, my PC stopped correctly printing to it. I’d ask it to print, and it would tell me it was jammed. I would turn the printer on and off, and then it would advance three or four labels and then print the last label I tried to print out and the new one, and if I was lucky, it would print it centered on the sticker and not half-on, half-off it. I did all the expected stuff (including reinstalling the driver) and got nowhere. I plugged it into the Mac, and it was fine. I was on the verge of tossing that label printer and ordering a new one, so that saved me $200. Still no clue why the PC decided to mutiny that way.
Video Editing – If I use my phone to record video, the file format it exports isn’t readable to the movie editing software I bought several years ago. If you follow my Youtube channel and wonder why my output has basically stopped, it’s because the contortions I have to make to get my phone’s video to a piece of software that can gracefully edit it required too much brainpower and I didn’t have it to spare. Now my desktop can read my phone videos natively. No more shenanigans. Which brings me to…
Integration with my phone – I switched to an iPhone when it became clear that Apple has locked up schools, platform-wise, and my family at large was already in the iPhone ecosystem. The moment I thought ‘but I won’t be able to accept a Facetime from my dad or daughter’, that was the death knell for my Samsung. At the time, a lot of the proprietary Apple apps simply wouldn’t talk to Android, and I needed to stay in contact with them more than I needed to have any specific type of phone. So I switched, years ago, and while the initial learning curve took some time, after a while it stopped mattering because—seriously—it’s just a phone. As long as it does the stuff I want it to do, I don’t care what OS it’s running.
But this decision, made years ago, means that I can now do things like answer texts from my computer. Which in the past would have sounded unimportant to me, until I started getting texts about health emergencies. If you have a reason to need to be able to read people’s texts no matter what you’re doing, it’s nice not to have the phone soldered to your hip. My computer also now notices the notes I make on my phone, which means they no longer disappear into an abyss after I make them. I actually see them now! Good stuff.
Tags and Searching – I only lately noticed that the Mac prompts you for tags when you save a file. Any file. And that the search function in the Mac is so much faster than the one in windows, that using those tags might actually be helpful.
Icon Size – And finally, a dumb, small thing: in Windows, you can set the icons in a folder to one of several set sizes (small, large, larger, etc). But on the Mac, you get a slider in the corner, and you can zoom them to any incremental increase you want. This sounds unimportant, except that I have thousands of scanned images and not-so-great eyesight. I can now look in one of my sketchbook folders and increase those icons to large enough to actually see what the pictures are… and if I can’t see a specific picture because it’s particularly low contrast or hard to make out, I can move that slider up until I can.
I expect to be at least another month in getting everything sorted out, though, because I’m rarely home lately, and I am chafing at the friction it’s introducing into my workflow while I’m trying to get the Kickstarter collection finished up. But I’m already glad I did it. ‘Just pretend that your old machine went up in flames, it’s toast, gone forever,’ my spouse told me, ‘and instead of thinking ‘what can I rescue’, think ‘what can I do now that I don’t have to worry about all that legacy stuff that was holding me back.’’
And you know, I never would have thought it, but… it’s kind of refreshing…!
So that’s the story. More as I figure things out!
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
- Pen: Moonman Starry Glass dip pen, Mars: https://www.jetpens.com/Moonman-Starry-Sky-Glass-Dip-Pen-Mars/pd/31536
- Paper: Strathmore Writing Series 500, lined: https://www.jetpens.com/Strathmore-500-Series-Writing-Pad-8.5-x-11-Lined-50-Sheets/pd/15322
- Ink: Robert Oster, Rose Gilt Tynte: https://www.jetpens.com/Robert-Oster-Rose-Gilt-Tynte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-Shake-N-Shimmy-50-ml-Bottle/pd/25170
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
There are a lot of things on my mind lately, and this year particularly because this month I hit a milestone birthday (what I call the decade birthdays!), and it’s been 25 years since my first professional fiction sale. To date, in that 25-year-span, I’ve published 71 books for adults, 3 for children, and 7 coloring books. I feel like this is a great start to a career, particularly given that some people don’t start publishing their first books until they’re closer to my current age!
So I’m satisfied that I’ve created a significant body of work. I’ve got the Peltedverse arc to wrap up, and some other projects I’d like to get back to, but I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and there are enough finished series in that I don’t feel like I’m sitting on a giant mass of unfinished projects.
Which brings me to my birthday and my reflection on the industry and social trends. Every year since the indie revolution hit has brought some version of doom about discovery and organic reach and ...
Complete with homemade challah french toast (the challah is homemade). (Also the french toast.)
I guess if you weren't sure about buying a thing or leaving a review or telling a friend about a thing or taking the book quiz, there is no time like the present. Because it would be that, literally, a present. XD
Okay I'm loopy, I'm off to nap, I am so full. XD
I am home and recovering from a lovely Necronomicon 2025! Happily, this year was much busier than last, which got rained out by the hurricane three days prior. The scene in the halls was lively, and the panels actually had attendees! But it kept its cozy vibe, which meant I had plenty of time to do what I love best, which is talk to people.
This year I had both a writer’s alley table and art in the art show, and I volunteered for panels (and ended up on five of them!), so I was busy! Basically eight or nine hour days every day! By Saturday I was so hoarse I was putting honey in everything I was drinking. Never have I had more ample a demonstration that in my daily life I spend more time listening than talking than seeing how fast I ran out of voice when I had to talk.
My marketing thrust this year was getting people to take the quiz! I had a QR code and then I gave out colored dots that corresponded to the eight archetypes, and I had a leaderboard tracking what archetype was dominating. My biggest problems with this...
I was in a fine mood that evening, when I followed the scent of roasted meat to the cheldzan, the only building large enough for both clans to congregate… and even then, a handful of people had spilled from its entrance onto the road, where a second stewpot was sending delectable scents toward the lavender sky. I stopped beside it to receive a bowl and a flatbread scoop and wandered among the Jokka, listening to various conversations. A good half of the people there were eperu, which surprised me; somehow I thought of the third sex as the least populous. If I asked Winoña, would I discover that she’d counted all the sexes in the clans she’d met? I smiled.
The Jokka of Clan Edla recognized me, and wanted to talk—about injuries and sickness, yes, but also about recoveries and births—so the sky had set out stars before I finally made my way to the back of the cheldzan, where I found Daridil, Seper, and Koish in consultation. The lore-knower of Clan Edla, a spindly eperu named Dlona, made up the fourth in their discussion, and Winoña was listening behind the counter, wiping bowls.
“We are blessed here,” Daridil said. “Game is plentiful… the forest gives both fish and beasts, and water is for the taking. I once questioned the wisdom of staying, but the gods have made their will clear.”
“There’s enough for your clan,” Koish allowed. “I fear what would happen if we overburdened the area. The stories say that when we linger, we use up the sap of the land.”
“That won’t happen here,” Seper said. “We will be good stewards.”
“Do you even know what that will entail?” Koish said. “If you have too many mouths to feed….”
“Then, we find another way,” Daridil said.
“Probably by selling our excess members to clans who are failing,” Seper said briskly. “You know as well as we do, ke Koish, that many clans are hurting for labor and breeders. Particularly breeders. The nomadic ways are hard on us.”
Behind Koish, Dlona murmured, “Ke Seper has this right.”
Joining them, I said, “Are you trying to talk them into staying?” I smiled at Koish. “You know they have to make their argument.”
“They’re eloquent,” Koish said. “And if it were up to the clan, I’d probably have to move into that empty building tomorrow. But I have to do what’s right for them, whether it’s popular or not. And I’m not convinced. Although, I’ve heard something about a shrine?”
Daridil’s ears pricked. “Yes. To honor the gods and thank them for the gift of this place.”
“You can’t buy the favor of the gods,” Dlona said.
“Of course not,” Daridil said. “One honors the gods, one does not bribe them.”
“I like the idea.” Koish leaned over the counter and plunked his clay cup on it. “Give me a refill, ke anadi, and then Daridil and I will go talk. About fate and food, among other things.”
Winoña chuckled and filled the cup from a leather bag. “And so much useful discussion will be had after your… third, I believe? Cup of this?”
Koish snorted. “I brew my own spirits, ke Winoña. Your mild-tempered spirits will have to work harder to cloud my thoughts.” Raising his new serving, he gestured toward the door. “Daridil?”
“With you, ke emodo.”
Dlona watched them go with a long face, ears twitched backward. Then it sighed. “Do you have a spare cup, ke anadi? I think I may need it.”
“Trouble?” I asked.
The eperu eyed me, dour. “Everything under the sun and stars is trouble. It’s just a matter of how it arrives.”
Seper chuckled. “I’ll enjoy having you among us for the haul, Dlona.”
I looked from one to the other and canted my head. “It didn’t sound like Koish had made a decision.”
“Koish will make the right choice for the breeders, as he should,” Dlona said. “And the right choice is finding out if they do better here than abroad. And we know how they do abroad, so all that’s left is to discover how they do in one place. But I won’t take our wagon apart. In the case that we might need it.”
“I wouldn’t suggest anything else,” Seper said. “Let me take you to the new eperu. You’ll want to meet them. Then we can discuss the buildings, and our plans for the granary.”
Dlona’s eyes sharpened. “A granary, is it? Is that what the bricks are for?”
“Yes,” Seper said.
The other eperu grinned, showing blunted teeth. “Is it round?”
Seper laughed. “Yes, like in the stories. As you could probably tell me.” It canted its head. “You can tell me, can’t you? Nudet lost its lore-knower before it could pass on all that it knew to me….”
“We should write those things down from now on,” Winoña interrupted, earning stares from all of us. “We can,” she said. “We don’t need to be limited to tallies on knots, which makes sense for roving clans that can’t store anything permanently. We have space here to keep records. We should keep records.”
“On what, though?” Dlona asked, frowning… but not objecting. Thinking, from its expression.
“Leaves?” Seper said. “Bark, maybe?”
“The stories speak of clay tablets….” Dlona plucked at its braided arm ruffs, as if counting knots on a tally blanket. "They also speak of paper, but not how it was made.”
“Clay we have in plenty,” Seper said.
“We should make clay tablets, then,” Winoña said. “So that what happened to Nudet doesn’t happen again.”
Seper’s grin had a challenging air. “And will you have us carve you out a new cavern to keep these clay tablets in?”
“Why not?” Her chin rose. “I already have to keep records to run a cheldzan and a storeroom. Or haven’t you noticed me using paint on the walls for it?”
“I haven’t,” I said, startled.
Seper chuckled. “Have her show you, Kediil. Dlona, if you like? We’ll make the way easy for ke Koish.”
“By all means, introduce me. You’ve hired some new eperu since Clan Edla came through last.”
They departed, leaving me with a spinning head. “That is what it looks like, isn’t it? Koish doesn’t think he’s made a decision, but he has.” I thought of his concerns. “Or maybe he’s just saying what we want to hear?”
“I doubt it.”
Did he even know he’d changed his mind? I rubbed my brow. “Do things always happen that quickly?”
“When they do,” Winoña said, “it’s usually because the conditions favorable to those changes were already developing, unseen.” She threaded her fingers together and rested her chin on them, smiling up at me. “You have that look again, like I’ve said something you didn’t expect and you admire me for it.”
“And if I said… yes… would you be disappointed?”
She giggled. “No! I want you to look at me like that all the time! Come here behind the counter, I’ll teach you to serve drinks.”
“Is that hard?”
“No, which means we’ll have plenty of time to enjoy one another’s company.” She glanced past me at the people crowding her hall. “Look at them, Kediil. How often have you seen so many Jokka in one place?”
“Rarely,” I said. “It’s noisy and hot.”
“But alive,” she said. “It’s so good to see so much life in one place.”
I’d expected her to laugh. But this comment, stated with such fervor, made me look again, and see, for just a moment, through her eyes. The eyes that counted and saw fewer people too often. The eyes that looked now and saw vitality and promise and hope of some different, better future.
I longed for the wind on my cheeks and the horizon before my eyes. But how much of that longing had been shaped by my desire to escape the captivity designed for me by fate, or the gods, or my family… all of them?
I stepped behind the counter and bumped her hip until she moved over. “Teach me how to pour things.”
“Is this an excuse to let me teach you something you already know?”
“Yes?”
She laughed. “Well, if you love the sound of my voice that much….”
***
I did not have to seek out Koish; he found me behind the Nudet building, settling my rikka for the night. I straightened, tucking my loosened hair back behind my shoulders, and waited.
“Derra’s caught a child.”
He didn’t need to say anything else. I knew Derra, a fragile, easily tired anadi who longed for children and had only been able to bear one so far. If Derra had conceived, Clan Edla would stay where the risks to her pregnancy could be minimized. Two anadi pregnant and another with a toddler would make traveling difficult… and, coincidentally, give Koish and Edla status in the new settlement. Fruitfulness was admired, no matter where on Ke Bakil you traveled, and clans rich in breeding anadi were granted a deference that no other Jokkad could claim.
“Will you stay?” he asked. When I hesitated, he said, “Or come back to check on Derra through her pregnancy?” I could hear his smile in the dark. “You’ll know exactly where to find us.”
“Ke emodo…” I sighed. “Yes. I’ll check on her. I won’t promise to live here, but I’ll come back from time to time.”
“Thank you. I knew you would, just as I know you understand why I’ve changed my mind.”
“We all serve the breeders,” I said, as if I had scooped the words out of Mardin’s mouth.
“Yes. Good night to you, ke anadi.”
Melon shuffled toward the end of his stall to bump my shoulder with his muzzle, and I petted it idly, watching Koish’s body until I could neither see nor hear him.
Yes, I understood. And I feared that I had my own reasons to change my mind, because I was not ready for the future. Are we ever?
