That ear plague I mentioned last week…? It blossomed into a full week of zombie-fication completely at odds with any previous illness experience I’ve ever had. My fever was just below 100F all week (didn’t break until yesterday), the pain was alternately excruciating and mind-numbing, and the infection involved the nerves in my jaw in such a way that my right cheek swelled up and made it difficult to open my mouth for anything other than soup or water. I suspect it was one of the un-lovely side effects of my trips to meet Gayla, Dionne, Ciara, ME, and Sabrina–somehow I’ve never been able to get off a plane without some kind of bacterial, viral, or other physical manifestation to remind me of the downside of such travels. I just haven’t ever had it continue for quite this long.
I don’t think even this, though, will keep me from any such future ventures… though I might look into Airborne (which one of my colleagues swears by) or some other immune system support my husband might see fit to recommend.
😀
All of this by way of saying… I was lucky to have been able to have finished all my schoolwork, let alone any fiction writing. And I had a day or two of mourning as I realized that though it might be theoretically possible for me to NaNo this year… I was starting off on such a sucky foot, it just didn’t make any sense to add to the pressure I’m already facing at the office for having entirely missed three days, and worked another two days from home in a last-ditch effort to keep up with what’s coming down to the wire on accreditation reviews. I’m still sort of proud of the fact that I managed 480 words… despite everything.
I hope that as my health returns, I’m more successful in finishing that last short story.
In the meantime, I discovered today that Amazon has made its global system of author web pages … completely disconnected from each other. It’s not any kind of good user experience for authors who are trying to maintain a unified online presence, but it appears they don’t have any plans to change the process either. The best post I found on the topic was from Jason Matthews’ blog as it was imported into Goodreads, so I promptly logged in to authorcentral on the .de and .fr versions. Actually created profiles there for myself, dusting off my old language skills with happy ease. I also feel lucky to have a friend in Japan (she was an exchange student at my HS when we were both in 9th grade) who has consented to do a Japanese translation for me. I’m not sure how or if these new profile versions will help my overseas sales (I’m pretty sure it’s only been friends who live in Germany who’ve accounted for those few outside-the-US sales I’ve had), but I’d rather adapt to the global marketplace than be left behind. (Fittingly, my class this session is about Global Marketing…)
You can find my efforts at:
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
Amazon.uk
I’ll let you know when the Japanese version is ready, too. 🙂
In the meantime, check out how everyone else is doing on their weekly goals.