The End of an Era

Things have changed here at the Home Office.

When Tim first moved to Houston (just after IT HAD TO BE YOU was published), he accessed the Internet via dial-up in his apartment. In the Big House, we’d recently made the transition from dial-up to cable modem, and we had a couple of computers linked in a network. Tim frequently used the second computer to write (mainly to keep documents software compatible), then permanently after his Mac died. We sat face to face, but we couldn’t see each other because one of the desks had a high back with shelving on it. That was the situation when we worked on HE’S THE ONE and THE DEAL.

When Tim got his new Mac, he used dial-up in his apartment for a while, and I’M YOUR MAN was finished during that time. Then we needed the Home Office for temporary housing for my mother, so the cable modem was moved to Tim’s apartment. For a while, we worked side by side upstairs, but our hours weren’t compatible, which meant I was often interfering with Tim’s sleep. So we dropped a line downstairs, and we finished writing SOMEONE LIKE YOU and THREE FORTUNES IN ONE COOKIE on different floors in the same building.

After my mother moved out, we set up the Home Office in a way much more conducive to two work spaces, and Tim and I have sat side by side for about a year and a half. We changed to wireless (secured, you Stalkers!), which means my laptop often serves as a guest computer, but Tim’s Mac didn’t have wireless capability.

Now we’re working on TJB FIVE, and Tom and I just gave Tim an early birthday gift–whatever thingie (I don’t do geek talk) he needed for his Mac to be wireless. The wireless signal is more than strong enough to reach the apartment, so Tim can now office in his own space.

It remains to be seen how this will affect progress on TJB FIVE. I’m sure Tim will be happy not to deal with the ten million questions I ask him a day (his brain is like my encyclopedia), and Rex and the girls will get some time apart, which should help their socialization issues.

But this is the first day, and it’s kind of lonely over here.

sad

I knew we would see damage from Katrina, and we did. What I wasn’t prepared for was the damage we’d see from Rita.

I’m so tired that I can’t do a decent LJ entry. Last night, I wrote a lengthy one from our hotel, only to find out when I tried to update LJ, that the wireless service I paid for wasn’t until midnight on Sunday, but midnight on Saturday.

Bye, post, lost somewhere in cyber space.

More later. With photos.

The torment!

I was working on the additions to A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS last night, and I got so tired that the monitor was a blur. I took a few pages with me to the couch in the office to read for a few minutes, and the next thing I knew, it was 8 a.m. and Tom was about to leave for work. The couch is a love seat. A big girl can’t sleep on a love seat for five hours without being unable to move her head when she wakes up. (Bonus: two dogs on the back of the love seat looking down at her and breathing dog breath in her face.)

Then, not only did I have to go to the dentist-who-even-though-I-love-him-is-still-a-dentist, BUT THE CABLE MODEM WAS DOWN! All day until now!

And for the first time ever, I’m not shipping something to my editor when he asked for it. Instead of getting it tomorrow, he’ll get it Monday. He’s okay with that–as long as it’s early Monday morning–but I feel like crap. Maybe I’ll even drive it out to the airport late tonight to see if I can get it there by tomorrow afternoon.

I HATE STRAIGHT PEOPLE SEX SCENES. That is all.

Confidential to some TJB readers

Dear Rusty in Indiana, Shoshana in New York, and Chris in–somewhere–

We LOVE hearing from readers who’ve enjoyed the Timothy James Beck novels, and we answer all of our e-mail. But occasionally, our responses are marked as SPAM by Internet providers and returned to us as undeliverable.

Sometimes, the Internet is a bastard, but y’all are great, and we appreciate your kind words and interest in the novels.

Not really spam,
Timothy, Timothy, Jim, and Becky

Eavesdropping

I don’t want to mock the stupid.. You know what? Yes, I do. I want to mock the stupid.

I had occasion to “eavesdrop” on a conversation between someone who was selling a used book. But Seller had a question about something on the copyright page. Here’s the substance of the ensuing conversation (some details are changed to cover my ass, okay?):
Continue reading “Eavesdropping”

They’re coming to take me away

Apparently, when the Feds asked various companies who provide Internet search engines to turn over their records of all searches made during an “unspecified week,” all of them (including Yahoo) bleated a little lamblike noise that sounded remarkably like, “Okay!” Except Google, who expressed concern about protecting customer privacy (but who I suspect is probably more concerned with protecting proprietary information about how they do that thing they do).
Continue reading “They’re coming to take me away”

Happiest of New Years to you

Happy New Year to you all. No big parties here. I tried to buy champagne for a little midnight toast, but it didn’t work out. So I made sausage and cheese balls, because nothing says New Year’s Eve like sausage and cheese balls, right?

I’m designing the little town where my novel is set to make writing easier. Tim was trying to post photos to his photo blog. His photos wouldn’t line up right; my software crashed when I hadn’t saved additions to my town for well over an hour.

Most of the fireworks were coming out of the mouths of the computer-challenged in the home office.