As happens in these situations, I had hoped to have a firm release date for Shades of Remorse by now. The cover is not in a format I can show yet and yes, when you see it late and say, “My, that’s kind of creepy!”, I agree. I think I mentioned this is a previous post. Anyway, when I received the interior proof from the publisher, I realized they had converted all the text into regular text instead of leaving certain passages in italics. I use those to designate different things. I thought it was odd to have happened and turns out, there was a glitch in their software and now I have to wait for the next version to come in. I did go ahead and correct the 44 errors I made. While that may seem like a lot, there are 264 pages. Most were small as usual – such as a “him” instead of a “his”. In one case, however, I did inadvertently change someone’s name partway through a chapter which accounted for 8 of the errors.

Okay, procedure-wise, after I receive the new proof, I turn it and then generally, it will be two weeks after when the book is released. In the meantime, I will share with you, my followers, the news that the book has been highlighted in USA Today as, “Mystery Author and Military Pioneer Charlie Hudson’s Journey to Storytelling and Uplifting Women”. Needless to say, I was surprised. When I was approached at trying to make this happen, I was highly doubtful. Here’s the link: https://bit.ly/3NRDwzs

The reason I told the firm to go ahead with publishing this before the book is released is to perhaps get people interested in checking out the earlier books in the series. As a reader, if I am interested in a book and realize it is later in a series, I try to go back to the first one and certainly at least the second.

We don’t decorate  much for Halloween usually, but this year has been basically nothing. Things have been incredibly jammed with extra tasks and I haven’t even stopped to get bags of candy. I was going to yesterday, but I’d already spent more time out than intended with managing another previously unplanned errand. Now, in all fairness, had I gone directly to this one place between my errand and a luncheon, I might have had the required time. Anyway, Hubby is supposed to do grocery shopping today and although he doesn’t usually buy the Halloween candy, he might this time. For the past two years we haven’t had as many trick-or-treaters come by, but of course I figure if we cut back, this will be the year they resume. It is one of those conundrums. The standing joke about leftover Halloween candy is all fine and good, except everyone tends to have it and so if you do manage to eat it over the weeks after, there is often little time before you are now into the holidays and as soon as you get through that, it’s Girl Scout cookie time again. We do have all these odd little situations that crop up, don’t we? That is the collective we because I know we are not the only ones.

Moving on to other things – this weekend, once again, we have a lengthy commitment Saturday evening night and so naturally, Saturday afternoon is when I am now going to have to be at the museum due to another unexpected change. I keep thinking I will get a little bit of a break and perhaps it will happen. Actually, I think we are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving and while that doesn’t mean we won’t be hosting something, it does mean we won’t be traveling.

Okay, the gap since last posting is because I have been crashing on the first-ever fundraiser event we put on for the Homestead Town Hall Museum. I’m sure I posted previously that this event was supposed to have been prior to our Viking cruise and the major HCA event of Art and Artisan show was also supposed to have been before the cruise. My intent was to have these two things which take a huge effort would be done so I wouldn’t have them facing me upon return. Due to other factors, each had to be re-scheduled. That resulted in us getting back with only 11 days before the HCA event and the museum event following 19 days after that. Then of course, there were all the usual things to take care of. In other words, even for me, the convergence of tasks has been pretty close to exhausting. On the other hand, there were people helping and that did make a big difference. The “downside” was neither event was as successful as we had expected. Lots of work for a minimal return. As usual in these situations, there is no clear-cut was to determine to “why”, which of course gives way to speculation. Those “what-if’s” and “maybe we should haves” are tricky. Anyway, there is one more set of tasks I must deal with over the next week and then perhaps I’ll be on the usual busy, yet manageable scale.

On the family side, kids are booked with flights for the post-Christmas trip and for the next few years, their schedule allows us to fly them home Jan 2d instead of the 1st. That makes life simpler and we can enjoy a leisure day of recovery for New Year’s Day. Mother Nature wasn’t very kind last year with unseasonably cold weather for the first part of their stay. Hopefully, we’ll be normal this time.

I have mentioned the two major events I am responsible for were both supposed to be held and over with before we went on our September trip. Both had to be delayed for various reasons and while a great deal was done for the Sept 28th one, by some people while I was gone, that can’t be said for the October one. However, I hadn’t really expected that to happen; it just would have been nice. Anyway, last Saturday’s event is over and was it was disappointing in one way, but it was okay and I certainly appreciated what everyone did. I immediately had to go full throttle this week in handling multiple things for the upcoming Oct 17th event and while next week might be a little better, it will still be busy.

In the midst of this, I expect to receive the interior proof for Shades of Remorse next week. That is the last major step prior to publication. It is the page set-up and when I make any final corrections. I was careful with my final edit so there shouldn’t be many mistakes. This is a new publisher though and I don’t know how proficient they are. They did do a nice job on the cover. I thought it was too creepy, but Hubby liked it so I let it go ahead. Interestingly, I originally hadn’t planned as many deaths in this one, and as happens, there were changes in order to make the plot work logically. On the other hand, only one was a good guy and two were not completely bad guys. The rest were definitely dangerous and bad. If the schedule works out, the book will be available the end of the month or early next month.

Okay, I’m still behind on some things, but am making progress. My sister did finally call and so far, no complications and they can now manage with only the allotted therapy and themselves.

Completing changing topics though as I touch a bit on something that can be controversial. As I have explained, I mostly stay away from these topics, but I read something a few minutes ago that is too good an illustration of what I consider to be an important point. The Scientific Method was developed more than three hundred years ago in order to have an objective means of determining how things work. Essentially, develop a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, prove or disprove the hypothesis. If discovery during the process provides additional information, refine the hypothesis and start over.

When properly followed, this is a valid, objective method. It, however, is like most things humans are involved in. Real science is hard and often takes a long time. Once money is at stake or someone is impatient, shortcuts are tempting. Which brings me to my point of the term, “settled science”. There is little accuracy to that term. There is accepted science and again, this should mean science that has been adequately proven, especially against testing done by opposing views who ultimately agree. Now comes the “kicker” I am referencing. For hundreds of years the Shroud of Turin was accepted as a Holy Relic. Then came doubters who wanted to approach it from real science rather than religion. Lots of debates and in the late 1980s, carbon dating – valid science – indicated the cloth was from the Middle Ages, not 2,000+ years old. However, debate still continued and in testing recently released, techniques that did not exist in the 1980s has now validated the cloth is consistent with being 2,000+ years old.

Advances in technology constantly occur and conflicting data must be either resolved or something accepted as theory rather than proof. Now, in the practical world, there are times decisions must be made based on what is the best data available. However, once again, when conflicting recommendations are presented decision-makers need to be aware recommendations may be driven by non-scientific, but very real factors such as personal profit, be that money, reputation, etc.