"Barachiel" Revised (or Done Or Raw)

I mentioned recently that I lost a computer. As in, it passed away. It gave up the ghost. Well, if computers have ghosts to give. It kicked the bucket. Or whatever passes for a bucket. It went to the light. I know, because it quit making any of its own. It gave its last gasp. Which I actually heard. It's in cold storage, now. Literally. The hard drive is. It's in my freezer, kind of like Walt Disney, waiting for a day when it can be resurrected. Or, at least, have its data carefully removed like donated organs. I just can't afford that transfer, right now, because all of the "normal" means of data retrieval didn't work.

But this post isn't about that. Go back and read the other post if you want to know more about all of that.

I spent most of July restoring documents from other sources. That's an adventure, let me tell you. [Okay, it's not, really. It's like the complete opposite of an adventure.] One of the things I could not just restore from another source was "Barachiel." I actually had to buy "Barachiel" and re-type it from my Kindle. Which is the point of all of this...

There's a reason authors (and other artist types, I would assume) declare things to be finished. It's not because they are finished, not necessarily, but because there's a point when you have to decide to quit working on something because you are no longer making any notable changes to the piece, whatever kind of thing that is, from a painting, mural, short story, or novel. As my wife would say, "Done or raw, do the chaw."

Supposedly, that saying comes from Texas and passed down to her from her grandmother who grew up there. I, too, grew up in and around Texas, though, and I never heard that saying until my wife said it. I still think it's kind of weird. And, yes, Texas is a big place, and her grandmother grew up in a different part of Texas than I did. But I digress...

"Barachiel" is a good example of all of this, because, as soon as I started re-typing it, I started fiddling with it. Not that there was anything wrong with it, because there wasn't -- okay, actually, I caught two errors: one missing space (after a comma) and one missing letter (leaving only an "a," which can be a difficult error to catch, sometimes) -- but, now, even just a few months after writing it originally, there were phrases that, I suppose, I wouldn't say quite the same way. Evidently, that's true, because I changed some. And I added in a few things here and there. Why? Because I was looking at it again, and I couldn't help it!

That's why we declare projects finished and we don't go back to them!

Seriously, I couldn't help tweaking! [Tweaking! I said tweaking!]

It was right there in front of me, and it just happened.

If I picked it up two weeks from now, I'm sure it would be the same. And again two weeks after that.
Why?
Because we always change, and the phrases and words change, too.

So, no, there is nothing significantly different about the revised edition of "Barachiel," but, just because, I'm going to make it FREE! for a couple of days. If you've already read it, you can get the new version and compare and, if you haven't read it, here's your chance to get the ever so slightly improved version. For FREE!

So, yeah, go pick up your copy of "Barachiel" today!
And, as always, please leave a review!

I Bought New Speakers

Maybe I should talk, first, about the new desk. No, wait, let's talk about my old monitor. Look, it's all related, so you have to understand the pieces.

Way back whenever, at some point when I was replacing a computer, I got a monitor (a nice monitor) that came with speakers that attached to it. The only problem was that once the speakers were attached, they couldn't be taken back off. It was a permanent attachment. It was nice, though, because I didn't have speakers in the way or being knocked over or any of a number of other issues that come with having speakers sitting around your computer.

It was nice until the monitor quit working. Which was after some years, but it was the first monitor I had that just quit working. I think. I can't remember any others, at any rate. But, see, here was the problem, my speakers weren't removable. I ended up with a new monitor that sat in front of the dead monitor so that I could continue to use those speakers -- they were still perfectly good -- which was still actually better than loose speakers banging around on the desk.

But, recently, we built a new desk system, which I have been intending to post about and of which I have pictures. Or did have pictures of. Might have pictures of, but I'll get to that. Anyway...
When we moved to the new desk, my wife didn't want the two monitors cluttering our space, so I ditched the one that didn't work even though it had my speakers. And, yes, I did try to get them off, but I would have had to break them to do it.

With the new desk system, my wife and I sit (or stand, because the desktop is standing height (we have bar stools for sitting)) next to each other. It's cozy. Which is beside the point of what I'm talking about although not beside the point of the desk. The point is that, for a while, we tried to share speakers. Mostly, I don't need or use speakers. Meaning, in general, I keep the sound on my computer turned off. However, occasionally, I want to watch a movie trailer or listen to music when I'm doing something like cooking. On the other hand, my wife keeps her sound on and uses it a lot. It began to be a hassle to switch the speakers to my computer and back every time I wanted to use the speakers for five or ten minutes.

I went out and bought some speakers. No, nothing expensive. I think they were $15. Maybe it was $10, but it wasn't more than $15. That was just a few weeks ago.

Now, I'm sure, at this point, you're wondering why you should care about my speaker purchase. Honestly, you shouldn't. This isn't about the speakers, though. They're just an example of my point, which isn't really anything you need to care about, either. It's just one of those, "Well, of course!" things that people find amusing, so, well, be amused. Or something.
When I get to the point.

At the old desk, my computer was hard-wired into our router, but the new desk is too far away for that (especially since we were actively trying to cut down on cords), so I had to switch to wi-fi. It could be completely unrelated, but I'm going to guess that it's not. After we moved everything to the new system, my computer started having "issues" with staying connected to the Internet. Then, right after buying the speakers, which I'm sure was just coincidental, my hard drive came down with a squeak. My wife said it sounded like a frog.

Two things about this:
1. My previous computer did basically the same thing before it died, but the squeak lasted more than a year before the hard drive finally actually died. So, you know, I thought I had more time.
2. When we moved the computers, I misplaced my flash drive.

So, yeah, I knew I needed to get everything backed up, and I started looking around for my drive, even was considering just going out and getting a new one, but it's summer, and it's busy, and, yes, I thought I had more time.

But I didn't. The hard drive crashed and burned (okay, it didn't literally burn, although we did have a computer once that did actually melt down the hard drive and emit smoke). Hard. So hard that my computer couldn't even read that hard drive existed. And, well, I may have lost everything on it; I'm still waiting to find out about that.

Mostly, my documents are fine. I have those backed up through March or April and everything is recoverable through other means or reproduce-able (like my current novel which I just started typing up in June; so, though I may have lost all the typing, I still have my handwritten copy). Except for some notes about project ideas, but, well, I guess those are just notes.

The hard thing is my pictures. All of my pictures were solely stored on that computer, and I may have lost all of them. I'm still adjusting to that thought. It's painful to think and knots up my stomach. So far, the news is not good, but I haven't had definitive word, yet, so there is still hope.

Does anyone need a cheap set of speakers?