Bugs, Imps and other Pests

Well, today's post has much to do with bugs, imps and other pests.  The ones that creep out of dark corners, drop from the ceiling and scamper across your path.  Now, one could reasonably say, what do these things have in common with writing?  Other than the first thought that pops into one's mind after the initial reaction "Ick!"  Plenty.  If one watches them enough, they could stir the imagination in ways never traveled.

For instance, I would sit and wonder what an ant thought if it noticed me watching it.  What was that antennae waving about for? How did that one get so big?  Bringing me to the next thought-mutations, bringing me to the next one-chemical, natural, no enemies?  Fine and dandy. 'Cept those aren't exactly what I was referring to when dealing with this month's bugs, imps and other pests.

As you know, if you've been following my writing career, I've been accepted over to the JukePop Serials site.  Whereupon, I happily proceeded to post my chapters.  Being as this particular book is a set of short stories with a Storyteller as the link between each, I've had to publish it by scenes of about 1000 words.   I thought I could save the chapters in draft form, you know the review button which saves the chapter whilst one tweaks little things, such as typos, spelling errors and anything else one didn't notice before submitting.  Therein lay the start of this months particular adventure.  Or rather,misadventure.

I had made an edit to the very first chapter, adding in a suggestion from a reader over to the Camp NaNoWriMo site.  Duly hit the publish button.  Next, having inherited some of the impatience I occasionally complain about from my father, I hit the back button on the wrong tab.  Thereby, reminding me that I mustn't ever have the million and one tabs, windows and documents open.  Apparently, I am one of those who do not pay as much attention to the clicks on the many tabs on the task bar of my trusty computer as I've discovered time and again, resulting in my determination to change my ways after discovering  another error in my ways.

Discovering a loop in the book caused me to send an email to the overworked personnel over to the site.  As it was the start of a holiday weekend, I duly notified my readers on my Facebook page and maybe Twitter (or not, can't remember.)  Then, impatience reared it's ugly head and I notified JukePop on their Twitter account.  Searched in vain for the DM and once again, discovered that all the millions upon millions of Twitter users have discovered how to disable the DM and I haven't.

So, a dilemma presented itself to my weary little bird brain.  Should I or Shouldn't I?  I contemplated, meditated and debated this question with myself over the course of the next 24 hours or so.  Yep, I tweeted a message.  The guys at JukePop proceeded to fix my mistake.  Yay.  All was back to normal.

I thought.

I got a question or two from a trusty reader who was having a bit of a problem with Chapter 5 sending her into a loop.  Of course, I had noticed this myself.  But I discovered that if I went to the chapter links, I could get to the right chapter.  So I proceeded to show her the tabs, etc that she'd need, i.e. Bookshelf, chapter and Voting button.  We got her safely past the redirect loop.  That reminds me, she wanted my PayPal email which I still haven't put up on the site.  Now, should I rush off and do that now whilst I'm thinking about?  Best not.

Anyways, I discovered the same loop redirect and this time, finally hit the "learn more" link.  Whereupon, I discovered that I needed to clear my cookies and cache.  Which I happily did, forgetting that I would need to sign in to all the various sites once again, as I haven't mastered the art of clearing just one site's cookies.

So, I proceed to my Blogger dashboard, intending to finish my post I had started at the beginning of this current fiasco I created for myself.  Much to my dismay, I couldn't bring up my post editor.  Spent a vicious headachy period trying to discover what I had done.  Those moments weren't as frantic as the time a year or so ago, when I had clicked on one of those imps of the spam world, but still threatened to send me into a full blown panic.

Then, I remembered that I had bookmarked another trusty helper on the Blogger forums known as Nitecruzer.  Yes.  Paid attention to his remarks, which happily didn't confuse me more as my headache disappeared.  He asked a couple simple questions and I clicked the links and read his posts.  I was just about to send the overworked team over to Blogger forums a request when I remembered an extension had been added, enabled and left to work it's mysterious ways upon my browser.

I disabled that pest and voila! Here I am, happily posting and reading and going about my business as usual.  Hmmm. I saw a big ant making it's way across the boardwalk outside.  Thinking I'll check it out.