Technologically Challenged

Your Fiorella is making a somewhat bumpy crossover from Windows Live Mail to gmail this weekend. Friend Patricia reguided all future emails, Husband figured out how Fio can "delete," and now she hopes someone at her critique group this afternoon can tell her how to "send." Then Fio has to trot over to Click on Monday to find out if there's any way to rescue all her old email addresses.

Tell her again how technology is supposed to make our lives easier.

Mosquitos, Writing, Languages, Art

Fio and Husband have had an in-house mosquito problem for about a week now and emptying out standing water isn't doing the trick.  Fio has got to find some kind of safe in-house spray. Wish her luck.
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Hey, hey, hey--Fiorella has finished revision #3 and will start #4 today. On the other hand, her email is on the outs again. Time to switch to gmail.
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Fio is satisfying her language hunger with el espanol, but the art hunger is growing again.  Is that woman never satisfied?

Carando to the Rescue

The rider on the white horse who rescued Fiorella?  None other than Patricia "T" Carando--again. She has been Fio's electronic savior too many times to count this past year, and your faithful correspondent is muy grateful.

What happened this time, you ask.  Fio's icons wouldn't open.  First she lost access to her email icon (again), and then she lost access to all her other programs except (whew) the one for the romance she is writing. Fiorella promptly sent out a panicked SOS to T and met with her at Starbucks, where all good writers meet.  The mighty T began by wrestling with Fio's email situation, which was caused by the failing mechanisms of Windows Live Mail (no longer supported by Microsoft), and which will necessitate Fio changing to gmail in the near future.  Then, while Fiorella raced back home to pick up her credit card so she could buy chocolate chunk cookies, T restored her other programs.

All is now well in Casa Fiorella, thanks to T Carando.  Well, T Carando and chocolate chunk cookies.

In the Know

Fiorella has a long-time habit of rechecking everything--Google news, Facebook, her blog, and her email--every time she opens up the computer, which is about five times a day and just before she goes to bed.  As she shut down last night, she heard herself say, "Nothing there.  I'm safe."

Yes, your Fio doesn't like surprises.

Promotion

Fiorella is overwhelmed again.  It isn't just the house or the yard or the writing.  It's the literary promotion.  Everywhere Fiorella looks, people are advocating self-promotion, which Fio does NOT want to do.  One reason she held out for an agent and a publisher was so that she would write, write, write her stories, and OTHER people could sell, sell, sell them.  Besides, she was blessed with many talents and skills, but NOT electronics!

Yes, your Fio has a blog, email, and Facebook, but that's it--no Pinterest, no Instagram, no Twitter, no WODDL, no Buffer, no Street Team, no give-aways,  Definitely a dinosaur.

Pass the Pen and Papyrus!

Your girl is having problems with her computer again.  It refuses to send photos by email.  In fact, the six photos she tried to send on Tuesday gummed up the machine so badly that, even after she called her server to try to find out what the problems was, the laptop wouldn't allow her to send mail out till yesterday when Husband--AKA Fiorella's Help Desk--was finally able to clear out the clog.  But Fio still can't transmit photos, which irritates the heck out of her.  Fio does not like to be stymied!

And, while she's at it, she also doesn't like the way her laptop makes strange maneuvers just because she's accidentally hit a few keys wrong!

Correcto?

Fiorella thinks she's finally figured out Twitter: one makes an interesting or clever comment, but doesn't expect a response.  Facebook, on the other hand, is geared toward exciting multiple responses, in contrast to email, which is a private conversation.

Post Depression

Fio's doing better now, but she's still searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that will make everything right.  She's still opening up Facebook and her email far too often, hoping that something wonderful will suddenly fix her and her life.  If she were the star of a Jennifer Aniston movie, she would have long since heard the orchestra crescendo in celebration and the air explode with firecrackers of joy.  But no, Fiorella lives in reality.

And that's where her books are set too, in reality, the location that Emily Dickinson termed less "fair" than imagination.  To which Fio adds, less fair in more ways than one.  Not that Fio doesn't give her struggling characters a happy ending--it's just that she doesn't seem to be heading toward one herself.