I finally published the Kindle edition of Along Came a Demon. That’s one step forward. And I’ve just about finished the updated version of The Demon Hunters which at the moment appears only on Lulu. This has been a busy week for me as I also edited another author’s book and am working on a review for the LL Book Review. That, and working at my other job.

My Whispering Facebook page is up and running and has fans from all over the world. Okay, so not many of them at the moment, but they are from all over the world. On the Whisperings page readers can find progress updates and every now and then Tiff gives them a little inside info on what is happening to her in Along Came a Demon. She won’t be able to go on much longer without totally giving away the plot. Perhaps she’ll start talking about her adventures in The Demon Hunters.

      Then I had to ask. "Lindy, what happened to you?"

      She let her hair loose and wrung her hands together.

      Until I became accustomed to it, looking into the faces of the dead was an alarming experience because they are stuck with the expression they wore when they died. Lindy went through the physical motions of pulling on her hair and wringing her hands as if distressed, but her expression didn't alter.

      "I was taking a bath and I know I locked the front and back doors. A man came into the bathroom and went behind me. I couldn't even scream. I wanted to, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I was gripping the sides of the tub, trying to haul myself up when he touched me on the forehead. I barely felt it. But then it was like a . . . a jolt through my body. It took my breath away. I went under the water, just for a second, came back up and I still couldn't breathe. That's all I remember until I woke up again."

      I stepped closer. "What do you recall after that?"

      Her eyes slid away again and I knew she was trying to remember. "People there. Police. In the bathroom." Her gaze darted back to me and her tone turned indignant. "It was so embarrassing! One of the officers picked up my thong and said he wondered if his girlfriend would like one. The detective said he'd get one for his wife but it would cut off her circulation¾not that it would matter because her crotch atrophied years ago. I was stark naked in my bathtub and they were making jokes about my underwear! And then the other officer said he'd heard on good authority if you --"

      I cut in. I didn't need that much information. I kept my voice and expression neutral although I wanted to grin at the mental picture invoked by her narration. "Making jokes at a crime scene is a coping mechanism. A kind of barrier they put up between them and the reality of what they see and have to deal with. Your underwear was just an excuse, a distraction if you like."

Posted by linda_english at 11:02 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 23 July 2009 5:46 PM EDT

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Someone up there must have been listening to me gripe, or reading my Blog because Book Finder now finds quite a few online booksellers who list Along Came a Demon AND it is on Barnes and Noble (although not up there in its entirety.)

Am I embarrassed that I jumped the proverbial gun?  No! I'm still not totally happy with the Lulu expanded distro because the online book sellers (except Amazon.com) have listed a higher price. It ranges from $17 up to $33 for my novella. By not happy, I mean that I have doubts that those book sellers will get any sales at the price they are asking.

So I suppose it boils down to do I go with Lulu, paying for expanded distro, basically for listings on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, because I don't think I'll see results from the other sellers. Or do I go with CreateSpace just for Amazon.com. I can, actually, still sell the same books on Lulu so long as they're a different edition to that on CreateSpace/Amazon.

I think I will wait a couple of months and see if I get any sales from Barnes and Noble. If I do, and can build a following of readers, then I will probably stick with Lulu. If not, I will think again about CreateSpace.

Tune in for the next exciting installment of Linda's dilemma!

Posted by linda_english at 2:13 PM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

Lulu or CreateSpace? I am seriously thinking about publishing the second in my Whisperings series, The Demon Hunters, using CreateSpace. I used Publish By Lulu expanded distribution for Along Came a Demon because it says your book will appear on “Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Amazon.uk, Amazon.ca (Canada) and many more online retailers,” but that didn’t happen.

I found it on Amazon.ca, but only by searching for my name (searching for the book title or ISBN does not find it.) It is unavailable, and no price is listed. Hardly going to encourage anyone to buy it, is it. It is listed on Amazon.uk, but at a price no Brit is likely to pay. It is also listed on Amazon Japan. And of course it is listed on Amazon.com, but at the ridiculously high price Lulu ends up with when it doubles the distribution costs and adds your royalty, as meager as that may be. It does not appear on Barnes and Noble, or any other online book seller.

I’ve already published using CreateSpace. Granted, CS books only appear on Amazon.com, but at half the price Lulu would put them up there for, and if you purchase from the CreateSpace store, the shipping is a lot cheaper than Lulu charges, as is Amazon’s shipping fees. Your book, including the Look Inside feature, gets onto Amazon.com a lot faster than when published through Lulu.

Let’s face it, I don’t think I’m going to make sales in the UK and Canada, because the UK price is stupidly high and, as I mentioned, Canada’s listing is pathetic. Lulu has not lived up to their part of the deal and got my book on Barnes and Noble and “other online bookstores.” So my sales will come from Amazon.com, and I can get my latest book on there faster using CreateSpace than Lulu, and at a lower cost to me and customers.

If anyone advises me to become an independent publisher and manage sales myself, well I’m not ready to go that route yet. Right now I market my books as selling on Amazon and Lulu. I can just as well market them as selling on Amazon and CreateSpace.     

And whatever I do, I can still sell my books as Kindle. In fact I’ve had requests to do so. So look out for Along Came a Demon and the Demon Hunters, coming to Kindle in the near future.

Posted by linda_english at 3:01 PM EDT

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Mood:  irritated

I can hear you now: oh dear, not ANOTHER gripe! I promise, this is a small one.

You see, Amazon.com keeps changing my product page for Along Came a Demon. At first that didn’t bother me all that much, until I started looking at it from the point of view of a prospective customer instead of an author.

Firstly, every now and then, at the top, the page says there are no customer reviews. There are indeed reviews down there, but if I was a customer I wouldn’t bother to scroll down the page looking for reviews Amazon says do not exist. And reviews help to sell books.

Secondly, every now and then the estimated shipping date changes from “in stock” to “1 to 2 months.” One to two months? They have to be kidding! If I were a prospective customer I would probably zero in on the “2 months” part. Would you order a book if you had to wait two months for delivery? I wouldn’t. The stupid thing is that the book is never actually “in stock”,  it has to be ordered from Lulu Press, but neither would delivery be “1 to 2 months." Lulu  Press takes 3-5 days to print. Then they ship it to Amazon. Amazon processes it and ships it to the customer. An acquaintance who ordered the book received it in 3 weeks.

I got quite irate. I sent a message to Amazon saying it seemed they were in actual fact trying to discourage people from buying the book, because that’s what it seems like to me.

Today the product page is back to how it should look. But who knows what Amazon will do to it tomorrow.

Posted by linda_english at 6:37 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Let me say up front that I was apparently going about it the wrong way when I tried to check my Kindle sales, but I didn’t know any better and I couldn’t find any other way to get results. My adventure with Amazon Kindle began when I noticed that not only did I have a ranking for my Kindle edition of Mindbender, but it fluctuated over a few weeks. I hadn’t checked the thing for maybe six months so I was quite excited. I wanted to know how many I’d sold. I went into the Kindle digital platform and clicking on help took me to their so-called help forums. I trolled around for a while but couldn’t find an answer there, and no way to contact the actual Kindle department.

            So I clicked on seller help on my seller account page and on my progress report (I said I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t I) and that gave me nada. I then sent a message to seller help asking where I could find my Kindle sales. After a week and no reply, I sent another message. Again no reply. So I phoned seller live help and they promptly called back. The first lady I spoke to didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Our conversation went something like: Her: “You don’t have a seller account.” Me: “Yes. I do." “No, you don’t” “Yes I do, it’s on the screen in front of me.” After several minutes of this I asked if I could just tell her what I needed. Thereupon, she said, “Oh, you need the Kindle department. I’ll transfer you.”

            The next lady didn’t get it either. She transferred me to someone else. The third lady said, “I can’t help you. That’s outside my expertise.” “But aren’t you seller help?’ “Yes, but not for Kindle. You can only contact them by sending a message,” and she proceeded to tell me, in detail, how to do WHAT I’D ALREADY DONE! TWICE! By now I was getting frustrated. She suggested I take a look in the Kindle forums.

            I eventually found my answer in the Amazon Services Seller Forums under Seller Discussion Boards, those created by hapless beings like myself who can’t get help from Kindle so ask others of their kind when they encounter a problem. I was able to locate my sales report, and see how many editions I’d sold. All well and good.

            THEN, I got an email from Amazon which had the nerve to ask me if their seller help had answered my questions.

            Ooh!

            I promise I was polite. I did say that they could have replied to my messages even if it was to say they couldn't help and point me in another direction. I did mention something about the amount of money Amazon must be spending on their current marketing program for their new Kindle, and possibly spending some of it to help their authors, the people who made that money for them. How about an easier way to get help, such as a telephone hotline for Kindle? How about some one-on-one service? After they got my reply email, I received an email from them within the hour. It included an apology and an email address in case I needed to contact them again.

Posted by linda_english at 12:12 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 8 July 2009 2:04 PM EDT

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Mood:  bright

We returned from England several weeks ago and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to Blog about it. I doubt anyone is interested in the process of going from Eden, Utah to Rushall, England, so I’ll just say it involved my husband and I driving to Salt Lake, a flight to Dallas/Fort Worth, a flight to Heathrow, a bus to Reading, a train to Pewsey and a bus to Rushall! And not a wink of sleep the entire time.

For most of the visit we were with my mother, which was the point of the trip. Mother’s house is tiny and was once a “two-up, two-down” cottage, a bit bigger than the original floor plan with the extension of a bathroom and storage room. She has a huge and lovely garden and never a year goes by and she doesn’t win first prizes for her flowers and vegetables at the local horticultural shows. Guess who was put to weeding that huge and beautiful garden? Yes, some things never change – to Mother I’m still her little girl who must do as she’s told. I would rather have lounged in the garden as the weather was fantastic – warm, sunny, blue skies dotted with fluffy little white clouds, etc. – apart from one overcast day and one of rain.

You’d think that in a damp place like England, with so much precipitation, the ground would hold the moisture, but a week of hot weather and the soil dries out and everything starts to die. So most people are out there with watering cans and buckets, watering their plants one by one. Just up above Mother’s house is an allotment sans a water supply and every day people drive up there, their cars loaded with containers, to water their vegetables by hand.

Apart from trips to Pewsey for groceries and one to the lovely old town of Marlborough just to look around, we mostly stayed close to home. Traveling is not a simple process as the service bus goes through Rushall only once a day, at 9:17 in the morning. It goes to Pewsey, Marlborough and on to Swindon. If you want to go anywhere at any other time you must book a seat on the Connect2 bus, which also goes to Devizes. For trips to Salisbury one must walk miles to catch the service bus at another stop. Going anywhere by train necessitates booking a seat on Connect2 to Pewsey station and then waiting there an hour for your train.

Still, we managed to get around. We stayed with my sister in my old home town of Newbury for a weekend, during which time we went up to Brighton to visit my niece. Brighton is my favorite town – diverse and very alive. We didn’t look around the shops as we’ve done that so many times before but we took a long, leisurely walk along the beachfront and stopped at Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie’s Italian” restaurant for lunch, which was very yummy. I was urged to visit the bathroom (loo) even if I didn’t need to, just to experience the automatic hand dryers. So I washed my hands and used the dryer, and stood there bemused while it howled like a jet engine and I watched the skin on the back of my hands literally ripple up and down. One woman checked to make sure all her fingers were still there.

We also met up with Janet, an old school friend, and her husband and went to lunch at a local pub carvery. A carvery is like a self-serve restaurant only servers carve the meat from the joint for you. Oh, and by the way, don’t believe anyone who tells you that dining in Britain sucks. It definitely does not. In fact, an incredible variety of ethnic foods are available not only in restaurants and pubs but in the supermarkets and I would bet the frozen foodstuffs are the best in the world. Especially the desserts! And to top that, pub food is great and cheaper than anywhere else.

The four of us went to my old secondary school, Shaw House, which is now open to the public. Back when I attended, Shaw House was a girls-only school and I loved being in that stately, sixteenth-century manor house. I always thought it a shame the old house had to have noisy little kids running riot in it. No longer a school, it was left in disrepair until the Heritage Society took it over and did extensive restoration. To my disgust, not all the rooms were open to the public, but I enjoyed pointing out the plaque to commemorate a day in October 1644 when a Roundhead soldier fired a bullet into the room during the Battle of Newbury. He was aiming at King Charles I. Also the beautiful Chandos Dining Room which now boasts beautiful Chinese wallpaper as it would have back in the old days. I was able to show them the servants’ stairs, now hidden behind a door. I wanted to look in the old library where the doorstep and floors have been worn into grooves by countless feet, but it was not open to the public. HOWEVER, as I spoke to one of the guides, she asked if I took typing classes while attending Shaw. I said I did, and she led me to where an ancient black 1850s typewriter sat. They didn’t know how to thread the ribbon. I did it for them and they very kindly let me see a number of rooms not open to the public, including the library.

This is my old school: http://www.shawhouse.org.uk

The following Friday I went alone to Paddington Station and met a new friend. Carol and I have chatted and emailed for about six months and swore to meet in London. We recognized one another right off. Before we set out I had another adventure in another bathroom, this one in Paddington. They too had ferocious hand dryer, advertised at the fastest dryers in the world! To use this one, you point your hands down. They should have some safety bar down there to hang on so you don’t risk getting blown across the room. When I was done I realized my rings had been blown right off my fingers, and I hadn’t felt a thing. Happily I found them on the floor. After that Carol led me through the Tube and various underground trains to our destination, which was vague, seeing as her map consisted of a few words jotted on a tiny piece of paper. We were looking for a certain restaurant off Leicester Square, but first we had to find Leicester Square. Carol is a London girl but she lives near Wimbleton and rarely ventures into “the City.” We wandered up and down for 15 minutes, found we had passed it by, and finally walked into the square. Finding the restaurant was harder. We walked around, and around, and around, looking for a certain street. Didn’t find it. Eventually we asked someone. Then we walked around and around a couple more times. We asked someone else, and lo and behold there was the street and we couldn’t figure out how we’d missed it before. Anyway, we had a nice lunch, then sat in the square chatting. All too soon we had to head back to Paddington. Meeting Carol was the hi-light of my trip.

The following weekend we attended my brother and wife’s 40^th anniversary bash and I got to see my cousins and their broods again. We had a great time. Rob played 70s music, the meal was fantastic and best of all the company was great.

And then home we came, to thunderous skies and deluging rain. At least the garden didn’t die while we were away. All in all we had a great time.

Posted by linda_english at 2:03 PM EDT

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LOCAL RANT

In a couple of days I’ll be temporarily leaving for pastures greener so I thought I’d leave you with a little blog. Seeing as it’s geared toward local people, the majority of you probably won’t be interested, but here goes anyway. And what better to leave you with than a good old rant.

Rant One:

So one day little Johnny tells mommy and daddy he wants to ride his tricycle up and down Ogden Canyon. They get in the car and drive to the Canyon to take a look. The first thing they spot, right at the entrance to the Canyon, is a sign which says: NARROW SHOULDER. PEDS AND CYCLISTS NOT RECOMMENDED NEXT FIVE MILES.

Real close to that is another sign which says: SHARP CURVES. NARROW ROADWAY NEXT FIVE MILES.

And there’s another one further on down the road: LIMIT SIGHT DISTANCE.

About halfway down the Canyon they see another sign.  This one says: NARROW SHOULDER. PEDS AND CYCLISTS NOT RECOMMENDED NEXT TWO AND A HALF MILES MILES

Before they get far along 12^th Street they turn around and head back. There, at the entrance to the Canyon, is a sign which says:  NARROW SHOULDER. PEDS AND CYCLISTS NOT RECOMMENDED NEXT FIVE MILES.

About halfway up the Canyon they see another sign. This one says: NARROW SHOULDER. PEDS AND CYCLISTS NOT RECOMMENDED NEXT TWO AND A HALF MILES MILES

“Can I ride my tricycle now?” Johnny asks when they get back to the top of the Canyon. “Can I can I?’

“I don’t see why not,” says Daddy. “The signs don’t say you can’t ride your tricycle in the Canyon. What do do you think, Mommy?

“Johnny,” says Mommy, “we need to talk. You see, although I think most people in their cars are respectful to kids on tricycles, unfortunately some are not. The Canyon road is awful narrow and they get impatient when they’re stuck behind a tricycle and can’t go around it. Sometimes they do go around it when they shouldn’t, and they can get really close to the tricycle. Then there could be an accident. They might hit the tricycle with their car. And some motorist just don’t notice tricycles. I know they should, but they don’t, and they could hit you and your tricycle, too.”

“But that would be their fault,” says little Johnny.

“It surely would,” Mommy replies. “But that won’t make no difference to you when you’re lying on the side of the road with your legs broken. And think about those great big cement mixers and all the other construction vehicles which come down the Canyon way too fast, especially around the Narrows.”

“They’d get into big trouble if they hit me,” Johnny said.

“They surely would,” Mommy agreed. “But you won’t have to worry about that when you and your tricycle are a smear in the middle of the road.”

So, am I comparing cyclists in Ogden Canyon to toddlers on tricyles? Definitely not. Am I saying they have about the same degree of common sense? Definitely.

Rant Two:

There are three communities in the Ogden Valley: Liberty, Eden and Huntsville. For the guy at the Eden Maverick, talking into his cell phone, no, you were not in Huntsville. You were in EDEN. Huntsville does not fill the entire valley.

Rant Three:

Road works. Construction here. Construction there, construction construction everywhere. I’m probably the last of you all to complain about it, but come on now! What bright spark decided to do construction on Harrison, Washington, 12^th Street etc etc all at the same time? You can’t drive anyplace in Ogden and not run into construction. And isn't it TOTALLY FRUSTRATING when the road is narrowed down by orange cones and NOT ONE PERSON IS THERE ACTUALLY DOING ANY CONSTRUCTION WORK!

Rant Four:

If you are visiting the Valley, particularly the Nordic Valley area, do not let your kids wander around in the undergrowth. What looks like the back country to you is actually someone’s property. If I see a kid with a BB rifle walking through my property, eyeing MY birds and MY squirrels, he's going to lose that rifle.

Rant Five:

When I walk my little dogs I carry a retractable night stick. If your dog(s) come charging at us, snarling and snapping, I will use my stick on them. That will be almost as painful to me as to your dogs because I love dogs, all dogs, even ones who act mean, because generally that behavior if not their fault but the fault of their people. But if I have to use my stick to protect myself and my Scotties, I will.

Except if it's those two big Dobermans, or the Killer Beagle, or that gigantic Malamute . . . if they come out I'll be running in the other direction.

And everyone have a nice summer!

Posted by linda_english at 5:19 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 May 2009 10:51 AM EDT

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Mood:  bright

My goodness it's been a while since I was here. So, what has been happening?

My review of Tales of a Texas Boy by Marva Dasef went live on Lulu Book Review on May 14th. I think she liked the review. Take a look:

Tales of a Texas Boy

Changes are coming to LLBR on June 1st and I think followers of LLBR will like and approve of them. And I am not just referring to the new web page.

I have been keeping up with my Facebook friends, my friends on the Lulu forums, my emails (almost) and writing. My big news is I have taken The Demon Hunters off the market. The more I looked over it, the more I realized I could do a lot better. Plus, although Along Came a Demon is a novella, I want The Demon Hunters to be a novel. The word count as per novella and as per novel seems to vary according to the source of the information, but I believe the designation "novel" is assigned to works over 50,000 words. The Demon Hunters was around 47,000 and I have already increased that to just over 49,000 and I'm only on the fifth chapter revision. I think it will end up well over 60,000, probably a lot more. I am putting more detail, more atmosphere into it, and tying up some loose ends, explanations which were not given in Along Came a Demon. Such as, why did Royal transfer to Clarion PD, of all places?

My date of departure for England is fast approaching and I have actually made my first "to take" list which seems to contain, from looking, at it a lot more than my suitcase will hold. No doubt I'll cram it all in.

I am visiting England to see my family but the trip also serves another purpose. Although I am working on The Demon Hunters, I do not forget that a good part of the plot for the next in the series, Demon on a Distant Shore, takes place in England. A refresher course will be very helpful.

I have also had the third Systems novel printed up. This is Metamorphosis: part one of Heroes and Heroines. The book looks good but I am refraining from going through it yet again. I will let my editor go over it. She prefers to look at a finished work, not a manuscript, so the book is going off to her the end of this week. I hope I don't have to do too many revisions, but if I do, well, that's all part of writing and turning out a good product.

On a personal front, my Scottie Angus had a suspicious lump removed from his neck last week. We haven't got the results from the lab yet but we are hopeful. He is doing well, apart from playing the poor, long-suffering, abused pet and letting us know that by refusing to eat his food. However, he wolfs down liver treats, jerky,biscuits and his evening yogurt so I don't think anything is wrong with him. His brother, Duncan, had another siezure a couple of days ago when we were out walking. This is the first, that I know of, since a year ago and I had hoped he'd never suffer another one. Tests found nothing physically abnormal so the diagnosis is probably epilepsy, which is generally the diagnosis when nothing physically wrong can be found.

I am looking forward to seeing my mum and sister, and my niece who lives in Brighton. Have you ever been to Brighton? I love the place. I have not yet seen another city that comes close to Brighton's diversity. If I ever went back to live in England, that's where I would be.

Ciao for now.

Posted by linda_english at 5:42 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 18 May 2009 2:33 PM EDT

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Yesterday I joined fReado and put Along Came a Demon and The Demon Hunters up on there. They have a marvellous utility called Bookbuzzr which creates a preview of your books, author information/profile, links etc and you can imbed it on your website and communities such as Facebook. I've already had more views of the books in a few hours than anywhere else I have publisized the books, and I've also previewed a lot of other books on there. It couldn't be easier. fReado lists books from self-published and traditionally published authors (eg Charlaine Harris) and is an easy way to preview without driving down to the local bookstore. As my little community doesn't have a bookstore, and there is only one small bookstore in the nearest city, fReado is an ideal resource for me. I wish I'd done this ages ago.

I also reactivated my Facebook account. I started it up a year ago, decided I didn't have time to mess with it, so deactivated it. Well, there I am again. I don't know how I'm going to find time to keep up with all of my online activities now that the warm weather has arrived and I need to get out in the garden before the weeds overgrow it, and I should do something about the dust balls floating across my floors, and at least neaten up the stacks of paperwork in my office. TV? Don't have time.

I'll be off to England the beginning of June, or, as my Brit friends say - going across the pond. To keep my sanity I am taking my laptop. my new wireless mouse and my new personal digital recorder so I can keep writing. Unfortunately I won't have access to the internet FOR TWO WEEKS! Agh!

To think, I used to think "roughing it" meant sleeping in a tent.

Posted by linda_english at 11:44 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 8 May 2009 11:46 AM EDT

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I wish this weather would make up its mind! Sun, wind, rain, hail, snow. Sun comes out, I put the boots and winter coat away, and I do believe I jinx myself! Back comes the cold and snow. I am thankful it does not settle and what's already there is melting fast.

Had a very productive couple of days. I made revisions to The Demon Hunters, and an adjustment to the cover. I finished editing my third Systems novel, Metamorphosis, and it is now being printed. Next step, when I receive it, will be to send it off to my editor for a look over. I like the cover on this one.

I also came up with a new character for Demon on a Distant Shore, which actually makes the title more appropriate. In Malad, Idaho, last Sunday, just bought the lottery tickets and was having breakfast at Me And Lou's, and the idea just popped into my head. So there I was doing a JK Rowling, scribbling on napkins.

Next month I have to change mind-set to the "preparing for the England trip." Making lists, checking them twice. Getting dogs their shots. Getting hair cut. Cleaning house (shriek!.) Thinking about what I have to do at work to prepare for my absence.

I will really miss Tweeting and emailing and participating in the Lulu forums. Unfortunately my satellite service is limited to the Ogden Valley so no internet while in England. But I'm not gone yet, a few weeks to go, so I had best get typing!

Posted by linda_english at 5:03 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 29 April 2009 5:15 PM EDT

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