A Peek At My Week! #103

ChristinaEngela

1 year ago

Hello, friends and fans!

Welcome to another “Peek At My Week”! Here’s a look at some of my latest news: May 28, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week.

News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things

Let’s take a look at the current status quo on various ongoing issues affecting my writing or publishing:

Writing: This past week I spent more time working on the next volume of the Panic! Horror In Space series. I have three sections of the story finished so far, entitled “Hunger”, “Nine Tenths Of The Law” and “Memento Mori”. I’m currently planning a fourth as well.
Recently Published: Having published the three new titles in the Quantum Series: “Underground Movement“, book 7, Book 8, “Xanadu” and “The Last Hurrah” (book 9) on the 6th of May, I’m really looking forward to finding out what my readers think of the three new books – so hurry up and read them already!
What Readers Say: I’m not sure, I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!) – drop me a line and let me know how you think I’m doing?
Coming Audiobooks: On Monday I sent the three new Quantum book manuscripts to Darla Middlebrook who will be narrating the audiobooks – I’m looking forward to hearing them!

Other Stuff:

Here’s a few of the other things that happened this past week:

Apparently I Sound Crazy

I received this comment on a comment I left on a social media post. Thought it was amusing.

Another Day, Another Scam Email

I received this scam email on 24 May, and while it seems to look sort of believable, my suspicions were aroused right away. My print books are all perfectly “integrated” into Amazon’s systems – if there were any problems with them, I’d have received a notification almost right away via my KDP dashboard – which I haven’t. Even if there was a problem, the process of publishing through Amazon is completely free for authors and small presses alike – so the extra charge is immediately suspicious!

Also, notice how “Brian Wilson” didn’t even mention WHICH of my 30+ books he was talking about?

Obviously he operates off a standard template, assuming that most self-publishing authors only have one book. Yet even so, they’d happily take up to $999 from anyone gullible enough to fall for this scam. People like this, preying on poor struggling authors, are lower than dirt. I’d happily step all over them.

The Post Office Again

More than a month since the last time I posted about this issue, but I’m still trying to get hold of someone at the post office daily just to find out if there’s been any progress regarding my application for duplicate vehicle papers in order to scrap a vehicle whose papers I no longer have.

I was given 4 phone numbers, and every single one of them just rings and rings and rings and rings until the recorded voice says “this number is currently unavailable”.

I’ll probably have to go sit in a queue at a random post office for 2 or 3 hours again, just to ask a fucking question.

Y’all are so godsdamned utterly useless you should consider a career in politics.

Finally Sorted

Finally! After 4 months of calling the Post Office almost daily (and not getting through) on four phone numbers, being shunted from pillar to post between loadshedding closures and unhelpful and often useless counter servers, this Saturday morning I got my duplicate registration for the Golf – and was able to scrap it!

As it turned out, my application had been approved a while back – “didn’t you get an sms to notify you to come and get it?” the lady asked me.

I hadn’t. Not once. I verified my phone number – yes, they had the correct number, but I never received a notification from them.

And they never once answered the phone when I called them every day for the past two weeks, on ALL 4 NUMBERS!

I had been there on Friday – and their doors were shut due to loadshedding – apparently their doors must need electricity to stay open.

“Yesterday was the last day.” She said, reading the screen. “It’s expired. Or wait, maybe it’s still valid today, let’s try.”

It printed. She smiled. I smiled. Even though it still cost me R642 for that piece of paper – that I would almost immediately invalidate by scrapping the vehicle it stood for. At least next year, I won’t have to pay for TWO vehicles again.

Basically, if I hadn’t BY SHEER CHANCE gone that day, I’d have had to reapply, and go through this nightmarish process all over again.

Just as well I paid heed to that subtle voice that seemed to be talking me into getting up early on a Saturday to go and check up in person.

Bearing in mind the obstructions that lay in my path, I felt like celebrating with a drink of some sort.

That’s all for this week!

As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:

In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached 50 reader reviews yet! I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!