Monday, June 30, 2008

INTERNET BACK TO NORMAL - AND A SAD PICTURE

It's great to be back!! Being out of email communication with the rest of the world was NO FUN!
I felt as though I was walking around in the dark - out of touch with all the important things in my life!! But now - all is well again!

The people at TCA have risen to the challenge and, with the willing assistance of many local people, the new shop has been operating since last Monday - a remarkable feat! Sadly, the old premises have had to be demolished and the whole town is very sad. It was a lovely, heritage building which had, over the years, been allowed to deteriorate and, about six years ago, was beautifully restored by the owners of TCA. The verandah has been salvaged for possible future use on a rebuilt shop. Geoff and I drove past it on Sunday and took a photo just before the facade went down.
No further news on the writing front. Another period of waiting... waiting... seems to be the current state of things.


Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Yet another email address!!

TCA - my supplier of internet access and email, is now up and running. So, if you'd like to go for the old address: whocares@tca-online.com.au, it should be okay and reliable.
However, I seem to be having some problems with accessing my hotmail address.
I really don't want to have any more technology problems but I'm stuck with this one.
While we were out of touch through TCA, and then found the hotmail problems, I set up a gmail address which seems to be fine.
This is: gillian.wadds.senior@gmail.com . If, by any chance, we have some settling in problems with TCA, then this gmail address is fine.
So-o-o sorry about all the hassles - but I can assure you that Rob, the proprietor of TCA is more hassled than any of us. He has our sympathy.
It's been great to hear from some of my cyberspace contacts through the other addresses - sorry about the hotmail account.
Cheers for now,
Gillian
Return to: http://www.gillianmwadds.com.au/

Thursday, June 19, 2008

TEMPORARY EMAIL ADDRESS

Whew! We are at last back online - but no email service as yet.
Just in case there's someone out there who needs to contact me and I haven't already passed on my temporary address, here it is:
We're all pretty shattered about this fire. It destroyed the whole shop - including servers and heaps of other equipment - but the whole town has rallied around to help with the clean-up and the move.
Tower Computer Aid staff have done a magnificent job getting all the connections up and running again and they expect to be open for normal business in their new premises just down the street, on Monday morning.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the building - a beautifully restored heritage shop - will have to be demolished. The worst part about it is that the police have declared the fire deliberately lit - a very hard thing to accept in a beautiful small town like ours.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

INTERNET AND EMAIL CONNECTION LOST THROUGH FIRE!

Emergency Blog !! Thursday, 19th June, 2008. (Sent from a neighbour's computer)
For anyone who has been trying to contact me or my husband, Geoff Senior, over the past few days - many apologies.
Our local Internet Service Provider had a very bad fire early on Monday morning - 16th June - which destroyed much of his equipment. This meant that his customers all lost internet connection - and of course, emails - from that time.
I understand that emails to me or to Geoff are bouncing back to the senders - which can be a bit of a worry for us all.
The latest news is that WITH LUCK we should be back on line by Friday afternoon - 20th June. However, if we get too much rain, we may be delayed a bit longer. (That'd be right, wouldn't it? Just when we start rejoicing when it rains - now we don't want it for a while!)
I will report on this blog again when we're back on line.
Back to: www.gillianmwadds.com.au

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Waiting, waiting, waiting ...

Oh no! I've missed a whole month!
It could be because there's not much to report - certainly not much on the writing front.
Silly Old Buggers is still staggering along - probably appropriate given the subject matter (getting older!). We thought we might have something happening at Chapel off Chapel for Seniors' Week but this seems to have fallen through. There's still interest from a couple of venues for the new year (are we really talking about 2009 already?) but nothing definite.
And so - the production team - who are all VERY busy people doing lots of other things - are quietly working away in the background and I mostly just WAIT.

Better news on the subject of Junior Novels.
The librarian at the Secondary College who ordered 250 of Chemical Leak! for their Year 7 book list has told me that the students loved the book and so did the teachers. She has been asked to buy in a class set of Sea Secrets so that they can continue with the next book in the series.
I was feeling very discouraged about Junior Novels in general and this series of mine (Zena and Her Mates) in particular, because my publishers decided they didn't want to continue with that genre.
That left me with a group of kids I love writing about, a third book on the way and no one to sell it to. Would I have to invent a whole new group of kids? Would anyone ever buy one of my Junior Novels again? I gave up in disgust and did nothing.
Suddenly, out of the blue, another publisher is interested in talking to me about the third book in the series. I'm trying not to hold my breath but ... it's not easy.
Let's hope I get some good news and am inspired to write another blog entry VERY SOON!

Return to: http://www.gillianmwadds.com.au/