Ancient Mariner/Author
This blog is being blogged at a time when the only thing I know about blogging is how to spell the word blog. Now, don’t you fellas out there start telling me I’ve spelt that wrong too.
My grey matter has not been stirred with such vigour since nursing finals many years ago. Do you see those two parallel drag marks ploughed up in the ground behind me? They look a bit like upside down railway tracks. My dug-in heels tilled those rows. ‘Life’ has a rope wrapped around my neck with which to drag me forward into the digital world. Notice the scattered branches and fallen tree trunks strew across the path? Frantic fingers along with desperate arms snapped the timber in a vain attempt to cling onto my comfort zone.
Puffing, panting, exhausted, I stand on the banks of a deep wide river; like the Burdekin in flood. This though, is the Technology River. It fills me with a fathomless fear. My pounding heart drowns out the sounds of the rushing waters. Pale and sweaty I stare at the debris floating on the current. Debris like E-mail listings, facebook, pod casting, Instagram, internet, browsing, shopping carts, that are like no shopping cart I’ve ever seen. They are not even carts or trolleys. They are pages on the screen of a website. Another word in a foreign language. PDF formatting, Print on Demand (POD), not to be confused with POD as in Podcasting as above or Point of Delivery in the Printer’s jargon. Amazon which needs a Kindle app to read. Now, what is an app again? The only kindle I know of is the wooden variety and the Amazon is a River a long way away, learnt of, back in the day. And what do I make of these: Smashwords, Bookpress, WordPress, Kobo and Epub? A ‘Pub with no Beer’ I understand, but this! I ask you, what is wrong with a printed book that only needs my eyes to read it?
I feel myself sinking into the muddy banks of the river as the waters rise up around my neck. BUT, if I want to get my book out there to you, the readers, I must cross these fearful whirlpools with only a fragile canoe of knowledge and a paddle made of wire netting. I stare out at the terrorizing territory of technology.
Elizabeth Rimmington
Current. Weather and Tides:
4/8/19 “Shadow of the Northern Orchid” is now available for sale as a print book and as an Ebook.
I am in the process of completing the final edits (and dare I say the word formatting) on the sequel
“Shadows on the Goldfield Track”.
With any luck this will be ready to publish before Christmas.
Plans are underway to arrange a book tour in October, tracing Josh and Gus Dougall’s initial journey on the Northern Orchid. I hope to visit libraries and writing communities at all the ports from Brisbane to Townsville.
It will be lovely to catch up with you then.
Elizabeth.
