At long last I’ve finished the dang tax return! Since I’m self employed, I have to fill in quarterly tax returns. Normally they’re quite simple: Income: guidingExpenses: social security, petrolProfit: Why do I bother? Only this quarter I published a book, didn’t I? Layout and printing for two issues in English, ISBN, graphics, business cards, letter head, web site to sell books, ISBN for the Spanish version … On the plus…
Every year, the critters workshop hosts the Preditors & Editors™ Readers’ Poll, which honours print & electronic publications published during 2012. When somebody reminded me about it, I put nominated The Dodo Dragon and other stories in the anthologies category, but I had almost no time for publicity. I think I mentioned it on Facebook and one email group, and that was it – I had a book to finish….
Once the pressure was off with the book, I collapsed in a bit of a heap. Since August, I’ve had two days off sick, but apart from that, the only day I haven’t worked on the book was Christmas day, and I was cooking for a good bit of that. And for the last week, I’ve been ignoring the housework almost completely. So Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were spent catching…
The island’s government, the Cabildo, have been extremely helpful with my book, “A Breathtaking Window on the Universe”. Now, pretty please, they’d like copies of the Spanish edition in time for the Fitur tourism fair in Madrid at the end of January. I’ve talked to the printers, and that means they need the book delivered to them this week. Eek! I’m going to be far too busy for blog posts…
New year is a big thing in Spain. Many people dress up – I mean really dress up, as though they were going to the opera at Covent Garden. Traditionally, lots of people eat out, although I suspect there’ll be less of that this year. At midnight, people traditionally eat one grape for each “boing” of the clock. If you manage all twelve on schedule, it’s supposed to bring good…
Happy New Year to my reader. We had a comparatively quite new year’s eve, but it was fun. At midnight, from my balcony, we could see five firework displays on La Palma, plus lots more on Tenerife and La Gomera. I hope that 2013 is the year when you get what you go after.