Punished for the Entertainment of a Third Party?

‘Her future no longer lay in further education – she accepted that now.  She wasn’t up to it, psychologically speaking. She’d never been up to it from the perspective of her psychological make-up – nor from the standpoint of her native intelligence, either – she just hadn’t realised it before, hadn’t been able to face up to it, her limitations, had been trapped in… what was it the doctor called it?  Denial?  Delusion, denial – call it what you will; it was something the doctor had FORCED her to face up to, to come to grips with, and continued to.  Delusion and denial were dealt with by a firm hand these days – a firm hand and a wickedly pliant cane or well-oiled leather strap or sometimes a doubled-over leather belt or the thin black plastic belt the doctor wore threaded through the belt loops around the waistband of her skirt.  But one thing that truly terrified her, kept her in line if ever she fought back (as occasionally she still did) was that threat of having her ‘put away’.  And the woman could DO that, too – it was no idle threat!  She could pull strings, not only have her ‘put away’ but placed under the doctor’s own personal supervision too, even have her lobotomised!  THAT was always the threat if she refused to bend for the cane or the switch. 

She’d come straight from school, straight into this – and she wouldn’t be moving on, there’d be no further progress; she was here for keeps… unless… No, she didn’t want to think about it.’ 

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Right!  Enough of that! Hi again folks!

You may be wondering why you've heard so little from me for a while, other than for the Roger Benson polls and similar I have been pasting up.  Well, we had a death in the family - an uncle (I'm fast running out of uncles - actually I've just realised I'm now COMPLETELY out of uncles!  I hadn't though about that till now) - and also I have been forced to take on a gym personal trainer course to try to supplement my income from that route once qualified (I have a master's degree in human nutrition and food science, so that's one aspect already in place - and lord knows how many years of gym experience) and the course takes six weeks, so not too long. 

I'm still hoping to get the book out in the very near future - or some part of it, if it goes out in multi-part format - before embarking on the gym instructor course though (the book I started around this time - or a bit earlier, last year).  I have had to place the book on the back burner several times over the past twelve months or so in order to finish off the Roger Benson art project (and I have to admit to having become sidetracked on more than one occasion by other projects, including a couple of shared projects which are

languishing uncompleted on my hard drives), but I'm switching over now to giving the new book utmost priority, as my need to quickly generate some kind of income, however modest, grows ever more acute. Luckily my birthday didn't cost much, since I got treated to quite a few drinkies by pub friends (which was nice) and the Clacton, Essex coast cycle trip cost very little beyond food and a few coffees and the rail fare back (I was too knackered to face a return trip - and had to hurry back for the other half's birthday) since I was able to stay with the kids and their grand parents - but things have gone REALLY pear-shaped now.

One of the problems I have encountered (beyond my bank, about eighteen months ago, advising me I had more funds available than in fact I had, which I've moaned about before) has been with the publishing site LULU from which income has all but completely dried up.  This is a state of affairs which began when they 'improved' the way they categorise book titles and the manner in which their search engine operates.  Yes, I changed the categorisation of my books to suit, but to little avail.  Looking back over the months on PayPal I can pinpoint almost exactly the point at which these changes took effect.  Now, I wasn't exactly making a fortune even then - a little LESS than I would claiming unemployment benefit here in the UK in fact - but the revenue from that source immediately dropped to one third of what it was (it was actually down to ONE FIFTH at one point, before I re-categorised my titles).  This has happened several times in the past, and the trick seems to be to withdraw each title and then republish as if new - but what a chore to have to do!  And through no fault of my own either!  It is all very dispiriting!  I just wish they would leave things alone! Trouble is - while I'm fixing LULU (a day it would turn out - I know!) I'm not getting the new book done - and vice versa.  And I've left the new book a while now too - probably TOO long - and have lost the plot a bit and need to read through it all to get going again... but I'll try!  Trouble is, I'm in a panic!

Anyone else out there experienced similar problems with LULU?

Now I've made myself depressed, too! Oh well, by for now!