My wife has been in the hospital for a month!

I have been so incredibly busy lately that I haven’t sent any updates on Alicia’s condition (I often work until 3:30 AM, but that should soon end when Alicia gets home). She’s been in the hospital on bed rest for almost a month now, and I’ve been home with our 4 boys, while trying to maintain my new business. Tomorrow they will test the baby’s lungs to see if they have developed yet. So if his lungs are developed Alicia might come home the next day, which means she’ll end up having the baby on Tuesday or Wednesday. Today she is 34 weeks along. Technically, they want her to wait 2 more weeks. A few days ago, they did an ultrasound and found that the baby is 8 lbs, which is heavier than any of our other babies. Alicia is HUGE! If she went full term, she'd end up with a 14 pounder!

So that’s the status of Alicia. I’ve been working at home this whole time and the ward has been very good to help us out. We’ve had lots of stresses lately but even more blessings.

My Wife Went into Pre-Term Labor

Well, last Wednesday my wife's body decided to go into pre-term labor. She's dilated to a 3 and is stuck in the hospital at 30 weeks along. They gave her a steroid shot to help the baby's lungs grow. The contractions haven't really stopped so she's been given a Magnesium Sulfate drip and a Tributalene pump in her leg. She will most likely be on bed rest at the hospital until the baby comes.

She has gone into pre-term labor with all of our children, so this is no surprise. With our twins, she went on bed rest at the hospital and was dilated to a 3. Two weeks later, she had the twins (10 weeks early).

She just needs to last one more week and she'll be able to have the baby at the hospital closest to us. If not, then they will fly her to a different hospital. This will be our fifth boy.

What does this all mean to me? Well, it ends up being a blessing in disguise that I've now been working at home. I've been taking care of our four boys, doing all of the stuff my wife did, working like a dog with my new business, and am still trying to do my church calling. I really feel for single moms! I just realized that since my wife is on bed rest, she's not working, and so her income will stop. That puts more stress on me, because my income won't start coming until a month from now.

Our church has been providing meals and babysitting. Life is very good, despite this bump in the road. The Lord is blessing us.

CopperCon in Tempe, Arizona

This was the smallest conference I've been to but I did enjoy it. I got a nice picture of Diane Duane and Peter Morwood. I'd have to say that my favorite panel was about young adult novels. In other panels I've been to about YA, the authors tended to say that authors didn't have any obligation to their young readers. In WorldCon, I was revolted by the panelists: it seemed like they were praising themselves for being the first people to introduce children to sex and homosexuality.

The CopperCon panelists were much more conservative. One person made a comment that they’ve heard from some authors that they have no obligation to their readers and that those are the same authors that don’t sell books because libraries and parents won’t buy them for their children (because of the adult material in them).

WorldCon 2007 in LA California

I just got back from WorldCon 2006 in in Los Angeles, California http://www.laconiv.org/
I decided to stay on Sunday and see Ray Bradbury and Robert Picardo (Holographic Doctor on Voyager). Robert Picardo's panel was left out of the main program, booklet and website -- and then the time was changed at the last minute, so there were only about 10 people there for the first half an hour. He was very enjoyable. I sat right in front of him as he spoke.
Anyway, people took at least 500 of my flyers. My book isn't coming out for a year, so I tried to get the picture of my cover in front of everyone. I was surprised at how many people said they'd buy my book, just from looking at the cover on the flyer.

A lot of what I heard at the conference was gloom and doom for new authors. Lots of work. Connie Willis said if you're having fun writing, then you're not doing it right, because it's supposed to be a lot of work. I agree with the hard work, but if you don't enjoy writing, then why do it? Certainly not for the non-existent money.

I saw Anne McCaffrey, Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, Tim Powers, and many other writers.
An interesting thing happened as I was walking to the Hugo award ceremony. I stepped out of the elevator, started walking, then bumped into Gay and Joe Haldeman (2006 Nebula winner). Gay asked me to sit with them at the ceremonies. She is a wonderful person. I enjoyed my night even more because of their company (I got to sit a little closer, too).

At the ceremony, Harlan Ellison said it would be his last convention. He was a character, of course (i.e. refusing to come up onto the stage, trying to offend everyone, saying the F word, putting the microphone in his mouth, grabbing Connie Willis's breast . . . yes, he did do that).
I learned a great deal of information at this conference. On the way home, I thought of some more marketing methods I'll end up implementing. I'm glad I went, but I wish my book was already published, so I could have sold a few copies.

I Lost My Job

Every time I go on vacation I have this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'm going to come back into work and not have a job. Well, it finally happened to me last week.

Strange thing is that when I came back to work, they didn't lay me off that first day because our computer system was having problems and they needed me to get them out of the jam. The next day they laid me off.

I've been working for them for 6 years. They said I no longer had the skills they needed, which is hogwash, since out of the three programmers they had, I was the only one who had accomplished the set of tasks given every week for the past month. There's nothing they've ever asked me to do that I couldn't do, and I was quite comfortable with the programming language. Anyway, it was nice while it lasted. I wish them success, especially since my wife is still working for them and we did leave on good terms.

I just created an LLC, so that should be interesting.