Alured de Valer: Blog

As much as I hate to do this, I'm going to have to take a break from posting for the foreseeable future. I've been arguing this decision with myself for a few weeks now.

When I started posting Victory Tour last summer, I had 50 days written and felt I could maintain that cushion, but life had other plans. The last post covered Oct. 7. I am just now Writing Nov. 2, so my lead is down to 25 days. I need to build that back up and also have time for closer editing.

But the time I have to devote to the story has been lessened thanks to changes at the little weekly newspaper I help with. A lady who wrote some small articles (church news, 4-H club reports, etc.) decided she wasn't going to hang around for the new owners to take over and found another job. Guess who had the honor of picking up most of the slack?

Then, the sale fell apart for some reason. The current owners are going to hold on for a little longer. One thing they decided on was moving print deadline up to early afternoon on deadline day. Last week, I turned in my last article around 10:30 p.m. This week, it was more like 3:30, but I worked until 1:30 a.m. that morning to make it possible. I'll have to start spending weekends on newspaper stuff instead of the story.

That's because we started with fall sports last week. Volleyball is playing actual matches and football has scrimmaged twice. It's not going to get any better until probably after Thanksgiving.

I'll do what I can, but please be patient.

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The couple that's owned the little hometown weekly newspaper I've been working at for three years has agreed to sell after running the place for almost 50 years. The buyer claims they want me to stay on. We'll see.

I receive Social Security disability benefits since having a stroke and am limited in how much income I'm allowed to earn. I'm almost making that just from Patreon now and would probably exceed the limit if I devoted myself to this full-time. I've promised to stay at least through football season.

One thing I'd like to change is my workload (I wrote 15 articles this week). I'd be willing to handle just the sports stuff as a stringer (X dollars per article) if they'll get someone else to do the other community news I've been covering. That would give me more time and, hopefully, energy to devote to this.

Something I don't think the new folks are aware of is I'm committed to being gone for about three weeks over Christmas and New Year's to visit my sister in Australia. That'll mean missing at least two publication cycles. It'll be interesting to see how they react to that.

If I can cut back to one or two days per week without all the special projects the current bosses like to throw at me, I might be able to be more consistent/productive on this endeavor. I'll keep y'all updated on how things progress.

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Chapter 48 of Victory Tour has been submitted. Sorry for the delay, but life happens sometimes.

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I either hit a wrong button or failed to hit the correct one when I submitted this week's update. Then there was a family gathering that ate up most of the day. Imagine my surprise when I finally got to check on things only to see the file was being held still awaiting being uploaded. It is now in the queue and will be posted ASAP.

Thanks for your patience.

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Going to have to skip another week, folks. The laptop containing the master file for VT has been in the shop for a week. It didn't help that the fellow working on it left town for two days to go watch his son play in a state championship football game. The good news is the team won, the kid scored three touchdowns and was named offensive MVP. Lots of celebrating going on around here now.