Dragon Naturally Speaking 6 hour sale

For anyone UK-based thinking of buying Dragon 11.5, the UK online shop is having a six hour sale from 9 to 3 today on the Windows Premium edition, in basic, bluetooth and digital recorder versions -- more details here. From past experience with Nuance sales, do check the prices against the discount prices available from places like Amazon, because they're not always that much of a deal. But sometimes they do offer a worthwhile discount off street price, and these prices are a serious discount compared to what Amazon is offering me today.

I don't particularly recommend the Bluetooth edition. The included Bluetooth headset appears to be the cheapest, crappiest one of the Plantronics Calisto range, and I suspect an OEM-only model. The actual mike is fine, but it's an over-the-ear set with a one-size-doesn't-fit-everybody earplug and loop, which I find is impossible to keep in place for any length of time. There's no charging stand, only a flimsy charging cable. Nice idea to not have to be taking the headset off and on to move away from the computer, but if it doesn't fit your ear you're going to be constantly fiddling with it anyway. It's usable, it's useful for work where you don't want to be tethered to the computer, and it's useful for travelling because of the small size, but I'm about to buy a headband mike (specifically the model I've been supplied with at work, which seems to suit me).

updated release date for "Bargain"

I don't think I've mentioned this yet -- when I logged into Musa's manuscript tracking database last week to upload the nicely formatted Word doc version of the file for And If I Offered Thee a Bargain, I found that the release date had been updated. It's now scheduled for release in September, which amongst other things made it rather more urgent that I get on with doing the cover-art worksheet.

No, I have still not learned to like dealing with the cover art worksheet, or indeed any of the other prerelease marketing stuff. It is, alas, something that has to be done, though. I have wrestled with the tagline and the blurb, and have produced something that I think is acceptable first draft standard. I'm not so convinced about the cover art worksheet, but it's a 5.5 K word story -- there's a limit to what I can say about it beyond "it's set in the drumlin fields around Strangford Lough, the heroes are one human and one of the sidhe, and they're both wearing jeans and T-shirt." Oh, and there's a brief physical description of elf boy's pointy ears and cat eyes.

Have I mentioned recently that I'm not a very visual writer?

Midsummer

The solstice is only a day away now. Late tomorrow night the nights will start to draw in again. Even as far south as Manchester, there's still just about enough light in the sky even this late in the evening for colour vision. There's a red glow visible here and there through the trees in the park, as the Northern horizon shows the evidence of the Sun's passage not so very far below the horizon.

Years ago, I sat on stone steps and watched the sunset move across behind the cathedral to become the sunrise. I was younger then, and could wait until dawn as Midsummer's Eve became Midsummer's Day. It was further north, of course, and the dawn came more quickly. I won't do it tomorrow night; there's no clear view of the horizon, for one thing. But I'm still glad that there's enough of a clear sky tonight to see the turning of the seasons.