READ TUESDAY. LOSING THE PLOT AT THREE MINUTES PAST SEVEN.

The idea of throwing twenty questions to authors is an easy one to sling. Between idea and execution there's a universe-sized hole in which to completely and utterly lose the plot.
   I lost that plot at three minutes after seven on a windswept November night. This night.

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For READ TUESDAY, I decided to ask participants to answer twenty questions on my blog. And I'd answer my own questions on other blogs.
   All in the interests of interconnectivity and the digital network. Authors, chatting away about writing.
   BUT. The Q&A session isn't just open to READ TUESDAY sale participants. If you can't make the sale day with any of your works , you can still join in when it comes to the twenty questions.
   BEYOND THAT. My Q&A session is open to the unpublished. If you think of yourself as a writer, but haven't published yet, then you can still answer those questions.

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What am I after? An e-mail address. Yes. That's it. I'll e-mail the questions and you can fill in the blanks. Then I'll post the answers here, and send you my answers to throw onto your blog or official website.
   I've been hunting for e-mail addresses. Some writers don't put a contact address on the blog site. Why not? In one case, I reasoned that the woman concerned just didn't want more hassle from stalkers. And that's a fair point.

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My recommendation to everyone is that you have an e-mail contact address on your site.
   At times I was so frustrated by the apparent lack of contactability that I returned to this blog and added the REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE e-mail to the top of the page. For people who lack the patience required to click on the contact page.
   I'm sure people like that exist.

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How have I fared, in contacting people? I discovered writers all over the place, and managed to secure blood from stones. There were gremlins...
   Blogger invented new tortures I never even knew existed. I had more windows open simultaneously on the computer desktop than I cared to count.
   Sites that tried to grab my financial details were fended off. If your site had problems with its security certificate, I passed you by and considered the missed opporchancity not worth the grief.

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Fate conspired against me when it came to READ TUESDAY. The date of the event is slightly off, given my Amazon KDP Select timeline...
   In short, the two stories I'm entering in the sale have to go on sale for nothing - rather than being offered at a discount. So I do this to gain exposure for my free samples, which, in turn, is meant to promote my paid-for tales further down the line.
   No, there's no bitterness - I was going to host a free sale for one of those books in any case.
   I'm just saying, there's more to this than sales and the immediate generation of cash-money. That's why unpublished authors are welcome to participate in the Q&A session...
   This is about promoting writers. Those with a sale on. And those who won't drop prices on the day. Published writers. Unpublished authors. All welcome.
   So. I won't make money from READ TUESDAY. With that in mind, you'll understand if I felt the rusty spring coil tighter and tighter as the e-mail saga unfolded.
   Where is this writer's blog? Am I on the right website? This scribbler shares a name with that scribbler. Who was she again? I wrote to her already, didn't I? Did I? Not by e-mail. Did I use the Twitter, or a blog contact page? A message, in a bottle?
   Have I sent the first part of a two-part e-mail twice? And did I forget to send the second part? What's this event called again? (Staring at the words READ TUESDAY, seeing swirling snow and yeti in the swirls...)

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Finally, at three minutes after the hour of seven, I completely, utterly, and irrevocably lost the plot. How? I'd shifted from hunting out scribblers on the READ TUESDAY author side of things.
   I looked to the COMMUNITY listing. And I was accidentally bumped off that page. When I returned, the listings were jumbled around and I played a digital version of Kim's Game as I tried to match names to faces.
   Diligently, I worked my way down the grouping of hovercards. And, three minutes in, having barely cracked a new hour, I saw something unusual and lost the plot. Could not stop laughing.

   That's right. Imodium. WTF?! I'd had enough, hour after hour, looking at interesting-yet-frustrating websites. Dealing with Blogger gremlins. Telling one writer from another. Out of the blue, or blue packaging to be precise, I was ambushed by...
   A jumbo-sized box of anti-diarrhoea capsules.
   What else could I do? I burst out laughing. Okay, I could have done something else as I laughed, but I had no need of the capsules.
   The entry was for a blogger who had many an Imodium-based tale to tell. Let us draw a veil upon that world.
   As for scouring websites? Don't let that grumpy tight-wound curmudgeon-spring fool you. I enjoyed seeing the digital sites. You must take breaks. I've used this blog entry to step away from e-mail hunting, for a rest.