Your survey does NOT want me

PLEASE DON’T ASK ME TO TAKE YOUR SURVEY! I JUST MIGHT.

It would BIAS your results beyond description

I can’t fill out your online survey, and it is because you don’t want me in your group of survey respondents.

Really. In every possible area, I am the wrong demographic for your product.

If I bought your product, I am the wrong person to answer your feedback questions. My answers will either be trite and obvious, or useless.

If I bought your product, it was often for an off-label reason, and it’s also probably for a one-of-a-kind reason.

You will most likely not get me to buy your product again unless it perfectly serves a need I have – in which case I won’t need your advertising, or your automatic refill system, or anything useful to you in a marketing sense, and I’ll just buy it again as long as you make it and sell it. On my schedule. Which would give you conniption fits if you knew it, such as my buying a product only during the summers.

If you, by chance, put up a product which is perfect for me, and I buy it and love it, and tell everyone, and answer your questions, and leave a review – you will not find enough other people like me who will also buy it, and you will end up sadly taking it off the market.

In fact, I am the kiss of death for your product.

You fervently hope you are not attracting customers like me as your main audience.

What is my demographic?

Well, I’m female, overeducated, in physics/engineering. And when I see an ad at all, I read it carefully, and recall a lifetime of broken promises from you marketing folk, and it makes me very wary.

I don’t read Romances. Not the modern ones, anyway. They are about people in a very tiny demographic (perfect perky women and billionaires and Scotsmen) I’m not likely to ever come within range of, and I really can’t identify with them.

I don’t use cosmetics, except when trying not to scare the horses in the streets, and then buy an inexpensive new mascara once every couple of years.

I don’t wear heels – that eliminates a lot of potential products. Back in the day, shoes for women stopped at a size 9 (and were made fun of in Clementine: ‘and her shoes were number 9, herring boxes without topses sandals were for Clementine’) – so you can’t sell me women’s shoes, which are extraordinarily hard to buy by mail – the fit and all, you know. 

I am past the age of your female products, not interested in your products for older women (please God, as long as possible). I take as few supplements as possible. I don’t use anything with an odor.

I’m disabled – and I don’t go shopping. I used to be tall, and you lost me a long time ago because it never occurred to you that a woman might be proportionally shaped, so it was either tall (and thin) clothes, or short (and ample) clothes at the stores, and never a large enough size in the tall ones – and you trained me out of all the female clothes-buying patterns I might have established way back then by having no merchandise available in my size. 

I have no interest in fashion – because I was never able to get into it, and the hand-made clothes were never quite fashionable (even the patterns were hard to get in the right size, way back then, and had to be modified).

I have AdBlock on my computer. I don’t use a smart phone to access the internet. On purpose. Even Facebook ads get easily ignored – I’ve permanently tuned them out, and only sometimes bother to Hide Ad so you get that information.

You don’t want me.

And if you ever sent me a product to test, you would be sorry.

PLEASE don’t ask – every once in a while I fill one out – as the worst kind of unreliable narrator, and only because you caught me on a very bad day, and it might be oh so tempting to let that affect who I might be.

You’ve been warned!

Also, whatever you’re offering as an inducement is not enough.

**********

Any others like me out there?

Asked too many times to give a little chunk of your life away?

How well do you resist the temptation?

**********

PLANNING the scene you love to REREAD

BECAUSE I am slow, because every word costs blood, I am more systematic about many facets of writing fiction than the books on writing (which I love) can get into: the craft skills are tiny, distinct, odd, and satisfying.

I don’t know who else I’ve chatted with about writing has a process like mine, refined in the mines of brain fog and pain, and has, as an integral part, rereading my own previous writing.

But it wasn’t until today (I started writing fiction intended for publication ~1995) that it occurred to me to notice that, when I’m writing, I do read – but it is mostly my own prior fiction.

I’m not sure if I’m doing it to keep my voice steady through a 500K trilogy with a single story in it (I’ve found a couple typos which will get corrected in the next updates), and I always thought it had something to do with being able to read, end a scene, and put the book down – not getting hung up on what comes next – but it leads to savoring something I sometimes barely remember writing, years later.

Think about what it takes to read something a hundred times

Set that way, in black and white, it sounds like a lot, but I’m also counting the dozens of times I’ve read/listened to the robot voice read to me each scene as I construct it, getting it to match the story in my head.

It’s still a lot of times.

I remember how I started writing Pride’s Children. I wanted one thing: that when I got to the last place I would live, a single room somewhere with very limited storage space for the key accumulations of a lifetime, including a shelf or two for books, I would be able to put my hand on what was rapidly becoming a trilogy (too much to pack into a single tome), and, if I could no longer read it, at least be able to touch it with my hands, and remember the story.

I was already over six years chronically ill, and it was hard to imagine becoming my prior self ever again (PhDs need maintenance just as much as concert pianists, to keep their material fresh and up-to-date and there when they want to use it), and now, after thirty-four years, even harder. I keep hope alive: the research into Long Covid MAY find something those of us victims of other post-viral syndromes can still use, after many years of the secondary damage not being able to do such mundane things as exercise. But it’s not a huge hope.

But I’ve created something, and am determined to finish it, and that can’t be undone.

So what does it take to make something rereadable?

I remember Lawrence Block, a very popular author and a determined pantser (he doesn’t pre-plan, but writes ‘by the seat of his pants’, discovering his story as he goes), stating that he could NOT remember writing many of his early books, especially the ones produced in a couple of weeks – and that the whole experience was a blur. After a while he trained himself to put down essentially finished prose AS he wrote, so that there wasn’t a lot of editing necessary when he finished the whole.

I wasted several years trying to become Lawrence Block.

I’m doing some serious thinking about the question, because it has become part of that semi-ridiculous ‘process’ of how I’ve written the first two PC volumes, and I’m both curious and wondering whether making it a particular and patent process will help me finish LIMBO faster than otherwise.

The ingredients of rereadability

Obvious features for rereading include:

• It applies to all scenes – there are no throwaways – and includes all the villain’s scenes
• The characters need unplumbed depths, especially the point of view characters
• Story elements need to be extensively cross-connected
• ONLY material relevant to the whole gets included
• Language, including interior monologue and dialogue, has to settle the reader into becoming each pov character as that character lives a scene
• Word choice can’t be either too common, or require a dictionary

The more esoteric features to facilitate rereading might be:

• The author leaves bits of supporting threads throughout the book for the perceptive reader
• A character trait is explored in a little more detail because of something the characters says, does, or thinks
• A setting gets more detailed – adding to the mental picture building
• A new theme is introduced – or an old one gets a new bit
• A character makes a return appearance not strictly necessary
• The plot gets tied together a little tighter
• The extra layers (for example, the epigraphs in the beginning of each chapter) make more sense and connect better to the whole story
• The content of the epigraphs connects to the themes more fully

Of course this can be found in other books, sometimes there accidentally because the writer, needing a tool, reaches for one they’ve already used rather than creating a new one.

But mine are planned. They’ve been there since the plotting was solidified.

I WANT it to take several readings of the whole trilogy before a reader catches all the nuances. After all, if my memory goes it will be fun to pick up the pieces again.

**********

Dear Reader – do you reread?

And if you do, do you notice?

**********

A legitimate AI use for fiction writers

FINALLY! SOMETHING I CAN TRUST AI TO DO RIGHT!

Welcome the expert systems as helpers to SUMMARIZE REVIEWS

Expert systems are trained on a VETTED set of data, and then are relentless at pulling our useful information a bored human might miss or consider to unimportant to note.

I think of these ‘expert systems’ as potential assistants in many fields, specifically because their input data is check by humans before the algorithms are allowed to seek patterns and ‘make’ conclusions.

And Amazon has kindly produced one I can USE and not worry it will have hallucinations or produce FALSEHOODS.

Customer reviews are wonderful gifts from Readers

I copy all of mine to my own computer – as backup.

I read the good ones when I’m in need of encouragement.

And I’m very grateful for them.

But I’ve never done all the much WITH them, except for a few short quotes here and there, even while being aware they could be part of enticing new readers – but I would want to do that carefully, not misquoting or misattributing, with respect for the effort that created them.

Now Amazon has taken care of this useful task for me, and I’m going to demonstrate how it produces a very helpful summary of the reviews for Readers who might be considering reading Pride’s Children: PURGATORY, the first book in my mainstream literary trilogy.

This is a link to the book’s page on Amazon.

‘Customers say (AI)’ – scroll down to Customer Reviews:

“Customers find the story engaging and well-written. They appreciate the intricately developed characters and the rich, nuanced writing style. The book includes historical elements like art, family relationships, love, nature, and research that keep readers interested. The pacing is described as leisurely and patient.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews”

Then you are offered a list of all the things the Expert System discovered appeared in the various reviews:

• Story quality
• Character development
• Writing quality
• Art
• Historical content
• Interest
• Pace

Here’s the entry produced for ‘Story Quality’:

——

16 customers mention “Story quality” 16 positive 0 negative

Customers enjoy the story’s quality. They find it heartwarming, unforgettable, and beautifully woven. The book is described as spellbinding, fascinating, and satisfying.

“…The character development, historical references, romance and action mixed with bits of Irish, Spanish, CFS and religion made the book quite…” Read more

“…all the best with her writing—it is clear all through that it is a labor of love, and that she brings to it deep talent and a delicate touch.” Read more

“…Elegant literary fiction which is also literate, modern, gripping, and extraordinarily entertaining, to label the subject matter a ‘love triangle’…” Read more

“…The narrative and dialogue were well written and nicely edited, which should be something readers can take for granted but isn’t always so….” Read more

and the links lead to the specific reviews mentioned, so the reader can tell if they are taken in context, and may read the rest of that review.

—–

If a Reader chooses to stop at the summary, they also find out that in this subject area, there are a number of positive reviews – and no negative ones.

The effort to produce this manually would be considerable

as each review would have to be read, useful bits highlighted and extracted, links retained…

and would add NOTHING to the content – a boring job for a human, but an excellent job for a well-trained AI ASSISTANT!

I will create an entry on the books’ blog for each of the books using this very helpful means of getting a summary – when I have a minute.

Meanwhile, all you have to do to read what the AI ASSISTANT has summarized is to go to the book’s page on Amazon, and scroll down to the CUSTOMER REVIEWS.

This help from AI I can accept

because it takes into account all my concerns about AI’s use by writers – especially in not doing something only an emotional human should do.

It doesn’t create anything new – no interesting bits are added by algorithms that haven’t a clue what ‘reading’ or ’emotions’ or ‘life’ are.

There is a sample of the review it summarizes for each quality of the book – which should make it very easy to decide if that review was written by someone you might believe.

It stays within its bounds.

It gives humans a way to get more specific information, by providing the links.

And the data has already been vetted when the human customers added their reviews.

I hope Amazon keeps this feature – and I was delighted to find it. It could get some tasks like this crossed off my To Do list for Readers to use much sooner than if we wait for me (or the unlikely paid human assistant I might hire) to get around to the job.

Can you foresee using this feature as a Reader, or for your own writing?

**********

UPDATE: Here is this method applied to Pride’s Children: PURGATORY (on the PC books’ site):
https://prideschildren.com/2025/05/06/members-of-the-reading-jury-what-say-ye/

**********

The myth of the free book

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ‘FREE BOOK’ OFFER – my way*

Consequences are the unavoidable part of behaviors.

AND when you make a choice, you also choose the consequences you are willing to accept, by default, whether you know all of them ahead of the choice or not, because that’s what ‘unavoidable’ means.

(*Details at end of post)

First book in series FREE – common indie MARKETING PLOY

(and maybe another one for signing up for the author’s newsletter or blog, thereby providing them your email address)

Some authors have done very well by making, say, the first book in a series ‘free.’

This really only works if they are prolific and frequent at putting out more books; vast fortunes have been made by the indie authors who do this well and quickly.

I put quotes around ‘free’ because it is NOT really no-cost, no obligation – a ‘free’ book is a MARKETING PLOY.

The author hopes you will like the first book in the series enough to BUY more books in the series, and possibly become a fan who will pre-order each book in the series as it comes out.

That’s it. We call that ‘free book’ a loss-leader.

It’s better for the author if that loss-leader doesn’t cost them much. They can even automate it on their site to send you an ebook of Book 1, so it doesn’t take much of their time.

The Faustian bargain:

You get a book to read, they get access to your personal information. It will now take some of your precious time to get out of the arrangement, some of your precious input email space to store anything the author sends out, space on your computer or ereader to store the book until you decide to do something with it AND the newletters that come, and time out of your busy life to make these decisions about something which, often, you have not yet read.

Why? Because that is the way of things. If you didn’t pay good money for something to read, but only accepted the offer because it flew through your peripheral vision, you are much less likely to reach for it FIRST when looking for something to read, and much less likely to even remember what it was and why you have it – in a future where, like me, you’re wondering what all these things in your reading app are.

So, it doesn’t cost the author of a decent series much effort to get you to take the Trojan horse and bring it into your life – but it does cost YOU. And maybe they’ll get a reader who likes it, buys more, etc. While clogging up a much larger number of readers’ storage spaces because storage is now very cheap. Works for them.

What works for you is FOMO (fear of missing out) on a bargain. In exchange for not making the final decision NOW that you don’t want this book, this series, this author – you get to invest mental capital LATER. Your choice, your consequence.

Possible WIN for the reader:

YOU find a new author you like, a new series to read, and some of your future purchases are easier (until/unless you get tired of it). Something intrigued you, it actually scratches that itch, and you’re set for a while.

Probability: low. Too many things in the universe for one random one to be ‘it.’

I’m as susceptible, in principle, as others – and I have a lot of stuff it will take me time and effort to clear out (and I’m not planning on reading many of those books).

Common extra little ‘gotcha’: the FIRST book in a series is rarely the best one. Most authors who work quickly don’t go back and make it better. So the success rate of the ploy is low. Kind of like all those flyers the Post Office puts in your mailbox which you then have to trash (tsk!) or recycle (good boy!).

WHY ALL THE ABOVE?

Because I CAN’T. SHOULDN’T. WON’T.

That’s as simple as I can make it: even though I now have TWO books out, and am an indie writer, it makes very little sense to spend some of my tiny functional time/energy to give you a book you might never read (and NO economic sense for me) – and it’s not likely to hook you when you’ll have to:

1. pay a decent amount for the next book ($9.99 ebook, $22.95 paperback)
2. WAIT another five years or so before the final volume in the story appears and you can pay the same for it as the second.

[Don’t worry: each part of the story – same characters – makes sense as a standalone.]

It also makes it ridiculous for me to buy advertising which is cheaper for free or very inexpensive ebooks (For example, BookBub wants me to charge $0.00 or $0.99 or $1.99 – to get the interest of readers who want bargains, and may never read, much less follow up.)

So why am I writing this post at all?

Because I had noticed subliminally, and finally made it conscious to myself that, sometimes, when I comment on someone’s blog, I will have a bunch of visitors follow my link, read a bunch of my posts (but usually not comment), but almost never take it any further: no purchase, no signup for my free blog post emails, nada.

Something I wrote intrigued them => the interest stopped when they reached my blogs.

I’m pretty sure it’s the PRICE.

I stared at that hard for a while, and realized that many indie authors have TRAINED readers to EXPECT presents. ‘FREE‘ books.

If a restaurant does this, every incoming patron quickly expects free bread/appetizers/drinks merely for walking into the place. And it can get expensive. PLUS – the slap in the face – they won’t go OTHER places which don’t lure them in.

The dynamic is warped.

What if you wouldn’t buy a car when you walked into the showroom unless they gave you a ‘free’ scooter first?

Psychologists call it ENTITLEMENT. Just be aware you’re being hoodwinked (the extra cost always appears somewhere eventually, such as in the price of that car), and recognize the MARKETING PLOY.

BUT I STILL want the appropriate readers to try MY books.

Dilemma. Dilemma. DILEMMA!

I’m going to DEFINE those appropriate readers:

• For some reason, you’re finding the reading material that crosses your path lacking
• You’ve been trained as a reader on the good stuff (ie, your teacher would approve)
• You can handle complexity as long as it connects up by the unambiguous ending
• You need at least one relatable character
• You like the author to have made a serious effort
• You don’t like implausible
• You hate coincidences
• You’re getting really tired of tropes and memes

*So here’s the DEAL:

Write to me to say you’d like an ARC, and you would CONSIDER writing a review. Make the request with a couple of sentences, so I know you’re a human (offer not open to bots or any other form of mechanical or algorithmical systems). My email address is on this site. [The personal connection between us may give my book a leg up when you’re choosing what to read next.]

I will answer personally with an epub that is virtually identical to the published Pride’s Children: PURGATORY [Indies Today 2021Best Contemporary novel.] [And a copy of the cover, should you choose to review.]

No charge. ‘FREE’

That’s it. I don’t nag about reviews (of course I love them when freely offered!) – many of my readers are not able to write them; I’m just happy to have y’all as readers.

Happy reading!

Oh, and thank you from authors everywhere for your potential support by either method. [But if you don’t support the good ones, they may not be able to continue producing the books you like – physically, psychically, or financially.]

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Thanks to Stencil for the post images I can add text to – loved the flowers!

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Avoiding Reader Guilt: write dratted review!

HOW TO GET MORE BOOKS YOU LIKE

Grownups have many skills to acquire, so many that the younger generations came up with a term for it: ADULTING.

If you are a reader, you have an adult skill to acquire called variously reviewing, providing feedback, giving thanks, doing your job, praising, getting revenge on the… (never mind).

It is as much a learned skill as doing your own taxes, getting your driver’s license renewed, telling the barista your order, or signing the application for a marriage license with your beloved.

No one is born knowing how to write a review.

Fortunately, out of all the adulting skillset, this one is sort of optional (many have avoided the dread chore, and have not been blasted by lightning bolts).

But it is still my opinion that you ought to learn, it is relatively easy (and becomes downright simple when practiced a few times), and it IS part of the IMPLIED contract with the WRITER that the READER accepts in one of those infinitely-long screeds from your favorite company when you accept their latest software update.

It is your chance to tell Donna Tartt what you think of her latest plot, or Stephen King what you wish he would do with his most recent gory character, or even Saul Bellow what you think of him ending Seize the Day as he did (I hated it).

You will not be graded, regardless what anyone thinks about what you write (they’re too busy asking themselves what THEY think).

Figure out how to do a simple review of a couple of sentences’ length on your favorite platform, and write a few. ‘Liked X, wasn’t thrilled about Y, liked Z’ is a perfect formula.

Even better, scrawl that on a Post-It or in your phone’s Notes app., and ABOUT A WEEK LATER (me telling you this is a huge risk because the Call-to-action isn’t at the end of the book where Amazon puts it, quite annoyingly) ASK yourself what you MOST REMEMBER and/or MISS about the story/characters/theme/plot – and write those three sentences.

“I miss looking at the world through Andrew’s quirky intelligent eyes. I wanted to pinch Kary to stop worrying about what the world might think, and tell Andrew she likes him. I remember Bianca was going to get her way – eventually.” (>than the minimum 20 words Amazon requires) – and your own personal take on something is recorded, your obligation (if you accept you might have a tiny one after spending 12 hours with these characters) satisfied, and your conscience assuaged.

You may celebrate with a smirk, knowing YOU are special – because most people never review.

Three to ten of these, and you’ve mastered the art form. There are higher skill levels, IF you wish, but you are far above the crowd. Reader Guilt is foiled.

I salute you!

The isolated writer’s process

In response to a fellow writer humbly pointing out that feedback from other readers led her to reassessing her own writing in a valuable way, I thought about how I have to work.

—

By the time I’ve finished writing a chapter, composed of several scenes, in my linear way (scene at a time, in order), I have expended major amounts of my limited remaining energy, because my process is ridiculously detailed and compulsively self-analytical.

I am confident I’ve said what I intended to say.

It goes to my single beta reader for her reaction.

And no one else ever gets a say.

I’m aware other people do drafts, submit their work to others, listen to feedback. I don’t any more.

That sounds incredibly arrogant.

Occasionally my beta reader will point out something that is confusing, and I’ll rewrite a sentence or two. Or explain to her what she’s missed.

I think it comes from the featureless landscape in which chronic illness has made me live: so much unusable time because of brain fog and pain IS spent somehow, by my subconscious, poking holes if possible, questioning, insisting on accuracy. But that’s just a guess: when I’m done with my ‘process,’ I’m done, the work is done, and it’s ready for the real world. If I’m not satisfied, I don’t move on. Period.

I don’t know how this would have gone if I had been able to interact with other people about it, as I never got that opportunity. This works for me. I do not attempt to foist it on others, as the explaining alone would take an incredible amount of energy, and I can only afford to care about my writing self.

But I must say I’m perfectly happy with the results. I’ve reread each of my Pride’s Children finished volumes maybe thirty times each, and, other than marking a pesky typo to be corrected at the next update, not wanted to change a word. And that’s the only measure I’ll allow.

—

I hear that this other writer is happier with her results when she’s allowed the input; most writers are. I don’t, can’t work that way.

I’m afraid I won’t finish – it’s always a possibility.

But I’m the only obstacle to my own progress – as much as I have any agency against a major disease the medical profession has mostly ignored or disbelieved.

**********

I am content.

I have to be.

What you see, it’s all me.

**********

Have you done your disabled bit?

If you are relatively able-bodied, are part of the writing, publishing, and marketing community, as dog-eat-dog as it can be, I have a question for you:

Have you CONSIDERED what it would be like to do what you do (work hard) if you were CID: chronically ill (but still able to work some) or disabled (in some way, about 20% of the adult American population is), and to long for a more level playing field?

Don’t the disabled already have sources of income?

You haven’t even thought about helping?

Not uncommon. MOST CID can’t work any appreciable amount of time, and SS disability income allows such a small amount of earnings before they take their minimalist stipend away from you, that it’s very close to ‘not worth it’.

And that says NOTHING about how bad SS is at dealing with work that is erratic in nature (you sell a painting, or someone buys all five of your novels, and you earn $10 – typical traditional publisher contract, total, not each), so each month you risk going over that small magic number, you are literally risking ALL your SS income.

Income’s rather unpredictable if you’re a creative type, trying to sell in the real world, where customers don’t come a set number to a month.

Could you do something PERSONALLY?

If you are in the luckier 80%, have you considered that YOU, personally, and with a small effort, might ‘level the playing field’ for someone who isn’t?

You could read a book by a CID – and write a review – because you know how hard it is to ask strangers to read when you have normal energy, and can imagine what it cost them to ask. (The REVIEW part is critical – otherwise, all you’ve done is receive a FREE BOOK (ARC) and made a vague and unenforceable promise.)

You could offer a CID a guest slot or interview on your blog.

You could recommend their book to a friend, or even gift it to that friend.

Some tiny bit of attention you wouldn’t do for most people, every once in a while, because you ‘get it’ being extra hard.

Whatever form of generosity you choose, could you do it a little more frequently?

NOT asking for favors, only accommodation

Okay, that’s disingenuous. It’s more asking for favors YOU would like to receive, were you so unlucky as to become a CID. A form of thanks to the Universe/God/Karma that you do NOT need any of this kind of favors. A contribution to the karma bank, as it were, building up a reserve for yourself.

They reserve a small number of seats in movie theaters for the CIDs. And there are those who ask why the CIDs get the privilege of sitting in the first row, not realizing or not caring that when the whole stadium rises to its feet to cheer a pass – the CID is stuck behind a wall of humans, and can’t see.

What’s all this about?

After asking many times, I realized how very HARD it is to ASK FOR THAT ACCOMMODATION.

And, on getting another no for an answer (that’s not the problem), realizing how very EASY is to say NO.

Just wishing the world were a little kinder.

Because such a disproportionate amount of my energy went into the ask.

BE KIND when you can. It can cost you very little, and make a huge difference to a CID.

**********

Edited to add: I really appreciate the support I have received already from the writing community, especially the SP one – and the online friends and commenters whose words make this blog a worthwhile endeavor, even when LIFE puts obstacles in my way and I post infrequently.

This post was NOT intended for you, but those who could do more with a bit of effort, which would be appreciated, too.

Without my commenters and friends I would have probably been reduce to a puddle a long time ago.

Many thanks!

**********

What it’s like for almost-invisible authors

WHAT IS FAIR – AND WHAT DOES IT COST?

Basics:

It is impossible to be truly ‘FAIR’ – in any aspect of human life.

If you are a woman, and look at the list of past US presidents, women should be the next fifty presidents to even out the statistics. True?

The Answer:

Is ALWAYS ‘Yes, BUT…’

So how do we decide?

I’m going to confine my attempt to examine this topic to the writing, publishing, and marketing of FICTION – something I care about – because the general question is unanswerable, and I don’t care enough about the topic to spend my writing time on it.

Where is this all coming from (other than politics)?

You DID notice that this blog post cites ‘almost-invisible authors.’

Authors can be invisible due to many reasons – newness, being self-published, being a member of a minority that doesn’t have the same access as the majority, abominable quality (traditional publishing claims to only publish the good stuff, but we know better from ACTUAL books they produce, and SPAs can be dreadful).

But authors can also be invisible simply because they don’t have the physical or mental energy to climb the same fish-ladders as all the rest of the trout, and never make it much past the initial stream.

And readers, competitors, and auxiliary personnel such as PR people whose bottom line is affected, often ask the question, “Why should I care? There is already way too much to read with the books which survive the publishing process.”

To which the answer is frequently that the books they don’t get a chance to read have the unrealized potential to open minds and affect hearts or just entertain in a different way. Or to provide ‘representation.’ So that readers who are not in the same Venn-diagram circle as the writers might learn something new.

Diversity has become a dirty word in certain circles

And special help is frowned upon (unless the frowners have, say, a child who needs extra help in school, and then demand everything that could possibly be provided by the school as ‘their fair share’).

The reality is that, in many cases, without some help, some authors are effectively SILENCED.

Worthy or not based on whatever criteria you select, if an author doesn’t manage to succeed in the marketplace, you won’t find their unique perspective available to you.

What do invisible authors want and need?

• A way to level the ‘playing field’ at least part of the time.
• Special awards and prizes with clear parameters – not always competing against everyone
• To have their work assessed both within their own categories and against the rest of the competition
• A few dedicated seats at the table where such things are decided
• The recognition that these accommodations, like the ADA ones, are good for SOCIETY. And, like with making buildings accessible, it works even better if they are built in from the beginning, not add-ons.

What do readers gain in exchange?

• The possibility of seeing themselves in fiction (identification)
• The ability to understand the other people who share the world
• A sense of moral justice/common good
• Reading material they are not getting from writers who do research only
• Authenticity
• Living lives in fiction they could never live in reality
• The POSSIBILITY of groundbreaking FICTION from underrepresented authors
• And, if the authors are indies, stories not put through ‘the same only different’ mills of the traditional publishers.

What already exists?

Not much outside awards for children’s books on disabilities, which are just BARELY fiction, and often should be classified more as ‘inspirational.’

A few contests may have a special category.

And many startup awards over the years that then peter out – because a very small number of people begin them, and then don’t stick with it, for many reasons, including that the creator has similar problems, and running these things is overwhelming. Or the person being honored is no longer remembered.

Why now with these questions?

Probably mostly personal frustration at my own limitations, which are many, and which I don’t seem to be able to find workarounds for.

The intention originally was to publish as I went along, and do enough marketing so the each book would find more readers, as it is for most authors.

But I’m finding that my minimum efforts are useless, it takes days to find a few new readers when I do individual outreach (which has been very successful – I have wonderful reviewers), and that things are not scaling.

I am not OWED anything, and I’m probably just having the same marketing problems everyone else has, but it seems impossible to compete when said competition requires more energy to learn new things than I can come up with.

I choose to write, but it gets disheartening, and on many days neither writing nor marketing make progress, and it would have been nice to see an occasional sale and/or new review come by to keep me up and cheerful. I do a quick mental rehash of the opportunities I’d like to repeat – if I could get a different result out of them!

So far I’ve come up with nothing – I didn’t even bother reapplying to the California Indie Author Project because I’m starting to believe that all those contests don’t have judges who actually are both in the right category and READ the books they judge.

As a natural optimist, I’m assuming this WILL get better, but I also see that it could be MADE better – but that doesn’t seem to be happening yet.

All I want?

To be able to read LIMBO.

And to find the readers I think would like the whole.

Some promised reads/reviews to happen.

New readers from recommendations.

A Bookbub, maybe – applying takes energy, and I’m pretty sure that I keep getting rejected because I’m only on Amazon.

To have some of those To Do items – the hard cover and large print editions, the audiobook, a PA for marketing, potentially better book descriptions, a desired update to remove a few pesky typos, going wider, a PR firm that doesn’t ghost me – happen without taking so much of my scarce resources.

But if you wonder why there haven’t been many posts lately, the reason is lack of steam driving the engine.

I’m working on it. I think LIMBO is going to be good.

If this is what it takes, I’m still all in.

If it’s up to me, I’ll get there. But I can’t tell you when.

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Themes carefully deliberate or highly accidental?

Over at the Killzone blog, James Scott Bell asked about theme: Do you think about theme when you write?

I do.

When you’re disabled, ill, or ‘different,’ you can’t have nice things.

The story I’ve been writing for twenty-four years came to me all in one piece as I happened to ask myself: “What would it take for a person like ‘X’ to end up with what she needs, when the whole world says people like her don’t?”

“How would Quasimodo end up with Esmeralda?” when Victor Hugo said he wouldn’t; not in that society, not in that time.

Why is there an assumption that someone young and beautiful is best served by marrying someone a little older – and handsome? Because this is often the norm – people meet, date, and marry others of about the same perceived attractiveness – doesn’t make it the only possible pairing, or the only ‘right’ answer.

Another possibility has always been trading that youth and beauty for an older mate with lots of money – a snarky commonality with May/December pairings.

I plot with Dramatica, so the questions come first.

You answer prompts about your story, characters, and theme – and what they call ‘genre’ (which feels like how – How will this kind of story make sense with this theme?

Example:

How does a character in such reduced circumstances that she has to earn her living as a governess end up happily married to Mr. Rochester in a hierarchical society – and not the woman of his own class he appears to be pursuing?

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

It is all interconnected from the beginning – and the connections just get stronger as the story moves forward in time. Because all the little writing choices have a tiny bias toward being part of a whole.

So if you ask ‘Do you think about theme when you write?’ the answer is already ‘yes’ – for these characters in these circumstances, how do I want it to go?

Or equivalently, for these characters and that theme, how does the plot advance?

That way I can test out how things will work together

BEFORE spending a lot of time following characters around to see what they do.

Writing is hard for me, and I don’t like wasting words on detours I won’t follow.

Easier to do the thinking up front, to consider relationships and roles played by characters, beginnings and endings, steps along the way – when I haven’t invested much that might not work out later.

Princeton’s Dancing Child

I actually have a short story – Princeton’s Dancing Child – completely plotted this way, and then published in a Sisters in Crime Central Jersey anthology. I think it packs a great deal into a small space. The methodology makes it logical to find plot steps, set up characters and relationships, and choose themes – which makes it faster and less uncertain to decide what’s next – and made the writing much easier because I knew where it was going.

ITS theme is ‘did someone manage to steal a valuable Monet from Princeton University’s Art Museum – and if so, who and how and when?’ – a standard mystery plot.

Confined Energy Kills

Having produced my first mystery novel without this structural method, plus never managing to place it with an agent or sell it, I realized later it needs a lot of work. Confined Energy Kills may never see the light of day – but if I ever finish Pride’s Children, I know how to fix CEK: go back to structure – and fill in the missing connections.

Confined Energy Kills‘ theme is ‘What happens when you make assumptions about who someone is, and miss all the cues that they’re not?’

Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up, as planned, writing mysteries in retirement.

Stranger things have happened. Keep happening.

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Just a few thoughts today while I’m trying to figure out how to get started again on 41.2 – because Life’s interruptions have been fierce, but I think I’ve finally poked at all the topics with my research, and have no unexplored paths to distract me.

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Questions never asked this novelist

The hard ones:

You’re disabled – why would you spend your limited energy and functionality on FICTION?

You’re chronically ill – don’t you people write inspirational memoirs and books that ‘tell it like it is’?

You’re on the wrong side of the divide – don’t you know that mainstream literary fiction can only be produced and vetted by a traditional publisher, and should never be self-published?

Your daily life is so tiny, so constricted – how can you possibly come up with enough life experience to be relevant?

You edit your own work – don’t you need an experienced coterie of editors to polish it for you?

You write epic realistic fiction – shouldn’t you write something short, like a poem or a short story?

You say you don’t like ‘inspiration porn’ – isn’t any attention good attention for you people?

You say you take too long to write – why don’t you lower your standards, not be such a perfectionist?

You’ve already failed at two previous careers – potential astronaut and plasma physicist – why don’t you just forget about being a novelist?

You complain about the physical and mental challenges of writing – why don’t you just stop, and enjoy the rest of your life?

You know that most books aren’t really legacy-quality – what makes you so sure yours are?

And, asked in a kindly voice,

Since you’re not doing very well at this, getting many fans, or selling many books – why do you try so hard?

**********

ASK. Anything.

Even these.

**********

RESILIENCE is YOUR reaction to CHOICE

Two posts came across my feed earlier this year:

From SF writer Hugh Howey:

Hugh Howey blogged about how we’ve credited individuals like Elon Musk with being the cause of progress, when it’s that they were in the right place, recognized the zeitgeist, and grabbed it.

To which I replied:

Makes sense, as the rush to the Patent Office can bring great wealth to the ‘first.’

But some other things, such as when Jane Eyre was published, are so dependent on the one person who wrote it, show the other side. Many people would have known that the book was ‘in publication’, but NONE of them could have written it but Charlotte Brontë.

That kind of fame (as you know well) endures. (Though sometimes the work turns out to have been stolen, too.) 

Those kinds of advances are NOT part of the zeitgeist, waiting to be picked up by the opportunists – maybe we admire their authors even more.

And blogger Psychologistmimi wrote

about The Resilience Conundrum: Moving On or Letting It Shine? (checked the link, got through as anonymous)

I can choose to let it define me, confine me, refine me, outshine me, or I can choose to move on and leave it behind me.

Which I answered with:

Not sure where it comes from, but the ability to do just that – learn, take advantage of, move on – our general outlook on life, pro or con, is one of the most important things about us.

I find it infinitely irritating when people credit the trigger for the outcome: something happened, and it MADE her X (better, worse, president), when it’s rather how she REACTED to the trigger, what opportunity she was ready to grab when it came tapping at the threshold, what she had worked her whole life on becoming and was actively seeking to improve at the time which DESERVES the accolades.

Opportunities come along all the time; people who ride them to the finish line, that’s less common.

Like the story of the two brothers: one is an alcoholic, because, with an alcoholic father, what else could he become? While the other is a teetotaler, because, with an alcoholic father, what else could he become?

Your resilience is your construct, and YOU deserve the praise.

Are you resilient enough?

To take advantage of an opportunity, to learn from it?

Or do you tend to get bowled over, put in a tizzy, feel lost?

Maybe it’s natural optimism, and I came wired that way, but even if I’m hit hard by something, I tend to start looking, almost immediately, for the lessons I can learn, and how to incorporate the results, even into a tiny life without much choice.

My way tends to be in writing, and not necessarily at the same moment something happened.

But the instinct to DO something with the trigger has made me take advantage if I can, and store the information to try later if I can’t right at the moment.

If I had to CHOOSE what to do, this is how I would choose, but it may be hard-wired, and me merely lucky that, even if chronically ill and disabled now, I have had many privileges, stating with parents who were highly pro-education (though I’m sure they didn’t mean the path I chose into the hard sciences at the PhD level).

It has helped.

And it’s why I keep plugging away at Pride’s Children year after year after year.

**********

It doesn’t help with getting other people to read and review – that’s their choice – but it DOES help with choosing to keep going even when not many do – YET!

And it keeps me asking: Would you like to read my story – of three very resilient characters at great odds with each other?

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AI soul takedown in the dark of night

I will not have AI shoved down my throat

Jetpack added new ‘AI features’ to my blog on WordPress. Sent me an email: What’s new with Jetpack: AI featured images and more

As a professional novelist, I was horrified. And complained. And asked how to turn it off. And received (after quite a while – several weeks):

Hi Alicia,

Thanks for getting in touch with us here at Jetpack support.

I can understand your interest in disabling Jetpack AI features for your site. I see that a community member has submitted a feature request on our public GitHub repository, asking for Jetpack users to be given the option to disable the AI Assistant feature: 

https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/37059

While the option to toggle off Jetpack AI features does not yet exist, one of our developers has answered in that thread and has provided two options as a workaround. Our developers will continue to comment on this thread any time an update or change is made to this feature request.

I hope this was helpful. Let us know if you have any further questions.

Best wishes,

XXXX – Happiness Engineer

---

I wrote back:

I believe – add me to that group – that it was unbelievably shortsighted to add such controversial features without a way of turning them off, and for OFF to be the DEFAULT.

Original content, down to the very punctuation, is the epitome of literary fiction – anything connected with AI makes the HUMAN part suspect. I’ll take spellcheck – but only to point out words spellcheck flags as suspicious or misspelled (it is frequently wrong). I check every single one myself.

I wouldn’t go near – as a dead thing – Grammarly. It is laughable in its lack of ability to do anything but Standard Business English. 

I use Autocrit ONLY for its ability to do the boring work of COUNTING: adverbs, how many times I use ‘they,’ cliches… AC offered AI features and I cringed, make sure not to go anywhere near them. They wanted me to PAY for this UPGRADE – hope they never make it the default, and, of course, I did not take the upgrade.

Please think of the impact when you alter Jetpack. Many of your blogging customers are writers, and many writers of fiction (sadly, not all) have no desire to be given the chaotic and unpredictable ‘help’ of the toddler version of AI.

Except, possibly, for advertising copy.

Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt, novelist

I think I may have offended the AI gods

Last night, our Echo – an imposition from our retirement community, for which I set up an isolated router guest access so it wouldn’t be able to see any of our regular traffic – is supposed to be for us having a way to check in every day (they come running if you don’t by a certain time, one of the safety features of living here).

The conversation goes like this (husband does it after midnight every night, as we’re not always up by noon, the check in time):

“Echo, Check me in.”

“…(something garbled I haven’t figured out yet) You are now checked in.”

Only last night it wouldn’t check us in, no matter what we did, and gave all kinds of irrelevant answers to our questions.

We had a good laugh, reported it to the front desk, finally went to bed in the wee hours.

Overnight, something clicked in husband’s brain. He came to me with a big grin, and asked me if I remembered the TV series ‘IT’ (with Chris Dowd) about a British company’s IT division, and its interactions with the non-tech people in the company (it’s a hoot – watch it on streaming).

My brain wasn’t on yet, so I stared blankly until he explained: The tech people on the show had a standard way of dealing with problems: “Have you turned it on and off?” often followed by, “Did you unplug it and plug it back in?” Which solved MOST problems*. So the husband turned Echo off and on, and lo and behold, it/she came to her senses, did NOT apologize, but checked us in. Phew! So we had a good laugh and reported it to the front desk, and wondered why the front desk hadn’t been instructed by the vendor (these are proprietary Echoes) to go through this little drama with residents – in the event of traumatic disconnection of the AI ‘mind.’

And my comment to spouse about why I don’t think self-driving cars are ready for prime time. At least not for me, though I believe San Francisco has some of them already as taxis.

[*Yes, I know this is standard customer service attempts for ‘Error ID10T’ customers (pronounced ID-ten-T), but then you wouldn’t have gotten the plug to watch Dowd and his fellow IT ‘customer service’ folk, and that would be sad. It really is quite funny if you know a little about computers, etc.]

Will I try the github?

Maybe. I’m not that good at the outside-the-box programming stuff in the modern era (used to be better, but have always been the customer/user, not the programmer for the personal computers). Our eldest daughter IS that programmer, so if Jetpack doesn’t come up with something useful, so I can turn the AI off (as I turn off ALL auto-anything on my phone and computer and ESPECIALLY in my writing software – shudder!) on my blogs, I can consult with my own personal expert (I do, however, tend to reserve her for real emergencies, just on principle.)

Meanwhile, I’ll just carefully avoid the appearance of interacting with the beasts in my WRITING, and suspiciously consider offers to help with, say, advertising copy or book descriptions.

My guess is it will be laughable when compared with an actual writer of fiction – for a long time to come – though lazy or unscrupulous ‘authors’ will continue to try to become rich (ha ha ha ha ha) by telling stories that are mishmashes of whatever the AI had for breakfast training.

My promise to my (fiction*) readers:

I will not use AI anything to help me WRITE and POLISH Pride’s Children.

Everything you get there comes from me, except possibly for bits from the online dictionary and thesaurus in Scrivener (which replace reference books).

EDITING that I do is strictly controlled to be human: I use Autocrit, my lifetime subscription, ONLY to count – things which would be time-consuming and boring if I did them by hand, such as word of phrase repetitions, number of adverbs, cliches – but I will never even look at suggestions made by said programs (Autocrit is already touting a more expensive versions which includes AI, and I hate to tell them, but there will be no ‘upgrade’ for me).

But it is handy to have it report that I used ‘that’ seventeen times in a scene, which gives me the chance to decide if that’s what I really want. ME. Not it.

I will turn off anything turn-off-able so that it can’t possibly taint my fiction.

I am a good typist, and don’t need such help as automatic capitalization of the first letter in a sentence!

I will do replacements in bulk MANUALLY, controlling the occurrences before and after, if they are ever necessary (even I occasionally get the wrong spelling for a character’s name).

What you get is MY writing, MY invention, MY plotting and characters and themes.

MY EDITING, after the mechanical counting function.

[*Bets are off for advertising copy – I may try AI help on that at some point, but will vet EVERY WORD. Will update if I decide the ‘help’ is useful.]

**********

I expect other people, even other human writers, may have different ideas. Keep it civil!

But be sure to categorize yourself – writer of fiction OR not – so we can tell where you’re coming from!

**********

Your SELF revealed in Work in Progress

All authors of FICTION eventually face this BIG QUESTION:

When a character or the plot or even themes in the book you’re writing gives you an opening in which you have significant personal experience, how much of you gets revealed in the WPI?

And how much does it get disguised?

It’s a dance between too much of one or too little of the other

It’s especially important when you don’t write that many books in your lifetime, because the ones you do have to carry the entire weight of your striptease for readers.

Writing eventually consumes, one way or another, all of what a writer is and thinks and holds dear.

The sum of their fiction gives away how they feel about all the ponderables:

• Trust
• Work
• Safety
• FEAR
• Humanity in general
• Families
• Gender and self-image
• Money, fame, aspirations
• Belief – in an afterlife, in a God, in annihilation
• Even in travel to the stars.

Why do writers do this?

Because they need the raw material of their stories, and it comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is the interior of their mind.

We, the same as everyone else, can only guess at what’s in other people’s minds. Prepare to be wrong.

But in creating fiction, all we need is a world which conforms to our specifications, while hoping there are many readers out there who have the same or similar ones, but not the time or the inclination to write a book.

Where can we tell?

In a collection of a writer’s work. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but it does need to include specimens of the various genres of fiction, for a more complete evaluation.

A writer spends time with a book, the characters and their story, much more time than the average or even obsessed reader will ever spend. The writer chooses where to spend this time.

I worry a bit about authors of books with unpleasant characters, because the author could have picked a different book to write, with PLEASANT ones. Or at least a SINGLE pleasant one.

We all have our demons, our interests, our failures, our cringe points.

They make great fiction – but only if faced squarely, acknowledged, and then manipulated into a way to express them. Some let a narrator have this function; I prefer to speak from the point of view of specific characters.

But either way, displayed in high heels across the pages or hidden in the tiny details that make a villain interested, it’s going to show.

We’re lucky, we writers – most books don’t get the kind of detailed attention that results in understanding the author – because the whole life condensed in a book would take hours, days, years of another writer’s life. Academia and Biography are filled with books about other books and their authors, and writer’s like Hemingway or Mark Twain or Jane Austen become subjects of their own devolution into subjects (partly fictional because much is hidden from the investigator, who then has to make a best guess).

This is relevant to WRITING FICTION because?

I’m finding myself deep into a trilogy – and having to decide how much to model a character on a person or persons I know.

In the third volume? Yes, because it wasn’t relevant before, and I believe a much better book will emerge if I trust myself to let some of it out, having suddenly realized how much direct experience is underlying the choices already made over many years.

I hadn’t seen it.

It makes so much sense.

Now I have to knead it and poke it and shape it and make decisions about it – wondering if the process can be truly reverse-engineered to show it’s connected to something in me. If anyone cared enough to make that effort – it isn’t necessary to enjoy the story.

This late in the process – or has it been there all along, but not explicitly?

Characters and plots come from somewhere.

In the mind. Mine.

Revealed or cloaked; mountain-top proclaimed, or hidden?

This frees me to do deliberately what had seemed produced by an unknown muse.

And to make it better because of choosing to use what is uniquely mine.

I won’t tell anyone where – but it should be obvious to those who look carefully.

And, of course, I’ll know what I turned into writer’s gold from dross.

**********

If you’re a reader, have you wondered?

If you’re a writer, have you made these choices? How do you decide?

**********

Darkness affects humans in many ways

WE DON’T EVEN NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE HALF THE TIME

Until it hits us in the face.

Kay DiBianca over at the Killzone blog writes a post about The Art of Darkness.

My comment got too long, so I spared that blog’s readers:

I was just shocked to read that the eclipse, which I thought we would miss completely, will happen in the Sacramento, CA, area starting at 10 or so, with maximum at 11:15 tomorrow morning, and will last two hours total! We won’t get anything near totality, but the weather is predicted to be clear blue skies. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that these last OVER AN HOUR – maybe because all the videos posters know no one will watch that long, and speed the transition up.

Two hours! All of a sudden there’s a feeling of dread – don’t dare look at the sun during the eclipse!

I didn’t expect to be involved at all.

The darkness will not be total? I am glad I found out before tomorrow morning – and have no idea what to do with that information. My friend visiting from Florida is supposed to take me to get some medical tests done and we’d planned on going at 11.

This reaction is based on everything I’ve READ about eclipses – without ever observing one – and I was surprised at the depth of the fear of doing something wrong, and risking severe eye damage.

I think the eye damage is because humans get fascinated and stare – which they wouldn’t do to the sun. But a brief glance at the sun at the beach does no real damage. They just don’t trust people NOT to stare when told not to.

For fun: google ‘eclipse 2024’ (I don’t know how long that will still work).

Kay asked how darkness affects my writing

As for writing fiction, any time I write a nighttime scene, I will check the weather at the specific time and place – making sure I know the time for sunset and sunrise, the average and limit temperatures, and the precipitation. I may include a tiny bit of the information, or simply make sure the conditions reflect it, but it helps me settle into the right mood for the scene, because all those factors affect us in real life: a scene of a man riding a motorcycle down a New Hampshire road in the late fall at 10PM is very different if there is a full moon in the sky or if it is pitch black.

The power of the pen to alter history

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS require careful handling

There are three kinds of historicals: people who really lived, people you made up from scratch and set in a historical novel of some kind, and the hybrid – YOUR version of a person who once existed.*

[*Thanks to Jan Hicks for the idea; by reviewing Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, the final volume in Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, she made me think about how someone actually trying to preserve OR understand a historical character may also prejudice our knowledge about that character.]

By the way, Shakespeare did this all the time: his historical plays were pandering to the current rulers, and the history was revised to suit the current monarch, and everyone in his time who watched those plays probably understood that implicitly.

Always the question with historicals:

did the character created by the author have anything in common with the actual historical character? The only place you can check is where the historical record has a physical point – and whether the created character hits those points believably.

It is similar to extrapolation in mathematics – a useful concept with known flaws: just because a curve goes THROUGH two points tells you nothing guaranteed about whether the curve matches the reality over the interval BETWEEN those points.

Math is useful

There’s an INFINITE number of curves that match, going through those two points.

The more points to match, the better the match, but the guarantees don’t change, and the number is still infinite.

Which is why I don’t normally read historicals about actual humans – the data fill-in is compelling (especially from a good writer), and seems to satisfy the need to know, but it can’t.

If you don’t remember this inconvenient FACT, you may find it hard to switch understanding when another believable version of history contradicts the one you already KNOW.

I celebrate good writing – and worry about the history. Because the INFINITE – 1 versions missing have no champions. Or bad writer champions.

When it doesn’t matter – Cromwell is no longer with us, and his life has little to no effect on mine – it may be a compelling character exercise.

Fiction isn’t equivalent to history

I have done the same, creating a POSSIBLE version of Lewis Carroll for a (fictional) movie about his life filmed as background for the Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD.

I did a LOT of research, found some uninterpreted details in the record, and used them to make even that fiction plausible (though few people will care), and found the process heady: thinking I have ‘found’ the solution to several interesting known bits about Carroll

• he never married, left no known direct heirs, and did NOT become a priest as he was expected to (he was a Deacon in the Church of England);

• his heirs removed and destroyed (probably) several pages in his diaries from when he was giving himself a spiritual scourging;

• and that at one point – though possibly not when he was photographing nude children, a supposed Victorian pastime based on the concept that it was completely innocent on the part of the photographers – Carroll became unwelcome at the home of Dean Liddell, his former mentor

Why? What for?

I used parts of my theories to create a movie which would tell a different story about the esteemed mathematician and university don.

I thought it came out well.

It doesn’t contradict ANY of the accurate records which did survive Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dogson), but I find it interesting that it directly contradicts a novel written by one of Dodgson’s family members two generations later. Possibly ANOTHER attempt to clean up the true historical record, possibly unrelated (but I wondered if that author had access to the missing diary pages).

I, of course, think my version is better than hers. And far more romantic – therefore quite suitable for a movie being filmed with Andrew O’Connell and Bianca Doyle as leads, and directed by Doyle.

Research isn’t proof

It’s barely considered ‘proof’ when you write a research paper, and have a source for every reference you use.

People lie: in their letter, their diaries, what they tell their friends.

So without references (I have them – just don’t want to bore readers of my novels with my references OR my research OR the beautiful/horrible job I’ve done including it with or without info dumps), or because, in this case, I’m not even aiming at understanding the true occurrences in the Liddell household way back then (though I’m pretty sure I have figured it out), you’ll have to consider my story embedded in the movie script around the characters as my approximation of a Hollywood version, artsy or scandalous, aimed at getting moviegoers to see and recommend it.

Remember Shakespeare in Love? Sort of like that. Plausible, reasonably accurate by the standard history version, barely possible, and very romantic and sweet and improbable.

If not proof, what?

In more accurate terms, fiction.

What I’m selling thereby is MY facility at storytelling, which includes targeting reader emotions and engaging their senses and the huge database readers and moviegoers have in their heads.

You’ll have to read NETHERWORLD to see if I’ve persuaded you.

You’ve been warned.

And it gave me great pleasure to research, find the pieces I used to invent/reinvent history, and write as background to my other story – the one about Kary, Andrew, and Bianca.

PS My sources were boring enough and full of other irrelevant details enough that I think I may actually have figured out what really happened. You judge. It’s like a puzzle within a puzzle.

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