When you should edit old stories

DID YOUR FIRST NOVEL GET YOUR HEART AND SOUL?

This is a writerly post if looked at strictly, but could apply to many other things in Life if you think of it as a metaphor for anything you have loved – and maybe lost.

It is a truism that the first novel is often unpublishable, and that IF it gets a publisher (or you publish it yourself) it is often not your best work, because, as a writer, you lack the skills to do the best possible job on the material.

[A corollary is that getting it to the publishable stage takes a huge amount of time which you lack on subsequent books, leading to the dreaded ‘sophomore slump’ when the second book doesn’t materialize or fails to meet its deadline if on contract or simply isn’t good enough and gets rejected.]

A first completed book is like a first crush

There is something in that first attempt which takes you from someone who has never written a novel – THROUGH someone who has finished at least the first draft of that novel – to whatever fate it gets: trunk novel (never to be published or even seen again); published without sequel or following books; or published with great satisfaction (in which case you are extremely lucky, or talented, and will not be reading this post – mazel tov.

In any case, DONE!

So it has value regardless of outcome, disproportionate to its size.

But it has pulled something special out of you: the first story you can see as a whole, the first to get your full commitment, the one to let you try your wings on, the first you have hopes for.

The one that makes you want to improve your writing chops.

[And the one you hope will make you famous and rich, but that is rare, and you won’t be reading here if you were that lucky one.]

For the rest of us writers

IF you didn’t go self-publish that first one (for whatever reasons – in my case self-publishing wasn’t a thing yet in the 1990s), you may have the niggling feeling that some day you really should go back to it, because it pulled so many good things from your nascent writer self.

Many things which you simply couldn’t handle yet.

I had a severe case, when I took a very brief private writing class, of looking at my own writing, KNOWING what was in my head – and UNDERSTANDING that I had not taken that story and put it on a page.

The disconnect was huge. I couldn’t see my own story in my own words.

Self-awareness is exactly the right place to start

Another truism: if you can’t see what’s wrong, you can’t fix it!

So the ability to judge your own writing is a developmental milestone.

Many people outsource this to an editor – and, if they’re lucky to find the right editor, will have their flaws pointed out to them gently, and should proceed from there to correct those flaws in future works, possibly even in the current work-in-progress.

Others choose to essentially do their own first drafts from then on out, and to outsource the editing permanently (I’ve had one such author literally tell me ‘the editor will fix everything, while I go on to the next book’; he is quite successful and very energetic, and I still don’t like his writing – possibly envy?).

I don’t judge writers, but I do choose what to read (when I have time to), so ‘whatever floats your boat’ is fine with me – for others.

By the time I started writing

my life was in tatters: I had planned to write mysteries in retirement after a long and rich career as a working mother/physicist/normal citizen. Chronic illness at 40 scrapped those plans as cleanly as a good snowplow clears the road.

I kept writing; the trunk novel grew to ‘finished story’; the sequel in the planned series was half-finished, the third in the series planned in concept and title (Acapulco Deadlymoon)…

The point here being that I did NOT plan to be hijacked by a much better story, or rather, possibly, a story I really needed to write and to up my game for (the Pride’s Children trilogy).

So the old story got literally left in the dust cloud in the rearview mirror – while I went off to become an indie mainstream novelist, and to spend the next twenty-three so far years on an obsession.

Now I’m heading into the final (?) stretch for Pride’s Children

and the inevitable question arises: what’s next?

Is the answer, ‘Go back to that first love’?

In favor of the idea:

• In the style of Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, I had envisioned a long series of novels with a single, first-person main character – and I had poured an enormous amount of my interests and background into her, a young Mexican mechanical engineer who had emigrated to the US with her family as a teen, become thoroughly Americanized on the one side while retaining a cultural Mexican side.
• The first novel in the series had Thea taking a job (she had MP experience) as a security officer on a college campus where her American husband was doing a PhD in physics because she thought he would be finishing and moving to a permanent job, and it didn’t make sense to her to start a Master’s in Engineering and have to switch locations halfway through.
• I could make a graduate school real from personal experience.
• I grew up in Mexico and had, first-hand, the disorientation being bi-cultural can bring.
• A series can end any time you choose to write the last book in it (or are forced to).

Against the idea:

• My experience there is a LONG time in my past now.
• Just because something was satisfying way back when may not carry over.
• There is a LOT to rewrite – with the more modern skillset.
• I am not well yet – may never be – and I’m not sure that is where I want to have a legacy, after mainstream fiction.
• Keeps me from thinking of something new.
• Is in a different genre I don’t have the chops in.
• Was set a long time ago – almost historical if I wrote it in that time frame, which I’d have to because I know nothing of a modern grad school or college experience.

I can’t quite explain the pull

Maybe I feel I failed Thea, after promising her so much.

Maybe I feel I have something to contribute that is relevant to the immigrant side of my own background – first TO Mexico at seven, and then BACK to the US at nineteen.

Maybe the second book, set in Mexico has legs.

I miss Acapulco! Hate what has happened to it, though my sisters do go back from time to time to the safe parts.

Maybe I miss my own youth and health. Okay, I do – don’t we all?

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But I’ve never quite been able to consign this one to the permanent dark.

Do you have trunk novels – and have you considered resurrecting them?

We grow in many ways as we age, but we also experience much in the way of loss – is it even feasible to try to go back?

How much of yourself and your writing self did you leave behind?

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Over a year to write a chapter

I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE AND THE WRITING AND I SURVIVED

I’m digging out some of my unfinished blog posts – to either finish or delete – and I find this one which is entirely appropriate, because I’m basically at the same place, but in LIMBO, not NETHERWORLD, and the Chapter is 41, not 26.

And, of course, the date is Mon., May 29 – 2023 – and Memorial Day.

Must add: I ended up quite pleased with Chapter 26!

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March 19, 2018 at 1:52 PM
I have been mentally putting off getting started on Chapter 26 for plenty of good reasons having to do with time, selling the house, giving stuff away, health (the Valsartan [heart drug I couldn’t tolerate] loss of ten days crippled me), worry…
And one bad reason: I’m scared of it.

Friday August 16, 2019 at 2:33 PM
Finished. Cut out a bunch of words. Left it cleaner.
Andrew is back to thinking only about himself as he heads back toward his rooms. Considered professional, and personal by implication. His way – fast easy travel at the drop of a hat implied – is contrasted with what he knows about her ability to travel. It is quite clear for the reader.

I have a bunch of time: this is the end of the chapter.
How can I best use the state of being more or less awake.
Unfortunately, I’m also hungry.

But Chapter 26 is over – down to She’ll be fine ’til I get back.
Which is my foreshadowing.

Saved time by not running scenes through AC as I finished them because, in all honesty, I didn’t think my brain capable of the fine decisions AND I was worried about the chapter as a whole still being in my ‘voice’ and the characters’ voices and my style…

Then the editing went stupendously well – I’m getting better at correcting a couple faults I have as a writer, from the very beginning – and it took less than a day to get the whole chapter – around 11,500 words, not untypical for me – edited, polished, and proofread.

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Be wary of accepting help from bots/algorithms/autocorrect

The rest of the original 2018 post is toast, because I accepted WordPress’ offer to turn the original Classic format into the current Blocks format – and it took all the statistics I quoted, from AutoCrit, and me writing Chapter 26 – and turned them into some kind of weird ‘Your Statistics’ in the block format because it recognized some patterns (such as the word ‘statistics’) and MISREAD them, and now won’t let me go back to the previous version.

Sigh.

I will have to delete all of them from here to the bottom.

Basically, the statistics from AutoCrit (which they no longer provide) said I had analyzed over 4 MILLION words up to that point in my use of AC: “On average, each scene went through Autocrit (online editing software) and my process about ten times after I finished writing it. I constantly edit and rewrite as I go, so this isn’t unusual for me either.”

So why bother quoting statistics from 2018?

Because, due to 1) publishing NETHERWORLD (which took until September 2022), and then 2) the aftereffects of two major problems, surgery and a big tax/paperwork project, I haven’t finished a Chapter in the new book, LIMBO, yet.

I HAVE written the first scene (which will not be shared for a while because I don’t have the whole of Book 3 organized the way I need to, and the scene MAY be missing a few key pieces), so I can’t move on yet.

And it was over a YEAR since writing the last scene in NETHERWORLD (March 2022?) and getting to the first scene in LIMBO, and I would rather not dwell on that year!

But the PATTERN – much time may go by between writing one scene and the next – is not unfamiliar for me, so it doesn’t alarm me, and I just get to work as soon as I have a usable brain and the ability to put that time to my preferred use, writing fiction.

To be clear: I’m not HAPPY about this way of writing, but it happens, doesn’t freak me out TOO much, and I’m like a police dog which has acquired a scent: I go right back to following it.

My style of writing, my ‘process’, copes fine with the breaks

Because I do everything in writing, using the many Journals and Scrivener files to keep track of minutiae (if I do anything remotely new or different, I start and date a new file in the appropriate Scrivener folder), EVERYTHING is there when I need to reload my brain.

I don’t even try to remember what I need (will, spontaneously, sometimes, but I don’t RELY on it), but I KNOW I wrote it down somewhere.

It wouldn’t work if I were writing many or shorter books; but for my complex novel trilogy about Andrew, Kary, and Bianca – characters who love and work in the movie/writer universe – this kind of compulsive tracking of details has come in handy time and again, rescuing me from having to remember any more than vague concepts, and leading me to where I can reload the pieces I currently need with relative efficiency.

I thought the organization of LIMBO was more complete

But now that I’m finally going through the spreadsheets I created in Excel and the reports from Dramatica, I find that I did NOT really finish it.

Not surprising: when I spent those three weeks at LaSalle as chaperone for our teenage homeschooling chemistry interns in 2007 (?), I was still working on PURGATORY!

Back then, I did the fully-fleshed encoded storyform for Book 1, and did a great deal with the enrobing of Book 2, somewhat less for Book 3.

When, years later, I had finished and published PURGATORY (Oct. – Dec. 2015), and plunged into writing NETHERWORLD, I found myself at the same stage I’m at now for LIMBO, where I hadn’t done as much work on NETHERWORLD as I thought I had, and it was NOT ready to ‘just write’. It took several months to get it to that state.

Well, it turns out that LIMBO is pretty skimpily encoded. I can’t write it from this state – because I don’t have each individual scene and its requirements planned.

So, after another year+ of not writing, I have to go back to planning and organizing, which means RE-READING most of the notes I wrote myself in 2016 as I put Book 2 through its paces. And finding that they help – a lot – except that the final details of the end of the whole trilogy are sketched in much less than I thought they were, so I’m having to repeat the whole process, AND the third book is actually a leveling up of a bunch of concepts, rather than a duplication of the same concepts from the previous two books.

Complicated enough yet?

All this means is that I have work to do.

With all my written notes, I can figure out what the work is, and have a scaffolding for escalating the parts of the structure that will need it.

I THINK I’ve learned enough now that this part of the process won’t take me months this time. It is OBVIOUS where I’m going with it, and I know what it needs to produce, the list of scenes with every important detail assigned to the appropriate one of them.

The auxiliary files – spreadsheets and calendar – will take a bit of time, but I know how much it helps to have them, and have models from Books 1 & 2.

YESTERDAY the pre-learning tantrum occurred

If you haven’t heard the concept, it comes from Dr. Karen Pryor’s Don’t shoot the dog, and expresses the frustration at a key point in the learning process:

The old ways don’t work, and the new ways don’t make sense. Yet.

My brain HURT, physically, as I struggled to make sense of how to apply my process for the third time, BUT to a more complicated book.

But YESTERDAY I had a brain for a while, a stubborn one, and I didn’t quit, didn’t put it off, didn’t flee at the pain, but broke it down into the tiniest of steps.

And voilà! We broke through.

I figured out what the heck I was doing (and for a bonus, WHY it was giving me such a hard time), and calmly took the first tiny step – in this case, assigning the major plot steps to the list of chapters and scenes. Starting from those fragmentary bits from 2007, I started putting up the scaffolding and bolting it into place.

So that today, when I ran into the first wall, I recognized it and started the process of getting over it. WITHOUT freaking out.

I think I’m okay now. The tantrum was painful, but it is already receding, another one conquered by method and patience.

There are plenty of missing bits, so I have plenty of WORK to do, but I also have the memory that twice before, when the blueprint was finished I could move on to the construction phase, and I am actually EAGER to tackle the project.

Then go back and revise 41.1 (LIMBO’s first chapter’s first scene if you count from the beginning of PURGATORY, 1.1 if you start numbering in LIMBO) IF necessary, and then confidently grab the next one and write IT, over and over until the words are out.

Even though there are always MORE walls.

Maybe this time it will be done in fewer years.

Is this elaborate process worth it to me?

Yes, because, with my damaged brain, I can’t write anything with any level of complexity otherwise.

And also yes, because, once the rigging is finished and I start raising sails, we fly over the water (okay, I’m slow at that, too), and I have hopes of finishing a book.

And this one IS the biggie, the third one which tests/proves the rule, the solution/end/completion to the trilogy – and I can’t wait to read it.

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To celebrate, here is the very beginning of LIMBO over at prideschildren.com, the tiny prologue/Prothalamion which is the continuation of the New Yorker article that is the frame around the trilogy, purportedly written by someone interested in ‘telling’ The Great American Love Story, years after and with all the missing pieces.

And readers of the whole will enjoy knowing a LOT more than that journalist – and knowing which pieces in that article are truth.

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Disability Book Week started without me

MAKE AN EFFORT THIS WEEK TO READ A ‘DISABILITY’ BOOK

Disability is very common; hidden disability even more common (1 in 5 adults has a significant disability).

This week libraries and other book places may have a display which encourages you to try a book

WRITTEN by a disabled author, or

ABOUT a disabled character.

There are lots of these books

I did submit both Pride’s Children: PURGATORY and NETHERWORLD, as they are BOTH, but was not chosen this year.

Of course, YOU can read either of MINE and hit that category.

But the whole point is awareness

and I encourage you to become MORE aware, even if you are neither disabled nor have a family member or close friend who is.

Because the reality is that you are five times more likely to become disabled during your working years than you are to die, but most people have LIFE INSURANCE, and don’t even know if they have LONG TERM DISABILITY INSURANCE.

Please investigate – disability insurance, if you have to purchase it yourself, is NOT expensive – and having it kept our family middle class in those many years I was of working age – and unable to get back to the physics work I loved.

Don’t rely on Social Security Disability

You might get it when you need it, you might apply repeatedly before getting it, or you might never manage to fulfill the requirements to get it – and in ANY case it is NEVER generous. Ask anyone surviving on SSDI alone.

Private disability INSURANCE usually covers something like 60% of your salary.

Caveats: most are not really designed for ‘long term’, as they have no inflation protection in spite of their name – check your policy carefully. A few years without income can be very difficult, but a lifetime at the salary you had when you were 30 can be a disaster.

Become ‘Disability savvy’

Think about what you would do – and read some of these books – if you had to, for example, navigate Target in a wheelchair – or get to Denver for a child’s wedding.

Be kinder to disabled folk – we didn’t choose to become this way; for some of us, we didn’t choose to be BORN this way.

Do your little bit: Federal LAW requires that DISABLED PASSENGERS be allowed to board FIRST. BEFORE First Class Passengers. BEFORE passengers with children. Did you know that? Honored more in the breach than in the observance by AIRLINES.

So, use markers such as Disability Book Week to remind you that we’re all equally worthy – but some of us may need a little more time or some assistance, and it would be a much nicer world for all of us if accessibility were BUILT-IN instead of tacked on.

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Obsession is liking something way too much

A DANGEROUS WORD, A DANGEROUS CONCEPT

OBSESSION is

The foundation for Pride’s Children: PURGATORY and Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD.

And defending the consequences of that obsession is the foundation of Pride’s Children: LIMBO, which I am sharing as I write through the final volume of the trilogy.

When does liking something, preferring it, turn into obsession? When it dominates too much of your waking hours, when it starts to interfere with your dreams.

Overdoing calm control leaves you vulnerable

The one who had no trouble learning Mathematics or Logic in school, who has a PhD (for heaven’s sake!) in NUCLEAR Engineering (fusion) was a big reader as a child, and has always had this, uh, underpinning to her temperament, a capacity for intense interest in something fantastical.

The tech subjects were easy, easier than it seemed they were for other little girls in the classes, so the decision was made to represent women, and follow that lead. It seemed a waste not to use the gift that had been given to that child.

Besides, it seemed to amuse the grownups, to make them take the little girl more seriously.

It had the wonderful side benefit it still has: understanding the why of everything from snowflake patterns to the rings of Jupiter, to make the natural world even more fascinating.

Capacity was not limited

It seemed I could do both: understand the logical stuff, and stuff my head with reading the fantastical. Switch the intense focus from one to the other, still be happy. The fact that no others seemed to enjoy the same dichotomy made it a little lonely, but the family support was warm, and the teachers had a high-performing pupil to point to and be proud of, and there was plenty to occupy the time.

If anyone had tried to focus that intensity at that age, they could probably have created either kind of monster, but most adult energy was expended elsewhere in a class with 50 students, and the mother had four younger children and needed help and had no problem demanding it. The father worked long hours building his engineering business, and the grownups were happy not to have problems to deal with.

The child was allowed to obsess without much in the way of supervision.

Or direction.

Or individual guidance. Or indeed anywhere to express it.

Call it ‘benign neglect.’

The keystone: neglect

If you’re quiet and don’t make waves, and sparkle when a flashlight is shone in your general direction, you fly under many radar beams.

Switched to an American college halfway through university because there were ‘student’ (ie, young communists with nothing better to do than disrupt) riots at the Mexican one, but because I spoke perfect American English (it was, after all, my mother tongue), no one at the new US university realized or made an effort to smooth the transition they didn’t realized had been made. Benign neglect again.

The transfer student didn’t make waves, have academic problems or do any of the things which trigger supervisory attention. The grades were good, the activities obvious, and no distress signals seemed to be being put out.

She also had no guidance about what to do or what to do next – not an uncommon situation in college – but, when graduation approached and she didn’t want to go home to Mexico, someone mentioned that she should take the Graduate Record Exam. So she signed up, with no clue that one should prepare for it, and showed up with her yellow pencils on the appointed day.

One section was hard – it had a bunch of questions on details of Optics, a subject never studied. But either it was amenable to logic (as applied), or it was the ‘experimental’ section which didn’t count, because the test results were high numbers.

And the professor who had made a pass, and was probably feeling somewhat guilty about it, read in the paper that another university had a big grant in fusion, and suggested that the girl student should apply there, and went an extra step and CALLED the director of the program. Who said, even though the deadline was past, “Send her papers.”

Graduate school – where benign neglect is not a good thing

I was the only woman student in my cohort. Was not invited to participate in the sessions where the male students did their homework and helped each other learn. The advisor I had applied to work for LEFT soon after I got there, to a big corporation – didn’t reply when I sent a request for guidance. The new advisor was a recent PhD destined for bigger things who found one male grad student in our bunch who thought like him – and groomed him only. He had no clue how to advise the lone female student allotted to him, except to tell her she should ‘read the literature.’ Full stop. No details. No guidance. Attempts to change advisors were unsuccessful.

Stumbled through. Did a project that was useful to the little empire the advisor was creating because the data supported a pet theory of his. No one told her that 90% of the students going through such a program were NOT destined to be sucked up by academia OR the national labs that were considered the next step, but would have to find a job ‘elsewhere.’ The obsession with reading, mostly SF now, continued unabated. In self defense.

Skip ahead a lot

to where all this disconnected stuff had resulted in working on submarines, marriage, a failed bid to become a NASA Mission Specialist, a leveraging miracle of some sort resulting in a job at Princeton – in fusion! – with a discovered facility for handling large computer codes on CRAYs, and two small children.

And then the disaster: contracted a virus at a physics conference where I was presenting a paper, went home with a raging infection – and never got well: ME/CFS had claimed another random victim.

Obsession went underground – there was no energy to feed it with, and a third child on the way – but the specter of a STEM PhD at home, sick, led to what I called ‘accidental homeschooling’ – the use of that education to bring up offspring who turned out to be easy to teach – rather than deal with the logistics of school buses and lunches and paperwork and parental involvement.

And then obsession struck again

Writing fiction. I could do that in tiny chunks once the kids didn’t require every second of my attention. I had always planned to do it in retirement; it happened earlier, agewise, because there wasn’t much else I could do when we had accomplished the necessary schooling: my energy was so limited even leaving the house was rare.

And then the biggie: they were going off to college around the same time a single story hit me and demanded to be written – because ONLY I would write this one. So many things went into it – including an obsession with books and science and movies and a crippling disease – causing a flash burn that showed me the story from one end to the other at once.

Now I’m in my twenty-third year of an unabated obsession, and writing the third volume of what turned out to be the single welded spot where it all stuck and – dare I say it? – fused. I marvel at its staying power, because it happened to the slowest writer on the planet.

Would it be the same?

If I had made it as an astronaut?

If I had stayed a researcher in fusion physics?

If I hadn’t become chronically ill?

If I hadn’t had children or spouse?

If I had succeeded in getting the mystery series accepted by a traditional publisher?

If, in other words, I hadn’t been thwarted a lot in how to apply the capacity for obsession?

I doubt it. Becoming what the bruising travel over the rapids made me, has been trigger and sustenance.

OBSESSION = WRITER’S FRIEND

You get what your writer IS.

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Prequel SHORT story (1500 words): Pride’s Children prequel: Too Late

and if you liked it (and followed the PC site):

Pride’s Children: PURGATORY

Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD

Pride’s Children: LIMBO (coming ASAP)

Apologies for US links here only – a universal link is on the To Do list.

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Thanks to those who go beyond

Who will tell you what to read?

WHAT YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF YOU CAN’T EVER READ

Seems such an obvious statement, but being invisible is a big problem for authors – getting the title of your book out there is a constant pressure, and you become very fond of those who make the effort on your blog, their blog, a writing site, a reading site, or any place where readers who would like YOUR books congregate.

And then something has to persuade them to read enough words to get to a ‘Call to Action,’ which can be as simple as a recommendation followed by a link.

The problem of recommendations

If the subject of what you’re reading comes up naturally, I don’t find it too difficult to ask a few questions about what someone new to me likes to read.

I rattle off a couple of favorites of mine – say Jane Eyre and the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries and maybe Dune – and watch to see if the listener’s reaction is fight or flight.

No one likes pushy authors, those who insist their books are ‘for everyone.’ Because it’s not a very believable statement in general, though people who are glad they read Jane Eyre have the most flexible mindset (which is why it gets so much attention). The enjoyment, or even that the story was self-chosen, are the keys – such a reader probably plowed (or ploughed) through similar long-lasting books.

I tried reading A Confederacy of Dunces – an award winner with a good author story (John Kennedy Toole committed suicide when he couldn’t find a publisher, his mother persuaded a legendary literary agent to champion the book, and it won the Pulitzer Prize), but had to force myself to finish Chapter 1. Because it may be brilliant, but it made my gorge rise and choke me. ‘Icky’ is the best I can remember about that long-ago attempt I have no desire to repeat. I don’t get very far into Lolita, either, for similar reasons. Or The Catcher in the Rye.

I can’t imagine their authors spending time with those characters, however good the writing may be.

So I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, and am glad I don’t have to assign either book to, say, a class of high school juniors (assuming teachers still get to make those choices), and then have to talk about it in class.

It’s personal for the author

And books can become a personal crusade favorite for readers who then recommend, gift, or lend something they loved.

So, if you LIKED a book, take a moment and do SOMETHING to encourage the author to keep it up:

• Rate the book
• Review and rate it
• Blog about it
• Recommend it to a friend
• Leave nice words on the author’s websites
• Buy an extra copy to lend
• Send a copy to a friend or family member
• Use as gifts
• Ask your library to order the book(s)
• Write a guide
• Mention your favorite parts
• Tell people you can’t wait for the next book in the trilogy
• Hire a band to parade in DC in costume
• Anything you would like if YOU had written the book.
• Be your most creative.
• Give a copy to any medical personnel who have no empathy for diseases like ME/CFS – this will allow them to live the life of one – without actually having to get it, or Long Covid, or Post-polio Syndrome, or Lyme disease – or any one of a bunch of post-viral syndromes and similar misunderstood ‘invisible’ diseases.

Crusade for indie books in principle by doing something a little beyond your normal response – the author will be delighted.

It’s not the money (though adequate royalties of around $6 per any version I have are about three times larger than many traditional authors make per book) – I crave the readers. Thanks!

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Don’t forget – the Pride’s Children NETHERWORLD ebook is IN KU, and

The NETHERWORLD ebook goes on sale (Kindle Countdown Deal) for a week starting October 19 – lowest price you will find it.

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CASCADE is Mark and Steffi and Chapman sticks

There’s a water fall in those hills, somewhere.

A BLOGGER’S OBLIGATIONS: SHARING FINDS

When we find something that blows us away, that touches us somewhere in the deep recesses of our hearts – sometimes for an odd reason – in this case because something about Mark reminded me of our middle son, so that when they appeared in my FaceBook feed, with an instrument (the Chapman stick) I’d never heard about, I was intrigued enough to listen: we need to share.

They travel – and busk.

There are, according to Mark’s website, about 8000 Chapman sticks in the world.

It’s like saying ‘there are about 8000 pianos in the world.’ Not a very big number. Not surprising I’d never heard of them (the Chapman sticks) or seen them played.

Their music is unique. There are links on his site to the inventor and pictures, if you care to follow.

The music is the important part

The first video I saw, on FB, was them playing ‘Hallelujah cover on two Chapman Sticks – performed by Cascade,‘ and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is one of my favorite songs. Their instrumental cover is simply beautiful.

Because of my ME/CFS, I have a very hard time listening to music, instrumental or otherwise, and have a horrible tendency to get earworms from it, and to not be able to get it out of my head for literally weeks (I think it’s one of the many processing problems from the damage the disease does to the brain).

So I don’t listen much any more – but Cascade’s versions don’t kick that pile of dust up. I just went through making up a weeks’ pills, listened to 3-4 of their pieces, and none of them wrangled my brain to the ground, so I was immediately prejudiced in their favor, because I LOVE music, and miss it greatly.

So here are a few links for the like-minded

Let me know what you think:

Lost in Time, filmed at Lake Constance in Germany.

The Way Home, new from July 2022.

Floating away, street performance in Molde, Norway.

May you find something you love.

They have the usual CDs and digital downloads – I’ll explore them in the future and definitely get some of their music.

Bon appetit!

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NETHERWORLD is a few tiny steps from uploaded to Amazon – but Mark and Steffi were a beautiful interruption, and I needed to find something like Cascade.

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Should blogging identities be kept separate?

You can’t help but be connected!

SHOULD YOU MIX YOUR AUDIENCES?

I’m an acquired taste.

This blog has 967 followers as of today – and I’ve been at it since 2012.

I’m two posts away from 700 – and no, that’s not why I’m blogging today.

Many blogs I follow have posts every day. I don’t necessarily want to do that, even if I could.

The blog I really care about is the one for the Pride’s Children books, prideschildren.com (I did have the sense to buy the domain way back in the early years, along with this one and a couple of others I keep just in case, such as the one with my full name).

But PridesChildren.com has 40 followers, and this blog has 732, and I’m wondering if I’m somehow neglecting to get readers who come HERE to continue on to the PC blog – assuming some of them read mainstream fiction, or, Oh, Joy!, have read some of my short fiction and want something more.

With limited energy, a staple of my life, I have to choose every day that isn’t too severely brainfogged, where to do some writing:

Where does the (writing) time go?

When one of the volumes of Pride’s Children is being written, that’s where the efforts mostly go, unless I physically can’t accomplish much because the time is short.

When I have something specific to say or to record for posterity (which often includes my own odd brand of writing advice), I blog at Liebjabberings (here). I’m actually considering writing a book of advice for writers – if there is any interest in my coping mechanisms.

And when I want to look polished and professional (even though I usually write in PJs) and am reminding myself that I have one chance to make a good impression with the fiction I care the most about, I blog at Pride’s Children. Or when I have something to say about a launch, or a sale, or an award.

And there’s always something on both sites that needs updating or polishing – feel free to weigh in.

Do I already have some crossovers?

Yes, but not as many as I expected.

So I’m making an open invitation: try out my short fiction here, go follow me there (or on Amazon at my author page), and you’ll know when I have a publishing event you might be interested in.

Other things to do

Contact me (See the About page) – ask me anything, or suggest a topic for a post. I love questions, and would be happy to write about something (assuming I have anything to contribute).

Comment on a post – I look at them as conversation starters, not articles of truth. Love chatting.

Recommend me to a friend, as a blogger or fictioneer.

Read something – try out the short fiction. Or a favorite post of mine. Or dig into the old ones with the strange titles.

Why now? Because NETHERWORLD is so close, and I’d love to give it a good party sendoff. And because sales are short-term events, and I’m figuring out timing that would be most beneficial – for more people to acquire ‘the taste.’

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May 12 is International ME/CFS Day

Millions of ME/CFS victims are missing from LIFE

Every year this date reminds me that we STILL have no diagnostic marker, treatment, or cure for the devastating disease that stole my life as a physicist in 1989, the week of Nov. 5th.

Another year with nothing really new that can turn me back into a functioning person.

Or even help new victims.

Except that this year there is an understanding that, if we didn’t know what virus had done the damage, ALMOST ALL of the long-covid victims would be diagnosed, based on symptoms, with ME.

But we know that virus, and possibly that will help some of the targeted research that now has been funded to figure out the mechanism of the damage and find a way to reverse some of it.

And maybe, MAYBE, some of that research will benefit newer victims of ME/CFS, and possibly – though the damage is so long-standing it’s hard to think how – those of us who have been waiting for decades.

If you pray, pray for us.

If you’re not the praying kind, think of us kindly.

We’re still sick – and I wouldn’t wish this illness on Putin.

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Meanwhile, Pride’s Children: PURGATORY is still in existence because of ME/CFS, and NETHERWORLD will be out very soon (the disease makes me very slow).

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Having trouble writing a promised review?

SAY THANK YOU! TO A FAVORITE AUTHOR

And they cost the reader nothing but a few minutes.

If you’ve never done it before, or it’s been a while, that first one seems, uh, hard.

Often the best time to write one is when you have just finished a book, and can’t wait to share.

But many people are shy, tell themselves they’ll write one later, and never end up doing it.

So: to make it easier, save either the link to this post, or to Rosie’s, and be ready the next time you’re bursting to say something, to extend your time in the book’s universe just a little bit longer.

Rosie Amber’s Review Templates

Rosie Amber has a lovely set of templates that will get you going on your review. Fill in whichever of the prompts you like (not necessary to write more than about twenty words), and voilà, review!

Want to write something longer? Keep typing and wax eloquent. Tell other potential readers why you like a book.

Create in your wordprocessor of choice and copy/paste, OR write directly into Amazon’s prompts for a review. The templates are SO much more encouraging and helpful than facing a blank page or review form. Thanks, Rosie!

While at Rosie‘s, check around – there are so many wonderful reviews. There’s an easy sign-up to have the blog come to your inbox.

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Can you tell I’m getting ready to ask you to read and review a book?

Authors positively LOVE reviews.

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Where have all the bloggers gone?

Inspired by Where have all the flowers gone? Popular folk song

WANTED: INTERESTING BLOG POSTS ABOUT LIFE AND WRITING

If you’re of a certain age, or ever went to Scout camp, you may already been humming along.

I’m having to sign up to follow and receive via email more and more blogs, because the bloggers I’ve been following for years are publishing fewer and fewer posts, and I need reading material to keep myself centered in the writer-support blogosphere I inhabit.

I write fewer posts because most of my posts have had something to do with the skills I acquired while learning to write – and I’m not actively working on those right now unless I find something I need to learn to get through a current scene.

Because I’m getting to the end of Netherworld – and know exactly where I’m going.

And there aren’t any tricky or new scenes – just the kind of wrapping up I’m hoping will put smiles on readers’ faces, followed by worried frowns about the implications!

I use writers’ blogs to stay up-to-date

I haven’t done marketing in a while (and it shows) because I have two brain cells, and one is needed for breathing, while the other takes an occasional turn at writing a few more words.

But one of these days someone will post something which will trigger something else, and I’ll be off and running.

There are lots of beginner ‘How to’ posts, fewer post on marketing, and almost none on marketing a very small output. At least not successfully.

So I take on new blogs

when I find one which has something a little less basic to say, or is in an area I probably won’t write – hoping to steal the genesis of an idea I can tweak into the book-selling campaign of the century.

I’d appreciate suggestions of blogs to follow, especially if you wouldn’t mind telling me what you like about them.

New platforms may be the problem

I don’t think I’m going to try Instagram or Tik Tok or Book Tok or even Twitter – mostly because I don’t think that’s where my kind of writer finds readers and followers.

Certainly not Youtube – not now! The competition must be fierce.

Trying a Patreon was a waste of time for me (this time) because you have to bring your own followers – and then generate extra material for them. The latter I like – I have lots of words about process and writing – but I don’t have yet the critical mass of followers, and, with very little energy, can’t afford to try.

But a lot of people ARE moving to the new platforms – the young ‘uns don’t use FB much any more.

Where are the readers?

To be more specific for me, where are the readers of mainstream/literary/contemporary fiction, but only those who are not hiding behind the wall of ‘I only read traditionally published and vetted fiction.’

And that, my dear readers, I have not solved yet.

But then I spend most of my time writing lately, and ultimately that will have to yield the answer.

So I try each new blog I find through blogs I already read or people who somehow find me, and participate for a while to see if we are a good fit. There are tens of thousands of my words out there contributing to these fun conversations.

Eventually we will reach critical mass, right?

I’d hate to think the indie experiment is doomed.

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Send me your recommended blogs.

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Fixing what’s not working on novel

HOW LONG DO YOU STICK IT OUT?

Over at C h a z z W r i t e s, Chazz asks: Are you ready to fix what’s not working?

He kindly provided a long list of questions, and after I got started, I realized I should post this here, and just leave the first two answers as a teaser on his blog, which you should visit and follow.

He starts his post with:

Publishing gurus are full of ideas for you. To optimize your sales, they might suggest new covers. They will tell you that your only barrier to startling success is a simple (yet costly) tweak to your book description.

ChazzWrites – 19 March 2022

He asks you:

How do we adapt? Consider these questions:

Here is my list of answers – a good set to answer for yourself in writing. I’ve edited or changed his questions a bit in places to suit me better – you should read his.

What is success to me?

People reading and reviewing my mainstream trilogy – I am pretty sure it will take off in a big way some day, and these people keep me writing.

What works for you?

Doing it exactly my way, designed for a damaged brain and no energy – because it works.

What doesn’t?

Everyone else’s suggestions – I can’t follow them, and when I make the big effort, they don’t work for me.

Have you tested other options?

Yes, though not extensively – I’m VERY slow, and this takes time away from writing.

Have you played with the variables?

Not a lot – by definition, half of A/B testing is going to be wrong!

Would you drop what isn’t working?

In principle, yes – but I have to somehow decide people who don’t know me and my work know what they’re talking about. So far, not convinced.

Are you doing more of what works for you?

I am – and I do as soon as I identify something that works, I do more of it. When I have time and energy, the kicker.

What haven’t you succeeded at trying that might work?

Going viral (not something you can just ‘try.’) Getting on Oprah or equivalent. Practically, attracting a BIG influencer who goes to bat for me.

Have you tried that?

Have asked maybe ten – they all have shied away or answered in generalities or haven’t answered at all. Doing things their way works for them; altering, looking at the outliers, not so much.

Before changing, have you completed other projects?

Yes. I can only work on one thing at a times – very little ability to do elsewise.

Have you analyzed pros and cons of a strategy such as changing genres?

Not until I finish the mainstream trilogy (but I managed to tuck some historical fiction AND some science fiction into it).

What would your costs be?

Funny: They go from me, my time, and my energy, immediately to a very expensive version of let other people do it. I could probably afford it, if I were convinced it would make a permanent difference – but I don’t believe that, because the limitation is still me.

What would the cost/benefit of getting paid helpers be?

I would have to sell a LOT more books to make them pay for themselves, and, since I will never be able to create much of a backlist, there won’t be much help from other work, so it would depend on a single huge campaign for the trilogy.

How much money do you need to live?

Fortunately, I’m retired, settled into a retirement community, and okay.

How much MORE do you need for WANTS?

Lucky that way – none.

Do you have the helpers to effect this change?

Not yet, though I’ve approached several possibilities, and listened carefully to their answers.

Would this be an investment, or money down the drain?

It’s my life, and my only chance of a legacy, since I became chronically ill.

Is a helper worth the time or mental toll it will require?

Haven’t found one yet that is.

What’s keeping you from trying?

Lack of energy.

What’s the worst that could happen?

No increased sales, and the loss of a lot of money which should have gone to charities and the kids.

What’s the best that could happen?

Breakout – and a fame which wouldn’t make much difference to a very isolated disabled life, but would be fun (instead of always being odd woman out).

Is the new way of working a passion, an excuse, or an escape?

Passion, of course. Nothing else is worth the kind of effort necessary.

What makes your new approach significantly different from old projects that failed?

I’m doing it myself; the failed one approached traditional publishing and didn’t get a brass ring.

Are you happy or excited to make this new commitment?

Haven’t had a credible proposition yet; there’s one possibility in the works – a PR company. I’m waiting to hear, because they will have to do all the changing – I don’t have the capacity to.

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And there you have my answers.

Thanks to Chazz!

Go visit, read his actual questions, answer them for yourself.

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Don’t wait for the band wagon

CLIMB ABOARD NOW WHILE THERE ARE STILL GOOD SEATS

It is axiomatic that there are no overnight successes.

Why?

Because it takes huge amounts of determination and preparation to be ready to respond well when an opportunity finally comes along – and if you’re not ready, it will leave you in the dust and move on.

Take your American Idol singer

The pipes that astonish are not natural, spur of the moment, magically angelic. Nope. If so, they are most likely to freeze at the first sign of stress.

The singer not only sings a lot in the shower, but has had parents paying for individual teachers, has been singing in the church choir, has spent years listening to music, and has been through a whole list of roles in the school plays.

Being on stage in front of a bunch of strangers and wowing Simon Cowell is not a fluke.

The illusion that it is sudden and unexpected and a direct blessing from Heaven is for the AUDIENCE. The ones who want to jump on the bandwagon as it goes by because, “I’m just as good as she is.” It keeps them buying the advertised products, watching the shows, purchasing tickets for Kelly Clarkson when she comes to town.

Even the little Wow! stories are the product of hours and hours and hours of cameramen recording every remotely possible candidate practicing in the hall – to be scrolled through for the exciting bits AFTER the winner has been chosen.

It matters only for the individuals

The producers don’t care who wins – they have SO many contestants that their triage is stricter than that after a major accident: they may let a few charismatic duds go through a few levels they aren’t qualified for – one leaves in the random possibility because crowds are fickle, but the staff’s job is to make sure that the two or three possibles culled out of each thousand who apply are usable.

They have no investment in a particular candidate. It’s dangerous to have one because talent and stardom are unpredictable beasts.

But the individual candidates, those who want to win, have to be ready to win – if it happens.

Artists need support BEFORE

before they are recognized as somehow ‘good.’

before they get discouraged and stop producing amazing work.

before everyone else discovers them.

It is even more important for those who are slow, or for whom doing the work is a great mental and/or physical effort.

I know that I will never forget the earliest responses on Wattpad from other writers, the ones who kept me cheerfully sharpening my nose. Because they KNEW – and SAID so – BEFORE others.

Peter Hyland, one of my characters, says,

“None of my friends are perfect. And most of them are irreplaceable. They provide the mirror when I get too big for my britches. New ones are hard to find.” He squinted at the dying sun. “I need them far more than they need me.”

PRIDE’S CHILDREN: PURGATORY, Chapter 13

It is hard for people to commit, to say, “I’ve found this new writer/photographer/painter…, and you should look into their work” to recommend someone to a friend. What if the friend doesn’t like the new artist? Easier not to say anything, and just nod wisely.

But once the wagon is full, one more supporter isn’t going to make that much of a difference.

Getting started is hard – but up to the writer, who is the one to make the decision when something is first ready to be released to the public.

But keeping it going is much harder still, and that’s when the support can make the difference between someone going on to do creditable work – or quitting.

Why now?

It may or may not be important, or a stepping stone of any size, but I’m saying thank you to all my readers who have been saying, “I like what you write,” since I started putting Pride’s Children out in serial form on Wattpad.

You may or may not have noticed the new badge on the sidebar.

Pride’s Children: PURGATORY has been named Indies Today’s 2021 BEST CONTEMPORARY novel, and I’d love it if those of you who read mainstream fiction would pop over to my other site, the one for the books, and sign up to follow that blog as I get ready to finish and publish the second novel in the trilogy, Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD.

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One way to encourage a writer

When you are reaching the end of writing a novel, it looks as if you’ll never finish.

Encouragement comes in odd places:

• a reader wanting to know when the next one is out
• sales you didn’t expect, didn’t advertise for
• the writing going particularly well
• a tough section written
• and a review that blows your metaphorical socks off (one gets so jaded).

This morning, my inbox contained a link to that kind of review, and I encourage those who are here for the fiction to take a quick look at the books’ sister site, Pride’s Children . com, and sign up there if they haven’t – because NETHERWORLD will be here early next year, and that encouragement keeps me focused.

An encouraged and supported writer (thanks to all my visitors and commenters and fellow bloggers and friends from FB and GR – you know who you are, and I hope you know how important you are) is a happy writer, and is probably writing much better than a discouraged one.

I don’t buy the drugs-and-alcohol motivated writer narrative (one reason being because my body doesn’t process alcohol fast enough and I don’t tolerate most meds), so I have to go on HAPPINESS, the universal salve.

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Sleep and lowered stress would be nice, too, and research to treat and cure this dratted disease (ME/CFS). I’m doing the best that I can.

Reduced brain fog would be ideal.

I’m doing the best that I can.

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Is your book optimistic or pessimistic?

Or over-engineered?

WHAT IS YOUR DEFAULT POSITION AS A WRITER?

Why do we read?

To learn about the world and to learn about our potentialities as humans.

Really.

To read a book is to live part of another life.

Optimist or pessimist is a question I ask books.

Is your book ultimately depressing or uplifting?

Even horrible books can raise spirits, especially by the end of the book. The Diary of Anne Frank does that.

It’s a value judgment.

Doing some research, I spent time reading the Top Reviews for Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls (2016).

Top reviewers are the ones who get the most comments or upvotes; the first four pages had negative after negative review (it wasn’t until page 4 that I found two short positive reviews, from readers), many of those from reviewers you would love to get to read your book: Top 500, Top 1000, Vine Voice…

And those reviewers were appalled at the violence against women that was graphically depicted, over and over. ‘Gratuitous’ was used as a descriptor.

Many commented that the writing was good or adequate or competent (workmanlike would have been my assessment, from reading the Look Inside sample provided), but that the choice of subject matter left them sick to their stomach.

A depressing book – depressing author?

Ms. Slaughter is a NYT bestseller.

Apparently, previous books she wrote were not nearly as negative as this one; many of these reviewers commented they would not read another of her books.

Some commented they wished they could scrub their minds of the images, for which they could find no socially redeeming reasons.

Me, I wondered why they continued reading, even if they skimmed.

The optimistic book – optimistic authors?

SF can be pessimistic (dystopias) or optimistic.

Romance is usually optimistic, and those fans who like to read Romance want their ‘happily ever after’ (HEA) ending, and can be very unhappy with writers who don’t provide one. There is a subset of books which end, not with an HEA, but with a ‘happy for now’ (HFN). These books are still hopeful, but possibly more realistic – and also possibly open to sequels.

Thrillers and mysteries can be all over the map – but do deal with the grittier side of life, and more often are pessimistic or neutral, but possibly with an optimistic undertone, say, to a continuing detective’s life.

A special category is the detective who finds happiness

My favorite, obviously, is the definitely HEA ending of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, ending with Busman’s Honeymoon, where Peter and Harriet marry, finally, and solve one last real mystery which sets the tone for their married life. Sayers wrote only two short stories about the pair after that, even though her series was popular and is still popular now.

During all the novels, there was still an optimistic cast to the series: there was a right and wrong, people had principles, and there were consequences – but mysteries were solved and things set ‘right’ where possible. Sayers went on to write theology, so her stories were optimistic because she believed in the possibility.

Jane Eyre is optimistic. Silas Marner is optimistic.

Huckleberry Finn is optimistic. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein) is optimistic.

You write what you like

And I don’t like ultimately pessimistic books.

Almost every genre can be written either way; even serial killer Dexter is optimistic.

I just want to know that, at the end of the book, things are, or have the potential of being, better.

That covers a lot of territory, but the thing in a book that makes me pick another book by an author is that there was hope at the end.

So if you read what I write, you will be reassured that, whether you like exactly how I have arranged things to happen, there will be an upbeat end.

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Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

And does it show in what you read and/or write?

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Finagling past reality for fictional purposes

Will the real bridge AND CITY be insulted?

REALISTIC FICTION STARTS HERE

What it’s like to insert a fictional character into a historical event for the purpose of telling a story.

The basic question is unanswered: how to take over a historical event and change it.

Such as how to write a thriller with someone else as President!

So, it’s fiction, identified exactly as so in the beginning of the books, and mine to do with as I will.

I doubt someone has to get permission from the White House to change the President – or we wouldn’t have President Bartlett and The West Wing.

So I’m worried about nothing.

Except…

The general rule to changing a name has to be avoiding harm

If you are going to say something negative, it might bring a lawsuit if the named person or organization feels it affects their reputation in some way. And even if a court decides they are wrong, and you get an amazing amount of viral publicity out of this (google the Streisand Effect if you don’t remember it), it is going to take a lot of your time, effort, and money to fight such a suit – and there is no guarantee you will win.

Organizations can have in-house lawyers who eat problems like this for lunch. They will bury you easily – nothing personal – and have no mercy.

Please read books on writing and copyright, and know the legal definitions of Libel (Letter – ie, written – mnemonics mine, probably not original) and Slander (Spoken) and ask yourself, as a start, whether YOU would feel libeled or slandered if you were the subject.

If even you are uneasy, it may be easier to change the name that might get offended.

And you might have to change that to something that is significantly different in enough ways that no reasonable person would be offended (unpredictable).

Where’s this coming from?

For the purpose of NETHERWORLD, I sort of have to insult a famous movie or two, and some actors – in a minor way.

The insult consists in taking away an earned award – and awarding it to someone else, another movie.

The problem stems from everyone’s ‘knowledge’ of how Hollywood works, and what the major awards are from which organizations.

In the same way that President Bartlett is less interesting if he is Superintendent Bartlett of an unnamed or fictitious school district, an actor getting a life-changing nomination for, say, an Academy Award is more interesting than if I make up an organization called FCBM and award my character their Best Actor award.

Along with ‘The White House’ you get an amazing amount of the reader’s foreknowledge of how things work there – which saves a lot of words and explanations.

Along with ‘an Oscar’ you get the same kind of response – red carpet, photographers, exotic borrowed clothing for beautiful women… And the whole suspense thing dragged out as long as possible, followed by one winner and a lot of gracious losers who were honored to be nominated. It’s in your head already, and a writer just needs to mention a few points to trigger a full-blown award ceremony in your mind.

Why do I even bother worrying about this kind of stuff?

Well, first because I’m a worrier.

Second, because I want that identification and value from the awards. I agree with the organizations and the individuals that they are worth a great deal in a career.

Third, because the last thing I need in my state of energy and illness and retirement is some organization getting its panties in a twist because I, well, lied.

Fourth, because I hope to be famous and well-read (not synonymous) some day, I want to do it right, and not leave a mess for my heirs.

Fifth, because, as a writer, it’s my job.

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Have you had to face this choice? If so, how did you handle it? Have there been repercussions?

As a reader, have you ever wondered if the author has stepped over the line? Care to share?

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