Biggest disappointments for self-published authors

THE ON/OFF SWITCH – PERSONAL USE, RECOMMENDATIONS

The post below has been sitting in my DRAFTS folder for months. As usual, when something is a bit controversial, I find myself not wanting to make waves – but some of these topics need discussing, because SPAs (self-published authors) don’t have teams at their publisher to KNOW what to DO.

The topics are ones I struggle with – not ones I’ve solved.

TAKE AS SUGGESTIONS AND QUESTIONS: RANDOM MARKETING THOUGHTS

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What do you support?

I haven’t figured out yet how this works, so I’m asking myself how I would deal with some of these questions. And I have friends who are authors in different genres from what I like to read, so the question isn’t academic: Do I buy their books? Do I read them? Do I review? Do I recommend them? The answers are not obvious.

My writing support, except for my original writing partner from last century, Sandy, has always been online, but I have come to ‘know’ some of these writers rather well, mostly from long back-and-forth conversations (comment threads) about mutually interesting topics.

If a friend opened a restaurant, would you go?

If a friend opened a store, would you visit and possibly buy or commission something? Would you think of them when you needed something they sold?

If one of your children did an outstanding job in a play, would you be proud, tell people, and try to get people to go see the play?

If your child is now a mechanic, would you send customers to their workplace?

Family and friends

who don’t share or recommend, who seem more embarrassed by you than proud of what you’ve done. Would I be the same? I like to think I wouldn’t.

But we aren’t necessarily each other’s audience, just because we share DNA.

It seems to be an ON/OFF switch. I asked, for example, about a niece’s new business, only to be discouraged from trying to find something there because I am not in her target demographic. Not fancy enough, not thin enough, not rich enough…?

Asking for help and not getting it

Each ‘ask’ is making myself vulnerable – without some special reason, why would someone help you? So when I do that, open up a little bit of my diffidence, tell a stranger who seems potentially interested due to something THEY’VE written, something personal – and get the usual “Good luck!” back, instead of something more specific and more useful and more personal (such as actual help), my carapace hardens further, and it’s harder the next time.

Turning someone’s request for help down should be done gently, possibly with an actual usable suggestion as to where to get the help. So far the help rarely materializes; the help which does is small and within the obvious parameters and requires a lot of time and effort to ask for in the first place.

A lot of care, and research into what they’ve said before, goes into creating a request which MIGHT get a review, for example.

Best not to make implicit offers if you’re not open to carrying through, and just want to make yourself SOUND caring, open, and helpful.

Finding the RIGHT readers, being turned down – it happens

Many SPAs are introverts – not great at asking or marketing – but we try to do it, anyway. Sometimes we’re clumsy at it.

Not getting the readers who, by their reviews or comments, you think would really understand your work. Commenting is easy, agreeing to read and review requires a commitment of time, energy, and skills. I get that.

Replying to strangers who act as if they think they know you and your requirements – obviously difficult. Reviewers are used to getting many, and many completely unsuitable, requests for their time. But it’s still rare to find them actively seeking ‘good stuff’ among these requests. It’s more likely to run up against their fence-posts: ‘temporarily closed submissions’, ‘no longer reading…’, and my very personal favorite, ‘no self-publishing.’

Their statistics are probably accurate: most of what is offered isn’t as good as the submitter wants to imply it is. Most of the books offered are generic, and come with generic appeals.

But there often seems little room for the carefully-crafted appeal that takes into account more than just the submission guidelines, and shows a real effort by the requester to make sure this is the kind of material the reviewer likes – and earns a generic turndown. The worst? A generic turndown months later.

Those who substitute congratulations for support.

These are often people who congratulate you on publishing but never buy or read, much less review. Sort of the adult generations ‘participation trophy’ view of the world.

Instead of taking their trust in you as a person to imply that maybe, just maybe, you might have a little something special as a writer, and they are in a privileged position to participate in the launch.

And, since you know them, you might have actually taken that into account in writing – so they would find resonances and interesting bits in YOUR fiction they wouldn’t find in a random author’s fiction – because you’re, somehow, ‘one of us.’

Gedankenexperiment?

The perfect term – thought experiment – for when doing actual experiments won’t work. For the writing/publishing field, with readers as independent data points you don’t know, unless you have a big marketing firm that can find a way to understand the individual points in the context of a whole, the experiments are not independent explorations of how a group of readers might respond, but instead an attempt to put oneself INTO the point of view of those individual readers, and figure out what is going on.

The clear first step is to let a bunch of readers of your kind of fiction know you exist. This is targeted advertising – but only studies those who would see your ads. You can’t make them change where they get their information, so if you can’t access those same information sources to provide yours, you’re out of luck. Example: if they only look at Kirkus reviews, they won’t even see your information unless you BUY a Kirkus review for your book, and not even that if the readers you crave have already trained themselves to scroll/look past the Kirkus indie reviews.

Using what’s special to market

Your book? Lots of ideas out there to market to various groups. Each one takes energy to develop for those different groups.

Yourself? A little tricky for fiction – and very hard to take back once you’re over-shared. And it can get you a label you can’t shake. And make you subject to being ‘inspiration porn’ – cute or interesting or laudable, but not really enough ‘good’ to succeed without being patted on the head.

ANSWERS? Go viral.

NO ONE knows how to make something become the next big thing – or how to capitalize on it if you happen to get that kick of karma.

Commercial PR firms do a lot of work, and charge a lot – and sometimes succeed at making it look effortless.

On your own, it’s very unlikely.

What you CAN do is to ask yourself, “Am I ready if it happens?” Can people find my books, can they buy them easily, is it easy to get them from the library? Is the front matter and back matter up to date wherever the books are sold? Will they know where to sign up to be informed when the next book comes out? Can they find my other books?

And the biggest: is the next book being created right now?

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That’s it, in a nutshell: be ready – hope to get lucky.

And the perennial: write a VERY GOOD BOOK. Because if you don’t, all the publicity and virality in the world won’t keep the readers you snag.

If you know THE ANSWER, please send it privately – nothing spoils a secret like sharing it on the internet. I will be eternally grateful.

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How to go viral with literary fiction

IS IT DESIRABLE TO MAKE LITERARY FICTION GO VIRAL IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Big question. Big risk. Big reward?

Before talking about HOW, the question is WHY?

‘Going viral’ is a short way of saying ‘become wildly popular so everyone wants one.’

Potentially lucrative.

Also, potentially lethal.

It is one thing to have a product/idea be popular with the masses, but it is another to have the masses laugh at it.

A hula hoop going viral at the right time becomes a toy that almost anyone can buy – AND almost anyone can learn to use – at least sort of. Right before Christmas, at the right price (enough for a hefty markup but not expensive enough to break anyone’s bank), and balanced with the manufacturing ability to produce more in a hurry, hula hoops were very popular and sold millions. (Disclosure: I had one as a kid in Mexico, and was pretty good at it.)

But a book?

It almost seems contradictory to the concept of literary fiction to try to make it go viral.

Except that it has been done.

Something like two MILLION copies of The Goldfinch were printed.

Something like half of those copies were eventually pulped.

Unknown numbers of the ones purchased were READ.

Unknown numbers decorated coffee tables as the ‘book to have.’ Not to have read, necessarily, but to seem to have read. It being literary fiction and wildly popular, if you had a copy you wouldn’t necessarily tell your friends whether you had read the whole thing or not.

Full disclosure: I read the reviews, lots of them, and decided it was probably not my kind of book: too many of the complaints were pet peeves. Some day I will find out for myself, but the day hasn’t come when I can divert MY focus without derailing my own writing. Yet.

How did it go viral?

The most expensive way, the way of the BIG traditional publisher, with a campaign that put the publisher’s entire resources behind a gamble: that they could push a literary novel into being THE literary novel of the season, make it a ‘must have’ and sell enough copies to justify the advance, the push, AND enhance the publisher’s reputation.

Not just reputation, but selling a reasonable number of paper bricks at a hardcover price is lucrative – one well-publicized ‘winner’ can carry the publishing house’s season.

The economics get all fuzzy if the numbers don’t work out, or they would use this system for all their books every season. But the economics MUST work out, or the big publishers wouldn’t keep trying to find (make) the breakout novel of the season.

In sum, it costs a lot of money, but can pay off with a lot MORE money.

How to take advantage of the possibility if you’re an SPA?

Well, if you’re already a popular SPA like Brandon Sanderson, with a loyal fan base, you can kick it to the next level with a huge Kickstarter calculated to both satisfy those fans and create a beautiful buzz for your books. [Hint: He wrote four books in secret – and then releases them to his Kickstarter fans before anyone else is allowed to buy them.]

What if you’re an unknown SPA?

Then you have to hope like crazy that you catch the public imagination – or, possibly better still, the attention of a significant influencer, and get the push from someone else’s fame.

Because the product is not an easy one to sell. For one thing, they consume, each, almost a whole waking day. And there isn’t yet an audiobook so you can do other things while listening – plus it needs closer attention than many, to pick up and follow its varied threads. It’s a pretty intense experience to live a story with three main characters by sitting inside their heads, right behind the eyeballs, thinking their thoughts and registering the external world through their senses.

Not a short commitment from a potential reader, as a popular five-minute song might be.

Add to the mix an author with no energy due to a boring chronic illness – no energy to do the vaunted indie marketing, which requires dedication and verve, spending hours creating material and doing what a whole lot of professionals at a traditional publisher will do for a favored author: designer cover, a book tour, appearances on media from internet to live TV, promotions at Walmart, movie tie-ins for the fortunate… arranging, arranging, arranging – by someone(s).

The right mix of promoting the book and promoting the writer is crucial – time-critical and planned and managed. And still subject to luck. Not just the cost – but the contacts – are crucial to try to control the presentation and roll-out for maximum exposure.

So what do I OFFER such an influencer?

Few things can be left to random kindness any more.

The best value from an influencer is one who discovers your book – and promotes it on their channel of influence (think BookTok) – without any work from the author. Because they like it.

But no one can COUNT on that LUCK. Even when a book such as the lovely The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, written by a very ill woman who paid attention to the snail in a terrarium, happens, there are friends and pushers, people who did the work of finding a publisher for her, who made it their job to promote her memoir and her writing. Another book which didn’t count on luck, but was awarded the Pulitzer for fiction, A Confederacy of Dunces, was pushed, after he couldn’t get it published and committed suicide, by John Kennedy Toole’s mother, to writer Walker Percy. Again, not something to count on.

What I can offer is the brownie points (does anyone still remember those?) from discovering something unique: a chronically ill and disabled writer who takes forever, but writes mainstream fiction – and writes it well, or the influencer wouldn’t even be considering using up their points for someone else. It could be pushed as ‘discovering the indie/self-published X’, where X is the influencer’s favorite important mainstream writer. I’m far too modest to suggest a comparison author, but my reviewers (at least two) have compared me to Jane Austen. It’s worth a thought.

And if you don’t go viral, how about getting banned?

Another path to notoriety! Otherwise known as ‘publicity.’ Anything to make a good story, right? Not mine – the influencer’s.

It’s a little harder for me – I’ve been looking to the future use of teaching Pride’s Children in schools, and have deliberately kept the actual words and events to the PG-13 level – but someone is quite welcome to take my third main character Bianca Doyle’s unorthodox way of getting a father for her children as scandalous and upsetting drivel to which innocent teenagers (!?!) should not be exposed. Go ahead – it takes little to get the righteous flustered and judgy.

Those are the potential arrows in my literary-publicity quiver

I am quite happy to discover and entertain more, if you have suggestions – I want to be widely read. I would like a few more reviewers, please rhapsodizing about my prose. You needn’t be fulsome – understated works, too.

I would like a huge contingent of breathless fans waiting for me to finally complete work on LIMBO (or LIMBO & PARADISE), to the extent of making preorders possible.

I would love a ready market for any prequel or sequel short stories about our merry band and their quarrelsome ways, and I will continue to work at my deliberate pace (or until cured) to add to the canon.

Wishes make good goals for 2023, if a tad unrealistic. One can dream.

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Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings, and HAPPIER NEW YEAR to all – may the holidays you love and celebrate bring you joy.

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Is labeling mainstream novels literary counterproductive?

A REVOLUTION HAPPENED AND NOBODY NOTICED

Amazon tries; it really does.

To satisfy its customers, to make searching for what they want easy (easier), to supply it efficiently.

By revolution I mean both also that things turned around – 180° – from where they were, sort of, before.

Because before this all happened, ‘literary’ was a separate category in bookstores.

And literary meant a number of things:

• Difficult to read, requiring great attention
• Small in scope – One DAY in the life of Ivan Denisovich
• Elitist
• Using difficult flowery language
• Very detailed – a navel closely observed and described
• Slow and languid
• Somehow not for everyone
• Requiring a large SAT vocabulary
• For people with an MA in English or Literature
• Suitable proof for a doctorate
• A credential for teaching English or Literature
• With a limited audience
• Special
• Art
• Cliched
• Maybe French or translated from Italian or Russian
• Not commercial
• Often not ending anywhere near happily

Add or subtract from my list what comes into your head when you hear ‘literary novel.’ Please feel free to mention them in a comment.

What’s the revolution, you ask?

That ‘literary’ now means ‘traditionally published good stuff’ on Amazon, and is seen as almost the exclusive purview of, you guessed it, the traditional publishers large and small.

The books that are vetted by agents and editors at publishing companies (excluding the celebrity stuff), and are therefore both ‘better’ and ‘not for the hoi polloi.’

The other similar term is ‘historical,’ which is a little fuzzier and often about WWII, sometimes about WWI or the American Civil War.

Because the term ‘mainstream’ disappeared, and is not the same as ‘contemporary,’ which can be attached to, say, a Romance and a worldview: ‘Contemporary Christian Romance’ is a searchable thing.

It is considered presumptuous to label your own work ‘classic.’

And ‘General Fiction’ is not a category, but a garbage can.

‘Psychological’ is filling the empty slot somewhat – almost all novels for grownups are psychological, but is confounded by ‘thriller,’ ‘horror’, and ‘women’s fiction.’ With, of course, nothing actually labeled ‘fiction for men.’

It used to be possible to find mainstream fiction by looking for ‘a novel’ on the cover. No more. It now means only ‘book of at least 50 pages.’

It doesn’t matter for mainstream because

I’m convinced readers of mainstream fiction who use Amazon come there to find a good price on something they’ve already decided to buy.

I don’t think they search on Amazon. Not beyond maybe being attracted by something similar being offered by the ‘also read’ bots. There is just too much stuff.

They get their recommendations elsewhere – book critics (who rarely do SPAs*), reviews in the few places which still have book sections (print journalism has taken a lot of hits lately, too), and the publicity material put out for their best-selling authors by the traditional publishers (other authors get bupkis from traditional publishers – return on investment isn’t worth it).

So the market is saturated and sopped up by the same few titles which keep those offices in Manhattan open for the publishers (and their unpaid interns).

I’m hoping for virality. It can make the huge difference to a start – and then the writing must maintain the quality so that future books, even if widely spaces, are eagerly awaited.

Feel free to help kick that off – if you like mainstream fiction.

Don’t let ‘the system’ keep producing same old, same old – and then complain you can’t find anything you like to read.

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Thank you for listening to the daily rant. Now, if I could just manage to do it daily! 🙂

Oh, and the answer to the title question is yes: ‘Literary’ has too many negative and restrictive connotations in the minds of too many readers.

‘Literary’ is not a good substitute for such terms as mainstream, ‘big book’, epic, blockbuster, or commercial novel. It isn’t the same. Even when the intent is to make it a synonym with ‘well written.’

IMNVHO (In my not very humble opinion,)

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Final note: Pride’s Children: PURGATORY is taking part today and for the next few days at a promotion at HelloBooks – which has many other wonderful bargains for serious readers of General Fiction (its category) and many other genres.

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*SPAs = self-published authors, sometimes known as indies or independent authors

Economies of writer scale explained for readers

(2021’s last)

AMAZON IS MY PUBLISHER BUT…

I am Director of Marketing for Trilka Press, the imprint that publishes my books, and may some day publish other writers (don’t hold your breath quite yet).

I am the PR department, as well. All of it. And the Art Department. And IT. And Housekeeping and Bookkeeping and Landscaping and…

I am in charge of all financial decisions; we are still at the venture capital stage (me), so I’m VP of Finance.

All self-publishers are entrepreneurs by definition. We make all the decisions which affect us, except for those made by our printer and distributor (in my case, only Amazon – changing that will require work I don’t have time for now, but it’s on the very-long To Do list of the CEO and COO of Trilka Press (again, me)).

Advertising is solely my responsibility at the end of 2021

If I want to advertise (takes time and effort away from writing), I choose the venue (Amazon, FaceBook, and, in one horrible expensive decision years back, the PAW (the Princeton Alumni Weekly), which I was allowed to advertise in as a former staff member – circulation 90K prime potential readers – cost >$600, RoI = $0).

And I set up the ads. And pay for them. And fulfill all the requirements of timing – and due diligence. I should have asked PAW for some statistics – it turns out that particular advertising section, published twice a year, is filled with other self-publishers and some perennials, and is probably not a good place to peddle fiction by unknown authors who get a tiny number of words to hawk their wares. Duly noted.

So, like all of us, I spend some time managing promotion for myself (I know, sounds so tacky!). Or I’m depending on the kindness of strangers, which is erratic.

You get over it when you realize you want readers, readers in general have been conditioned to be wary of SPAs (self-published authors), and it’s up to you.

If you happen to be lucky, or go viral in some way, good.

Don’t count on it.

Even in the pushy real world, most overnight sensations have been at it for at least ten years. Or are connected. Or know something about somebody (just kidding!).

The power and control are heady – and scary!

Unlike many indies, I am not solely supported by my writing (a good thing!). But I also don’t want to write only for myself, at least not past this trilogy, because it is an incredible amount of work, takes all my available energy, and I worry about leaving fans hanging if something happens to me during the (very long) time it takes me to write something to my standards – and don’t want them to see how far below that I start.

Twenty-one years so far – and the final book will consume at least my next five years.

This little win I just received – the lovely and letter-perfect review from Jennifer Jackson at Indies Today – showed me how much encouragement affects my ability to focus. Duly noted again – but it’s not the kind of thing you can say, even to friends: “Please tell me something nice about my writing.”

I do my part for other writers, and they have been wonderful, but modesty and not-bragging were ingrained in my generation by our parents, whose generation fought WWII, and had their priorities pretty straight by the end of it, in many ways. Did they overdo it? Probably. All parents do, no matter how perfect we think we are.

But I digress…

I generally avoid low-price sales

How can conditioning people to expect something for almost nothing be a functional business model?

Someone commented recently that most free or 0.99 downloaded books are NEVER read.

The exception is the books which somehow get read, and make the reader a fan who then purchases or borrows from library or streaming service the author’s other books.

And up until now I didn’t have other books.

The exceptions I can live with include:

• Sales to raise a book’s rank (for Search Engines)
• Sales to promote a series which already exists
• Sales to promote a launch
• Sales to capture any remaining market for a bestseller already out a while
• Or sales to take advantage of a blip

In other words, sales which have an expected (or hoped for) return on investment. That investment can be considerable, and the return is not guaranteed, but, for example, most writers mention in writing groups (self-selected) that they’re happy with BookBub deals and get a significant bump from them. ‘Loss leader’ I believe the marketing folk call it. BookBub doesn’t lose, authors who don’t do well hope maybe next time, and readers get bargains or freebies.

I’ve noticed Netflix keeps raising its prices. Because ‘give stuff away free’ is not sustainable. And Amazon and Facebook make money from the ads. But authors who don’t get that boost might be subsidizing the whole experiment.

Anyhoo – moving right along – BUY!

If you have a business reason for a sale, you will eventually learn which ones work.

Amazon is being very efficient these days: the $0.99 price took less than an hour to show up today, so THE 0.99 E-BOOK SALE is on. At least until four days after January 14, 2022, when my first Hello Books promotion will be over. The price will then return to $9.99.

PLEASE take advantage of the timing – I am hoping for a bump in ranking which might help later, and followers who might be interested in NETHERWORLD.

If you go to PURGATORY‘s page, I would appreciate it if you scroll down to the Editorial Reviews and tell me what you think of the new version – I modeled it on The Goldfinch‘s ER, and Amazon was very responsive as I worked on changes – an hour or so instead of their published ‘3 to 5 business days.’ Much appreciated, because it is almost impossible to get those things right the first time, and it took me three iterations.

The probability of a lower price is minuscule – I think ‘FREE’ doesn’t work for my kind of author and book.

[NOTE: The paperback is not on sale any more (Amazon was playing with it).]

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Really looking forward to your comments – readers and writers. How does any of the above reflect your experience?

And if you are interested in NETHERWORLD, but haven’t popped over to the books’ site to Follow it, now is a good time to guarantee you hear about things like sales.

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Write a good book, they said

ALL STORIES ARE ABOUT LOVE

Humans are born needing love to survive – ‘failure to thrive’ may even be a cause of death when there is not enough love, in the form of feeding, holding, keeping warm, for an infant to want to live.

If that love isn’t present ‘enough’ by a certain age, it may never be recovered. Adults who have survived have significant problems. The Romanian children kept in orphanages and later adopted often were incapable of attaching to their new parents, parent who were not prepared to deal with them and their special needs.

Distinguishing between a Romance and a mainstream love story

like Pride’s Children is critical for my advertising, and it is something I still have a very hard time with.

Romance readers do not like Pride’s Children.

The negative reviews I have come from people whose expectations were not met.

And that’s my fault – because something I did caused them to EXPECT a Romance.

Romance readers have very clear ideas of what they want:

• a relationship between TWO people
• relatively short books
• more of the same only different – from the same author
• an HEA (happily ever after) or at least HFN (happy for now) endings
• and in some cases, a form of point of view that alternates, in the same scene, between the points of view of the two characters
• covers which indicate the kind of Romance enclosed within, from chaste to steamy
• recommendations from Romance websites

There are many variations and compilations, but those are the basics from what I can discern.

I wish I wrote Romance – it is in some ways much easier to signal what a book is, and to market.

There is also a huge amount of competition!

A mainstream love story is a different beast

Even though Gone With the Wind is often listed as a Romance (and ‘Romance’ is what all novels used to be designated), it is not: no happy ending, not even a HFN. NOT a relationship between two people – Ashley Wilkes is in the middle for most of the book. And no head-hopping: the point of view is firmly locked on Scarlett for the whole story, but in a limited, not very intimate, omniscient way.

I’d call GWTW a mainstream love story, even a fairly literary one.

And I think that is the key to its enduring success.

At the end, we ache for Scarlett, for ‘tomorrow is another day,’ for her transformation, for her future – which made it irresistible for the Margaret Mitchell estate to allow a writer to take the story further.

Unfortunately, they picked a Romance writer, which I believe was the wrong choice, and didn’t buy.

But the marketing… with the book’s fame, they could market it any way they wanted.

I don’t have that fame.

Traditional publishers might have known how to market Pride’s Children

Many things kept me from submitting Pride’s Children to an agent, trying to find a traditional publisher:

• I’m deathly slow
• Disability is handled in the story – at the time I was nearing a finish, disability only got lip service while being sort of categorized with ‘diversity’
• I’m pathologically stubborn
• I have believed the indie self-published path is better for a long time now
• I dislike not having everything in my control
• I was sure I would be getting, “Nice – but not for us right now” responses, as traditional publishers went with things they were more certain they could sell
• I knew I would be asked to change certain elements of the story to something more palatable
• I don’t like their royalty structure
• If I break out, I want it to be because of what I did, and not for someone else to be able to claim the credit.

But not going traditional leaves me in charge of marketing and publicity.

And most indies do not write mainstream literary fiction!

So there is little path to follow, and that among mostly indie historical novelists; though if I end up taking as long as I seem to be, ‘historical’ may fit me. Depends on whether it is 25 or 50 years since the events happened, as 2005/6 is the timeframe. I’ll probably make 25 by the time I finish the third volume, but probably not be around for 50.

I am gleaning information and ideas from many sites and groups

None of them really appropriate.

I need to figure out how to ‘go viral,’ to capture the zeitgeist, to become popular.

While still having zero energy, fighting my body daily to get some writing brain time, and trying to blaze a trail.

I have ideas. I have sources and places to put ads (some of the previous ones were expensive disastrous messes). I get cannier and sneakier and more educated and more focused with each thing I try.

But it hasn’t been, and won’t be, easy.

The last attempt led me to USTO.gov (copyrights and trademarks and such) to make sure a phrase I will trademark wasn’t being used already.

It isn’t.

But the cost is not zero, and the category I fit in right now – intent-to-use – won’t last long enough for my purposes, so I’m not revealing it until I’m ready to use it. Meanwhile, I will be on tenterhooks.

Which brings me full circle:

‘Write a good book,’ they said.

But never said that part of that may make it extremely hard to sell.

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As usual, comments are very welcome – and I love getting suggestions.

Also, my thanks to Stencil for their graphics software and ability to have a free account for up to ten images a month.

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Forcing my body to obey me

Sunset past the Fall Equinox

WRITING FICTION REQUIRES THE BEST I’VE GOT

And when I don’t have it, the fiction doesn’t done.

It’s frustrating.

It’s also my life, and, if nothing else, that life has given me Pride’s Children, and so I forgive it.

Writing posts that reveal

I have two almost complete posts:

Laying out my writing wares for the passersby

and

Tagline, logline, pitch are the hardest writing ever

both of which are my brain kicking up something I’ve been resisting: serializing Pride’s Children NETHERWORLD.

Why? Because it is half finished, and I only had 40 finished scenes when I started serializing PURGATORY, and I have well over that for this book.

These posts are pending until I make the big decisions.

The first book was serialized several places, a new finished scene every Tuesday for two years. Read that again, and realize that, for someone as physically and mentally challenged as I am, that kind of commitment – which I fulfilled – is almost the same as spitting into the wind.

I honestly don’t know if it helped me write, or helped me focus. But I do know I finished.

At the time I hadn’t published anything else, so there was no sense of bravado – no one would probably care if I didn’t finish the story, the scenes didn’t get published on schedule, or I disappeared into the unpublished ether as a debut author.

Other publishing tasks got done simultaneously

During that same time, I learned Pixelmator and worked with J.M. Ney-Grimm, who kindly mentored me in producing my cover, a process which took a whole summer.

And I learned all the editing and formatting and proofing and layout tasks needed to produce an ebook and a print version. ALL. Seems a little foolhardy looking back – a rank amateur attempting a story which will be as long as GWTW when I’ve finished the third, as yet unnamed, volume.

Many of these tasks turned out to be easier for me to teach myself, at my own slow pace, than to find someone and communicate with them to get what I needed. For someone with a damaged brain, explaining is as hard as doing, and a LOT more expensive, so I just plowed through.

It should be easier the second time around

But it’s not. It’s harder – because there are expectations. And because the second book in a trilogy has to kick everything up a level – loosening up or staying flat aren’t options.

And, never fear, the kicks have been planned into the structure – but they are also harder to write.

And I’m older, and have been damaged longer

And there’s a pandemic going on, and a heated election, and a world going up in a different kind of flames.

The body’s older. The brain’s older than when I started this particular story – in 2000. If I weren’t so slow, I would have been long finished by now. GWTW took Margaret Mitchell ten years; I’ve already been at this twenty.

Serializing is a promise

But the idea of serializing again, only now with possibly more readers because they’ve read PURGATORY, excites me.

That, and developing the website for the books. (I have found a marvelous little book called Making Your Website Work: 100 Copy & Design Tweaks for Smart Business Owners, by Gill Andrews, just packed with good ideas I can’t wait to try.)

And publishing and making available as a reader magnet the Pride’s Children prequel short story, Too Late, which was a featured story on Wattpad, all this is exciting.

And I’ll put PURGATORY on sale periodically via Kindle Countdown, so that anyone reading something they like on the prideschildren.com website serialization can get PURGATORY, read and catch up, and enjoy knowing what happened before.

Just in case something happens to me

This is something any author involved in a several-book project right now has to take into account: not making it.

Many a series out there has been ended prematurely when the author clocks out for one reason or another, and Covid-19 is very hard on people in my age and disability cohort. So I will do a ‘Pride’s Children finish file,’ where I flesh out, just a bit, the structure of the remainder of the story, and leave instructions with my literary executor to provide the file to those who have signed up to follow the serial. Not as good as finishing, but, in my mind, a whole lot better than leaving it up to the readers’ imaginations.

Coming full circle to the title of this post

Forcing my body to obey me.

I am in the middle of a great experiment to work with the many problems, and use some of the features of a medication (ldn, low-dose naltrexone) tweak, to have more usable brain time every day.

I’m already getting a couple of pool dips, and possibly a trike ride – to keep things functioning – every week.

And I’m using the data I record about how things go to see if I can’t figure out a more usable schedule that caters to my dysfunctionalities instead of fighting them. For some reason (recent successes?), I feel I might be able to do that now.

I won’t start serializing until I’m sure, but it’s been my dream since we moved to USE the increased time I have here at URC, and during the pandemic when the social life is restricted, to finish the books, and then take a break from the writing to market more extensively.

Time’s passing, time’s awasting.

Cross your fingers for me!

A brief survey

• If you had a favorite book coming out with the same process that I use, a finished scene at a time, would you read it that way?

• Some readers won’t tackle something that is unfinished; but would the ‘finish file’ concept reassure you?

• If you’re a writer, have you had any experience with serializing – and how did it go?

I would love to have your answers in the comments.

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Tiny touch of normalcy in the middle of a pandemic

NORMAL FEELS GOOD, EVEN MASKED

Episode #1 – The Affair of the Tricycle Seat Repair

This isn’t my tricycle – mine is a mystery brand – but it is extremely similar. One of the things that was normal this past week was a trip to the Tinker’s Den, my first.

Here at URC, an early resident refused to move in unless he was allowed to bring his basement workshop and woodworking tools. So they accommodated him by building a room off the corner of the south underground garage, and named it the Tinker’s Den. That was 20 years ago, and the workshop is used by a variety of people doing projects.

Well, earlier in the week I finally took the trike seat off because something was wrong and it had way too much side movement, but I hadn’t been able to see what was wrong while it was attached.

When I got it upstairs, I figured out the where the seat was attached to the post, a nut had come off of a bolt, and the bolt was sitting diagonally at an odd angle, attaching nothing.

To make the story short, I called Tenney, the resident whose name is listed for the Den, and we spent an enjoyable if somewhat frustrating hour or so taking the seat apart to get at the bolt, finding a replacement one (the one on the trike must be metric, so our nut jar didn’t have a suitable replacement), and putting the whole back together – and having a nice chat as I helped.

I miss doing that in the basement of our New Jersey house, where I had a full workshop – and plenty of nuts and bolts in jars before we moved. Of course, there had been no need to use a workshop for two years here.

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Episode #2: The Affair of the Head Shot

The other bit of normal life was another request of another resident: I have arranged to have an interview of me as a writer published on a blog, and the blogger kindly sent me a list of questions – and a request for a photo.

On her site, I saw that the photos of other authors were much better quality and definition than the snapshot cutouts I have normally used before (yes, I knew I’d have to do something about it some day, but when you’re indie, there are a lot of things on the list).

In any case, when we came to URC, Marion had done a very nice job with her very good camera of taking pictures for the Resident Directory, so I asked if she would take a few for me for the purpose of a head shot – and she kindly agreed.

We settled on Friday morning at 11 (I cannot guarantee being up and functional earlier, though I often am, and I didn’t want to have to call, bleary-eyed, and reschedule).

She had walked around a couple of days before at that time so as to find some good backdrops among the greenery, so we set off to take pictures, her walking (she’s 91), and me on Maggie2.

And spent about an hour using various pieces of greenery as backdrops – and then she put the twenty or so photos on a flash stick which I downloaded to my computer last night.

We were masked, and stayed the required 6 feet apart for most of the time, but talked as we went, and I am so grateful because we have no idea when real normal will return, and I was dreading the whole process (I don’t usually like my pictures), but quite a few of the ones she took are very good. She is amazing.

She was surprised that I want to do the photo editing myself, something I’m reasonably competent at – but I’m really not good at selfies, and an outside photo place is not in the cards right now.

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Episode #3: The book blogger reads

And finally, I found out via Mention, where I set up a request that sends me an email when Pride’s Children PURGATORY is mentioned anywhere on the web, that a book blogger whose site Written Among the Stars I visit regularly (she does very good reviews) has started to read it, and her thoughts thus far are:

“This was another one that the writing style took me a little while to jump into to and I was a bit concerned that maybe the story just wasn’t for me. It didn’t take long though for me to catch up and really start to enjoy myself. I adore Andrew. He is quirky, funny, smarmy and just so much fun.”

You know how hard it can be to persuade someone to read something different – and all authors try to find sources for more reviews – so I am very happy that she persisted, and am looking forward to hear what she thinks of the whole.

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Little things matter when you’ve been in quarantine a long time.

Please use the comments to tell your stories of what makes you feel normal right now!

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Shopping patterns change with the circumstances

NORMAL WHEN IT’S NOT NORMAL OUT

A flyer from Kohl’s in the mailbox touts a sale March 25-29. It’s a surreal reminder or normality – advertising flyers are set up, and the sales decided, months in advance. The products, seasonal, have to be ordered, decisions made about what clothes people will need in the next buying period, Easter – it appears, from the elegant children’s clothes.

While some incomprehensible person in Washington says grandparents should die for commerce, instead of being around for the grandchildren to hug for the Easter dinner in their cute new duds. And Italy reports considering that breathing support won’t be available for those under SIXTY. New low.

We’re not that far out from normal

It is very different, depending on which pictures you see in the news – between the photograph showing a packed Bondi Beach in Australia or Daytona Beach in Florida and ones showing a piazza in Rome more empty than it’s been in years – but it hasn’t really been that long yet.

A few months since the first cases in Wuhan, China, to total lockdown in Davis, California, for the safety of old folk for whom there will not be enough ventilators in local hospitals.

The SCALE has shocked the world, but far too many people still don’t believe it.

And the more optimistic among scientists, and especially among politicians, are hoping ‘normal’ comes back within a couple weeks, wherever they are, so that we don’t mess up the economy too much for their taste.

We’re still in the world of Just-in-time inventories

Of factories with so much capacity they can produce what is needed with a quick turnaround – and of inventories so low doctors and nurses are re-using face masks usually disposed of after each patient, and re-using them for many, many patients.

We’ve gone from crowded shopping in grocery stores where there are SALE! signs everywhere, to standing six feet apart in the checkout line.

And we don’t know which patterns will last, and which will be gone the minute there is a vaccine to protect from COVID-19.

We’re feeling mental whiplash.

A month ago…

Having the husband head out on the facility bike to do some grocery shopping was a bit of exercise tacked onto a chore…

…Now it is a death-defying adventure into a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Getting together in a small group in the Piano Lounge to sing folk songs…

…Not even allowed because the room is small and enclosed, even if people stay six feet apart from each other.

Going to the pool was almost a social activity…

…And now we are being supervised like children by management to make sure no one uses or touches anything.

Online shopping was a convenience

For us, without a car yet in California, it was so much easier to have things delivered that I think we had a package a day delivered to the front desk!

Now it’s an adventure in finding a time slot in which your local grocery store can deliver food and TP (assuming they have some) after you’ve filled in a very detailed form online with many restrictions – and for which someone else will choose your ripe bananas.

As a shut-in, basically (little energy and little mobility are a real deterrent to shopping in stores), I’m used to the concept.

But everyone else is still trying to wrap their mind around what can and cannot be done, at the same time they wonder why on earth they would even buy an Easter dress.

Welcome to my world, sort of

And I wonder if you will have been changed permanently by your visit, or whether you will just have a few vacation photos tucked away in a virtual album somewhere.

Try to remember – and have some understanding of what the permanent residents deal with daily.

I STILL don’t see much of a plan for the NEXT time we get a novel virus.

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Stay well. Read books. Get around to those projects.

If you survive… what will you have to show? As I tell myself to stop watching the news and get back to NETHERWORLD. It isn’t writing itself, but we did have a good day.

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New after a year Low-dose Naltrexone

I WOULD RATHER SAY I’M WRITING REGULARLY

but the reality is different: and I have a temporary good excuse.

BTW, WordPress is giving me a hard time here, but the photo above is a picture of one of the coffee bean plants I’ve managed to keep alive since they were given to us by one of our new neighbors (as babies). I guess you could call them toddlers now.

I’ve named them Castor and Pollox. One of these days I will figure out which is which, but they came out of the two halves of a single coffee bean, so they will always be twins.

Our new place faces north (we picked it that way so I can sit by the window every day), but there is an indentation, and there is a window ledge which gets sun in the morning. The plants have been much happier (How does a plant display ‘happy’? It grows.) since they get some morning sun, even though coffee plants grow best in shade.

They get the same treatment my houseplants did in New Jersey: if they live, I water them once a week or so, and they are allowed to continue living.

This is true of the twig that came with a flower arrangement a while back – because it had perky green leaves, I continued to water it, and I think it’s still alive, probably with some rooting going on in the block of florist foam that holds it. One of these days I’ll plant it. If it’s still with us.

Something has changed since the move.

There are a lot more people here, and trying for a minimalist experience – having dinner several times a week with new friends, is challenging for someone like me who used to try to limit leaving the house to twice a week.

Because I now have the pools (have to use them on these hot summer days) and the adult trike I just bought from a resident who is 91, and isn’t planning on riding it any more.

And an occasional concert. And a Mass/communion service twice a month. And a very occasional resident’s meeting or management/resident meeting or…

It isn’t the time commitments

And the occasions are all pleasant, not too taxing (for the normal person) and something to do.

Plus the many decisions (we bought new mattresses!) involved in having a new home (I got the new doctor, after about a HUNDRED hours over four weeks, to give me the exact SAME pain prescription I’ve been using for fifteen or more years).

I still don’t have a California driver’s license; it’s next on the list. I think.

But the time commitments have been far more than I had before.

And I’m trying to keep up with a few friends back home, and my family in Mexico.

What I’m trying to say is the brain isn’t reaching writing strength

as frequently as I need it to.

For as long as I need it to.

I sit at this computer every day, doing all the things that usually worked in the past – blocking the internet, taking B-1 and B-12 (I’ve now added a Vitamin C pill), pacing and taking naps as needed, trying not to eat carbs (they mess with my mind – but I had dessert last night).

But the creative brain isn’t clicking on, and when it does, it doesn’t stay on for long.

I think it’s tired of me diverting its output to mail, doctors, phone calls (necessary), minor new things, major new things, and legacy stuff.

To give the ol’ brain some help

I’m trying the last ME/CFS managing trick I had saved for a time like this: Low-dose naltrexone (LDN).

It has helped many people with ME (and other things) function.

I want less brain fog.

But it may eventually help with pain and sleep and possibly some of the exercise intolerance, and maybe the orthostatic intolerance. I dunno.

I’m taking it for less brain fog – and there are no guarantees.

It was prescribed to me by a neighbor/doctor who used it with his patients.

But back in New Jersey I could still manage to write

Most of the time. Slowly. By not leaving the house. By doing almost nothing.

And you don’t mess with what works.

So I’ve had the capsules for two years without trying them.

Brain creativity doesn’t seem to be coming back, or not fast enough, or strongly enough.

Thing is, there’s a ramp up period for LDN

To avoid side effects, and overdosing, the recommendation (I have a nice FB group with supportive knowledgeable people) is to start very low (0.3mg for me), and not increase the dose more often than about every two weeks IF you aren’t having continuing bad side effects.

Because I AM having (minor) side effects – when I change the dose (so far twice). And one of those is disturbed sleep – until you get used to the dose!

All I can say so far, after a month, and two steps on the dosing schedule, is that I’m tolerating the LDN.

And that there seems to be a positive effect on several areas, small, but I can’t REALLY tell yet, and, though I can work a bit longer at a time (‘work’ defined as ‘butt in chair’), I haven’t gotten enough better yet in achieving the level of brain functioning that I need to write reliably.

Something extra: it may help with walking, some, by diminishing the pain walking now causes.

What does the future hold?

Dunno. And LDN is NOT a cure for CFS or POTS or any of the other symptoms. Especially it is not known to be a cure for fatigue or exercise intolerance.

I have plenty of time – the move was the correct solution for so many things: social isolation, shedding the requirement for house and yard and vehicle maintenance, being prepared for when we need higher levels of care (it’s downstairs, and people there are still part of the community), better weather, exercise facilities (for my poor joints and muscles)…

My best hope is that these hours on the computer will start being my happy time again, my functional time, my ‘she has a brain’ time, and NETHERWORLD will get finished and published.

I’m spending a small amount of this current time in promotion – getting more reviews – and hand-selling. I will tell later if anything comes of any of it.

But there has been a LOT of change, and it takes time to absorb change and to adjust to a new system of everything.

I’m on it.

It’s slow – but I hope it will speed up soon.

And I’m still writing every day – yesterday I watched Bollywood wedding dance videos. For NETHERWORLD.

And how are you?

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Finding readers who must be yours

DEMOGRAPHICS IS NOT THE WAY TO YOUR FANS

I HAVE BEEN WRACKING MY BRAIN since I got the idea for Pride’s Children. In the year 2000.

Because marketing is consumed by demographics – to women of a certain age and income; to children; to men who own pickup trucks.

From SnapSurveys:

Demographics are characteristics of a population. Characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, education, profession, occupation, income level, and marital status, are all typical examples of demographics that are used in surveys.

Mar 12, 2012

Birds of a feather flock together.

I need a different kind of marker

Something that has to do with the kind of reader people are, and the type of books they pick on their own.

When I get the chance to ask, my readers usually have some of the following features:

• They have read a lot, starting in childhood
• They have read classics – for pleasure – and were not forced to; books such as Jane Eyre and A Christmas Carol and Pride and Prejudice
• They’ve read good contemporary books of their times – Rebecca and The Thorn Birds and Gone With the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird and The Complete Sherlock Holmes
•  Their repertoire often includes good SF and Fantasy, such as The Lord of the Rings and Dune and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and On the Beach

But some of my best reviews have come from older men, and some of my best readers are young women, and my incredibly supportive fan is Marian Allen who is in my general age group.

How on Earth do you call that a demographic?

There are hints

One reader told me he had learned a lot about himself, and would be rereading.

Another has told me he was surprised to be pulled in.

Others have mentioned liking my writing.

Someone wrote:

you have managed the best instance of “the story is not finished, but this segment of it feels finished” that I have ever encountered

Many start, and put it off because they find a density they want to read slowly – and I wonder if they ever get back.

My return visit had me entrapped in Prides Children and I haven’t GOT TIME, but maybe just a little more…supper time… must go…one more section… but just wanted to say its VERY GOOD, and what an ironic and sharp eye you have for le mot juste, and the silence pregnant. Very enjoyable, no sign of the damaged mind but I resonate strongly with your main character’s memory lapses and undefined connections of perfect lucidity once connected for the more lumpen Elise! I have not yet reached her TV appearance but it beckons. [italics mine – the TV appearance is very early in PURGATORY!]

I poke at it with the damaged mind

I wonder why there hasn’t been more recommending to friends who read.

I wonder when Elena Ferrante’s mystique is debunked, and suddenly her work isn’t as good.

I wonder when there should be a niche for disabled/chronically ill authors, with a little bit of slack from the establishment – and they tell me they are not taking indie self-published authors, while there are few in the category who get published by the traditional publishers. A pro bono approach I could submit to.

I wonder when I watch younger, healthier authors putting gobs of time into keywords and marketing and boxed sets and book magnets and publishing more books – and there is no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks I can do any of that.

In this, my model, if you like, is John Kennedy Toole, who didn’t do any of that, because he was dead. A Confederacy of Dunces was pushed by his mother after he died by suicide, and won a Pulitzer after it attracted (was forced onto) the attentions of an influential writer, Walker Percy.

I need a Mentor, an Influencer, someone with a Voice

And haven’t a clue how to get one.

I need to ‘go viral,’ when that is as intangible as you can get.

I need to do only the writing, and am told over and over that all authors want this, and should get off their duffs.

I think I would do a great deal better on the writing side if I had some confidence in ideas which might pan out – and that I could actually do.

I listen, I learn, I think. I follow, I read, I think more.

I’ll figure it out – or literally die trying. Morbid? Realistic?

I’ve started a hundred tiny brush fires, at great expense in time and effort. One of these days, one will burn down the fences.

And if you’re in one of my categories – or can add to that list – please let me know.

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Thanks to Stencil for the ability to make graphics.

Also let me know if WordPress is causing you grief by putting in ads; supposedly the ones on a desktop go below the posts, but I understand the ones to mobiles can be intrusive.

Stories promise more than they deliver

I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE TELLING PRETTY STORIES

There is no direct correlation between the most detailed, elaborate story you can tell – and the ‘real life’ it may be based on.

We know that – and ignore it – every time we read, and not just read fiction.

Choices are made. Real life is edited – to make more sense. To make any sense at all.

Even the language we use for stories has too many choices.

But the core? Is the core something worth while?

Most writers don’t even ask themselves this question; they just start writing.

But I had a period when I wondered if it was somehow wrong to tell tales that couldn’t be true, could never happen.

Duplicate oldies!

I was surprised to find I had boosted the same old post twice in less than a month. Clearly, I need to remember what I’ve done – and keep track better!

I’ll do another Oldie but Goodie soon – and put the actual date instead of an approximate one in the heading.

Let me get some sleep, some bloodwork, and some writing done first tomorrow. Sigh.

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Keeping books alive while finishing writing

Baby is a coffee plant; it’s finally unfurling

BABY IS A METAPHOR

And a real live coffee plant.

Yes, those are three other coffee beans.

We moved Feb. 5, and soon after that, one of the other residents dropped this off outside our door, based on a discussion he and my husband had about growing a coffee plant both as greenery and for the purpose of some day processing the beans – and making a cup of coffee from scratch.

The photos I posted before were of the barely emerged cotyledons (the first pair of leaves from a seed).

Water – specifically too much watering – is a problem for seedlings, and I was determined not to kill off the first living thing someone had given us a present in our new community.

But I was in no real condition to take care of a plant, and we were all winging it.

Becoming a plant midwife by necessity

The thing just sat there on the windowsill for days.

Mindful of the over-watering bit, I scrambled to put just a drop or two of water on the hard outer seed coating keeping the leaves enchained. Several times a day, I would paint the surface with a drop of water, hoping to hydrate the membrane so the plant could push the leaves out.

The giver had said something about helping the leaves emerge, and after days of the water-painting big, I finally decided to try something more proactive. I was convinced I’d already killed the thing anyway.

This is all happening after a move

The final move. To our apartment, the one that has two bedrooms and baths, and had taken three months to customize for us.

More disruptive than I could have known, the move took the few things I had managed to fish out of boxes for the temporary apartment (and five months is a long time to essentially live out of a suitcase) – and threw them in boxes to be transported up one floor, and over three units.

I lost everything all over again.

And I have not been so exhausted in a long time. I still am. ME/CFS doesn’t give you more energy because the stress level increases; the opposite is true.

Because, as everyone else knows, when you change apartments every single item has to be moved from one to the other. It isn’t a gentle thing.

The movers were great (and put our bed with the light bridge finally back together with all the pieces – it had been separated last May!), but the results were still as if a bulldozer had been used.

How is this relevant?

I couldn’t find anything to work with!

This is a tiny plant an inch or so tall, with twin stems, and I knew I could break the seed heads off with one careless or clumsy move.

Exhaustion isn’t helpful when doing fine work.

Finally, after a search through the Amazon boxes (because those contained the more recent stuff, as having been packed after the long move; the things from the original packing were in Home Depot boxes), I found my emergency sewing kit, and the perfect tool: a dressmaker’s pin with a  spherical plastic head to grip and a very fine point.

Midwifery successful

With the pin, and shaking fingers, I slashed at the confining cover little by little until I could fold away most of the hard casing, and over the next two days a wrinkled green thing emerged from each seedhead. At the beginning, it looked like the surface of a tiny brain.

Then the hydraulic pressure unfurled them a bit, and I was surprised to see two leaves separate from each.

They are very shiny. You may be able to see that the liberating process left a few tiny holes in the leaves. My bad, but it’s free!

Also, you can see that the other three coffee beans are starting to rot (the one in the foreground has turned almost black), which is how these get started.

Of course, this means they will need their own coffee cups one of these days.

This is a metaphor for the way things are going

Because more and more people here have read PC, and all my print copies are out being read, and one person even insisted on buying the copy from me.

I have had to order a proof copy in the new system, as these are no longer being printed by Createspace.

If it’s basically identical, and uses the correct pdf files for cover and interior (I have heard horror stories), then I’ll have to get a few more author copies to have around.

None of this is marketing

My bugaboo.

As soon as the current situation improves (I actually finally started last night with something easy, and unpacked a couple of boxes today), in two or three hundred years at the present rate, I will plunge into both finishing Book 2 and marketing Book 1.

But meanwhile, I continue to find new readers one at a time, here and online, and some encouraging comments.

I’m sure the frazzled mental state is temporary.

I hope Baby makes it, too.

Do you have stories of forcing something to stay with us?

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Knit up the ravelled sleave of writers’ cares

FINDING THE PERESTERO

I was just napping.

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care

Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene 2

where, apparently, sleave is correct, because:

Macbeth wasn’t talking about the arm of a garment; it wouldn’t really make sense. He was talking about a tangled skein, of silk or other material, which makes perfect sense. And for that, the spelling — which the original author used, correctly – is “sleave.”

Says https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/5/messages/517.html

The Thesaurus on my copy of Scrivener provides:

unravel verb

1 he unraveled the strands: untangle, disentangle, separate out, unwind, untwist, unsnarl, unthread. ANTONYMS entangle.

2 detectives are trying to unravel the mystery: solve, resolve, clear up, puzzle out, unscramble, get to the bottom of, explain, clarify, make head(s) or tail(s) of; figure out, dope out. ANTONYMS complicate.

3 society is starting to unravel: fall apart, fail, collapse, go wrong, deteriorate, go downhill, fray. ANTONYMS succeed.

pick your favorite for my life right now.

I don’t want you all to think I’ve gone dark.

I’m really just OVERWHELMED (I’ve talked about the two reasons Alan Lakein gives in his book How to get control of your time and your life for procrastinating on tasks; the other is UNPLEASANT). Overwhelmed is better; it yields to lists, and small tasks getting started and a whole slew of other relatively easy tasks; Unpleasant tasks need severe shock tactics some times.

Part of that reason (for being behind on blogging) is that whenever there is the smallest chance that I won’t be interrupted after I corral my brain and get it ready to work, I go to the next step in the next scene in Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD, which is slowly coming along (I’m in India right now!), because that is always my first priority, and the reason I initiated this whole move-to-California in the first place.

I just woke up from the weirdest – but most logical – dream

In my dream, we (which turned out to be my husband and I, not my parents and I) were redoing the flooring in the house in Lindavista, Mexico City (I haven’t lived there since 1969, and was married out of that house in 1975, after which my parents sold it and moved to the country club, a house I only got to visit, not live in).

We are, however, using the blue tile that we’re using for our final (until we need Assisted Living) apartment here at the retirement community in Davis, but possibly only the same color dark blue tile, and the one we’re putting into Lindavista’s kitchen and dining room is linoleum, not ceramic – but linoleum dark blue tile was what we had in the house we occupied in Hamilton, NJ, not in Mexico.

In other words, the brain is trying to make sense of all this upheaval in living places.

To make it weirder, after I find Bill, and tell him that the tile man wants to know where the perestero is, I go off to the back of the house somewhere, and am using the little tea table that here sits between our TV-watching chairs, because it is the perfect place and size for me doing handstands (I keep trying and adjusting my position, each time getting a little higher) – and it feels so good.

This is all at the tail end (tale end?) of a dream

which was part of a 45 minute nap (on the timer), but stretched to 1.5 hours. Because I am so tired.

Yesterday, I literally fought with my brain, sitting in the dining lounge (because that was the only place I could find a clear table) with everything I needed to make scaled floor plan of the place we’re moving to (the longed-for two-bedroom, two-bath) to go with the scale cutouts of all the furniture we brought with us, so that I can tell the movers where everything goes. The brain gave me no help at all.

Because, after more than 1.5 months of accepting the offer of the 2-BR, 2-BA, and me thinking they could never get it finished at this rate before the end of February, so it would be okay to go visit our son in Colorado early in Feb., they suddenly got a move on (haha), and gave us a date of Feb. first.

Which is a Friday. They said we probably shouldn’t move on a Friday, as then the maintenance people here would not be available over the weekend to do such things as hook up the internet and washer/dryer (no, not to each other, but maybe? I hadn’t thought about the possibility until I just typed it).

During the nap, I have told myself to listen for either the phone or the iPhone because I’m waiting for the call back from the movers.

So back to the perestero:

I told the tile guy in that Mexico part of the dream that my dad had let me help lay tile with the blue stuff, though I know that the only time I may have ‘helped’ Daddy lay tile was when we were living in Whittier, and I was five, and I was fascinated how the little tile hexagons were attached on the back by a mesh, and how he was soaking them in a bucket to get the paper backing off. That would have been around 1955. He was, I believe, tiling the shower in the second bathroom of that little house (yup, two bedrooms).

By the way, even though ‘perestero’ sounds like Spanish, and you should pronounce it that way (because that’s the way it was in the dream), it is no Spanish word I ever heard, so I haven’t the faintest idea where it came from. Maybe my sisters will know, if they  read this!

And back to the move

(and here you thought I never would!)

The mover guy comes on Monday at 2pm, January twenty-eighth, to discuss a move I’m hoping will happen Feb. 5,6, or 7 – less than a week later.

We have rescheduled middle child for the last weekend of February, whether we’re unpacked at ALL by then, because that’s the whole point of the CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) concept – you can walk away whenever you like without worrying about plants, house, yard, mail – anything – without coming home to a disaster.

Assuming we can find enough underwear for a weekend, and some of our cold-weather clothes – I’ve been wearing the same pair of sandals almost every day since Aug. 28th, 2018 – as Colorado may have cold and snow. Or may not.

The only thing that will hold up that visit is the government shutdown, and I refuse to tackle that right now (or ever; it’s above my pay grade).

My apologies for the dark blog

Although I must confess that the main reason you’re getting this is that the dream required recording, and I thought it might entertain my patient and reliable readers.

And whoever is reading a copy of PURGATORY in KU: could you please finish? You started Jan. 28th, and I’m on tenterhooks, because right now, you’re the only person I know for sure is reading it. And a review would be lovely if, rather than abandoning it, you are merely taking your time (there was an initial burst of pages over four days, then a gap, and then another burst, and then nothing for a couple of days…).

I would really like to think that, after I get back to writing, there are lovely somebodies waiting for the results.

And how are you?

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When you’re heard, good may happen

SMALL STEPS LEAD TO MILESTONES

There’s no point moving cross-county if you’re not going to improve some things in your life.

Improving the physical plant happened today in two ways.

We have what should be our permanent home in Independent Living.

Moving in is in the future some time, because they are changing a whole lot of ‘features’ into what is their new ‘standard’ for these units. So this unit, which has not had a lot of things done to it since it was built in 2000, will have just about everything changed.

I saved the basic list from an email I wrote a friend in Australia:

• They’re going to completely re-do the place, as it hasn’t been done for many years.
• We will get new kitchen cabinets and appliances. New counter tops.
• They will install our washer and dryer.
• New flooring throughout. We get to choose what, and colors.
• Crown molding lighting – and ceiling fans (they move the air-conditioned air and heat noiselessly on the lowest setting, so the heat-exchanger doesn’t come on as often – quieter).
• The bathrooms will be done – completely new shower and counter and sink in the master bath, and I want an accessible shower in the other one, which will be mine! All mine! for the first time in my life. I HATE sharing bathrooms.
• All the window treatments.

Plus whatever we want (there may be some walls moved, doors covered, etc., depending on where Bill’s office area ends up).

So quite a lot, and apparently the contractors aren’t fast, and the holidays slow things down even further.

It is a bit sad in there right now – and their plan is to bring things up to the current standard every time a unit is occupied by new tenants.

We may not be in before Christmas, but a girl can hope.

Thing is, the sooner we make OUR choices, the sooner the whole thing gets underway. So I will be nagging. Or whatever it is called when you’re the squeaky wheel.

We will have to pay for any serious upgrades; I will see what I can get due to being disabled – there are strong laws in California about accessibility. [Note: not much that applies to personal spaces such as apartments; plenty for public buildings.]

Meanwhile, I’m also upgrading me

I had my intake visit with the lovely Heather from the physical therapy department.

She’s what got me thinking on the topic of being heard, because, for the first time in a long time, I’m taking charge of the improvements for the body I inhabit.

I like the system here with our new U. California-Davis Medical Center (UCDMC) doctors. They have the first patient portal I have ever used which has me raving about setting it up and using it.

Just think: if you send an email to your doctor, he or she will respond within 48 hours. Unprecedented in New Jersey. And the portals back there were the most awful things to set up and messages through.

Here they put up your test results as soon as they’re available, and just casually mention your doctor hasn’t seen them yet. In NJ, the law said you could have them, but it was like extracting teeth from small fowl, and somehow they were never available soon, and never before the doctor had seen them: bad technology trumped obeying the law.

So, back on topic, I requested a referral to PT here in this facility, and the doctor not only did it without making me go visit him, but it was handled internally AS IF I WERE THE PAYING CLIENT. They called when they received it, made an appointment immediately, and I just popped on down.

Heather listened, and did what many places don’t seem to bother with: she asked my opinion, and my goals, and then very carefully assessed where I am. Then she proceeded to give me exactly what I asked for: exercises to strengthen the lower back to support walking. She listened about the ME/CFS, and how much energy I don’t have, and took that all into account. She will see me once a week, so I can do things at my own pace – something no other PT place has ever ‘allowed’ (they all wanted, and said insurance would only pay for, a 3 times a week schedule).

Delving into the devil in the details

I don’t know if there will be snags in the PT. I’m pretty sure the remodeling may have some, as we were given no lists and no budget, and some things, when I asked the same question several times, would finally yield a different answer.

We’ll see for both, but this is why we came here: to have options.

PT is downstairs. A couple of elevators and corridors away. The amount of energy that will save me, which can be used to do the PT, is prodigious. I can actually see doing enough of this to find out how much my walking can be improved.

Surgery is not on my list, especially not now, as I haven’t found an orthopedic surgeon who actually listened, and who could promise more than maybe. Also, it takes us ME/CFS types a LONG time to heal, 6-12 months after the surgery which has led to me not walking, back in 2007. It is too long to do again unless I have firm promises, and the logical thing to do is PROPER PT, not PT for little old ladies as I had before.

Also, I made sure we picked the UCDMC system as the only local one with a teaching hospital (though, alas, it is in Sacramento, not Davis – huh? – but it’s not that far), and this place does post-surgical rehab right here, and they apparently spoil you in Skilled Nursing while you recover. So, if the PT doesn’t do what I need, I’ll see what else there is – but from the point of actually doing everything I can (I’m one of the young ‘uns here) that should be done FIRST (the PT in New Jersey before the spinal fusion was a joke).

Teaching hospitals usually have the best facilities, and I’m hoping, orthopedists.

The PT people here are set up for old people! They work with our kinds of problems. Spinal stenosis (narrowing of the channel which has your spine in it) is quite common, as are walking problems. I’ve seen a lot of things in other people, and talked to many, here.

Maybe they have solutions.

So, not blogging much

Because this reconnecting to things we dumped in New Jersey is, quite frankly, boring. We did it deliberately, and it is taking forever to re-build a life, but everyone who has moved further than ten miles knows how it is.

Doing everything we should. Trying all the activities and swimming in the outdoor pool. Still have no car – and still haven’t jumped through the last hoop (getting a CA driver’s license) because there has been no time (and the studying first is a good idea).

But finally the two-bedroom is on the horizon. And we can actually finish unpacking, and hang the paintings, and have something other than off-white on the floor.

Meanwhile, the Pride’s Children characters are starting to nag, and I keep trying to form some kind of a schedule and have a tiny bit of energy go to fiction. I have done no marketing in ages, and have sold maybe five copies in six months. You can really disappear that way. It’s a good thing I’m not a quitter!

As I always say: I’m working on it.

And how are you?

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May 12 – ME/CFS Awareness Day – again

AND AGAIN THERE ISN’T ENOUGH ENERGY TO GO

I am represented by my shoes. Thanks to the people who take the shoes, label them, place them where people stop and look and ask: my shoes represent one of the #MillionsMissing. Me.

I am represented by my fiction. Specifically, ALL my royalties for May 2018 will go to support #MEAction‘s fundraiser – because they are being activists for all of us who have ME/CFS and need medical recognition, research, and training. I’m not delusional, trust me. I’m just sick. Lots of us are. You can ignore us – and make us even more miserable than we already are. But you can’t make us go away and not be sick, and, like AIDS patients before us, we are holding you accountable for this misery – because those wo do nothing when they could are enablers of the misery.

I am represented by my blogs. This one, and Pride’s Children’s blog – where there is a new post! About me learning to use a new marketing book which may help me find the people who will read and love and be waiting for the next book in the trilogy (coming – as fast as I possibly can – this year, or next at the latest). A curious thing (to me) has been a whole bunch of people signing up to follow it and liking the posts – without ever going to that site. I suspect the word ‘marketing’ kicked some bots into gear, but traffic is traffic. It’s difficult for me to market when the people who have left 5* reviews range from young women in their 20s to older men in their 80s. I’m greedy. I want more of you.

I am represented by my Patreon, where at least one lovely patron and I are having very interesting discussions – and the patrons get to read Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD before anyone else. Curious? Drop by and read the free public posts – and ask yourself if you can REALLY wait another year…

I’m represented by my Facebook page, which is for RL friends and family, and a few extras (it’s not all that exciting, though I have boosted a few posts).

But I’m not represented by me. 😦 Because, as happened today, the spoons went to something silly and necessary that jumped to the top of the To Do list right during one of my four naps, and had to be done that minute. Today’s energy, and tomorrow’s, are used up already. And Sunday, I already know I won’t be able to go sing – there is nothing in the energy bank to allow me to do what I want to do. And I know perfectly well I’ll make myself much worse if I foolishly try. No problem – I can do it, go sing – but the cost will be days of staring at the wall, and I can’t afford them.

Thanks to all who are doing something and going to an event for May 12, ME/CFS Awareness Day – again, since we’re still not getting anywhere, and not only are we still sick, but new ones join us every day. I’ll be there in spirit. Spirits are invisible.