EXTREME PLOTTER’s dilemma: following through to the end

EXTREME PLOTTERS KNOW THE END

Somewhere in the process of writing the book, whether at the very beginning (I did), or somewhere along the path because things seem confused and nonsensical otherwise, a plotter looks for the story structure, and makes some important decisions.

They are not cast in pig iron.

They can, in principle, be changed – many a novel has ended up somewhere else.

But the extreme plotter makes few decisions lightly, because it will affect everything else in the story if structural changes are made.

The point of plotting is to free the imagination to create

And it does.

A solid structure makes it easier for some of us to launch the flights of fancy that say ‘this is how this happens,‘ because it will fit the rest of the story, and connect the pieces that go through it to what came before and will go after.

But it doesn’t account for dragging your feet

If you find out you don’t want to write something.

For whatever reason, the plan is going to cause you angst.

You, the writer.

You are going to read this later and weep.

You are going to allow something to happen that you will forever look to and say you wish it hadn’t happened. In fact, you are going to create it that way.

When you planned what was going to happen to these people

you didn’t know them as well as you do now, when the setup that has been coming for 267,000 words leads to an action at least one of the characters will regret – and you made them do it.

It is still perfectly logical, from that setup, that they will do it.

But you don’t wanna.

The logic is unassailable.

You cannot get to the END any other way.

Believe me, I tried.

But now the actual deed must be done, the betrayal executed, the trap laid sprung, the consequences invoked.

It is daunting to someone who is happier when the world and people work their problems out in some reasonable way: all three main characters will be forced through the wringer, and each one will have to do something they don’t want to do.

I lost my nerve there for a while

For some reason, it helps to spell it out and then share the process and the details that cause me agita.

I have known this day was coming from Day #1.

As few details may change in the actual telling.

But it’s happening, and it’s my fault, and I am not lifting a finger to save these characters from their destiny.

I’ll accept responsibility, but they’re going to that end, kicking and screaming.

Thanks for listening.

---

I think it’s all part of life, real and writer’s.

Please weigh in.

---

What do you do with infuriating reviews?

NOTHING

I won’t even defend the grammatical correctness of that statement in the picture: EVERYBODY has an opinion, most of them WRONG.

WRITERS put their opinions out into the world where anyone can read them.

Readers have opinions, too, and they get to express them in many places, one of which is the very modern REVIEW.

This is the system now, people.

Get used to it.

For all the complaints, the reviewing systems are not going to disappear because they have enfranchised the disenfranchised billions who never had a platform before, and now they do.

Moderators may keep the discussion to civil levels.

Insecure bloggers will delete or alter comments they don’t like from opinionated readers who disagree with them.

But I’m finding that I don’t spend much time reading the word of bloggers who don’t ever bother responding to their interlocutors. Not worth it. It has become a two-way street.

[Sort of. The pitifully awkward communication via mobile may be the ONE thing that destroys the system, because it is much harder to do on those tiny keyboards. But wait for good speech-to-text software and microphones that can pick up the speakers subvocalisations, and we may be back in business.]

Everyone’s a critic.

Today a writer whined about her first 1* review, on an FB group I participate in – after writing a bunch of books! Lucky woman. Most of us get a 1* on the first book!

I could tell you stories. In fact, I will. Below. Because one of those reviewers (not the 1* one this time, but bad enough) got MY goat. [Lovely thing, name of Billy, soft, intelligent, beautiful brown eyes… but I digress.]

Writers are asking for it

Literally. We want reviews. We want feedback. We want to know when our arrow has hit their bullseye.

But we don’t want their bullshite.

We want praise. Glorious and unstinting and erudite and literate (not the same thing) praise.

Because, to be able to write well (assuming that’s what the goal is; with some writers you wonder… but I digress), we have to sit at the keyboard and open all our veins to get enough blood to write with (takes lots of extra blood for all those sidetracks and failed attempts that occur with good writing… but I digress).

And being open is a target for, well, bullies. (Anyone who doesn’t like our prose is… darn it with the digressions today.)

Unconscious bullies. Jealous bullies. Bullies-who-had-a-bad-day.

What to do?

NOTHING.

Nothing overt or aimed at readers or argumentative or likely to start a flame war online!

There is enough garbage on the internet already.

And we have the example of very popular writers: pick your favorite, and your favorite book, and go look at the reviews. All of them. ESPECIALLY the negative reviews.

And remember, on AMAZON a 3* review is NEGATIVE/CRITICAL. Don’t believe me? Check those reviews on your favorite book’s page again: the 3*, 2*, and 1* are CRITICAL/NEGATIVE reviews.

On Goodreads, 3* is good, 4* is great, 5* is ‘best book I ever read.’ According to their rubric (I don’t make these things up – what’s the point when you can check so easily?).

On Amazon, 4* and 5* are good, 1*, 2*, and 3* are bad. Just to summarize that neatly for you.

Got it?

Find a place where it’s safe to vent (your own blog should be such a place, even though it’s pretty public, as long as you don’t identify anyone specific or any specific negative/critical review). Better still, complain only to friends and on closed writers’ groups, but it may not be as satisfying.

The upside?

Another review is another review. They keep adding up. SOMEONE is reading.

And reader/reviewers write their thoughts and opinions in their reviews; other people may read the reviews and gain more understanding of what they may be choosing to read. This is good, especially with the negative reviews.

But it ALWAYS points out to you that your ad copy, cover, description, back copy, quoted editorial reviews – everything up until the sample/Look Inside – is attracting certain readers. This should make you pause and THINK.

I know I have a lot of thinking to do (I knew that already, but it was far down on the To Do list, and has moved up quite a bit) when I get a negative review from someone who probably should not have read the book. Because it’s really not their kind of book – and I can’t change it to BE their kind of book. The story’s already set in concrete, all the way to the end of the trilogy, even the parts I haven’t written yet. The style, tone, characters, plot – all implacably going to be very similar to what is already published.

If someone states unambiguously they don’t like Mexican food, don’t give them a coupon and invite them to rate your Mexican restaurant. ‘Twill end badly on Yelp.

So our signals are crossed.

I’m glad they tried something obviously out of their regular reading zone. I’m very appreciative of their reviewing – most readers don’t, and it is an effort I appreciate. I’m not particularly pleased they rated the way they did, but I’m very glad they pointed out in their review what they liked and what they didn’t. That’s data for me, not for writing, but for marketing.

Not sure this counts as a rant, but it is an attempt to bang my head on the wall. Without doing too much damage – I’m slow enough already.

As an author, I do not go to my reviews and down rate the reviews I don’t like. It’s better if readers do that.

Now I’m going to take a nap. All this ranting wipes me out. Especially the ‘tread lightly’ part.

---

A reminder that Quozio and Stencil provide me ways to make images, gratis, and I would get a subscription if I needed more than a few graphics a month. This little bit of advertising – and the things I create with their tools – will have to be my form of payment for now. I AM grateful. The words, of course, are mine.

---

What’s your favorite negative review?

The pain of discovering typos in published work

ONLY GOD HAS NO TYPOS

Pride goeth before a fall

I know that. I expected that. And my typo rate was, I thought, rather low, especially considering that I ended up being, for reasons too long to go into, my own proofreader.

And I worked my tail off at it. It’s very hard to be critical of your own work. So? It’s part of the job.

Now, I have found egregious (well, to me) typos in traditionally published books – one major book on writing that I use almost daily has ‘principal’ (main, or the guy who is in charge of a school) instead of ‘principle’ (fundamental truth or morally correct behavior) not once, but twice – so the author got it wrong and the proofreader failed to correct it; or a proofreader got it wrong, changed it, and the author didn’t catch the incorrect correction. Or they both have no idea they don’t know.

I earmarked the place, and occasionally toy with the idea of sending a note to the author (which I don’t do – not my circus, not my monkeys). For future editions, you see. Because it is the kind of book that gets future editions.

But it amuses me to know it’s there. And I still love the book.

Proud of having low error rate, until…

I had found ONE wrong word, ONE extra ‘s’ at the end of a word, and a couple of places where, when doing the final formatting pass through MS Word (to get widow and orphan control, running headers and footers, and right margin indents for the print version of Pride’s Children), WORD inserted some stupidities (specifically, leaving –” as the only thing at the beginning of a line, 5 or 6 times) after I published.

They’re on my list of things to correct on the CreateSpace file (yeah, it’s on the to do list, somewhere in the 9000s). No one who reviewed has commented on those tiny typos, so they’re not all that significant in the flow (or my readers are being kind).

And all but the first two are not present in the ebook, which didn’t go through Word.

Acceptable. Imperfect, but not too much.

Possibly because my youngest daughter mentioned it (she finally read the book!!!), I was a little more attuned to a particular possibility when I was sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, reading my own book.

And then, wham! I saw it. I’m not even sure if it’s the same thing my daughter mentioned (though it may be), and I now know exactly what I did, and it really doesn’t affect the story that much.

But I am now aware of a FLAW that I, as a perfectionist, can’t let stand.

Easy to fix?

Can’t let it stand.

You know me.

I moved the idea of putting an errata page on prideschildren.com up on the list – so those lovely people who purchase the first book in the trilogy in paper can correct their own copies (not that many readers, but still…), possibly now aware that they have the coveted First Edition – flaws and all.

Or I can slink away, offering (consider yourselves offered to, if you are one of these wonderful people) a corrected copy as soon as I can make them, and being aware that they were either too kind to point this out to me, or, better, too engrossed in the story to even notice.

The ebook will be corrected (again, asap – not a fast possibility, either), so that anyone who downloads it again will automatically get the corrections. If they care. Because this new little typo is in both versions. [hangs head]

The good side

There’s ALWAYS a good side.

I caught it (before I had a chance to look up my daughter’s questioning whether I had it right). From reading it myself in a relaxed way, with nothing else to read. Rather than from it being scornfully pointed out by a reader. Rather less painful – or is it?

Because I’m indie and self-published, it is both my responsibility and my right to fix it (so I don’t have principal for principle for all eternity of this print run).

CreateSpace and Amazon make it easy to fix (haven’t done it yet, so that’s ‘easy in principle’ for now): I upload the corrected files (I believe), wait, and within a couple of days, I can hold my head up in public again.

I have added (mentally – that darn To Do list is so darn long) a few things to the ‘look out for’ list for my AutoCrit editing passes. Especially since my brain appears to be losing its mind, I will now examine every single ‘s in each scene because the world not understanding that plurals don’t have apostrophes is its problem, not mine. I will speak sternly to the brain, and it will whine that it’s so overburdened already, and I will remind it that I’m in charge.

Etc. I.e., I will improve my skills based on this little irritating contretemps.

And because I’m indie, I don’t have to deal with a proofreader about the whole thing.

So why am I making a big deal of this?

Because professional means that you worry about these details, and that you try to make the next one have fewer (not less) errors.

It’s good for me to see where improvement is necessary (believe me, there is a whole new process in place so this particular little error won’t recur).

And it actually bolsters my belief that self-editing, and learning from your self-editing how to be a better writer is critical.

I stand behind my own work, even in the tiny places.

For the future

It’s okay to point typos out to me if you notice them. I just got a wonderful email back after my beta reader read – and liked – the next chapter. I strive to send her finished work. And her wonderful nitpickiness tells me what she likes, asks questions which lead often to some wonderful back-and-forth, and always mentions the little things. She found two. I love her for that.

It also reinforces that doing the beta reading one chapter at a time has some significant advantages for me: a chapter is a reasonable size chunk of writing to deal with at a time. Things get noticed.

And I can’t see how this would possibly work with a traditional publisher, the timing, and the diffusing of responsibility. All while the writer is supposed to be writing the next book. Not for me, anyway.

So there it is. And no, you won’t find out from me what I did wrong (at least not until the Errata page comes out). If you didn’t notice, I’m not going to be the one to point it out. Nope.

Welcome to the wonderful world of independent writing. PLEASE feel free to contribute your own stories.

---

Thanks to Stencil and Quozio, my go to places for images. I’m resonsible for the silly words that appear in them.

How to self-edit fiction with AutoCrit

CAN A WRITER SELF-EDIT SUCCESSFULLY FOR PUBLICATION?

I keep getting into online discussions with editors (cui bono?) who insist that no writer of fiction can or should self-edit. Not for publication, they say. And they cite the example of so many self-published books which are full of typos and grammar mistakes and spelling errors as proof.

Yes, there are many self-published books which need better editing. According to Sturgeon’s Law (Theodore Sturgeon, 1918-1985, American SF author and critic):

90% of SF is crap, but then 90% of everything is crap.

My paraphrase, but it will serve. It is now being applied particularly to self-published work, but applies to traditionally-published work as well. We can argue about the percentages, but the point is that much work gets published without meeting someone’s standards.

Some of us care. A lot.

I happen to believe that the best gift an author can give herself is to learn to self-edit well enough for publication.

The reason is simple: If you can learn to produce quality work all by yourself, the READER gets the unvarnished best the writer can produce, UNALTERED by someone else.

Voice unaltered. Tone unaltered. Style unaltered. Judgment unaltered. Story unaltered.

The thing which makes a particular writer unique is preserved for the delectation of the reader. Artisanal. As all writing should be.

And it only comes from really being aware of what you write – and why.

Okay. Now that we have the WHY, let’s have the HOW:

Think of the best quality in published traditional work. You should aspire to better that standard.

This is not an easy task. There is learning. And failing. And getting appropriate feedback. And yes, making mistakes in judgment and execution.

But setting yourself a rigorous process, adding to that process as you learn, and following that process isn’t that hard. It just requires becoming aware of the difference between the story in your head, and the story on the page, and not quitting until the difference is as small as you can humanly make it. We call this ‘work.’ Hard work. I have made a contract with my readers that I will do this work before they get to read what I write.

It is work that is rewarded by making you a better writer. Big reward. Useful reward. And, in the long run, it will save you money, frustration, and dealing with people who don’t get your vision for your own work.

Enter the final mechanical stage.

Once I have used everything I have learned about writing from my teachers, books by Sol Stein, Donald Maass, Blake Snyder, the Dramatica team, and all the reference books off- and online, I have a scene or a chapter which needs to be cleansed of dead skin.

It isn’t ready for the beta reader until it is finished, but my ‘finished’ needs the final mechanical stage. I use AutoCrit for this purpose. As close as I can get to the original AutoCrit program which is basically a counter of terms and a comparer of those terms against a database. There is a new version; I’ve learned to ignore the new parts because the last thing in the world I would pay attention to is a program telling me what to write. Writing is my job.

I want the mechanical editor to tell me what I’ve done, in a very black-and-white way. I want it to count for me, because counting adverbs is the most boring thing I can think to do by human. Or counting the number of times a four-word phrase (each possible four-word phrase in my text) is used. Or counting the number of times I have used words or phrases (and showing me where they are). And making a list of unusual words.

For this I use certain specific sections of AutoCrit.

After pasting the text in, I visit the following menu items:

Strong Writing: Adverbs, Cliches, Redundancies, and Unnecessary Filler Words.

Word Choice: Generic Descriptions, and Personal Words and Phrases.

Repetition: Repeated Uncommon Words, Word Frequency, and Phrase Frequency.

For all of the above, I ignore the program’s nagging (such as ‘Remove about 3’ when it somehow decides that I have too many occurrences of ‘that’), because for me, AutoCrit is only an automated counter doing the dirty work for me because I’m too lazy to do it myself (and know that humans given mechanical tasks make huge mistakes because they get BORED).

I do NOT use other sections. Why? Because they judge me. Or someone wrote a little piece of text to put there that sounds just like it. Once we go from comparing the number of times I use ‘that’ to the average for fiction in their database, I have all the information I want from an algorithm.

Pièce de résistance: how to use the information.

This is the writer’s job: every single counted detail from my text, generated easily by a program, is now subject to the final test: Is this the way I want it?

In other words, it’s back to me. Not with suggested ‘improvements.’ Just counted, and displayed for me to decide if it serves my final intent to have the text stay the way I wrote it (remember, I considered it pretty much finished before I tossed it into AutoCrit).

If it shows me clichés from its database that I have used, I have to decide if the character using the cliches uses cliches. Some do, some don’t. Clichés are neither good nor bad. For some characters I will keep the cliché but try to make the sentiment unique again – which leads to some pretty interesting substitutions from that subconscious brain.

If it shows me I have used one of my personal words a certain number of times (my worst lately tends to be ‘get’ and its variations ‘got’ and ‘getting’ and ‘gotten’ – all of which I’ve input to my personal words file in AC), I will decide 1) if there are too many, 2) if they are the only way to say something (rare), 3) if they have a literary intention (parallel structure often leads to word repetition the database can’t account for),…

Generic Descriptions usually have to be separated into two piles: those in dialogue (and even those benefit by tweaking) which mark a specific character; and those in the internal monologue where I dump what other people use a narrator for (It was a dark and stormy…), ie, description. I may have a very good reason (really) for using the generic description, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded to check.

I never, ever, use AC’s Homonyms tab, because it is excessive, and I can spell, and have NEVER yet found myself using the wrong homonym. Okay, maybe two or three times in the 3.5 MILLION words I’ve put through AC, but NOT by using the Homonyms tab. Too much stuff to process – there are a lot of homonyms in English, and they will find all of them and offer what seems like every other word in a red box. There must be a better way to do that mechanically (don’t mark every ‘you’ because it might be ‘ewe’); meanwhile, I put those words I might misspell by accident into my Personal Words file (though, thought, through, thorough).

Summary

First, examine every single kind of counted word or phrase that you might not otherwise catch, and

Last, decide whether and how to fix it: you’re the author – it’s your baby.

Very simple.

It still takes time, and a lot of effort, and a lot of thinking, and going back and forth to Scrivener with the text of a scene.

I find I can do about 5-10 corrections at a time, after which I save the results in Scrivener, get a fresh copy of the text, paste it into AC, and re-process that tab/menu/submenu.

All other types of errors – spelling, punctuation, point of view consistency, chronology and plotting, content (was this character a red-head?) – should have been eliminated (by me, the spellchecker, and a dictionary/thesaurus) before I use AC.

But I care – and I’m not using my beta reader except as a first reader. For what should be finished work, so she has as clean an experience as I can make. I don’t want her pristine read complicated by anything that distracts her from the flow; when she tells me something doesn’t work for her, it is going to be taken very seriously.

---

And that is how I use AutoCrit (I have a Lifetime membership – worth every penny) to do what no human editor should be asked to do (count) and what I don’t want an editor to do (change ANY of my words, which includes suggesting I change them). They may not be happy about this, but it is the least traumatic way for me.

I really should stop even clicking on those ‘everything needs an editor’ posts. Their authors, some of them editors, hate people like me.

How to pick a forever home

CHOOSE VERY, VERY CAREFULLY!

I’m in the middle of a huge search.

For a while now I have been staring the rest of my life, so to speak, in the face.

It has become – even before the events earlier this year which resulted in three stents – very obvious that living in a 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath NJ suburban home was becoming untenable.

Like the older pet which needs to be rehomed so it can live out its remaining days in relative peace, I can’t handle the little I used to be able to handle of my life – without some major changes.

ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ASSUMES YOU HAVE SOME CHOICES.

When you have no choices to make, you live the best you can, going along from one step to the next as well as you’re able. Your choices are dictated by the moment, by an illness, by something external you have no control over.

To a large extent, this depends on prior choices – did you take care of yourself physically? And did that work for you? Did you put some money into savings – assuming there was some to spare? Have you invested in a house which can be sold now? Are you able to move if that’s the best choice, or does something anchor you in place?

If you are poor, your choices are limited all the way along life.

If your health is not good, your choices are extremely limited. I’ve dealt with that one myself for 27+ years, with no end in sight; any change in that part of my life will be created, within the disease of CFS by me, and without, by some unknown researcher some day. Even if a cause and treatment are found, or a treatment only, there is no guarantee that it will reverse the damage I live with. Me managing like crazy, just to stay on a slowly-declining plane, is already doing the best that I can.

If life is unkind, you are already stuck, but there may be a possibility of becoming unstuck some day.

Facing the facts in time

Many people wait too long to make the decision where to go, what to do – and end up making that decision by accident, when a life crisis comes along.

Friends of my parents gave me a model. I didn’t understand it at the time, since they were living in a fair amount of material comfort in Guadalajara, but they went and bought into a community in, I believe, El Paso, TX. J at least was an American citizen, and one or both of them would probably have had Medicare by that age, and possibly they wanted to be in a place with access to American hospitals and healthcare. I know none of the details, but it seemed odd at the time (my own parents didn’t do the same, due to large extended family in Mexico City, and more limited funds) because of their family in Guadalajara, but now I see they were making a decision for a whole bunch of things while they were still capable and competent to make those decisions.

It has stuck with me, even though it has taken until the last couple of years for me to see the why.

I began four or five years ago to seriously consider the future. The kids were not all launched, but that time was coming closer.

I remember pointing out the advantages to a planned change – rather than a chaotic one induced by circumstances – to a colleague in a support group who was older, and whose wife was older, as well as to family.

No one listened; and the colleague’s wife now has advancing dementia – making it very difficult for him to move, for her to adjust to somewhere new, and for her to help in the decision and the move. Family has reached a different solution, and it was as a response to crises, just as I predicted, crises that might have been avoided.

The stories are everywhere: people whose parents refused to ‘be put in a home’ until a major illness or crisis caused a non-optimal solution to be hastily implemented. People who didn’t move until one of a couple faced significant health problems, at which point it was too late to enjoy the move.

We are fortunate to have options

Which is almost funny, since the story of my life lately is that I’m completely out of options.

I preach the necessity of disability insurance, if it is at all possible (and recommend you pay for it yourself – which has huge tax advantages if you need it), because you are five times more likely to become disabled during your working years than to die – and everyone has life insurance, but most don’t have disability insurance. Private disability insurance goes beyond SS disability (which is downright stingy): it kept us middle class when I became unable to work.

Consider also the possibility of a disability lasting long enough that you really need some built-in inflation protection. I had none, and it really hurt.

I would have been able to save more money had I worked. I prefer working – keeping myself sane these many years has not been easy.

So, facing the decision of what to do with the rest of our life is happening with me still sick, but with some retirement accounts and a house which can be sold.

The parameters to the decision

I am fortunate to have a living spouse in reasonably good health – right now. In fact, I would like to preserve that health: when he goes out to clear the snow or mow the grass on a hot humid day or prune bushes standing on a platform, I worry. I used to help with the snow – can’t do that any more (but he FINALLY bought a snowplow). I used to do a fair amount of the weeding – can’t do that any more, because sitting on the ground or a low chair or bending over cause significant pain over the next couple of days, and that heat and humidity are probably what landed me in the hospital this last time.

So he’s doing ALL the work, and even with some help from an assistant, he’s still IN CHARGE of all the work. We had people last year; they were ultimately unsatisfactory.

Taking care of house and yard consumes too much of his energy, all of mine, and just has to be done again. That doesn’t even take into account ‘things that go wrong,’ such as the roof or the AC or the driveway or the trees that die.

So, the obvious is a place where we do none of the maintenance work, in or out.

Another stressor has been how hard it is to leave the house to go somewhere for a vacation, added to how long it takes us to pack – and leave the house so someone else can do the bare minimum. Homeownership had its joys when we did everything ourselves (BC – before children); then it became just work while the kids were home and things got done when they had to be done, in among all the other chores; now it’s impossible.

Pet care – you’d never believe how hard it is to take care of one tiny chinchilla, and how difficult to arrange for someone to keep her alive while we’re gone. Impossible without an assistant (thank goodness I have one now for a few hours every week), still tricky even with someone who potentially can drop by every couple of days to make sure Gizzy has food and water and the AC hasn’t died (if it gets too hot, she won’t make it – that thick silky fur coat). Already seriously considering finding her another home (anyone want a slightly spoiled chinchilla?), and am making sure anywhere we consider allows pets in case she goes with us.

These will be the best years we have left

Seems obvious, but we’re not getting any younger.

I want a place where I can make the big push for 1) getting as much exercise as the CFS will allow, 2) making the best use of any improvements in walking ability, 3) hoping that reduced stress will contributed to better overall health and mobility.

This means I need a year-round pool and gym, and PT people on-site, somewhere I can actually get to without spending a day of my energy.

And we need bike paths. Even though I can’t go far, not being able to walk doesn’t mean I can’t ride a bike! My limitation is actually the energy – I can go short rides, hope to be able to increase those a bit.

And I want good weather: in NJ, if you miss a ‘good day,’ there may not be another for a while. I grew up in Southern California and Mexico City, where weather was a stable thing, and the next day would be much like today, and both would be pleasant. Then, going out to do something will be governed by whether I have the energy today, not by whether it’s feasible!

I require a heated year-round pool. No quarter given on this one: I’m a water baby, even if I’m not actually swimming, and I’m not moving somewhere for the rest of my life that doesn’t have a pool. Not happening.

I tell the spouse that the next 5-10 years of our lives are the good ones – and if we are to do ANY traveling, it will be now. I want to see my mother and my extended family in Mexico, possibly at family reunions in Michigan. I want to go to the beach in the Riviera Maya or in places like Acapulco and Huatulco, which have warm ocean water in the winter. Because I know I can do these – at my extremely slow pace (once I cope with a week of packing and survive the week when we come back). I want to spend time doing a vacation with the kids while it still is fun for most of the family.

The solution? I’m working my tail off to find it

California has, at last count, 102 CCRCs (Continuing Care Retirement Communities) – places we can move to and get all those things above.

Some of them are unsuitable because they are retirement communities for particular religious groups we don’t belong to; others are urban and have no pool; still others are way too expensive for us (I’ve eliminated all the for-profits). Some would make it difficult for me to get to the gym or pool – my time being coherent is also limited, and the more energy I expend in getting, the less time I have for the activity; the independent cottages, ‘just a short walk away,’ seem, by definition, to require more health to get to the pool or gym – I believe an apartment in the same building as the facilities is my best option.

The CCRC concept is doing well. It is recommended you stick with places over 90% occupancy (proof of continuing fiscal responsibility), but when a place is 98% full, by definition there are few units left! People move on to assisted living or nursing home care (a CCRC by definition has both available to its residents when they need the next step), and some pass on, but the rates are not high, and I’d like to move fairly soon (once the pesky house is dejunked and sold).

It is a lot of research work and no one can do it for you. Not really. I have spent hours talking to nice sales and marketing people – only to hang up and realize there is no way we can afford their lovely CCRC. The main reason: they don’t put their prices on their websites (probably because then people won’t call and talk to the nice salespeople), but it is inefficient and wearying when you really do know how much you can afford and what you need, which most people on this search don’t yet. A tendency to put information such as ‘apartments start at…’ out for view means people think they might be able to swing it – and then can’t when the range of prices becomes known.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina

I’ll figure it out. We’ll pick 5-8 of these places, and then take ‘the trip’: stay in a few, see the physical plant, smell the nursing home portion (apparently, that’s the biggie – clean places take work and money), and have lunch with some residents in assisted living to see how they are really living – and being treated.

Then we will make a decision, hope the house-selling sill support that decision, and spend an enormous amount of my good time – and all of husband’s – actually doing this.

The average age of entrance used to be 80; it’s already dropping as people realize they can’t live worry-free if they have a house on their hands. Even with a lot of money and a lot of help, it’s a constant set of chores.

Think about this sooner, rather than later, if this kind of solution to our common problem appeals to you. Time goes by much faster than you expect.

Wish us luck (even if you would never consider leaving your home, or living with a bunch of strangers horrifies you).

 

 

Heart Sisters is an amazing blog

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO PASS ON INFORMATION

I have been reading post after post on Carolyn Thomas’s blog, Heart Sisters, and I want to pass on the information that it is FULL of stories about how heart attacks and other cardiac events are different in women – and how bad we are at paying attention to some of the symptoms, and getting ourselves safely (don’t drive yourself, don’t let someone drive you – call 911) to the ER.

All about women and heart disease from the unique perspective of CAROLYN THOMAS, a Mayo Clinic-trained women’s health advocate, heart attack survivor, blogger, speaker on the west coast of Canada

My suggestion? Go visit – and read a few posts.

Then BOOKMARK the blog for the future, for when you may need the information from a woman’s perspective that will make you do the right thing.

The link above goes to the archives. I wish I’d had this information before today – everything I’ve been reading and writing was in reaction to the distinctly male style of research papers.

Medicine could really use an overhaul of how it presents information to women; meanwhile, we have Carolyn.

Do not allow Old Lady Medicine

DOCTOR’S EXPECTATIONS DETERMINE YOUR MEDICAL CARE

Fight for your life and your chances

Husband hands me a magazine, the Health Check that our local hospital, Robert Wood Johnson at Hamilton (formerly Hamilton Hospital), sends out to everyone whose address they’ve ever received for any reason.

In it, it talks about the McKenzie method – a way for people to reduce back pain and sciatica by doing a series of exercises which reduce the pain and then strengthen the back.

And the suggestion to do this is given by the orthopedists for a woman who is ‘a dancer’ and very active. So she avoids surgery. And they are proud of themselves because they helped her ‘avoid surgery’ (PS: she had the same diagnosis I did, spondylolisthesis – vertebrae out of alignment).

THEY DIDN’T EVEN MENTION THE EXERCISES TO ME BEFORE SURGERY.

I was over 50, and had CFS already. I told them EVERY SINGLE VISIT that I wanted to walk properly again. They didn’t even send me for PT for walking.

Be warned: what comes is something you should know: doctors will make an arbitrary decision when you come in about whether you should have the ‘treatment for those who have a chance’ or ‘old lady medicine.’

And it will affect the rest of your life.

McKenzie back exercises

I do them every day. The book is called ‘7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life,’ by Robin McKenzie, an Australian physical therapist.

My PT taught me them – AFTER the orthopedic surgeon ruined my back.

When I wake up with sciatica (much less frequently now, and usually due to lying on my left side while asleep without the little pillow – for some reason that side doesn’t like flat), I head for the floor, and, within minutes, start working the vertebrae back to the non-painful position.

They wanted to operate again; all three of the surgeons I consulted – different operation each. I walked away. Still working on getting better at walking, but the surgery took me a YEAR to recover from, and had me back in the ER for non-existent pain control, so I’m not likely to repeat.

Why are older women more vulnerable?

Because, among other things, it’s easier. Cut, get fee, blame lack of success on the patient.

They don’t expect us to improve with exercises, or to do them, so they actually give us less useful PT (warm compresses?).

If you have an older relative, especially a female one, watch for this: the key is to DO YOUR EXERCISES – and to insist they give you ones which work – just like the ones they gave the young lady, or the teenage athlete. They will hurt, but it should be bearable if you’re doing them right, and it gets better. Takes me less than fifteen minutes on a really bad day, and I do them daily prophylactically.

Ask for ‘young woman exercises.’ Tell them you’re aware of ‘old lady medicine,’ and you don’t want it. Stay away from surgeons as long as possible – once cut, things are NEVER the same (there’s a whole section of my abdomen where the C-section left me with no feeling, and the hernia above my belly button has been ‘repaired’ THREE times – and is back).

Wish I could go back in time. What do you think?

---

Today is the last day of the 0.99 ebook sale for Pride’s Children (upper page on the right).

Sometimes there’s a reason you can’t write

COUNTING ON YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM?

Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you can’t get sicker

It has been an extraordinary two-month+ period, and I’m only now realizing that it was kind of not my fault. But it also was.

I was seriously worried that my ability to continue to function was deteriorating further. Since I have very little of it, losing more is a continuing concern.

I fight to retain mobility, and still hope, if we move to a place with the right facilities, to be able to regain some. I need access to a gym and a pool, and a safe indoor space to practice walking.

I hope, if we move, and reduce the list of things that go wrong with a house, I will have more time and energy for myself, to write with.

But all of that is useless if the brain has decided to go down another notch.

The past ten years have been mostly on an even keel

I got things, I felt sick for a day, the ‘thing’ went away: my always-on immune system seemed to fight it off. Other people got things like colds – I felt as if I was going to, but most of the time didn’t.

I got cocky.

And then ‘level’ and ‘normal for me even with CFS’ changed – and changed drastically

I’ve been sick, sick enough for it to impair my cognition, for most of the past ten weeks – but didn’t realize it.

My first written notes about the problem pin it to the beginning of November 2016, when I felt ill for a day in a pattern I’m used to, my over-active immune system seemed to deal with the problem, as I have come to  expect, but I developed a cough. I assumed I’d fought of another virus, but was experiencing its aftermath anyway.

Most people who have a post-viral cough will fight it off eventually, because their immune system keeps working away at it. This is where ‘walking pneumonia’ comes from: is it actually a form of pneumonia the body fights off well enough for the person not to need to be hospitalized for the pneumonia. It is serious; the person will feel tireder than normal, not quite right – but most people will fight it off.

For a few of those people, however, the continued coughing, and the strain the coughing and the viral infection put on the system will make the person vulnerable to catching something on top of the original.

So, first I had the post-viral cough. It went on a month – I visited the doctor, and she listened carefully, told me the lungs were perfectly clear, and that these things sometimes went a long time (she’d had it last herself). I was extra-tired, and the visit itself came from energy I was trying to protect. “Call if it doesn’t go away after the holidays,” she said.

What went wrong/wronger?

Another month passed. I was going to call her at the end of the first week of the new year (last week), when I realized a new symptom had appeared: wheezing, always a bad sign. I called the next day, she couldn’t see me, I was told to go to urgent care. Urgent care did a chest Xray to rule out pneumonia or something worse (like lung cancer, which can present as a persistent cough), diagnosed bronchitis (very uncomfortable, I tell you), and sent me home with a five-day course of Azithromycin. I took the last pill this morning.

It should have been enough.

But: During the week after New Year’s, husband developed a nasty cold – and cough. He assumed he’d gotten what I had, and, here’s the kicker, didn’t do anything special to avoid passing it on to me. To be fair, it was a reasonable assumption.

We should have paid far more attention: the cough he had was nothing like the one I had.

The fear of further deterioration

I haven’t been able to write consistently for weeks. Even the post-viral cough was enough strain on my system that it took that little bit of functionality and the little bit of good time I can usually count one every day.

It wasn’t just life (as I may have written). Yes, there was a lot going on with the last chick leaving the nest, and the holidays. I would have expected, did expect, not to get a lot of writing done under the year-end conditions. But, looking back, this was worse: almost no writing – even of blog posts – was going on. I’ve stated before I have 30-40 posts started – and I couldn’t complete one. Apparently, finishing up a post and publishing it takes a little of that ‘good time’ for the final effort to add a few headlines, to make sure the whole is coherent and has a point. I don’t just stop at some point: I clean up, reread, get the ducks in a row, edit, polish, check references, add links… It’s not hard on a normal day, but it does take a bit of that precious energy.

Every disabled person, every chronically ill person, fears one thing: getting worse.

Healthy people don’t constantly think about becoming unhealthy; they even sometimes feel invulnerable (teenagers, especially!). But, for the rest of us, our body has already failed to heal to full functionality, so we know we are vulnerable. Too vulnerable.

The first instinct when things seem worse is to hope it is temporary, and it will go away. If there is a new symptom, I watch to see if it will resolve, or if I can find a workaround.

But I have never in the past worried that I should be extra-vigilant when in that state, if indeed it is a state – and not the permanent downward step I fear.

I have learned a new and painful lesson: I am able to get sick/sicker. I am not immune to catching other things if I’m already under strain. My immune system, compromised as it is, can fail even more.

And there are some nasty bugs out there – and they don’t care whose body they hitchhike on.

My brain came back this morning

Somewhat. A bit. But at least coherent in the way I am used to (so, closer to my ‘normal with CFS’).

And the first thing I’ve done is to write all this down, to record it for my own edification (and possibly yours).

The big fail – which I hope not to repeat – was husband assuming he had what I had, and not taking the normal precautions against spreading whatever he was fighting off; compounded by me not insisting. When he’s sick, he is not thinking of anything but being miserable (it doesn’t happen that often – lucky stiff).

He handed me things, coughed in my direction, left tissues everywhere.

But it’s all really my fault (it always is): I let him hand me things, picked up tissues from the floor and emptied wastebaskets, didn’t insist he take precautions (because mostly that’s the way we’ve always operated).

I am the one who is vulnerable – I am the one who is going to have to remember this lesson, and enforce best practices from now on: if someone is sick, stay away, wash hands frequently, insist they pick up their own debris, and do everything I can to protect myself.

Because I am the one who can’t write if she doesn’t.

Hope this saves someone else from worse. What say you?

How to fix post holiday blues

UNIQUE TO DO LIST ITEMS DRIVE ME CRAZY

It’s surprisingly hard to get back to some kind of routine after holidays and a year ending – so many one-of-a-kind items – from tax paperwork to getting parking stickers for the next term to all those doctor’s appointments which have been put off to seeing friends in town for only a few days.

I am ready for all that to be over, and get back to routine, any kind of routine. Even snow – which is predicted for this weekend.

I should be writing up a storm – instead of chasing down the meter reading on the solar panels.

Anyone else in the same slump?

PWCs (people with CFS) handle change very badly

We’re bad enough with things we do routinely, such as laying out today’s pills, and watering the plants.

But each new thing attempted requires the use of a scarce resource: good time (i.e., when the brain is on).

I normally reserve that time for writing, and have ‘FIGHT for the RIGHT to WRITE‘ where I can see it easily.

But this time of year – between the end of one and the slipping-into-routine beginning of the next year – is a constant barrage of exceptions.

EVERYTHING claws its way to the top of the priority list

We have a solar system. On the first of the month I get an email which reminds me to send in the meter reading so they can credit us with SRECs (solar credits – don’t ask me to stop and look up the acronym!) so that we will eventually get a small check for any excess energy we pour back into the grid. There was a $500 extra cost when we were required to pay for and install a new meter (the government wouldn’t take our reading of the old one) if we wanted it to wirelessly send the solar company the reading – and of course we said no thanks.

The idea is that, once a month on being reminded of the need to send this information, I will go down to the basement, read the meter, and, while down there, perform the cleaning of the system that involves pouring bleach into the pipes and the pump, which will otherwise grow algae.

Except that I’m now having to force myself to at least go down to the basement once a day, because moving is difficult, the heart rate goes up, and my chest hurts if I do stairs. And yes, I have an appointment to visit a cardiologist for reassurance/whatever already scheduled.

So it had to be done, now – and I cheated. I just got the number and emailed it in and didn’t do the maintenance part. Which means half of the task – and a trip to the basement out of no energy – is still pending.

I am probably not unique

Everyone has these things on their lists; everyone has more stuff to do at the end of the year and beginning of another.

But I’m drowning, my assistant hasn’t made it for a week (she’s sick, on top of the holidays), and there is no end in sight.

Why am I telling you any of this?

Because I normally blog – and I have 30-40 half done posts, none of which I seem to be able to finish.

Not being able to finish a blog post is new to me, and I’m scratching my head. I understand how writing doesn’t get done – I can’t focus if I know I’m going to be interrupted in 15 minutes – but I hadn’t realized how even blogging needs some coherence.

I’ve been worried about obvious mental deterioration, and then I realized this morning that I’m probably not unique, but I am getting older, and changes in habitation location are coming, as well as a whole slew of problems related to that, and that the world probably won’t come to an end if I don’t have my handicapped parking space set up before this Sunday (another task which took time this morning) but that it was wise of me to try calling on a working day (they assure me it’s in the works, but they were just off for eleven days).

I’m working on it

That’s my motto for everything.

I will get to it, whatever ‘it’ is. Eventually.

Routine will return.

I will be able to finish something (I’m almost ready to hit ‘post’).

And now I go to find the proposal from 2004 from the HVAC people that shows we paid for – and didn’t receive – a duct cleaning back then. Because I promised the lady I’d send it today. Because THEY shred their records older than ten years – and I never throw anything out.

Because $300 is not peanuts.

Oh, well.

Happy New Year to all of my bemused readers (bemused at this odd post, not bemused themselves).

Stay warm (or cool, if you’re in the southern hemisphere). Breathe. Pray for the crazy lady.

Peace out.

You, too?

 

What to write when your house is under attack

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE FEW CHOICES – DO YOUR BEST

Those of you who know how noise sensitive I am will realize this is a bit of a torment – I’m stuck in my own home with two guys tramping around with hoses, air guns, a powerful vacuum, and one of them is a trainee who must be shouted at.

We are having our ducts cleaned.

It hasn’t been done since the house was built in 1981.

I must stay because where the heck would I go? And because I must be the one who manages Gizzy, our chinchilla who hates noise more than I do.

I am, of course, sitting here with my noise protection head-gear; for some of the noises, it is barely enough. Four hours (est.) of this is going to feel great – it presses my head to do a good sound blocking job, but, hey, it’s better than the other options. I took the ibuprofen for the headache already: what a coincidence, you can take more in four hours!

 Who knew that the inside of heating ducts got dusty?

Isn’t that what the filters are for?

Me, I grew up in a country without central air (Mexico) because it never got so hot that you needed air-conditioning, or so cold that the fireplace wouldn’t handle it those few nights a year when outside was chilly.

So, no ducts.

When I lived in Seattle, radiators. No ducts.

In grad school in Madison, Wisconsin – radiators.

First house was in Maryland – and even though we had central air and heating, we only had that house three years, and no changes were necessary. So we didn’t learn then.

Then, this house – and how was I supposed to know you had to hire a very short person to climb inside your ducts to clean them? Periodically? Job security for elves?

Last time – eleven years ago – when they replaced the HVAC, we actually PAID to have the ducts cleaned. But somehow it slipped our mind, and we never had them actually come do the job. (They’re looking into giving us our money back!)

Perfect time to write a blog post of the light-weight variety

Honestly, most of you who need to know this probably already do.

When people mention TV shows of their childhood, they are often surprised that I never saw them.

When people mention their English teachers being good or terrible in high school, college, creative writing or MFA program (or even the esoteric PhD in Literature), I realize I’ve never had but one English teacher, and that in a course I apparently didn’t need to take (after I’ve taken it, I find this out. No matter: I actually enjoyed a teacher who pranced around in front of the class spouting Shakespeare – because I’d never had one).

So, of course, I don’t know about duct cleaning.

I made the mistake of asking

Well, apparently most people don’t ask (maybe they just get out of there).

The nice young man-in-charge from the plumbing company must not get enough chances to expound, because we got a long spiel on the details of the process (which requires making holes in places with a drill). Enthusiastic lad.

All I wanted to know was the order of operations.

It turns out they basically don’t care. After doing certain things, they will go through each room and clean our the air supply vents. What order they do bedrooms in is not important.

So I will have them clean my office ducts, and then, while they’re doing something to the attic bedroom, I’ll scoot Gizzy in here, where she will promptly hide inside my upholstered armchair (she hates light, too), and go to sleep. Or into a state of shock. It’s hard to tell.

What will I be doing?

After delighting you with trivia like the above, I will play sudoku, surf the web, and generally waste the whole time.

Because there isn’t a chance in h-e-double hockey sticks that my brain will be able to do anything like writing fiction.

Or paperwork that I’ve been avoiding.

Or (coherent) phone calls. And the other kind, really, don’t solve anything.

And, even if I could walk properly, it’s too cold to go out for a long hike. Like to the next county. And I’d need food. And a nap. And the, you know, facilities.

Plus there are still people out there blowing leaves around, and outside isn’t that nice and quiet, either.

That’s the best you can do?

Pretty much.

I could color, but I tried it once and I didn’t like it.

And I could embroider the sections in cross-stitch on my tapestry which I can’t do while watching TV because the room is too dark.

Or I could eat, from stress, continuously for the remainder of the time. Also maybe counterproductive.

Something actually useful?

Or I can think a bit about how you do book marketing and promotion when you’re as slow as I am, and the next book will take years, maybe (let’s sincerely hope not, but it’s been started since March 2015, and I’m already into its second chapter. Woo hoo! (In my defense, the first many months were spent in planning in excruciating detail.)).

Not much you can do while occupying the inside of a jet-engine. Ask the birds.

It will be over at some time in the afternoon

So don’t cry for me (although pity gratefully accepted). This is just, like waiting for the dentist for hours before he deigns to drill into your teeth, part of the torture of civilized life – and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to do nothing while other people work to get my ducts sparkling clean, considering what the rest of the world has to put up with.

I really hope I don’t look back to this, and realize this was an oasis of leisure.

After all, I don’t expect myself to get anything done today, and I usually pester myself continuously about getting something written, because, like, I’m wasting my life.

Bang. Bang. BANG!

Enjoy your quiet.

Now, in respect for others, I will gracefully listen to your own complaints. Leave one in my comments!

---

***** 0.99 Sale still going on until New Year’s Day *****

Did you know you can give people ebooks for presents by just buying the ebook at Amazon and supplying their email address? They don’t even have to have an account. Amazon handles the rest – and you can even put in a message for the giftee. US link here.

Amazon has a FREE app to read Kindle files for almost every device you could read on. All?

I personally wouldn’t want to read 167K books on a mobile, but there’s no accounting for taste.

All other countries who can purchase ebooks from the ‘Zon: type in Pride’s Children: PURGATORY in your very own Amazon.

*****  *****

---

I just love the editor at this online magazine. She publishes any drivel I care to supply!

Endless self promotion due to the fact that you need to see things SEVEN times before you buy.

Thanks to Stencil for the squirrel. Gizzy has the same kind of tail. Bushy.

Every writer’s nightmare: corrupted Look Inside

GOTCHA! MURPHY’S LAW STRIKES

I deliberately picked clashy colors for the image, where I normally at least try to make something catchy and attractive, because I messed up (yes, I bear full responsibility regardless of whose fault it was), and it may serve as a cautionary tale to other writers.

And as a request for forbearance for readers – don’t always assume the mess you find online is because the writer is an unprofessional idiot.

And, if you’re kind, drop the author a note, saying, “You might want to check your Look Inside feature on Amazon, because it doesn’t look right.”

Trust me, they will (should) be more than grateful.

No, you can’t do everything. No, you shouldn’t be paranoid. But I realize now I’ve seen what happened to me on other authors’ book pages on Amazon – and made that exact assumption: if an author can’t be bothered to make sure their book looks perfect on the Look Inside feature, they must not be very good at anything else, either.

Sigh.

The marvelous Look Inside! feature

After all is said and done – cover, advertising, book description – the most important action call is the Buy button that occurs at the end of your sample on Amazon, at which point the buyer makes a decision on whether you can

1. write professionally
2. start a story well
3. keep interest going

All the advertising in the world doesn’t fix something badly written.

And that sample is the clincher for readers who are now skittish about books which disappoint, from having bought other books and not reading the sample.

So the sample should be pristine, with no errors of any kind. No typographical errors. No formatting errors. No spelling errors. No punctuation, capitalization, or grammar errors.

And preferably both something intriguing, and evidence at the same time that the author will satisfy the reader’s curiosity as the story goes along (as evidence by raising at least a minor question somewhere, and answering it). So, quality.

Because all readers are looking for at that point is a reason not to buy.

Don’t give them one.

A perfect upload doesn’t ensure things will STAY perfect

When I created and uploaded the files for Pride’s Children: PURGATORY, back in October of 2015, I worked my little tail off to make sure that the Look Inside feature was perfect.

Once it was, and all the previewers had satisfied me by showing exactly what I expected to see, I went live.

I then purchased the first copy, downloaded to my Kindle, and examined everything as if I were a customer.

I had done my due diligence – it looked just as I wanted it to.

And since then, I have been afraid to mess with it, because the 5 or 6 tiny typographical errors I eventually found (no book is perfect) were literally tiny – a misplaced comma, a dash which ended dialogue had its quotation mark sitting all by itself on the next line (thanks, MS Word) – and I didn’t want to take the chance of making anything worse.

---

Here is what happened:

Rather than attempt to tidy it all up, I will let you experience the panic, by putting in the text of the posts I made on my Goodread UK Kindle group author thread.

15 hours, 58 minutes ago:

WARNING: the look inside feature for the ebook, both US and UK (I have not yet checked the rest) is thoroughly broken – and I apologize profoundly to anyone who has looked at it, especially with a thought to possibly buying it, and found the horrible mess that I just found.

It never occurred to me (newbie gets bitten again by the obvious) that anything could change from the way it was when I uploaded it, bought the first copy, and checked it out – about a year ago.

I don’t know when this happened, but I will be spending whatever time and energy it takes to fix the disastrous formatting destruction on the Look Inside feature – the best place an author has to sell a book, because a reader can SEE whether there are problems.

I don’t know, not having bought another copy, and not recently, whether the problem is confined to the Look Inside feature, or somehow infects the copy a reader would download. My downloaded copy is exactly the way I set it up – so again, my apologies if you looked.

I didn’t do this – but it IS my fault not to have caught it sooner.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. It’s MY name on the cover.

I go to fix. Pray for me.

15 hours, 54 minutes ago:

Please note: electronic Advance Reader/Review copies should not be affected – those have never left my hands until I email them to someone.

15 hours, 52 minutes ago:

Phew! The preview here on GR is unaffected.

14 hours, 32 minutes ago:

Amazon Kindle Senior Representative confirmed it’s not my problem, and they will fix it within 24-48 hours.

I have been told by other authors, over and over, to recheck these things – and did not. Let this kerfuffle be a lesson to me to not take anything for granted.

And if it saves someone else time and panic, that would be nice.

‘Check your files periodically, as if you were a customer.’

A few minutes ago:

Amazon’s swift author support came to my aid last night – when I got up this morning, the problem with the ebook Look Inside feature (the print was never affected) for Pride’s Children: PURGATORY was fixed.

They told me last night it would take 24-48 hours, and I braced myself to worry. At 1:30 am, the formatting was still messed up when I went to bed.

The biggest relief last night was finding out that it wasn’t my fault – the file they had from me was uncorrupted.

I will probably never find out what happened, exactly, nor do I really need to know, since it wasn’t my fault, but thank you to the person who reported that the UK Look Inside was not looking good (wish I could remember where I put that notification); I checked later than I should have (I should check these things immediately), and maybe that explains why a 0.99 sale is not doing as well as I had hoped.

But all is well now, and I have learned my lesson: trust, but verify.

And it was an example of the amazing responsiveness I have received over this past year+ from the people who provide service for authors at Amazon. I’ve read of problems at B&N, and others – I’ve only had good service from A.

Admittedly, they somehow caused the problem – but I was asking them to fix it in the middle of the night.

---

The upshot?

It is fixed – for now.

I ran a sale without checking first (the last time I looked it was fine – really, I didn’t just not look at it for a year!).

I found out by accident that, yes, bad things can happen even if you don’t make any changes to your input files (so I should probably go fix that comma).

Someone may help you by catching a problem – and telling you about it – in which case, thank your lucky stars.

But I should have checked. I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED.

My apologies if you were affected – and hopes you will give me a second chance.

---

***** Pride’s Children: PURGATORY is on sale wherever ebooks are available at 0.99 (equivalent in your local currency) until the end of New Year’s Day 2017.*****

Books make great last minute presents – an email from Amazon will announce the gift.

To purchase a Kindle book as a gift (from Amazon help):

1. From the Kindle Store, select the book you want to purchase as a gift. …
2. On the product detail page, click the Give as a Gift button.
3. Enter the personal email address of your gift recipient. …
4. Enter a delivery date and an optional gift message.

---

The best ‘thank you’ and encouragement you can offer a blogger is to buy their book(s), especially when they do not have a Donate button.

And nobody says you have to READ them (though I hope you would).

---

Please comment and share your horror stories – I feel like an idiot right now, and it would be nice to have company!

How to live with other people and still stay sane

THANKSGIVING IS A SEASON, NOT A DAY

Every day I suffer silently through a ton of tiny insults:

my special cleaning tool left out instead of put in its place,
ice cubes used and not replaced,
a mess in the sink,
a surface which I cleared and cleaned mysteriously being full of ‘stuff’ again,
…

The list is endless. I wouldn’t, I don’t do those things to other people, and yet they do them to me.

And, like my Mother, who one day realized – and told me – that my Father leaving the cap off the toothpaste yet once more meant that he was still alive and with her, I know, and savor, this as the very small price of having other people in my life.

And I’m tearfully grateful.

The upstairs bathroom is once again clean all the time, and the carpeting vacuumed in the attic bedroom, and the bed made – and I miss our last chick every day, because it can only be that way when there is no one living in that space.

When I am no longer cleaning bits of hay out of random places in the house where our chinchilla Gizzy is allowed to roam for a bit of time in the evenings (she likes to run, and loves stairs), for whatever reason she won’t be with me any more.

I don’t know what it is they find especially annoying about me. The husband is a saint and actually looks confused when I ask him. The children have learned mom is opinionated and has relatively little trouble expressing herself, nicely, of course. The chinchilla, well, I provide food and special treats, and she consents to occasionally giving me her paw on command.

Those tiny insults? Bring them on. Writing them down? It’s one of the ways I store the memories.

And the ice cubes? At least there are still ways I can serve.

---

Thanks for the ability to make images, Stencil!

Pride’s Children’s rankings after a year

SALES RANK

KINDLE, CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

KINDLE, LITERARY FICTION

AUTHOR RANK

IT’S BEEN AN ODD YEAR AS A FIRST-TIME PUBLISHED NOVELIST

None of my sales have done much.

Word of mouth has been how most of the sales came about.

I am basically hand-selling to people I meet who also seem to have reading habits that mean they might like PC.

Now that I have a decent, if small, number of reviews (25), with at least one at every star ranking, I will be trying a few Fussy Librarian offers, to try to reach people outside of my immediate circle. If FL will have me.

KU, which I had high hopes for, has been a dud. Being in or out hasn’t made much difference.

The last Kindle Countdown Deal sold two copies (0.99 – so I got 0.67 each). Definitely not worth the effort.

Goodreads has provided friends – one or two sales; ditto FB and Wattpad. I have sent out a LOT of review copies (just ask – I will send you one). Everyone says I’m pricing wrong, but the 0.99 sales do nothing – and you can always have a free review copy!

I’m sure this is the way beginners start; I also spent way too much time watching it happen, as I’m sure many beginners do.

I’m well started with PC: NETHERWORLD, the middle book in the trilogy, full of surprises (if you can trust me).

And it’s been otherwise a very crazy year, so I think I’m going to put my head down (as soon as I can for sure is next Wednesday), and write, and try not to panic. Careers last a long time.

I liked the pretty graphs – and a year seemed to be a good time to review the results.

Oh, and I’ve sold, I believe, 7 paper copies.

I have avoided advertising which focuses on me, and kept it on story and writing (except for the online ME/CFS group where they already know me, and this blog, of course). I don’t know if that’s wise, but it is a one-way street to move into talking about a disabled writer, which does funny things to most people’s minds (such as lowering standards, and expecting inspiration, and just plain not wanting to read) which I’d rather avoid. On the other hand, an awful lot of books come out every year.

Hope this next 12 months works a bit better.

ETA: Author Rank pic.

 

The curious incident of the train in the nighttime

WARNING: DETAILED ANALYSIS OF A FAILURE. MAY BE BORING.

It is my nature to analyze ‘what happened,’ especially with the physical and mental details of what it is to live – and try to write – with ME/CFS, and the only way I have of remembering for sure is to write them down.

I share – because there may be useful information there for others, with or without CFS.

The beginning: when I could have and should have made a small decision

We’re sitting watching TV (the second part of Luther, Season 4), and it is exciting, as TV shows go. This is relevant.

The text comes from child in NYC at 9:49 PM: “I’m getting in at 11:08.”

I text back: “Will pick you up at 11:08.”

This is our system: if I don’t confirm with the correct time, we’re not good yet, because I’ve gotten it wrong before. And she had to wait at the train station.

It’s a good system. I know when she’s getting in, she know I know, and we both have it in writing.

I don’t have to remember.

The MY problem starts

But note: at 9:49 she is already ON the train. And I have one hour and 19 minutes before someone has to be at the train station to pick her up.

It’s still good – and she doesn’t know what train she’ll be on unless she’s either on it, or is close, and knows she has enough time.

There’s always another train (until 2 AM? sometime, and then they start up again a few hours later) from NY to NJ.

At worst, she’ll spend an uncomfortable few hours sitting in the train station.

I mention the arrival time to husband sitting next to me.

He says (and this is the crucial bit), “I’ll pick her up.”

The next bits are on me, and are why I’m writing.

I said, “If I have to get her, I need to take a nap before.” See? I know my limits.

He says, “I’ll go.”

The problem sticks up a finger to the wind

We watch the rest of the program, another twenty minutes or so, chat about the ending.

I see what I should have suspected, given how the last couple of days have gone: he is falling asleep.

I say, “I’ll get her.”

He says, “You sure?”

I say (big lie, it turns out), “I’ll be okay. It’s only ten minutes to the train station.”

He says, “Okay.”

It’s now about 10:10, maybe 10:15 (reconstructing from memory here).

I LET the MY problem compound – because I’m not making good decisions

And this is where I made my fatal mistake (well, okay, not fatal fatal, but fatal as in fatal mistake): I futz around a bit putting my embroidery away, and don’t head straight up to bed for a nap before picking her up, because I’ve been skipping that last night lately (it happens inconveniently in the middle of watching the little bit of TV or a movie we do in the evenings – which is also our chatting time for the day).

But I forget that it doesn’t matter if I’m sitting at my computer wasting time, surfing, writing an email to a friend: I am not risking anything major by missing that nap and being rather non-functional. After all, who can tell what level of non-functional I’m at late at night, and I ALWAYS resist lying down for these naps I need, because that’s what mental two-year-old do.

He trundles up to bed, I look at the clock – it’s now 10:35.

And I’ve just, by being non-functional already, priced myself out of that nap.

The MY avalanche begins

Because I do what I should have done when I said I’d go: the calculus of napping and time and leaving the house that is required – for me to be a safe driver on the road.

Here is what I HAVE to do: start getting ready 10-15 minutes before I need to leave the house, dressed, with shoes on, having my purse and PHONE with me. And my driving glasses, which I don’t keep in my purse all the time necessarily because I have two sets – day and night – and keeping them both there makes the purse too full and heavier.

I need to leave an extra minute or two if I decide to wear my leg braces. They’re an annoyance when driving, just a bit awkward, but help if I need to walk or stand more than a minute. I decide to just put on sandals. It will take me longer to walk to the car, but I won’t have them on while driving, and I won’t have to put them on.

I need to put clothes on, because I am in jammie-equivalents 99.99% of the time.

I need a pit stop.

I need to get out of the house, get into the car, and settle the controls and mirrors. I know others have used my car, and they won’t be in the right place.

The avalanche gets a’rolling/sliding

So I look at the time again, and there MIGHT be time for a shorty – a 10-15 minute mini nap (oh, how I wish I’d taken it!), but only if I get a move on, make the decision, and MOVE.
This is me, non-functional at night. I don’t make the decision.

Instead, my stupid mind moves to ‘what I need to do to just drive safely to the train station.’
If necessary, she can drive back. Unless she’s too tired.

I decide: Diet Coke.

I know it’s late at night, and caffeine after 3PM is a huge no no because it keeps me up at night.

But we’re in not-thinking-straight-crisis-mode now, and the Diet Coke WILL give me the kick I need.

I can take just a sip, right?

I change my mind: I won’t drink it before I leave. I will take it WITH me in the car, and that way won’t use it unless I need it.

Execution

I get dressed, grab my purse, put the sandals on.

One last pit stop and out to the car.

I sit in the car, adjust the mirrors.

And yup, you guessed it: it is now 10:55 on the car’s clock – and I forgot to bring the Diet Coke.

Damn.

Decision time.

I figure out I probably have created enough adrenaline to do this.

It would take me 5 minutes to walk slowly back into the house, climb the stairs and get the forgotten Coke, and get back to the car.

I know the train may or may not be on time, it sometimes takes them a long time to let passengers off, and there is a long walk from the far platform, and the Hamilton Train Station is a relatively safe place for her to wait for me if I am a few minutes late, even at 11 PM.

My mind emphasizes ‘relatively.’ I decide to skip getting the Coke, go the ten minutes or shorter in my immediate future, and get there on time.

Remember, these are all MY decisions. I want to be the perfect mother, saying, “It’s fine – I’ll get her,” to my husband, and showing up on time for my daughter, then one who can be counted on in an emergency to do what’s necessary.

Never mind that I’ve CREATED the EMERGENCY.

Because I so often can’t do these things. Because it is humiliating to be sick and ALWAYS dependent on other people. Because I rarely leave the house, and this is a short trip which should be within my limited capabilities. Because, because, because…

And the folly succeeds!

I do it.

I drive to the train station – and hit ALL the red lights on the way, at their maximum durations. It doesn’t matter – I’ve allowed for the maximum times, ten minutes.

I’m fine.

I get to the train station, and the train pulls in as I stop in the little parking lot opposite the entrance.

In a couple of minutes, the passengers start coming down the long staircase from the overpass.

This time she is the second person.

I flash my lights, she comes on over, and we head home.

On the way home I mention a tiny bit of the above. She says, “I could have driven from the station.”

I say, “I know, but I’m fine.” With a second person in the car, my anxieties calm down just fine.

Another bad decision? Probably. But easier – and we really are that close to the train station. 5 minutes – if you get all the green lights. Which we did. On the way back, of course.

No big deal – picking someone up at the train station and driving home.

The beginning of a really bad night

She says she’s tired. I tell her I’ll put the chinchilla to bed if she will feed Gizzy her treats. We agree. I add ‘put out foods for Gizzy’ to my pre-bedtime list. It’s a short chore in principle. If Gizzy has been out of her room, it may take longer to get her back if she’s hiding under the living room couch and I have to chase her out with a flashlight (the light, not the metal part).
Later, it will turn out that Gizzy never left her room (she sleeps under the bed) because it was Italian-American weekend at Mercer County Park, and they ended with fireworks, and fireworks turn Gizzy into a shell-shocked ball. No biggie – I leave out her food and close the door earlier than usual.

Now the payment for my folly really starts.

Daughter goes up to her nightly struggle with getting to sleep.

I am too wound up to go right to bed, but manage to force myself into bed at around 2AM, not too bad for me.

And the night of horror starts.

Why? Because I have broken the basic rule: you’re NOT normal

The root cause is the BRAIN FOG I live with.

The proximate cause is that I can’t metabolize adrenaline (which I know). My body insists on twitching every few seconds, just as I’m starting to fall asleep. It requires the FULL set of stretches and isometrics I do to get rid of the twitchies.

There are oh, about ten, bathroom trips. I have minimized water, though really thirsty. Doesn’t matter. I have a few sips.

I go up and down the stairs too many times.

I have a small protein shake – which, because it is full of ice, usually makes my core temperature go down and lets me get sleepy.

I end up eating two Atkins bars in the middle of the night.

I get up and play sudoku on the computer until I realize I cannot make that last column add up no matter how hard I try.

I spend time lying there with the lights off, exhausted, knowing it’s the end of the world, and I’m having trouble even doing my meditation breathing, and I’m going down hill so fast it’s scary, and I’ll never be any use to this family, and how could I possibly have thought I could do something useful like picking my own child up at the train station?

Eventually, around 5:30, I finally get to sleep.

Cost accounting: I lose a day of my writing life again

My happy body gets me up at 9, later than I’d generally like, ridiculously early after nights like this.

I put myself back to bed after what seems to be the twentieth bathroom trip of the night.
I sleep until almost noon.

And THEN it finally hits me: this is the AFTERMATH of adrenaline, you idiot. It happens every time – which is why you don’t allow yourself emotions, and you certainly don’t allow yourself adrenaline.

This is MY fault.

Again.

My decision-making functions don’t work, and especially don’t work when I’m tired. And go all to hell when I push them.

The conclusion: write it down.

Maybe it’ll serve as a cautionary tale, even though it’s a stupid little story of a single night.

But, you see, it will cost me today’s writing time (for fiction) because I’m singing at the Princeton U. chapel at the 4:30 Mass, and to get there for practice I have to leave the house at 3, which means, backtracking, I have to be in BED for the pre-nap by 2:10, and have to allow for something to eat in there somewhere, and I desperately need a shower, so I’ll have to nap with wet hair…

I started writing this at 12:03, and it’s almost 2 PM.

Another bad decision? Probably not. I can’t write fiction under these conditions – too jumpy.

Why do I write these things in such detail?

Because I’m working on a non-fiction book, working titled PAPER BRAIN, because no one has solved this for me in the almost 28 years I’ve had this stupid disease, and if I don’t write it now, I’ll forget.

This is, by the way, why Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD will take a long time.

But I’m working on it.

And I could go on in this vein for another hour. Husband came in, and said, when given the mini-summary, “I could have woken myself up.”

I won’t even tell daughter – she has enough on her plate, and did NOTHING wrong.

But some day I’ll read this and remind myself, and maybe I’ll get smarter, or at least remember.

Or someone else will.

And I will continue to try to avoid adrenaline, the adrenaline I thought I wasn’t going to create or need – last night.

Be warned.

---

This was pretty much the way it happened. Stream of consciousness writing.

Don’t pity me. It’s my life. I try to learn from it.

I’m okay. I’m going for that nap – it’s 2:07.

Drop words in the box if it resonated. Thanks!

---

I keep forgetting: if you like the blog posts, consider buying the book in the sidebar – it’s written by the same detailed idiot with experience.

Copyright 2016 Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

Data mining for the critical book description

CROWD-SOURCING IS THE NEW GOLD STANDARD

The purpose of a book description

The description of a book should do one thing, and one thing only: get a reader to click further.

The click may be to the book’s page on Amazon, to a Buy link, or to the Look Inside feature on Amazon. The next material seen, if it’s not the book, already downloaded onto a Kindle or Kindle app or a book in the mail, has to continue the process, but the first click which lands in a place the reader can make a decision should have an irresistible ‘Call to Action.’

The book description is the beginning of the words that form the Contract with the Reader.

Why fiddle with the book description after spending so much time crafting it?

At this point in the development of marketing for Pride’s Children: PURGATORY, the book description, originally crafted to attract the kind of reader I thought would like it, someone exactly like me (!), isn’t working.

Plus that turned out to be wrong: there is something that unites the merry band, a sensitivity perhaps to the way I’ve chosen to tell a story, or to something in the characters themselves, but I haven’t isolated it yet.

My gentle description of what is an intense book full of unexpected shadows is too mild. It expects too much of the general reader – and is not helping convert those who might reach the description into possible readers of the book.

Advertising – the soggy ground

The field of advertising is one I don’t wish to plow, because of the energy it takes to generate a hundred concepts until a few seem ‘possible,’ and then to refine the gold in those into ‘probable,’ and continue working an ad into ‘Yes!’

Companies spend a lot of money on advertising. I have neither the money – nor the time. So I’ve resisted doing the work.

I tell myself, ‘Finish the next book – then this one will sell.’ I think, ‘It’s good enough,’ or ‘The description is accurate,’ or ‘It doesn’t matter what I do.’

And maybe I’m expecting too much – and all this is moot.

But an ad I crafted for a summer issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly netted exactly one sale. I’m not getting it right.

Are there stones left unturned?

There are books out there whose readers I want, and I haven’t mined them yet to see whether there’s something I can use. Amazon has oodles of data – the whole book’s page is stuffed with information. Some of it I can’t get easily (or within my budget, such as Kirkus review) because the big publishers need a staff to do that for the books they’ve decided to push, and my staff consists of me.

‘Editorial Reviews’ can contain some pretty heavy hitters (‘Stephen King recommends that if you read one book this year…’) I don’t have access to – whether anyone reads the blurbs or not.

And I haven’t mined the 24 reviews, 21 of them positive, to really hear what my readers have said. The ones I already attracted, and who were impressed enough (yeah, I’m going with that explanation for now, rather than the chain-gang one) to write a review.

I intend to start doing this.

Especially the first: if I think Pride’s Children would attract readers who either liked, for example, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, or who specifically didn’t like it because of perceived flaws, I need to be spending some time looking at the description the copywriters at the big publisher produced for the book, and what the book’s readers have left in the reviews they wrote. I’ve done some of that – it could use a serious go-around.

That’s work I will do on my own.

You, my blog readers, have been kind

But I also want to ask my blog readers whether they think I’m doing the advertising part wrong – and what they think might work better.

Feel free to do one of two things:
1) Think for a minute and tell me what attracted you to read Pride’s Children, if you did, and
2) Anything you haven’t already told me about what I’m not doing right. Because I have saved, and will be rereading everything anyone already sent.

I have my own small data bank – that cache of all the words I’ve received already, kind or caustic – plus the reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and blogs, and I think I’m ready to do some more digging.

Email privately (abehrhardt [at] gmail [dot] com) if this blog is too public for you. I promise not to publish anything identifiable! And I’ll be taking suggestions in the helpful intent they’re offered. No hurt feelings.

For blog responses, here’s the easy link (no scrolling back up).

---

PS: price and cover are not up for discussion in this round – they are separate issues. I’ll reexamine both eventually, but right now I’m concerned with book description and ad copy. Just the words.

PPS: Don’t worry, writing NETHERWORLD is still my first priority. If you were worried.