Tag Archives: writing integrity

Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD reviews are 5*

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Don’t fear reading the unfinished overarching story

The story you’re considering reading may not end with the current book. Is that reason not to start it?

Not if the JOURNEY is as good as the DESTINATION.

Dorothy L. Sayers is my mentor here. In Strong Poison, her jaded detective, Lord Peter Wimsey falls hard for the woman in the dock at the Old Bailey, Harriet Vane, accused of poisoning her lover.

It took THREE more novels, with TWO irrelevant ones mixed in, before Peter and Harriet finally find peace in each other.

Were readers more patient back then?

I think they had fewer options.

They re-read old favorites, read books aloud to each other, lined up as we do to buy the latest book from a favorite author the minute it was available.

And read serialized stories on broadsheets, sometimes literally pasted to a wall.

They also probably read in smaller chunks – work early the next day would have kept some readers from letting the new story pull them in way past their bedtimes.

Mostly, though, fewer options: no libraries for everyone, no TV, no movies yet, and no streaming anything.

How was it for the writers back ‘then’?

Especially the many writers who were slow, like me?

Being able to write is a gift. One which has to be developed, of course, and that stops most people from starting such a foolish project.

But I think I may be like those writers – much slower at producing new stories and getting them through the process than we moderns in general. Who can write a novel, upload it from their computer to Amazon directly, do their own cover and everything else, and have it ready for market in an astoundingly short time.

You write from what you are

No one really cares – and shouldn’t – how long it takes to produce a book they like. Once the book is published, that’s irrelevant: it didn’t exist, and now it does.

Just watched adorable Sandra Bullock (and some guy) in a movie called The Lost City, in which she plays a Romance writer getting a little tired of the rat race and the book tours and the hamminess of her costar (the one who comes to her presentations, if beloved by the fans, and breaks every woman’s heart in the room). To the annoyance of our Romance writer trying to make sure she can get the purple-sequinned jumpsuit back to the rental company unharmed.

If life is like that for your average Romance writer, I’m in the wrong category. Darn.

Hollywood has a certain fascination with writers

And a certain hilarious take (ask any of us) on what it is like to actually go through the process of writing and publishing one. From the amount of time spent completely on interior work, to the state of our bodies while we’re writing (to support, however we can, keeping that body writing little black marks on a page) and after, to the whole process of how we may get paid – you have to watch movies with your screens down and no filters because IF you write, the movie version is a huge joke.

Mainly because it take forever to do it right, and a movie only has a couple of hours running time, and less than that attention span of its viewers.

To keep up MY end of the arrangement, I have a certain fascination with movies, actors, scripts, and all their processes (I watched Ron Howard and the filming of a bit of A Beautiful Mind on the Princeton U. campus, and my writing partner and I and our youngest auditioned for it) and have used a lot of what I learned in the Pride’s Children trilogy.

What keeps writers writing?

Sales are nice but somewhat remote.

Admiration by friends and family is often a pipe dream – though they may consent to accepting a free copy. They know you too well as an actual human, like them, and they couldn’t spend weeks or months or years working on the same story, so there’s something vaguely illicit about you doing it.

I’ll tell you: REVIEWS.

Reviews are tangible. You can (and should – they may disappear) make a copy in a safe place, because you’re going to do a little retrospective when the writing isn’t going as well as you would like (the roof has a leak, there’s a pandemic, kids need help with science projects, the dog ate…).

When you go re-read your stored reviews, you will find that the readers who like what you write, and were able to take the time and chose to write a few wonderful sentences of appreciation have a huge capacity to remind you that all is well in your writing world. The value of the good ones perdures and doesn’t fade with time or reflection.

They save your bacon when you wonder if the whole gig is worth the agony.

Review writers – whether they create fiction or not – are tinged with gold dust when your words touch them, and they respond by writing words that will touch you back.

I will post the reviews – reviews are mainly for other readers – as they come out, and maybe a reviewer will sound so much like the potential reader that the barrier to reading is minimized and the new reader MUST have the recommended book.

All you have to do to become a writer (which includes reviews) is to sit at a writing place and open a vein (i.e., tell the writer what you liked and maybe a bit of why). It’s far more public than reading – and a gift to the shyer readers who are wondering whether to read this writer’s book.

Amazon removed the ability to comment on reviews (too many heated arguments? trolls?), so reviewers don’t have to worry about that side of writing. A reader can either click Helpful – or not click it on a review, and that’s the extent of the interaction with other readers. But your personal take on a book may be the one which helps another reader make that decision.

If you write a few words from your heart, I will read them and use that as fuel – for the third book in the trilogy/the end of the story. It may help make this final book faster!

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So far readers have left six 5* reviews or ratings. Phew! I was a bit worried about what they would think of NETHERWORLD‘s last several chapters (and don’t peek – they won’t necessarily make the best sense if you skip). And let me know what YOU think.

My gratitude to Stencil for the ability to create graphics with text.

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Another quick request: if there’s anything this site needs to make your enjoyment of the books better, let me know.

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Pride’s Children is WARM Psychological Literary Fiction

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PSYCHOLOGICAL = happens on the inside of a human’s mind

Though into every life some of those people must fall!

I was checking through the pages for both Pride’s Children novels (so far), PURGATORY and NETHERWORLD, on their Amazon pages, and found the following earlier today:

Pride’s Children: PURGATORY – #753 in Psychological Literary Fiction

Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD – #660 in Psychological Literary Fiction

It made me think, because I set up that particular category with the following comment from reviewer David Rose in mind:

“…I cannot recommend this book, this trilogy, highly enough – but not to everyone. This is a book for readers who appreciate literary fiction and a very deeply developed romance with a thoughtful debate on ethics. I believe the pace and the delayed gratification will frustrate many modern romance readers who look for fast-burning romance, titillation, and simple love stories. However, if you are a reader who will appreciate a modern ‘Jane Eyre’, this trilogy is for you…”

D. Rose, PURGATORY review (used by permission)

The LITERARY FICTION, psychological, subcategory was coopted by the dark guys

We don’t need ‘psychological’ to represent negative human emotions only; we already have thrillers and ‘noir’ and ‘twisted’ and some really gory stuff.

The category, on Amazon as I just checked, was full of a slew of a majority of novels which would take you to a deep hole with little redemption even mentioned.

Plus a smattering of dark-ish stuff that doesn’t fit other categories, including disturbing works by many authors such as Jodi Picoult, and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

Literary fiction is already by definition interested in more than the obvious, but where I see a possibility for exploring, and learning, and changing, many of these books have already made up their minds: it’s a dark place out there, BEWARE!

I’d like to allow for the full spectrum of human behavior

Humans make decisions for all kinds of reasons, change their minds, deal with consequences, make DIFFERENT choices, and have to correct course even when it’s hard.

In a category of books for sale, the balance is lopsided (which is cute in rabbit ears, less so in human behavior).

Positive, not forced or applied from outside, but because writers don’t only choose the knotty problems (or aren’t only rewarded for showing the grotty side of life), but because there is a core of resonance in most humans for the positive, good, meaningful experiences, even when they are not easy to acquire.

That’s what I’m interested in exploring through the characters in Pride’s Children – because Pride can be a deadly sin – or a warm human emotion.

Coming with me?

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FICTION must be sold on its own merits

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So many possible future paths!

Not the author’s, except in very special cases.

This is true of biographies and autobiographies and memoirs, too – unless you’re a celebrity whose fans will buy anything you produce, just to have a complete set.

Non-fiction is sold on the author’s competence in the field of the BOOK. Would you buy a trail guide from a guy who claims he never sets foot outdoors?

Before you know authors through their fiction

you will buy their fiction only on a recommendation from a good friend, a trusted vetter, or the biggie: how the book grabs you when you give it a few seconds of your time.

An author is someone who has learned – in my case, taught herself – how to access some of the streams of being human, and more importantly than just dipping into them for personal enjoyment, has learned to turn that exposure into stories for other people, for those who don’t have the time or the desire to spend part of their life on the process, but still want the results.

Think. Of a story by Flannery O’Connor. Of what it cost her to write (she died of the complications of lupus at THIRTY-NINE). But all you have to do is find or buy a copy, and you get everything she worked for delivered to your lap! You cannot ever pay her for those hours of labor, but you can enjoy the fruit of her labor, and be transported to the world she wrote about, visit it for a time (it’s kind of scary) and leave it behind.

Whatever input you allow your brain will change you

You can’t avoid it, any more than you can avoid learning at least something from the experiences LIFE puts in your path.

So you have to ask: How do I want to allow myself to be changed? How can I process something which turns out to be negative or toxic for me? Is there input that will do more than entertain, but will allow me to gain understanding or develop empathy? What am I watching/reading – and is it doing what I want?

What will the Pride’s Children trilogy do to me?

It will entertain you.

But it will also make you question how you see friendship, love, commitment, marriage, work, childrearing, and the relationship between the sexes. And a big extra: What are your preconceptions about disability, chronic illness, and the effect of having them on society. One point of view, mine.

But I hope it makes you think what your point of view might be, and whether it’s the right one for you.

And I’d love to hear what you conclude.

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My reach has exceeded my grasp

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IT IS MUCH EASIER TO HAVE SOMEONE ELSE NOMINATE YOU

Modesty and lack of bragging were bred into my generation by our parents.

But if you write indie, you’re going to be in charge of your own publicity and marketing, and that means doing everything a publisher does for one of their favored authors – up to and including suggesting their authors’ work to the various prize committees who choose the award winners.

Bit of an incestuous circle process, but some competitions that are meant for traditionally published authors actually don’t bar indies from applying.

Whether or not said indies are truly given a blind reading, so there is no bias – assuming the judges MIGHT be biased against SPAs – you’ll just have to trust them if you want your book considered.

If you don’t submit your book for an award

there is very little chance, astronomically small, that you might win that prize.

There is usually an entry fee, often substantial, always non-trivial, and indies have tight budgets: it takes a lot of sales at, say, $2.99 on Amazon and with the 70% royalties option, to cover a $75 entry fee – about 36 sales.

Plus you have to be very sure that your book, considered fairly, is the kind of book which might win that award – or you’re just throwing money down a hole.

And that’s where an honest look at your own work, by yourself or via the reviews people have left, and where you have to decide who is astounded at your writing ability and who is being nice or supportive.

The types of books which have won the award in question in previous years

may help to decide if yours is worth the investment.

You must be prepared to lose.

I’ve just applied for an award I think Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD could conceivably win. It would be a real coup for an indie. And no, unless I win or even get long-listed, I’m not going to name the award – because it’s exactly that reach the Browning quote talks about.

And I’m not that brave.

Things change as you go along

Having PURGATORY named 2021 Best Contemporary novel by Indies Today has emboldened me to seek other awards, because, after how tough on me physically this year has been, I could use a win.

My writing matured between the time I started writing a mystery (1995), and the time I had the idea for Pride’s Children, and acquired polish from then to when I published PURGATORY in 2015.

There were many nice words in the reviews the first book received, and some of those reviews were embarrassingly good.

Chances?

I hope NETHERWORLD is as good as or better than PURGATORY; I think it goes places the first novel in the trilogy wasn’t ready for, and has a powerful ending, but that’s me. It hasn’t received enough reviews yet for me to tell if only my beta reader and I like that ending, or if it’s going to be a game changer.

But then I remind myself that I bought myself an Airwheel S8 as my own 70th birthday present (as my mobility device), because I told myself I would regret it the rest of my life if I didn’t even try – and I’ve had the pleasure of being bionic (and showing off at all occasions – I’m such a ham) for over three years now, and I was right about being able to use a bicycle on a hoverboard to get around.

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Andrea del Sarto – a few more quotes:

By Robert Browning

…Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?…

—

…At any rate ’tis easy, all of it!

No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past:

I do what many dream of, all their lives,

—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,

And fail in doing…

—

…Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,

Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him…

—

…Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged

“God and the glory! never care for gain.

“The present by the future, what is that?

“Live for fame… I might have done it for you…

[Thanks to the Poetry Foundation for the text.]

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I’ll post anything that comes from these submissions, but I am so glad I made them.

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Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD cover reveal 2022

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My huge gratitude to Bill Peschel for making my ‘vision’ real

WHAT A COVER DOES AND DOES NOT DO

When an author writes genre fiction, savvy readers can tell almost immediately, from the cover, whether the author knows the genre, and some basic details about the type of book it graces.

I write MAINSTREAM CONTEMPORARY LITERARY fiction – indie.

Not that many of us self-published authors (SPAs) do – because it is a category (‘a novel’) that big publishers have claimed as their own area of expertise. Many of the practitioners hope to land a traditional publishing contract, and advance, and what distribution their publisher may give them, depending on the publisher’s expectations that the book will sell enough copies to be a positive influence on the publisher’s bottom line.

There isn’t even a category labeled ‘mainstream’ on Amazon.

Covers in these categories are up to the publisher

with an occasional sop to the author.

Covers are created by cover designers selected by the publisher.

After all, if you have a publisher, your expectation is that you write, they do everything else (including sending you on tour with your book to TV stations and bookstores).

The reality is much more nuanced (ask any author who managed to land a traditional publishing contract, did NOT sell as expected, and after a book or two more, was ‘not renewed’ (i.e., dropped).

The royalties associated with these deals are such that most money is made by the author in the advance, because it never ‘earns out’ – sells enough copies to account for the advance – and then goes into the period in which royalties will be paid by the publisher twice a year.

It’s the dream of many.

It’s the meme of many a movie about writers.

And it must be very frustrating to an author who KNOWS (i.e., is convinced) that if the publisher had made more of an effort, the book might have sold more copies, and their career might have taken off.

Sort of the same mental gymnastics that happen when one buys a lottery ticket.

Genre covers for SPAs

The author can either spend time and effort learning how to do covers, or expend up-front money buying one.

Indie genre fiction is often priced at a few dollars, which means the calculus of the cover cost – and the possibility that a professional cover will help sell more books – can be very off-putting, and many authors do their own (not toting up the cost of the hours of their time spent learning and creating).

So the quandary of the indie mainstream author is creating a cover which will sell

Or, as some of the more stubborn of us aim for, will give the author the control over and input to what is on the outside of the novel they probably spent a lot of time creating.

It’s no bigger a challenge for the SPA than choosing everything else.

But it IS important.

PURGATORY’s cover was completely my creation

J.M. Ney-Grimm, who creates gorgeous covers for her fantasy novels, was my kind mentor, and I learned so much from her I have no idea where I’d begin to credit her input.

The year was 2015, and I spent most of the summer cover-creating and formatting the first volume in the trilogy, and had a blast (and, boy, was it hard work!).

NETHERWORLD’s cover was stuck in my brain

I had planned to do that this time, seven years later, and ran into a long stretch of months of brain fog which had me unable to focus, relearn Pixelmator and all the cover specifications from KDP, and get going on it.

I won’t call it writer’s block; with the ME/CFS, it is physical, has to do with the totality of stress and time and pain and insomnia of the disease; and you think it will last forever. In any case, I was stalled.

A few ideas were coming out – picking a scene representative of NETHERWORLD and then refining it into the second part of a trilogy concept (which has also left me with most of the ideas I need for the third cover). I was able to locate and then license a couple of necessary images from Dreamstime.

I tried finding formatters AND cover creators who would do things as close to MY way as possible – and ran into economics: those who do these tasks for hire, at least the ten or so I communicated with, have to do things quickly and generically with their own software. They were not interested even in finding out what MY way might be.

Until I had the idea of asking a friend, Bill Peschel of Peschel Press. He and his wife Teresa write, publish, and sell their own books over a wide range of fiction and non-fiction topics (I’m currently reading his annotated Dorothy L. Sayers mystery novel, Whose Body). I dared ask, he said he’d try tackling the task, and he’s been wonderful (i.e., able to put up with nitpicking me and MY way), and, among other miracles, essentially got me unstuck from my muddy mental rut – because giving him what he needed to work with gave me a series of small discreet tasks, a great way to tackle an overwhelming problem. My previous post about the cover was one of those small tasks (What did you have in mind?). Bill has been VERY patient and laid back.

Putting the pieces of NETHERWORLD together

Bill has just sent me the final proofed and formatted interior for the paperback version of the new book. Boy, is proofing – and fixing the quirks – NOT fun. But we did it.

I will produce the epub of the interior – I’ve already done it once with Scrivener, and the results were readable. Bill will send me the cover for NETHERWORLD’s ebook, and work on the cover for the hardcover version (which may take a bit more time, since I want to launch a hardcover version of PURGATORY at the same time, which also means relearning my graphics and doing some editing – now that my new Mac is on the way, it will be easier to handle the huge graphics files. I THINK I’ve located the input files – from the 2015 publication – I need.

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Hoping to get something out this week; if not, in the latter part of next week.

I’ll try the uploading – cover and print – when the brain is on tomorrow. Hope there aren’t any bugs to fix!

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NETHERWORLD back cover copy – book description

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CONTINUING WITH THE NECESSARY PIECES

While the cover is being created piecemeal, and the formatting goes apace, tasks which I have thankfully uploaded to the friend who is doing the actual work – after which I’m asked to nitpick – I’m doing the remaining pieces only the author can do on Amazon:

Request an ISBN – done.

Fill in the sections for name and title and price and… – working on them.

Getting the files created for ebook and print cover and interior – he’s doing that for me.

Choose paper and distribution and… – working on them.

It moves toward publication – slowly because I’m slow, even with help.

And I don’t worry about it, because working with my friend has given the brain fog a routing – probably because he needs a piece here, a piece there – and reducing the tasks to small bites is one of the strategies for Overwhelming tasks which I’ve use for years.

I thought I had set up Pride’s Children as a series when I published PURGATORY

So I could add the remaining books in the trilogy as they were written and published, and any prequel stories or related stories, but apparently not.

I thought I had done that at the Library of Congress, too, but apparently not.

I think people will be able to figure it out, but I somehow didn’t. No biggie. I’ll give Amazon a call or and email and see if there’s anything I can do – when I have a moment – but it shouldn’t stand in the way of getting NETHERWORLD out there, in an ideal world. Oh, well.

I read the posts I’ve saved, and ran through the blurb books

and wrote a rough draft of the description above.

Thought about it for a while.

Thought about what I’ve been taught – the goal is to have enough ‘above the fold’ (what the reader sees on the book’s page WITHOUT scrolling or clicking) so that the reader will click ‘more’ (or Buy), and read the rest.

I used italics and BOLD to make certain elements stand out.

I moved bits around.

I added the first three lines of dialogue of the first Chapter as a sample.

Moved MORE bits around which gave me two short pointed lines after the blurb title.

And have declared myself satisfied – for now.

What’s there will also be on the back of the printed books

And probably won’t get changed on the back cover, even if I make changes to the book description text on Amazon for marketing reasons. That will be the same as PURGATORY – where you can see my original description.

Because changes to graphics files are never trivial, and I am reluctant to mess with what most readers won’t even notice – the back of the print version.

I also thought about Book 3

which I can’t wait to get back to, and which starts only a few hours after the end of NETHERWORLD.

And I already know almost exactly how that goes. Have even started writing.

But readers will, unfortunately – as I am the proverbial snail – have to wait a while more for.

Oh, to be Kary’s age again – but no one gets that privilege from where I am now in the ‘venerable’ age category. (I refuse to use the other designations.)

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So that’s it for today – another little teasing appetizer – so that at least you get SOMETHING here periodically from me to know I’m not reading books on a beach and eating bon bons.

AND IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO REREAD PURGATORY to be ready for NETHERWORLD – soon is a good time.

I’ll do my best to help with names and storylines from Book 1 – hope to publish something here with some details for reference – but it is lower on the To Do list than I’d like.

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My opinion of NETHERWORLD Page 99 test

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WHAT NETHERWORLD’S PAGE 99 SAYS ABOUT THE BOOK AS A WHOLE

This is temporarily page 99, as the final formatting hasn’t been done, but it works well enough to prove (test) the hypothesis: is this page a satisfactory example of the book as a whole, from the author’s (me) point of view?

Minor but recurring characters are a consistent way of looking at a main character, and this is a very good example, so I’m glad it ended up in the Page 99 position.

Kary has no choice but to go see her lawyer, Joseph Farentz, Esq., whom she originally met at a CFS support group meeting when she moved to New Hampshire – when what she needs isn’t something she can get quickly, and she knows that he can. He is very proud he is still working – even though they share a major illness – as a small-town lawyer. She knows how reduced his abilities are and how limited the time he can keep it up, but accepts him at his own valuation, as she does most people. He has indicated interest in her several times, but she is interested only in keeping him as a friend, and has consistently found a gentle way to turn his attentions down without affecting his ego.

Based on the earlier part of the story, we are about to see what it might take to safely get Kary out of her rural retreat and off to any kind of an adventure: the signature on the papers is that of a famous director who heard about her involvement with Bianca’s screenplay, will be directing Andrew’s next movie, and wants her to come advise on it because his Indian costar’s wife is a big fan of Kary’s novels.

Kary knows it makes no sense – and she couldn’t possibly – but… the hook is baited just right, and she’s very tempted.

Because one of her problems is that everyone seems to have an opinion on what she can do. And she’d rather make those decisions herself, though usually in the negative (first line on page).

I like the Page 99 test.*

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Except for posting an updated Page 69 and Page 99 test pages when the formatting finalizes what these would be for NETHERWORLD, I won’t be doing any more of these until LIMBO is written, but it was fun, and allowed me to look at the concept of making sure ALL pages are in some way representative of the novel, the story, and my writing.

If you’re a writer, have you ever tried these on your own work?

If you’re a reader, what will you think the effect on you will be as you get to these pages? I’d love the feedback.

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Yes, I’m working on it.

No, this isn’t really a distraction. Think of it instead as ‘freshening.’ And if you don’t know what that is on a farm, go look it up. Another interesting word that says a lot.

And now I’m all interested in getting the final text to the formatter – to see where page 99 ends up – my ‘reason’ for playing with the new toy.

*I still recommend the test and the blog, but am sad to say SPAs are not welcome to apply, though it took some doing to find that out, as it isn’t mentioned.

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My opinion of PURGATORY Page 99 test

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Pride’s Children: PURGATORY – Page 99

99 – A DIFFERENT TYPE OF PAGE TEST

This test comes from Ford Maddox Ford, again via the Campaign for the American Reader blog, but is a different way of assessing a book, and may well be apocryphal, as mentioned in his Page 99 Test post on Aug. 6, 2014, by R. John Williams, Yale professor and author of The Buddha in the Machine.*

In THIS test, Marshal Zeringue asks authors, ‘whether Page 99 reveals “the quality of the whole” about their books.’

That’s a little harder, and the authors who speak about their P. 99 implications have wide and varying opinions about it.

Why is it harder?

Because authors have somehow picked up the notion that they are supposed to let other people – interviewers, reviewers, readers – comment about their work, not themselves, or at least not themselves praising the book.

It means putting my opinions of my own work on record.

Specifically, whether this one page – 99 – is a good way to display the ‘quality’ of the whole.

Funny how that makes my stomach unhappy.

I much prefer the nice comments from reviewers (and usually have no trouble ignoring the less-nice ones).

I’m going to do it anyway

Never waste a good prompt is my motto.

Parental rules to my generation from our parents were meant to keep us from turning into the loud-mouthed, self-centered kid we could have become, because it would mean our parents hadn’t reared us correctly. ‘Children are meant to be seen, not heard,‘ is part and parcel of the same.

I don’t think these rules are followed quite as much any more, but, for example, I never knew my mother thought I had turned out okay until, as a grownup with three children back on a visit to Mexico, I happened to tell her I never felt I had met her exacting standards, and she replied something like, “That’s ridiculous! I brag about you to my friends all the time.”

That was the key. She never told us. And the eldest child does have the tendency to try to please, especially if she’s a girl. I think my four younger sisters figured it out, but they didn’t really leave home (Mexico City) and not come back, as I did.

We had no brothers; I suspect it would have been different, possibly worse, if we had.

I don’t think they meant anything bad by rearing us to enter polite society modestly, when it was our turn, but I was already the odd daughter, the one who wanted to be a scientist, and the nerve endings were exaggeratedly exposed.

Self-promotion is an absolute requirement for indie authors

Many of us aren’t so happy with that part of self-publishing, or maybe it’s only those of use who were older when we started writing.

Or even possibly I missed a lot of changes because, as a Person with ME/CFS, there was little energy left for me and my own concerns after the family got what I wanted them to have from me.

So, do I think that page 99 of PURGATORY reveals the quality of the whole book?

It reveals a lot of the main relationship: Andrew has come to visit for the first time, taking Kary up on a casual offer to drop in if he was in her neighborhood (rural New Hampshire vs. where they met in New York City on Night Talk). The only reason she got a bit of advance warning – less than a minute – was that, due to an overly-aggressive fan, she has had a gate installed at the bottom of her drive, and he had to speak into the CCTV and ask permission to ride his motorcycle up her mountain retreat; otherwise, he would have knocked at her door!

This scene is in Andrew’s point of view (pov), and we haven’t heard from him until this chapter after they said goodbye in NY at the end of Chapter 3.

In the intervening time, Kary was moved to take in the movie Roland, based on the medieval epic poem The Song of Roland, which was the reason he was on the talk show, and was blown away, whereas, being basically a recluse, she’d had no idea who he was when she met him. So their entire relationship is being torn down and replaced though neither of them know it.

The novel has many such accidentally-fraught encounters, each one showing the characters’ behavior under unexpected stressors. And how each character’s inner and outer lives complement each other.

Does this page 99 show off the whole?

It shows Kary’s self-control under extraordinary circumstances – a result of her medical training as a former physician: ‘Never let them see you uncertain.’

I know what is going to happen in scenes – I’m an extreme plotter – but not how, and it’s been fun to essentially listen to the characters to see what they do with my stage directions.

I love that this page has a good example of working characters – so many novel characters don’t seem to do much, but work takes a huge portion of most real people’s lives. They discuss their work – but expectations and reality are at odds.

And it lets a changing inanimate object, the fire in her fireplace, take one of its many mood-setting opportunities. I didn’t grow up with a working fireplace, but after I left home, my parents moved, and the new house’s massive fireplace was used in so many warm gatherings they were almost not complete without a fire (houses in Mexico City usually have neither heating nor air-conditioning, and can be chilly, especially in winter months).

It gives a nod to the relationship between writers and actors which is fundamental to the novels: each asks about the other’s work. She’s been writing earlier, he (and his feet) came from a morning of filming locally. Each is cagey, neither takes the bait to speak at length about themself.

In the whole, I think it does

represent the whole: two of the three main characters, a developing relationship, the settled homestead of the rooted character, the peripatetic nature of a working actor, and something of me as the author.

Not bad for one page!

If I am allowed to say so myself.

*I still recommend the test and the blog, but am sad to say SPAs are not welcome to apply, though it took some doing to find that out, as it isn’t mentioned.

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If you’ve read Pride’s Children: PURGATORY, was there enough memorable about Andrew’s first visit that you remembered it?

Had you noticed the recurring fires?

Does this scene make you smile?

What do you think of books where no one seems to be employed?

Did you ever think anyone could make a movie out of The Song of Roland? Did it remind you at all of El Cantar del Mío Cid?

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The very first step to a cover: SKETCH

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The threat of a cover for Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD

THE GAMES HAVE BEGUN

When you find the right people, things move.

Due to the extra challenges I seem to be facing lately, and because I’m getting very antsy about launching Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD, whose text has been finished for longer than I expected, I have explored various publishing assistance options – to uniformly fail in finding people who would do it MY WAY.

I have a book out, PURGATORY, for which I had plenty of time, learned graphics (Pixelmator), acquired a cover mentor (thanks, J.M. Ney-Grimm), learned how to format from Scrivener through Word to the final pdf files to upload, etc., etc., in 2015.

It seems quite reasonable to ask someone whom I’m paying to produce the same thing – so they look like a set. Right?

Well, even though the concept seems simple, and I don’t blame them, many ‘professional’ publishing services (all the ones I’ve approached ~ ten of them so far) must make their money by using their preferred software quickly and efficiently, because I had no takers once I explained I’d already made my own design decisions, and wished to keep them.

I don’t have the bandwidth to work with someone learning, or to spend a lot of time going back and forth explaining things, unfortunately, so that avenue didn’t pan out either.

The solution is probably at hand

as I had the inspiration and the sense to ask a friend who has published plenty of his and his wife’s books whether that was something he could see doing – and, if so, what his rates might be.

And got a ‘Yes – let’s try’ back.

I’m still in shock, because I sent him a few emails, and all the images I had accumulated, and a few questions – and the next thing I see (which you won’t, yet – that would be a proper cover reveal) was a cover (he modestly said it was his fourth attempt) that I could have used exactly as it was if I had needed it that fast.

Either they get you, or they don’t

seems to be my fate, and I admit, not to being difficult (every author is picky about their baby), but to being niche (indies don’t often write mainstream – mainstream authors usually want traditional publishers).

He understood everything I said – just as I was starting to think it was me (no, of course not, Alicia).

‘Niche’ means no precedents, no cover tropes to announce the content, and a wide variety of possibilities.

‘Mainstream’ means – for a traditional publisher – giving the cover designer a lot of freedom and latitude and little input from the author. There are some amazing (and probably quite expensive) covers out there that win design prizes. Okay, almost NO input from the author.

And we indies are stubborn.

When do we see it?

Very soon – he is working blazing fast, from what he sent me in a day.

I have a few more things to send him to do a bit of tweaking because we can.

Plus a thing or two about the fonts I should also have sent (but that brain fog has been heavy and dark) from the beginning, and which I will dig out and send today – quibbles.

So what on Earth did he start from?

I put it up there for you as the header image, probably against all reason.

But I thought you’d enjoy the improvement when it comes – though I’m not ready to reveal even that first example he sent yet.

Just see that I actually know what I want, but couldn’t make my brain do the work.

But I’ll get it anyway.

And that makes me happy.

From what he’s already said about formatting, that will be making me happy, too, as soon as I send him the raw materials.

As I’ve always believed – you just need the right person.

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The Happy Camper.

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Progress: Copyright, Discussion Guide, Permissions, ARC

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That I do myself

BUT IT IS A FINITE LIST

To keep you posted:

Registering the NETHERWORLD copyright at the Library of Congress

That was an interesting couple of hours!

After a very long and frustrating process, I regained access to my Library of Congress electronic copyright account, and have REGISTERED the copyright, including uploading the 3.2MB PC NETHERWORLD pdf I just created yesterday, and we are paid – so will just have to wait for the certificate, and am DONE.

I tidied up a number of small things – such as minor formatting on chapter titles – before uploading to LoC.

This is the backup – it contains the full text except for a table of contents, and is not in the final formatting ebook and print readers will experience, and it has some running heads about the pdf itself, but it is an important step because I’ve already had Amazon demand proof I wrote PURGATORY, at which point I was very happy to already have the registration certificate (they gave me a short time period to prove I wrote it OR they would take the book down, and, IIRC, we may have been in the middle of the big move).

These requests are never convenient, and always feel scary, and you wonder why, and whether someone is trying to publish your work under their name… Best to be prepared.

Discussion Guide for Book Clubs for Purgatory

When invited to a book club, I created the earlier version of a set of questions that a book club leader can use to help readers talk about Purgatory.

Those have been reorganized and expanded – feel free to copy/paste into any convenient word processor, and to send them out ahead of time.

Discussion questions help spark thinking about different topics covered by a book, and have no predetermined answers.

Permission to use the KJV quotes for Netherworld

The Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible is copyrighted, and vested in the Crown.

Cambridge University Press manages the copyright for the Crown, and should be consulted when using extensive quotes or commercial uses.

For Purgatory, I requested and received permission by sending them the list of quotes I was using for chapter titles, epigraphs at the beginnings of chapters, and Ethan’s epitaph.

I just did the same for Netherworld – and expect to receive the same permission, as the quotes are unaltered, attributed, and labeled, and used with respect. There are MANY wonderful verses covering almost any topic you can think of. Not everyone has a Christian biblical background, but the KJV is my personal favorite for many of the verses (which modern scholars sometimes translate ‘more accurately’ but less poetically, and language has changed). These are the quotations you remember if you’ve read them.

Since the whole of Pride’s Children is, in many senses, a modern retelling of The Book of Job in the Old Testament, many of those verses are appropriate as epigraphs in the beginnings of chapters, and I enjoy finding the perfect ones.

ARC now needs to be created for reviewers

A big job is to created the interior for the books for uploading to Amazon. But a similar job is to create the electronic Advance Reader Copies that can be sent to reviewers for their reading and comments, and it is good to have those before publication, so that the book launches with some reviews already on its Amazon page.

The eARC will be the same content as the ebook, except that it is not the exact copy of the Kindle Unlimited version, so I’m allowed to send them out and not violate the KU terms and conditions of exclusivity.

They, of course, go out free of cost in exchange for the reviewer considering the writing of an impartial and honest review.

I usually have to go back and forth a bit with the pdf that provides the ebook and print book interior, so I use one of the early versions for my ARCs.

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The next big job – because I have to refamiliarize myself with Pixelmator, my graphics program, and update to the current version – is producing all the covers, back covers, and other bits of graphic information for reviewers to use.

And that’s the progress up to May 3, 2022. It’s going much faster than the first time. More when I have it.

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