General report

The first thing I want to say is that I know a lot of really excellent indie writers, and I had fully planned on featuring them here, and showing off what I know as well as what they do, but it really hasn't panned out that way. I haven't had time to consistently update this blog. So I apologize for that, but at the same time want to share a little of what I know.

The self-publishing revolution really did turn the book world upside down in many ways, and I feel it, being totally indie, every time I rub up against that other world. They are not happy that people can simply publish quality work by themselves, and it doesn't take long before they let me know. But I have the advantage of not needing to make a living from what I'm doing, being a retired teacher and all, and not needing much except a good place to sit, so I'm going to keep cranking away at what I'm doing and staying up on the indie world which I find fascinating. It's kind of like ESL (which I taught for thirty years) in that every single person brings a unique set of skills and circumstances to the table, so that even if they produce what I consider flawed work (as I was quite used to with ESL) there is still a lot of value in catching what they are saying and appreciating the choices they made it bringing it to you.

This is one reason I do so much of what I call read-marketing - reading others' work so that others will read mine - because I like having a wide range of experience with different kinds of books, and also, by the way, I'm just retiring and its nice to just sit down and read. But, getting better at choosing what I know I'll like, and still feeling a little pressure to give some 4s just so I don't look like a dupe - well, this is the kind of problem I want to have. As a teacher of thirty plus years I can tell you that the problem you want is when everyone does it right and you still have to separate out the best from the pretty good. My other problem is that I read so much that I often find it difficult to put it all down and just write. My wife used to say she hated bad writing because it made it harder for her to write; I don't find that, really, but just find it makes me want to less. A good book is giving me so much of what I get writing: its own world, the challenges of different ways of saying things, etc. I get started reading in the morning and want to just keep reading and drinking coffee until I'm called away (btw I get called away often, having thirteen kids, so that's another excuse to just read, it's interruptable as opposed to writing, during which I get mad if I'm interrupted....

One of my big challenges will be to tell you a little about what I've found. I'm especially interested in things that may have been taught in writing programs yet tend to be over-used or poorly used, as if people seem to think they have to use it to prove they've mastered modern writing. One of these is Multiple POV, which, if you back off of it and ask yourself "does this really help this book?" or "is there a real benefit to seeing this situation from different points of view?" often the answer is, well, maybe ambiguous is a polite way of putting it. Are all books Multiple POV now? A lot of them are. Maybe it will be the new standard.

More on this later; really there's no rush. You can see that I can be very casual about this stuff; no purpose getting out there making a flashy blog (I've seen a few good ones) surveying the books out there, if I can't be consistent, thorough, and prolific, i.e. consistently deliver you good stuff. I'm struggling enough with that in my main output, the books I'm trying to write. I have them lined up; I've been stuck on one for quite a while; and things like this blog have fallen by the wayside as I just do what I have to, and try to manage thirteen kids, the grown ones of which tend to be the biggest of the problems. It's a crazy world. But my revenge is, I'm the one who ends up documenting it.