Writing

Dear Readers:

A little aside to begin with: when I think of my readers in the abstract, I find myself being inexplicably fond of them, and insanely curious about them: what are they like?  What are they thinking?  Which passages do they like?  Which characters?  Which scenes? and so on, and so on.

Then I imagine meeting one face-to-face, and I think: what if he or she is a pain in the butt?  What if they're ugly as sin?  What if I want to get away in a hurry?  This is the reason I absolutely don't want to meet anyone of my readers physically at all.  Above all, what if they really don't like the stories, and just read them because they're free?  If that is the case, just don't tell me.

Charles Dickens was asked about writing, I read somewhere, and was asked, specifically, what his advice to young writers just getting started was.  I read this some years ago, so I don't remember all the details, but he said, to the best of my recollection: detail, details, details!  Or it may have been: describe, describe, describe.

Bear in mind that Dickens wrote serialized stories for the newspapers, and for those of us who write in larger (or smaller) forms, the advice may not apply mutatis mutandis, as they say in the learned literature.  (Wait; I gotta look that up, to make sure that that's what I mean . . . Oops; no, that is not what I meant.  So I need to rewrite that sentence . . .)  Dickens's advice may not apply, without changes, to those who write larger-scale pieces.

The serialization of a novel, if that is the primary mode in which the novel is to be published, would be a peculiar thing in a few different ways.  For one thing, it would be very desirable to end every episode with a cliffhanger.  This need not be a requirement, but editors of modern-day journals would strongly suggest that style of writing.

For another thing, incorporating a lot of detail would be desirable, especially if it stretches the story out, in the case where the author would be paid by the episode, so the more episodes, the merrier.  For yet another thing, the author has the luxury of creating new, subsidiary characters in an episode, who need not survive the episode.  They could just wander off into the sunset, having performed the task for which they were created.

Which sort of Details?  Some readers would love to have the settings described.  Some would love a detailed description of the scenery.  Some others would prefer a detailed psychological profile of the characters; some would prefer the thought-processes of the characters as the action unfolds.  (I do this, and not much of anything else!)  Some would value a physical description of a character above all else.  (I do a little of this, even though I should keep it down.  The readers' own image of a character could really be as valid, if not more valid.)  I have read stories where the author describes the actual makes and design lines of the clothing and the shoes that the main character wears: Vuitton, or whatever.  Really?

I recently read (again!  How pathetic?) one of my earliest stories: Jane.  Oh my word (please forgive me) some passages had everything.  This story has no plot, really; it is about a girl who is a photographer, and falls in love with two of her models, to begin with, and then they both die.

More than a year later, she meets up with another model, and again they fall in love.  In a sense, this relationship saves her sanity.  Not that she was contemplating suicide, or anything; but just that it turns her life around 180 degrees, from sheer, plodding existence, to great happiness.

Then, unfortunately, my inspiration took a dive, and the ending of the story is pathetically sad.  I freely admit it, but I think the story is worth reading for the various segments of it, which are amazing.  You may not recognize the writing as mine; it is much more passionate and emotional.  I was younger.

In the Helen saga, too, a lot of the description was passionate and emotional, and detailed.  But in the process of condensing the story into the three books of (1) Helen at Westfield, (2) Helen and Sharon, and (3) Helen's Concerto, I, for some silly reason, took out most of this detail, which is what made the story so vital, when it was still unpublished.

In contrast, I think some of the detail in Concerto actually make the story weaker.  I can't fix the problem without making the story worse.

Oops, gotta go; I got a phone call.

Kay Hemlock Brown

Politics Rears Its Ugly Head

I'm trying to refrain from talking about politics in these times fraught with frustration and pain, but some of the articles I'm reading are making me angry.  There is no conclusive evidence that any of this is true, but unless we talk about them, nobody will look for evidence.

The pressure to open up the economy seems to be part of a longer thread of decisions that I had not paid attention to.  After the administration rejected the need for distancing and being careful in January, remember that they abruptly changed plans, and supported taking action.

Why was this?  There is some reason to believe that that the administration initially thought that only foreigners were likely to get infected, essentially Asians, Chinese, Koreans, etc, and they were infecting people in California, and mostly in communities of either immigrants, or elderly folks.  But then, it seemed that wealthy white folk were also being affected.

For a while, the White House was following the suggestions of the CDC and the team of medical advisors we saw on the President's briefings.  But then there appeared to be agitation for reopening the economy.  From where?  Rural areas where infections were few.  Political leaders were noticing that most of the infections were in low-income places where blacks and Latinos lived tightly packed.  In fact, the workers in meat-packing plants were forced to live in dormitories, and when there was a case of infection, it was followed by scores of workers also getting sick.  So loosening restrictions (or 'opening up') would affect mostly blacks and Latinos, the sorts of citizens that the Administration loves to hate.  Also, with meat packing places deciding to close down, the public loses its access to meat.  It seems that those who vote Republican need more meat to survive than Democrats do!  (This may explain why they seem to need more guns, too.)

When people are forced to go to work (or lose their jobs), it is usually the poorer people who are affected, the people who have more dangerous jobs, and disproportionately blacks and Latinos.

Can you imagine how devastating it would be if all those who do not think it advisable to go to work defied the orders of their bosses and stayed home?  This would be the time for them to do so, except that going on strike is not something that happens very often.

So the seemingly random response of the administration to the pandemic turns out not to be very random after all, but driven by racism.  The administration looks at states as white states, like Texas and Georgia, and non-white states, such as New York, and California, and Michigan.

Just the thought that the US government responds to racist principles makes me almost sadder than anything else.  Of course, certain individuals in the government have been manifestly racist all along, but it was easy to think that the government as a whole was not.  But when response to a pandemic is suspiciously race-related, we have descended to a new low.

Kay

Sales on Smashwords

The title of this post is very misleading, I realize!  Nobody is more concerned about how many books written by me are flying off the Smashwords shelves than I am, myself.  I did a quick estimate of how many books total I have managed to persuade readers to download, and I arrived at 8,500.  That's not a whole lot, I know.

I really should try a lot harder to publicize the books, but I just sit here, tragically unconcerned about who or how many buy those books!  And I have another one in the works, but I'm finding it difficult to complete.  It was intended to be about the virus and the pandemic, but in a sense I don't know how to get it written while we're all still under lockdown, and we don't know how it all turns out.  One thing I know is that I want to convey the frustration of the kids who are forced to stay at home, but I live in Rural Pennsylvania, and the lock-down is not enforced as strictly as it probably is in large metropolitan areas; we're allowed to walk around to neighborhood parks, and so on, which makes all the difference in the world.  What we have been asked not to do, is visit anybody.  But I see people walking up to various houses, calling them to come out, and carrying on a conversation yelling back and forth, but staying at a distance of around ten feet.  This is fine.  Everybody must wash their hands, and toss their masks in the laundry as soon as they get home from the grocery store.

Bear in mind, though, that people who work on the clock, and were terminated, are now without an income, and without any prospect of employment.  Their bosses want them back at work, but their supplies--the raw materials for what they did--are no longer coming in, or customers are no longer coming in, or customers are out of work, so cannot buy anything.  This is a crazy situation which Trump and our government has never faced before, at least not to this degree, and so they don't know how to handle it.  Nobody knows.

I believe, though, that the Democrats are more likely to know some approaches that will work, but the Republicans will probably flail about, unwilling to make moves that they feel are too risky for the health of the Stock Market.  Let's see whether this Stock Market can make things better for us!  I don't think so.

Kay

Miscellany

I often look at the sales figures for my books on Smashwords, and I'm seeing each of the titles selling a few over the month.

I think I know what these crazy sales figures mean.

A few readers have gotten interested in the Helen character, and the characters in the story (stories) and seem to be stocking up on the entire series.  I'm grateful for however many readers are this way; I realize that the readership of this set of stories is likely to be small; I wrote about why this is so: there are many areas of interest that must intersect for a person to relate to these (Helen) stories, and such folks are very likely to be few in number.

Westfield has been finished, and has been uploaded.  It will be available at the end of the month.

All of these (except for Helen's Concerto) are extracts from material I had written a year or two ago.  Concerto, especially the last part, was written over the last year.  (Those most recent sections are the weakest, and I apologize.)

I am currently writing a story that takes place after Concerto, as Helen and Sita find themselves in the Coronavirus crisis.  As usual, I'm letting the story write itself, and not steering it very strongly.  I doubt that it will be ready any time soon, because I have got out of the habit of writing, and external events are distracting me.  So far I have got Helen and Sita traveling in the South, in a sort of honeymoon.  There are no purple passages, but as you probably agree, Sita has always been strung a bit tight, and it was time that we had a Sita who is a bit looser!  No; she isn't going to be that loose, don't worry.

Kay

What's Up?

Hello to all of you who read this Blog!

Our little town had managed to squeak by without too many cases of COVID hitting us, but now we have close to a thousand, and around a score of deaths.  But still more cases than in some lucky localities.  Anyhow, the Stay Home is not being enforced very heavily.   Meanwhile, we hear from friends and relatives living abroad that Stay Homes are being enforced a lot more stringently in those countries, and not all at the same level.  In some places, you need special permission to go anywhere, such as to the drugstore, for instance.  If you run out of antihistamines, you're out of luck; you gotta live with your inflamed sinuses.

I can't resist checking in Smashwords, to see how my stories are selling.  Almost all the stories are selling in a steady trickle, which is nice.  But, as before, I suspect that some of them are just being downloaded, and not read at all.  For instance, my latest book: Helen at Westfield, which describes the first semester-and-a-half of Helen's life at Westfield, did not get enrolled in the promotional effort of Smashwords.  (Most of my books were enrolled, and I made them free to download.)  And Westfield has not sold a single copy.  Maybe any readers who have taken a liking to Helen haven't yet noticed that . . . Oh, wait; it does not get released until April 30.  Silly me; of course it isn't selling!  (I mean, it can; you have to make an advanced purchase of it.  Nobody would bother, and I wouldn't expect you to!)

Westfield is a book still with a lot of rough corners in it.  There is no central plot in it; it would read very much like an episode from the middle of a book, which is what it really is.  I falls chronologically after Helen On the Run, where baby James is born, and Helen and Sharon, where Helen sneaks off to make those three movies.

Almost all these books that I write have rough patches, or even entire rough sections, which I have to heavily edit, to give them whatever bit of polish I can.

I see with regret that all the Democratic candidates have dropped out, and finally all of them have endorsed Joe Biden.  If Joe Biden actually takes the campaign seriously, and all the new policies that he has adopted, we could have an excellent four years.  These four years coming up could really be four of the very best; better than the Obama years.  Especially so if Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez combine to make some of the more far-reaching ideas a reality, and showing the anxious Wall Street types that, well, their free and easy tinkering with stocks might no longer be possible, but it isn't the end of the world.  I remember being told that Lyndon Johnson, who picked up the presidency much like Biden is doing, did more for minority rights than anyone else, though he had never thought to do so until he was in the White House.

With a long sigh, I have started writing a new story about Helen.  I hope against hope that there are people who are not heartily sick of the character of Helen Nordstrom.  What is her chief charm, to my mind is not Helen at all, but the kids, and Helen's long-suffering friends.  And I want to make this last book all about what happens after Concerto ends (which is a perfectly good ending, so don't worry), but I wanted Helen and her sweetheart, and the kids, to grapple with the Stay At Home instructions.  I may not succeed.

Most of all, not living in Philadelphia myself, I really can't describe what happens there too accurately; to I have to move them out to one of the smaller towns on some excuse, and maroon them there.

At any rate, I had put up an illegal cover for Westfield; it had some images stolen from the Web.  Our cover artist, HALCHROMA (Sreya Halder) has promised to paint us a nice cover for Westfield, and until then I'm going to give it a cover with no artwork at all.

Until I have more news to report, this is bye for now,

Kay

Kay's Stories on Smashwords

As you know, I have made all the stories free on Smashwords, as part of a COVID epidemic lockdown-related promotion.  SW hopes that people are quietly reading at home; perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't!!

I love to go on the Smashwords dashboard, as they call it, where a SW author goes to manage his or her book sales, and select 'Daily Sales', and then 'Books', which tells me which books are selling.  Actually, which books are being given away fastest!!  As you might know, I don't really care about making money from these books (though, honestly, some people do make an awful lot of money from their books, and I shouldn't sneer at the prospect of earning from the books).

The titles
Prisoner!
Helen at Ballet Camp,
Helen and the Flowershop Girl,
Jane on Holiday
are the most popular ones, because (I think) they have the most explicit, and implicit, sex in them.  Again, I should not disparage those who look for sexy stories to read, and pick my ones, because there are quite a number of sexy stories on Smashwords to buy (and get for free), and wanting to read something that is a bit titillating is nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, I wrote these very stories to keep myself from going crazy at a rather dry time.  (Gosh, I can't believe I wrote that.)

This is strange, but for a sort-of reclusive person, I do feel very much for those who are going stir crazy in the US, because of the lock-downs imposed by the more intelligent governors.  There are some governors who are trying to play a game, I suppose trying to make their states compete unfairly against the locked-down states and areas, and get ahead economically at this time when we should not be doing that.

Talking about being locked down: I thought about writing a story concerning Helen and her family during these times, and how they cope, but I write so slowly that by the time it gets written, it could be of no more interest to anyone!  As it is, while I labor over Helen at Westfield, I get the strong feeling that it could not possibly hold anyone's interest for very long.  In trying to telescope Helen's adventures over many many months into a single semester, Helen comes across sounding like a superhero.  Her 'special powers' all flow from her being, in addition to a great violinist, also an athlete, and actor, and a persuasive speaker.  I gave her a pretty face, but that was about all; she is strong, but lanky and stringy, and only her personality makes her attractive, really.  But I could not bear to create a heroine with a plain face.

On facebook, there are dozens of amateur musicians playing guitar and singing, on the Covid Concert page, and giving links, where people could leave tips!  Some of these are just hoping to make a dollar or two; others are probably desperate to make up the money they lose from staying home.  This has been a horrible two years; I gave lots of money for my favorite candidates last fall, and now I'm faced with having to give tips to singers whose songs I really don't like.  But at least they're trying!

I'm starved for the company of the pets of my friend!  If you have cats and dogs, count yourself lucky; just watching them is very entertaining, and if you have the imagination to tease them with something they would interact with, it is worth all the effort!  I could tell you so many stories about pets I have observed!  And, of course, there are pets on YouTube.  There is even a sequence of videos about someone who made an obstacle course for a squirrel in his yard, which was constantly raiding his bird-feeder.  So he made it difficult for the squirrel, and took videos of what the squirrel did.  It was amazing!

Out here, the spring flowers are slowly coming up.  I have not been a flower person so far, though I do appreciate the flowers other people plant and care for.  There are reports that rivers are running clearer, air is less polluted, though I understand many of you must long to go out there and pollute a litte air!  (It is a little quieter, too; the fellows who race around in little motobikes, just to make a racket, can't do it anymore.  I wish they would tape it, and listen to themselves over headphones; I suspect they're more excited about being a nuisance to us than anything else.)  The canals of Venice are smelling less!  Isn't that amazing?

I am so wanting to get up and sing into a camera, and put it up on facebook!!  I can play several instruments, and I can sing a little, but I can't put the whole thing together!  I wish there were an easy way to put my phone up on a tripod stand; I bet Helen and the kids would figure out a way pretty easily.  My characters, unfortunately, are a lot cleverer and more motivated than I am.

Anyway, I sincerely hope that all of you who read my blog posts have the resources to eat nutritious food, and keep yourselves from being bored; those are the main things to worry about.  If you focus on the others in the house with you, it helps to keep you occupied.  Always thinking about how bored you are just leads to boredom.  I, unfortunately, have nobody to entertain, but I have records, and books, and, of course, the Internet.  Even if the Internet dies, I think I could manage for about a month . . .

Love to all,

Kay

Update and Personal News

Hello friends—all 13 of you!!!—and other readers! (Don't feel slighted by that dubious salutation! As you can imagine, I long for a following of a few hundreds, but it appears that a very small core of readers read all my stories...)

As I blogged in Helen (the companion blog to this one), I'm staying mostly at home, though at the moment, our Governor, Tom Wolf, has not mandated a lockdown.  This (staying home in voluntary isolation) is no hardship, since I'm a semi-recluse, anyway!  Unlike in the story Helen and Sharon, where Sharon thinks that she could be a pretty sociable recluse, if she felt like it, I'm not really a recluse in the first place; it's just that it doesn't bother me to stay home, reading, writing, or thinking about drawing something!

I just realized that this could be a great opportunity for those of you who have kids to interest them in reading for pleasure.  The main principle is: Don't force them!  Every hour or so, give them an opportunity to let off steam.  Sneaking off to some remote place to do something interesting is good.  Pretty soon, you might find your little people begging to be left alone with their book!  Sitting on them and insisting that they read will almost certainly not work.

One of my favorite authors of children's books is Tamora Pierce.  (Her facebook page seems to suggest that she was recently in bad health, as implied by the bulletin that she had been released from hospital.)  I stated in my own facebook page that my favorite series—a sub-series of the Tortall Series—is the one named Protector of the Small.  The principal character of this line of stories is a girl called Keladry of Mindelan (all these stories are set in a feudal universe), who is prone to taking the side of the underdog in almost any conflict.  This is only natural, for anyone with any sort of moral sense; Keladry is just more unswerving in her determination than most others.

As to my personal news, so far I'm keeping well; I would imagine that if I were to succumb to this virus  (Covid-19, if you're reading this in the distant future, and don't know what's going on), I suspect that I would not have the energy to keep up these posts.  I will also have to call in to my friends, to stop by with supplies.  Luckily I don't have a problem doing that; but I'm careful—have been careful, so far—not to be too much of a nuisance.  I have about a week’s worth of supplies, including a packet of breathing masks, which I had bought for a DIY project, and never used.

Thank heaven for cell-phones, don’t you think?  Can you imagine this same situation back in the 90's, when you had to use paper, or at least a land-line?  Well, land-lines were not so bad, I guess.  (Land-lines, for you younger people, were wired phones.)

Finally, all the projects I had floated last year have never been worked on, for the most part.  I did start a story called Helen in Westfield, but I just can't get motivated to continue with it, because it involves so much work, straightening out the sequence of events, to fit into a brief 14-week time frame.  It would be easier to write a completely new story to fit in with the Pandemic, which might be interesting.

Just remember that doing all these recommended things  only guarantees that we won't all get the virus at the same time.  The chances are good that we will get infected sooner or later, but at a time when the hospitals are able to provide us with beds and equipment.  (If we all get sick at once, how are they to accommodate us?)

Several months from now, some of the most healthy among us will have already gotten the virus, and kicked it off, and would be free to move around, and make life a little more normal for the rest of us—provided, of course, that they knew they had been infected by the virus.  Without tests, nobody knows anything.  In particular, young, vigorous hospital workers will be safe from contracting the virus.  These are some of the factors that slowing down the rate of infection delivers to us.

But, chances are, we're all going to get it, but it involves —hopefully—only a brief period of painful chest congestion, which might have to be alleviated by breathing assistance.  I'm almost certain that they'll have to use tubes into my lungs to remove accumulated moisture.  At least, I've never smoked; if you have smoked in the past, this treatment might remove all sorts of smoking debris from your overwhelmed alvioli!!

Anyway, be brave, and keep a positive outlook.  Try to be one of that lucky few who doesn't get the virus at all.  Don't be mean to people who come too close, etc.  If you go out, there's a sort of viral audio clip that advises taking a shower, and changing into clean clothes when you come back inside.  Washing your hands and wiping down flat surfaces (counters and desks) is a good plan for this time; apparently the virus can survive on a cold metal surface for several days.  (I had heard that it was 9 hours, but this audio clip says days;  I think that needs to be checked.)  But exposure to soap (and any detergent, I assume) kills them.

Don't panic, and don't feel negative.  A positive outlook is likely to keep your resistance stronger than almost anything else, but of course, it cannot trump simple hygiene, which is, washing.  Also don't cough on people, and avoid getting coughed on (I know, I know) and shower at least once a day.  And keep reading!

Kay