"Better Late Than Never"

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Some people take a very long time to do things and, unfortunately, I am one of those people.

 

I’ve been spending years editing a book that I hope to get back into print SOMEDAY, but only because this project was not the ONLY thing that I’m working on and also because months would pass when I didn’t work on it at all.

 

I have also been struggling with the writing of a GHOST Group story for several months. (I will figure it out at some point!)

 

And, just this week, I realized something else: One of my self-published poetry books that was released years ago was NOT available for distribution in the UK. Once I learned this, I was crushed, kicking myself over not discovering this sooner. But the experience had a plus: I now realized that it’s important to check on these books as often as possible to make sure that everything was in order. (I AM the book’s publisher, after all!) I did fix the problem, and now hopefully readers in the UK will be able to buy this book from Amazon.co.uk!

 

But I was still upset over all that time lost over this and probably any sales of the book being lost too! I told my oldest about this and while he, too, got upset over it, he added, “Better late than never.”  

 

Yes, that is true. And this same sentiment applies to how my whole week has been going.

 

One expression I often say is “I may be late for the party, but I’ll still show up.” I am notorious for being late. I have been late for classes, work and appointments.

 

And I may get certain tasks done late, but at least I get them done!

 

This blog post, for example. I try to get blog posts up early in the day while there is a better chance that more people will see it when I share the link, but it ended up being on the blog late in the day because I got too caught up trying to complete ONE thing that I realized would take up all of my day, and I decided that I couldn’t do that because I had other things that I needed to do today.

 

Trying to work on only one thing in my day is torture. I do not recommend it.

 

And that’s not how I work, anyway. I can’t just do ONE thing. I need to be doing multiple things, even in one day!

 

So, yes, that book’s distribution problem has been resolved. And I’ll be keeping an eye on the distribution of all of my other self-published books more often from now on!

 

This blog post has been put up.

 

And today, I also worked on one of the nonfiction books that I have been working on for many years. I have been writing it and researching it. I WILL finish writing this book, too! I’ll finish researching it and writing it and get it out there. It may be written many years later than I planned to finish writing it, but that’s still better than never being written at all.

Reading Books Can Help You Write Books – and Fix Story Problems

 

Photo credit: Unknown creator on Pixabay

 

When I was a kid, I wanted to be one thing when I grew up: An astronaut. And I planned to get there by first going into the Air Force. With this plan in place, I threw myself into learning everything I could about space and jets. My parents probably thought it was cute that I was reading books about jets. But then I became deaf at age 13 and there went my plans to join the Air Force and become an astronaut. Bummer.

 

But I never lost my love for either of those things. But nowadays, my fascination has more to do with space and not jets.

 

I couldn’t travel into space in real life, but as a writer, I could write about these subjects. Not only this, I could write stories of characters traveling through space. I’ve written a children’s book with just such a character, and I plan to submit it in the near future.

 

Meanwhile, I’m writing short stories and poems about outer space, objects in space, and space travel. I even have a poem about something related to a phenomenon discovered in space in my poetry book, Watch This Space (and, no, the “Space” in the book’s title is not a reference to outer space, though when I think about it now, I find it ironic that I wrote a poem about something occurring in space that was discovered JUST from observing space!).

 

One short story I have written, however, left me doubtful about it for a while there. I knew it needed work, but I couldn’t figure out what kind of work it needed, exactly.

 

I got the idea to write this story after reading the science fiction novel Obsidian by Bryan W. Alaspa. A character in that story, an astronaut, thinks about a myth he read that might have something to do with an episode his crew member was going through. I was so fascinated by this myth, that I asked myself one of the most common questions that writers ask to get ideas: “What if?”

 

I decided to explore the possibility of this myth being true in a story! It’s a science fiction story, but I wasn’t happy with the first draft. It just fell short. I wrote it as a parody story in response to a submission call. But when I reread their guidelines and saw the prerequisite “NO ALIENS!” I rewrote the story as a regular sci-fi story and figured it was at least passable. Still, I wasn’t happy with it, so I just put it away for a while, figuring I would go back to it later.

 

I have tinkered with that story ever since as ideas came to me, but nothing really came out of it.

 

Then I was added to an anthology that had a theme which I could fit into this story.

 

And, thankfully, the guidelines didn’t state that they didn’t want stories with aliens. That meant I could submit this story!

 

But I needed to fix it first.

 

The first thing I did was revise the story so that it fit with the anthology’s theme.

 

But even after doing this, I STILL needed to figure out a better ending for the story! The original ending was just too “meh.” And it didn’t really offer any ideas on what happened to my characters.

 

I let the story sit again, deciding to relegate this problem to that “workshop” in my mind.

 

Then I started reading the novel The Martian by Andy Weir. I was sorting through ebooks available to read on my Libby app one day and, remembering how much we loved the movie, I decided to start reading the novel.

 

And reading that novel has helped me figure out how to fix the ending of my story!

 

Like Mark in The Martian, my character is stranded on a planet. He has no way to get back to the shuttle hovering in orbit, and radio communication was destroyed by the hostile aliens he and his crew member were ambushed by. Also like Mark, my character is an engineer. So reading about Mark’s train of thought and actions to figure out how to stay alive on Mars until he is rescued gave me an idea: My character, who is also an engineer, needs to be doing the same thing! Not surrendering to the aliens holding him captive, but figuring out a way to escape and notifying his crew member on the shuttle that he needs to be rescued!

 

With this knowledge, I was able to once again approach revisions of my short story with a fresh perspective. The revisions are going well so far. I’m still reading The Martian, and it continues to inform and inspire me about the thought processes my character should have as an astronaut who is also an engineer. The novel is amazing, and I am glad it has helped me to figure out just what kind of ending my short story needs.

I Didn’t Like Reading Prose Poetry. Then I Wrote One of My Own.

Poetry has always played an important role in my life. I have read poetry for decades, devouring anything and everything that resembled a poem.

 

Except for prose poems.

 

The first time I saw a prose poem, I made a look of disgust and said, “That’s not a poem! It’s a story!” This judgment made, I avoided reading that poem – and every single one after it!

 

Then the day came that I wrote one of my own prose poems. I had no control over how I constructed this poem; the words just came out through my fingers and, before I knew it, I had a paragraph.

 

One very LONG paragraph!

 

A thing I don’t like about prose poems is when a giant paragraph of words makes up the poem. I would get a headache just trying to read all of those lines so close together! I prefer my paragraphs short and spaced out.

 

That said, I didn’t like what I saw with my poem, either. So, when I revised it later, I broke those lines up. Anything to make those paragraphs shorter and manageable!

 

And less headache-inducing.

 

But something interesting happened after I wrote that prose poem. I started reading other ones, too!

 

Somehow, I no longer disliked prose poetry! I was now interested in reading them!

 

And now I am reading even more of them!

 

So, not only did I manage to write a prose poem, but I am now reading them, too.

 

They say our tastes in reading change as we grow older. I guess now my taste in reading is more welcoming towards prose poetry. I want to read them! I NEED to read them!

 

As long as they are not presented as One. Giant. Paragraph. Of words.

What to do when you hate the book you are reviewing

 

Image by Jannik Texler from Pixabay

Nobody likes a bad book review, especially the author of the book! But then again, not everybody will love every single book they choose to read. This is also true for the book reviewer – but sometimes, they can’t decide they’re not going to review the book after all. That’s when you need to adjust your book reviewing strategy.

 

Most authors and publishers who send out books to review understand that there is a chance the reviewer will not like the book. Nobody who offered me a review copy ever tore down my door screaming bloody murder because I opted not to review their book after all. What I don’t tell them is that I didn’t like the book, couldn’t finish reading it, or that I hated it. Instead, I say that I’d rather not review the book after all. And, usually, I never hear from them again. Which is fine with me.

 

But if you’re in a position where you MUST review the book even if you hated it, here are some things you can do to get that review written:

 

Write about what you DID like.

I recently stopped reading a collection of short stories I received a free review copy of (I only got this book because I was on somebody’s list of reviewers). I stopped reading it after I noticed I kept passing over a lot of stories that I did not enjoy reading. However, some of the stories in this book were pretty good, so that is something to highlight in a review.

 

Keep your review short.

I have seen very short reviews online. We’re talking reviews that are only one or two sentences. These reviews are usually accompanied by star ratings. Guess what? You don’t HAVE to justify or defend your star rating! If you give a book a two- or three-star rating and add a couple of sentences like “Interesting concept. I think it has potential.” Then be on your way, that is just fine. You did your review.

 

Change how you write your review.

I have noticed some reviewers basically summarize what a book is about. If you must leave a review but you didn’t like the book, try doing this instead.

 

There are a number of ways to handle writing a review for a book that you didn’t like. The above suggestions are just a few strategies you can use.

 

It’s a blessing to book reviewers to have the chance to decline a review or to opt not to review a book that was sent to them, but not all book reviewers are allowed this option. Should you find yourself in such a situation and you don't like the book, figure out a way to write the review that is both fair for you as well as the author of the book.