Word Perfection

No one is perfect.  Well, except Nadia Comaneci, and Torvill and Dean.

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't strive for perfection.

I take a great deal of pride in my grammar, spelling, and proofreading skills.  I know that mine are above average, but I also know that the results of refining those skills are attainable by nearly every writer who dreams of uploading a manuscript to Amazon. 


I finished the actual writing of The Looking-Glass Portrait on 11 July 2016.  Because it was written using Word Perfect, I had to convert the document to Microsoft Word before I could upload it.  There are certain conventions of the two softwares that are not 100% compatible, so I had to go through the entire manuscript and make manual corrections to things like em and en dashes, tabs and ellipses, double breaks and so on. This also gave me the opportunity to look in both versions for marked spelling errors and fix them. 

Spell check tools are wonderful.  They won't catch everything, but they catch a lot.  Anyone who doesn't take advantage of them is just plain foolish.  I've seen too many author-published works on Amazon that have clearly never been run through even the most rudimentary spell-checking program.  This is unforgivable.

After putting my MSWord document through the conversion to HTML and then to mobi, I uploaded it to Kindle Direct Publishing on 18 July.  Yes, just one week.  No one else had read it.  No one else had proofread it.  No one else had edited it.  I knew I was taking a huge risk that I might have missed something major, but I was willing to take that risk and trust at least to my own proofreading skills.

The uploading process contains its own spell check application.  I used it, too, because you never know what the other programs might have missed.  And they had in fact missed one typo that I was able to fix before uploading.  I hit the "publish" button.

By Word Perfect's count, the book is something over 138,000 words long.  After a few readers got back to me, we had identified a grand total of three -- three -- errors that escaped my eagle eyes:  a missing space between two words, a wrong word, and a missing word.  All were easily fixed so the corrected document can be uploaded to Amazon.

Am I bragging?  Yes, I am!  But I'm also saying that this can be done by anyone who is willing to learn the skills or learn to rely on others who have the skills.  Your readers should be able to sit down with your book and read it, not correct it.  Are three errors acceptable?  Well, not by me!  Would I throw a book against a wall for three errors in 400 pages?  No, of course not.  But I wouldn't read past the first page if I found three errors on it.

It's not enough to put your heart and soul, your blood, sweat, and tears into you book.  You have to put your skill into it, too.  Language is the absolutely essential tool you have with which to build your literary world, and if you don't learn to use it with consummate skill, you probably won't be able to tell a story people will be willing to pay good money for.

Secret Places, Secret Words

This one is gonna ramble.  Sit back and relax.  ;-)

After a particularly stressful week, I finally got a good night's sleep and feel almost human again.  Last week-end was our local Artists' Studio Tour, which I participated in, and while it's a lot of fun and I actually make some money at it, it's also exhausting.  Monday was back to the day job and all the other routine, so I'm just now really recovering.

One of the first chores on my List of Things to Do Today is calculate my annual budget.  As I contemplate the very real possibility of quitting the day job and trying -- trying -- to enjoy a productive retirement, I need to know if the finances will permit it.  I can tell you right now, I won't be surviving on the strength of my book sales! 

Well, at least not based on past performance.  But when I came back to the writing something over three years ago, I had no illusions about that anyway.  I came back to it because I had always loved it . . . and because I needed the creative respite from the stultifying boredom of the day job.  Though I've not been as productive directly on the writing in that time, it has given me the creative balance I'd been lacking.  And that's a good thing.

Quoting Martha Stewart is also a good thing for reasons somewhat connected to yesterday's post about the cultural silencing of women, especially women perceived to be uppity or just more successful than men. 

Martha Stewart doesn't have to worry about a budget; most of the rest of us do.  Many of us are so caught up in the daily grind, plus a constant cascade of mini-crises, that we don't have the luxury of even thinking about how to find a way off the vicious carousel.  Even if we did think of a way, we don't have the time or the energy to implement it, let alone the financial means.  In our frustration and desperation, we blame everyone and everything else for why we can't have nice things, because we just don't seem to be able to do anything else.

Many of us also have responsibilities to others that can't be shrugged off.  Sometimes it's very difficult to maintain any kind of balance when there are contrary demands that simply cannot be ignored.

So today I am grabbing for myself the luxury -- and it shouldn't be luxury but it is -- of sitting down and examining exactly where I stand financially and what I need to do going forward.

I know that I have certain assets that have lain idle because the day job has prevented me from putting them to work.  Though I have no way of even beginning to calculate how much income these assets might generate, I do know that they are not generating any at all right now.  One of those assets is, quite literally, a box of rocks.  And that's not as dumb as it sounds.

Something over twenty years ago, my husband and I sort of stumbled upon a rock hunting location that apparently hadn't seen very much activity.  We had actually gone looking for a different location and ended up more or less lost, in the sense that we knew where we were but it wasn't at all where we had set out to go.   Having neither cell phone nor GPS nor even a good topographical map to figure out if we had made a mistake or the information that had been given to us was wrong, we decided to explore the area we were in rather than get more lost, then retrace our route home.  The particular type of material that we'd gone in search of was nowhere around, but we found a few pieces of something else that looked promising. 

As it turned out, those few pieces produced some very nice cabochons that I made into jewelry and ended up selling.  Life being what it is, several years passed before we had the opportunity to try to find this place again and perhaps acquire more of the material we'd found there.  I felt confident that I remembered the roads we'd taken.  It was just a matter of whether or not the roads had changed!  For once, my confidence was well founded; I navigated us right back to the spot without a single wrong turn.  We turned off the road exactly where both of us remembered having turned the first time.

What we found, however, was not what we expected.  We didn't find any of the material we'd gone in search of, which we'd only found a few pieces of before anyway.  Instead, we were amazed at the abundance of another type of rock, not only in quantity but quality.  Why hadn't we seen them on the earlier visit?  They were literally just lying on the ground!  Everywhere!  Despite the temptation to pick up every piece in sight, we took only those that looked most likely to yield jewelry-quality cut stones. 

Over the next several years, we cut and polished a lot of those rocks.  I made them into jewelry and sold them.  And we went back for more. 

We never told anyone precisely where they came from.  "Somewhere in Arizona" was the extent of the information we gave out. 

As far as I've been able to determine, the site is not listed in any rock hunting guidebook nor has it been written up in any magazine articles or on any websites. 

I still have a box of those rocks.

Last week-end, during the Studio Tour, one of the visitors to my studio wanted to buy one of the rocks.  I have certain pieces that I use for display to illustrate the original material from which the jewelry is made, and those pieces are not for sale.  The lady tried very hard to get me to sell it, but I wouldn't.  In a way, it's one of those "nice things" that I do have and don't want to part with.

But it's also more than just a "nice thing."  It's a part of me, a part of my personal experience, my memories, my knowledge.  The secret of its source is my secret, even if someone else has by now been to that particular place and found those particular rocks.

I could drive out there now, today, and probably find more of them.  Google Earth tells me the roads are still where I remember them.  No Panoramio photos have been posted, which suggests few people have gone out there even to take pictures.  I see no new dirt bike, four-wheeler, or hiking trails so indelibly etched in the desert that they are visible from satellites.  Perhaps, my husband being gone almost ten years now, it's still my secret.

Does that secret have a value that can be part of the budget calculation?  Can I use that secret, that knowledge, that experience, to break free of the daily grind and crises?  At what point does the secret lose its value simply because it's a secret?

At last week's Studio Tour, I sold two pieces of jewelry that had been especially dear to me.  I'm not sure why, except maybe it's that "nice things" syndrome.  I hated to part with them, but I also knew that I myself was not personally ever going to wear them.  They might as well provide me with a little bit of income and provide someone else with some enjoyment.  So I let them go.

One of the issues I've railed on frequently throughout this blog is the failure -- at times I'm tempted to call it the refusal -- of the writing community to set and then enforce some kind of quality control standards regarding digital publication.  I know that it's difficult for some people, maybe even most people, to stick their necks out and be critical, even when they know the criticism is warranted.  Their reasons are many, and often valid.  My own experience this past week may have reinforced some of their caution.

Back in the days when writers were scrambling for the limited number of spots on publishers' lists, there was a sense on one hand that those of us who had made it owed it to our fellows to help them up the ladder, and yet on the other sense that we were foolish if we trained our own competition.  As I've said before, I served my time as an RWA contest judge; I saw the horrible writing, the flat characters, the transparent plots.  I bit my tongue at critique group meetings where other members just plain didn't get that they had to learn proper grammar and basic writing skills.  In the end, though, it didn't matter.  Those writers were never going to be published.  They were never going to be my competition.

Today they are both.

Today, as I work on my budget to find out if I can even begin to survive without the day job's income, I understand that certain secrets will lose all value if shared, but certain others have no value unless they are shared.   Last night I completed a book review that I had started over a year ago.  I have no illusions that my review is going to make this particular novella any better.  Even though I pointed out very specific problems with it, others have done so, too, and the book remains in digital print.  It also remains an example of some of the worst writing imaginable.  I read three pages and that was more than enough.  The review is not kind.  It is honest.  It is brutally honest, because the book is brutally bad.

Is it possible that the author will read that review and be hurt?  Yes.

Is it possible that the author, her friends and family and fans, will be angry with me and seek revenge?  Yes.

Is it possible that some other writer will read that review and learn something?  Yes.

Is it possible that some reader will read that review and learn something?  Yes.

I'm willing to risk the first two for the sake of the second two.

I'm never going to be the kind, gentle, nurturing soul who pats the author of a badly written book on the head and says, "But you tried and that's what counts,"  and then slaps a big gold star on it.  (Yes, "it" may refer to the book, the author, or just the author's head.  Take your pick.)

Nor am I going to give hours and hours and hours of my time to angry, self-entitled authors who think I owe them free editorial services to ameliorate the effects of my scathing reviews on their tender egos.

But I will share my secrets, my knowledge, my experience, with those who are willing to learn and then willing to work with what they've learned, because now they are in my marketplace and they are competing with me.  I owe it to myself to contribute to the professionalism of my profession.

Just don't ask me to tell you where the rocks come from.

Selling words under the table

Since my earlier blog post here regarding how some sellers on Amazon and elsewhere seem to be buying positive reviews for their products, my cynicism has been growing.  More and more evidence emerges that honesty is a more and more rare commodity in the marketplace.

While I suppose it's somewhat understandable that sellers of products might be inclined to hype their  wares perhaps more than warranted, what I find most confounding is the negative attitude of buyers and potential buyers toward those who advocate honesty.

If you need to read that sentence again to make sure you understood it, feel free.  I'll wait.  ;-)

What it boils down to, though, is a pretty simple set of questions:  Do readers not want to read good books?  Do readers not know what a good book is?  Do they not care at all any more?  There is usually very little resistance or complaint when someone posts a positive review.  And as such, there are groups and organizations that purport to grant some kind of "seal of approval" to those books that pass some perhaps arbitrary criteria for professionalism.  That's all well and good, but how does the reader ever know what to avoid, if there are no negatives?

Ah, that's when it gets really dicey.  Because there's very little marketplace support for the person who dares to write a negative review, the kind that says loud and clear, "This book is utter crap."

When a book reviewer contemplates posting a negative review, she has to confront a series of Catch-22 situations, the first of which runs something like this:

Did you read the whole book, first page to last?

If yes, you read the whole book, you're permitted (!) to write a negative review, but you run the risk that you'll be accused of stupidity, because only a stupid person would keep reading a book they hated.  In other words, if you read the whole book and hated it, your negative review is invalid and a lie and you shouldn't post it.

If no, you didn't read the whole book, then you're not permitted to write a negative review because the book might get better toward the end and you'll find you really liked it.  In other words, if you didn't read the whole book, you can't be certain you really hated it, and your negative review is invalid and a lie and you shouldn't post it.

Negative reviews of anything less than the whole book aren't fair to the author.  Even if you clearly state you didn't finish the book because the characters were flat, the writing was flawed, and the story made no sense, it's not fair to the author if you review without finishing.  After all, the author wrote the whole book and somehow or other that seems to imply that the reader must read the whole book -- or shut up.


There's another Catch-22, too, related to that "fairness to the author" routine.

Are you an author?  Have you ever written a book?

If yes, you have written a book, then you are qualified to write a negative review but you shouldn't because you should understand how hard it is and should have an appreciation for what the author went through.  If you criticize her work, you're not being fair, you're not being kind, and you're not being supportive of your colleague.  If you criticize her work, you must be a jealous competitor, and you should not be allowed to review.  (By the same token, if you are an author and you post a positive review, you must be just boosting the ratings of a friend and your review is dishonest and you should not be allowed to review.)

If no, you have never written a book, then you are not qualified to write a negative review because you are unable to appreciate what the author went through to produce it.  Her effort, her dedication, her desire are far more important than your experience of 20, 30, 50 years as a reader.  If you criticize her work, you are just being mean and ignorant, because above all else, her feelings are important..


Is it a majority of readers who react this way?  Probably not.  And as for the authors of those badly-reviewed books who respond angrily to their critics, they, too, are in the minority.  Unfortunately, both groups are very vocal and, dare I say, aggressive in their behavior.  It truly takes a brave soul to go up against them.

It's even more difficult when the reviewer who dares to post a negative review is assaulted by the fangurlz and the friendsandfamily and the shills and the sockpuppets and the tit-for-tat review swapping circles.  Having been there more than once, I can tell you it's not a fun experience.

And for an author who truly does care about the marketplace and the quality of the material being published because of the effect it all has on the ability of self-publishing authors to have any hope of breaking the stranglehold of the traditional publishers, it's particularly daunting.  Is there a sense of mission?  Oh, absolutely.  Can that mission become an obsession?  Oh, absolutely.

What's the alternative?  To just let it go on?  To let the spammers and scammers and purveyors of crap to ruin the marketplace?  Maybe it is.

Or maybe we just have to be more aware of what kind of insidious disease we're up against and adopt some kind of resolution not to let it win.  Maybe we owe it to our readers, both the ones we already have and the ones we hope to have.

Because if we aren't writing for our readers, why in the ever loving hell did we ever publish it?

Words as a medium of exchange

In light of all the usual moaning and groaning and accusation-flinging about negative reviews -- on Amazon and elsewhere -- I thought this experience of mine was particularly telling.  It's not the negative reviews you should be suspicious of; it's the positive ones.



The transaction was, I thought, a simple and straightforward one.

A few weeks before Christmas, I ordered two items from an Amazon affiliated vendor, to be given as gifts to two different people.  The items were similar, but not identical, and the slight difference was important in determining which recipient received which item.

The order arrived in plenty of time for the holidays, in excellent condition and with a couple of bonus items that were a pleasant surprise.  Unfortunately, the two primary items were packed in identical, unmarked, sealed boxes, with no way to determine which was which.  This was annoying.

My only option was to wrap the gifts and hope that they went to the correct recipients.  If not, I would have to explain the problem and then the two individuals could either swap the gifts or, if the difference wasn't significant enough to them, they could keep them as is.   It turned out that I guessed correctly and there was no problem.   But I was still annoyed and planned to post a review to that effect after the holidays.  It would have been a simple matter, it seemed to me, for the vendor just to stamp the distinguishing feature on the otherwise unmarked boxes.

I was surprised, however, to discover a separate piece of paper included in the box with the merchandise and my Amazon invoice.

It read:

Thank you for your order.  We would like you to write a product review for our [insert product #1 name].  After you have written and submitted the review we will send you a second [insert product #1 name] for FREE to the address on your invoice.  Please allow 7-14 days for the package to arrive.

And then it is signed by the vendor.

After this text is an image of a typical Amazon order page, showing the buyer's account and orders, a description of the product, and the various feedback buttons:  Return or Replace Item; Leave Seller Feedback;  Leave Package/Delivery Feedback; Write a Product Review.  Then comes more text:

We would like you to write a product review!  Product reviews are fun and simple to complete.  Under your account select the "your orders" tab, find this order and then select the button that says "write a product review".

There is a big arrow pointing to the appropriate button on the image.

And then there's a big black line under all that, followed by more text:

If for any reason you are not satisfied with this order please let us know before you write your review.  We have a complete customer satisfaction policy and believe this is an excellent 5-star product!

The note closes with their email address and phone number.


When I went to the product's page and discovered it has well over 50 5-star ratings, I began to feel a niggle of suspicion.  Had all these 5-star ratings been purchased by the seller with a promise of a another free [insert product #1 name]?

I fired off a Seller Feedback note explaining only that I would love to leave a product review, but I couldn't follow their directions because the button wasn't active.  I wrote:

Packed in the box with my order was a note from you regarding product reviews.  I would like to leave a product review but can't because the "Write a Product Review" button doesn't show on the "My Order" page.

FYI -- I was very pleased with the products and with their prompt arrival, in plenty of time for the holidays.  I did have one minor complaint/suggestion, but you'll have to figure out how to allow me to leave a genuine product review.

Within a couple of hours -- on a Sunday afternoon! -- I received the following reply via email:

Linda:

What is your minor complaint/ suggestion?

Please advise.

Thanks,

 My scamdar was pinging wildly.  So I wrote back:

Excuse me, [vendor's name redacted], but my complaint/suggestion is intended for the review, not for private discussion. 

The note included with my order says: 

"Thank you for your order.  We would like you to write a product review for our [insert product #1 name].  After you have written and submitted the review we will send you a second [insert product #1 name] for FREE to the address on your invoice.  Please allow 7-14 days for the package to arrive."

It is then followed by a screen shot of a typical Amazon order page, with an arrow pointing to the "Write a Product Review" button. 

HOWEVER -- my order page does not have that button; instead it has "Contact Seller" and "Leave Seller Feedback" buttons, neither of which leads to the product review page.

Or am I required to submit my review to you for approval before it can be posted? 

Is it possible that this vendor is essentially buying 5-star reviews with a promise of free merchandise?  Is the vendor requiring that any product reviews be vetted by them in order to "qualify" for the free merchandise?  Is this practice potentially a violation of Federal Trade Commission regulations?  Did any of those reviewers state that they had received a free [insert product #1 name] in return for their review?

I wanted to leave an unbiased, honest review of this product.  Would my review -- which would probably have been at least a 4-star -- be buried under all those glowing 5-star reviews that no one will ever know might have been "bought" with free merchandise?

Recent events in the book review community have suggested that perhaps false positive reviews are much more readily ignored by those who have a vested interest in selling books (meaning, Amazon and now GoodReads as part of Amazon); and that sales-damaging negative reviews, even though they're scrupulously honest, may put the reviewer's account and reviewing career at risk.  Writers have inveighed against the negative reviews of their books even while establishing sock puppet accounts to 5-star their own or their friends' books.  (And, to be sure, they've often 1-starred their reviewers' books whenever possible.)

With the integration of Amazon and Goodreads, I think we really have to wonder which will win out:  The quest for sales, or the honest reviewer?  I'm afraid we probably all know the answer to that question already.


After I had written that, the issue continued to develop.  The latest update:

A few hours after I had sent my email to the vendor, I received a reply which stated:

Linda:

Thanks for ordering from us and bringing to our attention that you were not completely satisfied with your purchase. 

We have refunded you the full cost of this item with shipping. This should appear in your account in the next 24 hours.

Please continue to enjoy the [product] and we appreciate any honest and fair feedback you would like to provide.  We prefer that complaints/suggestions be discussed prior to leaving product feedback and reviews (as a reply to this message or by calling us).  In this way, we have a chance to correct or explain an issue or concern.  This will insure your feedback and/or review would include how we dealt with your complaint or suggestion. 

Links and buttons for feedback and reviews are only accessible to the buyer (you).  We do not review or edit feedback or reviews before you (the buyer) post.

Sincerely, 

At that point I didn't know if they were going to refund the purchase price of both items or only the one that was mentioned in the note requesting a review.  Either way, however, I felt very uncomfortable with this.  I felt as if my silence had been purchased.  How can you complain about something you got for free?  Ultimately, the refund was processed for just the one item, which was fine.  I guess.  I'm still not comfortable with it.

I'm even less comfortable because the issue should have been handled differently.  Apparently the reason I can't leave a product review directly from my order page is because the page is designed to give the vendor the chance to fix problems, and the vendor should have known that.  In looking at my ordering history, any order that is fulfilled by Amazon -- even if purchased from another vendor -- can be reviewed directly from the order page via the "Write a Product Review" button.  If the order is not fulfilled by Amazon, then there is only the "Leave Seller Feedback" option. 

Regardless how or why the process didn't work the way it was explained with my order, I'm left wondering how many of those reviews were left by people whose opinions might have been colored by the prospect of free merchandise they received in exchange for a review.  And I also have to wonder if the offer of free merchandise violates Federal Trade Commission Regulations.  Most customers know nothing about FTC rules, or believe that those rules don't apply to individuals.  But Amazon does, and GoodReads does, and the vendors ought to know, too.

And maybe the vendor shouldn't require reviews in order to get free merchandise.  Back in the 1950s we called it Payola, and it's illegal.

Are silent denials words of shame?

This is going to be a very short -- for me -- blog post.  I'll expand it later, but you'll have to come to the blog itself to see the rest.  And no, I'm not sure when it will be.

Here's my question:

If several self-publishing authors formally associate with each other, whether as an organized "group" on a readers-and-authors website or on their own collective blog or face to face or whatever, and if they proceed to rate and review each other's books without disclosing that they have agreed ahead of time to do so, are they engaging in deception for their own gain?  Why would they not identify themselves as friends or colleagues or associates or . . . whatever?  Are they ashamed of something?

Let me reiterate:  Are they ashamed of what they've done?

I have said all along that reviews by real people should be allowed.  Not reviews by 25 sock puppets of the author, 19 sock puppets of her mother, and 769 computer-generated sock puppets.  Authors are real people, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to post reviews of their friends' books if they want to.

But shouldn't they have enough integrity to identify themselves?  If not, what are they trying to hide?

Those of you who have been following me at all know that I generally include a disclaimer in my reviews.  Not only do I review under my own name, but I let the reader of the review know when and where and how I obtained the book; whether I've had any contact with the author and what kind of contact that is; and that I am an author of historical romances.  Personally, I feel that kind of honesty allows the reader to make an informed decision about the validity of my comments.

How is a reader to make that kind of decision when a book has five, or ten, or 20 5-star ratings but not one of the reviewers admits to being a member of an authors' review swapping group?

Again:  Are they ashamed of what they've done?  And if they're not ashamed of what they've done, why won't they admit it?

A few words about a jacket

Several years ago I made myself a quilted jacket.

Most of the women in my circle of acquaintances had lots more money to burn than I, and they all had nifty little jackets to wear on chilly days.  I didn't have any such jacket, and certainly not a closet full of them.  So I searched the Internet for a design.   After I found several that I liked, I created a pattern that incorporated elements of each, and made myself a jacket.

The prototype turned out all right, but it wasn't perfect.  I knew where I'd made mistakes, where I should have made adjustments to the pattern to make it fit better.  But that's what a prototype is for -- to work out the bugs.

The first time I wore the jacket, someone wanted to buy it, literally right off my back.  I told her I could make her another, though it wouldn't be quite the same fabrics, but it would be better constructed, wouldn't have flaws.  She said she didn't care about the flaws. . . . . until I pointed them out to her.  A misplaced buttonhole.  A too-narrow seam.  I told her I wanted to make sure any jacket she got from me was properly made for lots of comfortable wear.  When I delivered the jacket to her a week later and showed her the improvements I'd made and how much better quality this was than the prototype, she thanked me for my honesty and promptly ordered another as a gift for a friend.

Not too long after that, some friends invited me to go with them to the local "swap meet," which is one of those big commercial operations with several hundred vendors hawking everything from belts to golf clubs to cactus gardens to artisan bread to surplus cosmetics to toys to books to you name it.  In one of the "shops" featuring imported clothing, we stopped to look at . . . jackets.  Some were actually quite similar to the design I had used, but of course close inspection revealed seams that were already coming apart, mismatched buttons, loose threads, poorly stitched hems.  Though the jackets were priced about 75% lower than the two I had made and sold, they weren't even worth that bargain price.  They didn't look like they'd stand up to a single hand washing; mine were made to be thrown in the washer and dryer with no special treatment.

As one of the women remarked when we walked away from the display, "You'd think people would have more pride than to put that kind of junk out for sale.  And why would anyone buy that crap?  I'd be afraid it'd fall apart the first time I wore it."

And that's even taking into consideration that the people selling it are not the people who made it.

But I replied to her, as someone whose arts & craft products (Remember?  I make jewelry and stuff) directly competes with that flea market merchandise, "Many people don't know any better.  The stuff is cheap, and they buy it because they can.  And when it falls apart, they shrug and go out and buy another."

So there's all this cheap junky clothing in our flea markets and our stores, and thousands of women die because someone has to make an obscene profit off it.  No one seems to deny that a lot of it is garbage, and yet neither is anyone driving that point home: People die so other people can buy garbage.  And we know this doesn't make any sense, so why do we do it?  And I don't want anyone to think I'm blaming the workers for producing a shoddy product.  They do what they're told with the material and equipment they're given.  And if the boss says to cut the seams a quarter inch narrower to save a bit of fabric, they do it.  And if the boss says to set the sewing machine for eight stitches per inch to go faster instead of 12 to make a stronger seam, they do it. 

The point is, few will argue about the quality of the end product.  It's very often crap.  And that's the simple truth.  The colors fade, the stitching unravels, the buttons fall off, the zippers break. 

What's wrong with pointing out the obvious?

I happen to love the imported rayon dresses and skirts that are commonly found at the flea market, but I've learned to be very careful when buying them.  Often they have stains or fade streaks from being in the sun.  I check all the buttons, because even if I am perfectly capable of sewing on a loose one, I can't always match the missing ones.  And I'm not going to pay even $15 for something I essentially have to remake.

I don't buy appliances that don't work.  I don't by clothing items that are obviously poorly made.  I don't by rotten tomatoes or sprouted potatoes or moldy bread or bald tires.  Nor does anyone treat me like a leper for saying so.

But if I dare breathe a word about the absolute garbage that's being "published" these days by eager but woefully unskilled "writers," I'm called a hater, a bully, a scary troll, a jealous failed writer.  (Why would anyone be jealous of crappy writing?  Never mind.)

I don't care if it's a crocheted pot-holder (I've made more than a few of those in my lifetime) or an amethyst crystal wrapped in sterling silver wire (I've made quite a few of those, too)

 or a quilted jacket




or lathe-turned ironwood bowl

 or what it is.  If it's crap, it's crap.  Saying it's wonderful isn't going to make it so.

Words as therapy, words as dreams

One lovely Sunday morning in August of 1963, I hopped on my bicycle and pedaled to the little drug store near my home.  I purchased an ordinary spiral notebook there and pedaled home.  With pencil in hand, I sat down on the front porch of our house, opened the notebook, and began to write:

Sunday, August 11, 1963 (Morning entry)

I won't bore you with the teen-aged drivel-and-angst the followed.  After all, I was two months shy of fifteen so there was a lot of teen-aged drivel-and-angst to be written.

This was not, of course, my first foray into writing.  At a considerably younger age -- perhaps 9 or 10 -- I had started a number of the almost obligatory horse-and-girl fantasy stories, but by the time I reached junior high, my range of reading material had changed.  I was only in sixth grade, so not yet 12, when I began writing a pirate story in the style of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood, with a bit of treasure from The Count of Monte Cristo thrown in for good measure.  The summer before the diary was born, I had started what would today probably be called a dark ages historical romance, set during the barbarian invasions that collapsed the Roman Empire.  Though none of that manuscript remains in existence, I remember enough details of the story to know that my historical research for that period was pretty much non-existent!  Can you spell "anachronism"?

Sometime between the summer of 1962 and the summer of 1963, however, I began work on yet another novel, a contemporary mystery romance titled A Party of Ghosts.  The plot is kind of not really there and the main character is very Mary Sue-ish.  But there are themes of murder and sexual violence and non-marital sex and there may even be an illegal abortion.  This was pretty strong stuff for a 14 year old.  I'm not sure how far along I was on this novel by August of 1963, but I had definitely made a healthy start on it.  Writing the diary was not a new adventure for me.

Interestingly, though, I kept at it.  And I kept at the other writing, too.  Eventually, perhaps in the summer of 1964, I finished A Party of Ghosts.  The first draft -- chapterless and single-spaced on an ancient Remington manual typewriter -- is about 100,000 words, and I still have most of it.  There are a few pages missing, and I'm not sure why, but most of it resides in the file cabinet next to my desk as I write this.  Like the diary, it's filled with a lot of teen-aged drivel-and-angst.

I continued to write through high school, through my first stab at college at the University of Illinois, through my wanderings to New York and France and Spain and back again, but none of my fiction reached the completed manuscript stage.  And again, I still have a lot of it, tucked neatly in file folders or three-ring-binders.  Most of it is, um, not very good.

With my marriage in June of 1969, I vowed not to write fiction any more and instead to put my energy into being a wife and eventually a mother.  That vow lasted a few months.  But I had never promised to give up the diary, and it went on.  Yes, by that time, the diary was almost six years old.  It had gone beyond that spiral notebook and now filled several.

As the years went on and I continued to write fiction, I continued to keep the diary as well.  It now, almost 50 years later, comprises 23 spiral notebooks of various sizes and has recently entered the 24th.  I spent a great deal of spare time over a  period of about eight years actually transcribing it all, often horribly embarrassed in the process.  Was I really that angst-ridden at that age?  And "that age" wasn't necessarily as a teen-ager!

Would I ever want the diary published.  Good goddess, no!  I'd be mortified.  As Susan Douglas writes in the "Introduction" to Where the Girls Are: Growing up female with the mass media:  "Reading the diary I kept as a teenager is now excruciating, so mortifying that, if someone were to find it, I think I would blind myself with hot coals or simply commit hara-kiri.  I look back at my former self . . . the words she wrote in her spiral notebooks obsessed with two topics -- boys and sex -- and I wonder:  Who are you?  How could you have been so insipid?  Are you related to me?  How did you become me?"

When I read the first page of Douglas's marvelous, witty, and yet devastatingly honest book, I knew exactly what she was talking about.  But I also felt she had missed one point:  The importance of being able to look back at that former self.  Douglas's book, however, is not about the value of keeping a diary.  And keeping a diary is not a luxury everyone has or wants to have.

But as recent events have unfolded regarding the publication of unedited, authentic personal accounts, lost in the legal ramifications is, I believe, the true empowerment value of being able to express, without reservation and without qualification, one's feelings, all the drivel-and-angst that assails all of us at any age.

I cannot remember a time when I didn't want to  write.  It was never a matter of wanting to; I simply did it.  And I can understand that there are people for whom writing isn't the joy it is for me.  But as I've read some of the personal accounts of people who have endured traumatic personal events, more and more often I've read that they found some comfort, some relief, some healing in the venting of their feelings through writing. 

This kind of personal satisfaction doesn't rely on good grammar or perfect spelling.  The writer doesn't need to know or care about the difference between affect and effect, accept and except, writing and writting and written and wrote.  None of that matters, and it shouldn't.  That's the kind of writing that is for the writer.  She and only she is going to read it, and she knows what she means and what she wants to mean.  Eyes off and hands off her words.  They don't belong to anyone else.

That's how I feel about my diary.  When someone once read a part of it, I felt absolutely and totally violated, as though he had drilled a hole in my head and not only entered my thoughts and feelings but took them away from me, claimed them for himself, deprived me of my most personal possession.  For that reason, I never ever ever violated my children's privacy.  I never listened in on their phone calls.  I never looked through their dresser drawers.  When I found  a little "diary" that my daughter had written at the age of about 13 or 14, I returned it to her unopened and unread -- and it didn't matter that she was by then in her 30s!  The privacy of thoughts was sacrosanct.

When a writer decides to share her words, whether it's with one other person or with "the public," all those things that didn't matter before suddenly do matter.  Grammar and spelling and punctuation and using the right words.  All that stuff.  Why?  Because now she wants someone else to read her thoughts, and she has to use the tools of language to make those thoughts as clear as she can.  And the more people she wants to share it with, the more important her skill with those tools become.

As angst-ridden as my diaries from those teen-age years are, they are at least competently written.  As shallow and plotless and Mary Sue-ish as A Party of Ghosts is, at least a reader would understand what I was trying to say.  The verbs are right, the pronouns have proper antecedents, words are spelled correctly, commas are used where they're needed and not used where they aren't.

But that's because I always wrote.  I took the lessons learned in "language arts" class, as it was called at South Junior High in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and I used them to hone my storytelling skills.  These were the absolutely essential tools of the writing craft.  In all the years since then, I have often wondered if they might not also be the absolutely essential tools of living.

Maybe not.  Maybe now, in the days of Twitter and texting, when speed and brevity are more important, when feelings deeper than a :-) or a :grr: have no emoticons, when "IKR" is a whole sentence, what difference does writing make?

Writing makes a difference because we can't dream in emoticons and acronyms.  We still say "I know, right?!" in a way that means so much more than "IKR."  Maybe that will change with some future technology.  Maybe someday there will be tablets that you touch an icon and a whole emotional paragraph will appear on the screen or be broadcast through the speakers.  Who knows?  But for now, words are all we have to take what's in our hearts, our souls, our dreams, and make it real enough to share with someone else.

Sorrow shared is sorrow cut in half; joy shared is joy doubled. 

Sometimes it helps to share our sorrow, our grief, our fear, our anger, even if the only one you can share it with yourself.  Write it out, put it on paper or on the computer screen, and even if you don't share it with anyone else, even if you don't send that angry email or post that vicious comment or publish that scathing blog, just getting the words out can help.  Maybe it's just a vent for pressure and steam, or maybe it puts ideas into context, or maybe it helps understand.  If it's for yourself, that's enough.

But when the time comes to share the dreams and fears and joy and pain, then it matters how you write it.  It matters if you want someone else to be able to understand and feel what you felt. 

We do that, we who write, by following conventions so everyone is on the same page (pun intended).  Some of those conventions are so obvious they don't seem to need much explanation.  We all use the same alphabet, for example.  We all know what most of the common words mean: a, the, and, book, story, large, small, running, walking, eating.  We know, as both readers and writers, that something that doesn't follow those conventions won't make a whole lot of sense.

For example:

Deer Sirr:

I seed yoo wokkin outer the pos offiss yessaday an is hoppin yoo fown mi wollet gotz sum munny init.

Can you figure that one out?  Would it have been easier to read if I had written

Dear sir:

I seen you walkin outta the post office yestiday and I is hopin' you found the money what I lost.

In creating fiction, the writer has lots of options for re-creating the differences between what we consider standard English and non-standard.  Does the exact same feeling come across?  Maybe, maybe not.  But the compromise gives the same impression -- the person who wrote the note is not well educated and probably doesn't speak any more literate than he or she writes -- while still leaving the text intelligible for the reader without forcing her to back out of the reading experience to understand it.

This is part of the "invisible manuscript" technique that's so important for every writer.  You want the reader to forget she's just looking at letters and words on a page.   You want her to enter into the experience you're describing.

Some of us are lucky enough by fortune and experience to have acquired the language skills necessary to do that, and to have acquired them before we embarked on anything resembling a writing career.  For those who didn't, however, there are options.  Not everyone, of course, plans to become a writer.  Many who never wanted to write or who even actively disliked writing when they were in school find themselves years later wanting or needing those skills. Some never had the opportunity to learn.  But no matter what the reason, failure to write in a manner that allows the reader to enter the story rather than struggle to discern the meaning pretty much guarantees that the work will not find an audience.  If you want your story read, if you want people to get your message -- whatever that message may be -- you must make sure your writing conforms to the conventions established.

Does this mean you need an editor?  Yes, it does.

The necessity for a good, competent editor is never more apparent than when a good story that's been badly written is published, and all the world gets to see how terrible the writer is.  No matter how wonderful, how powerful, how emotional the story is, if the reader can't read it, all that wonder and power and emotion are lost.

Again:  If you are writing for yourself, if you are writing to get out the pain and fear and joy and frustration and excitement, none of it matters.  When you want to share that pain and fear and joy and excitement, it matters a lot.  And only a fool thinks it doesn't.

A fool and her words. . . .

. . . .are too soon published.

I'm trying very hard not to be that kind of fool.

As I blogged last month I'm in the process of preparing my first published novel, Legacy of Honor, for digital republication.  I knew it was going to be a rather difficult task, for a variety of reason, so I'm not really surprised that a month later, I'm still working on it.  I have a day job, after all, and other real-life obligations that take some of my time, too, and I still need to eat and sleep.

It's been a multi-step process, not always easy.  Although I'm changing nothing of the storyline, there are areas that cried out for better editing than the book got when Leisure published it.  If all I had to do were re-insert lines or paragraphs or even pages from the original manuscript, hey, no problem.  But there were two different edits involved, both of which did more than just remove text.  The intent of those edits was to improve the book, and for the most part, they did.  So my task is not only to fix errors that were made but also to avoid adding back any more. 

As I began work on one particularly delicate scene, I thought maybe it really didn't make any difference.  The changes I wanted to make were extremely fine-tuning in terms of clarity.  Would the reader notice the difference?  Would she care?  How many people, after all, had read the print version and never questioned anything?

Oh, wait a minute.  There was no Amazon in 1985, no Goodreads.  No forums for readers to complain, "WTF was that on page  XXX?  There are characters speaking who had already left the room!"  If I, as the writer who mentally knew how everything played out in the book, saw it and wondered about it, then I owed it to the reader to make sure those characters were put back on stage so they could speak.  And that the rest of the errors were fixed, too.

The writer is the book's first reader.  I know I would not want to read a book whose author knew about but didn't care about those details because all she really wanted was just to see her work in print -- even if it's only digital print. 

Even though some of these edits involve the careful massaging of three different versions of a scene to make sure all the crucial information is presented in the proper sequence so the reader can "see" exactly what's happening, and even though maybe no one ever would notice the errors if I hadn't fixed them, I  know they're there.

Legacy of Honor will have to wait a bit longer before its digital edition is published.  As impatient as I am to see it in "print" again after almost 30 years, I can wait.  And the readers?  All I can do is hope they're waiting, too.

The write words require time

Back in the old days -- by which I mean the 1980s and 1990s -- when the romance fiction market was exploding, writers followed a process that led to enormous success, not only for themselves but also for their readers and their publishers.

I call this a process rather than a formula because the latter word more appropriately applies to the stylistic conventions of each of the various genres and subgenres of popular fiction and most specifically to the subgenres of the romance novel.  But the process of actually writing and then getting published in the romance genre went something like this:

1.  Write the book.
2.  Join Romance Writers of America
3.  Subscribe to Romantic Times.
4.  Share the work-in-progress with fellow writers via some kind of critique group based in either RWA or RT or both.
5.  Revise the work-in-progress based on input from critiques.
6.  Enter the book in RWA contests.
7.  Attend local and national RWA conferences.
8.  Repeat steps 4 through 7 as needed.
9.  Submit manuscript (query, partial, or full ms.) to potential agents and editors.
10. Repeat steps 4 through 9 as needed until the book is sold.

Because most of us writing in the 80s and 90s had been educated in the school systems of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, we had a firm grounding in the basics of spelling and grammar.  Not all of us, mind you, but most.  And that's why there's nothing in the 10-step process for learning how to write.  It was simply taken for granted that the writer knew how to write before Step #1.

And because most of us writing in the 80s and 90s had been long-time readers of popular fiction, we were also osmotically familiar with the basic structure of the novel as a literary form.  The explosion of the romance publishing industry in the 1970s -- it had existed before, but was nowhere near as large or powerful or open to newcomers -- gave us the opportunity to read both extensively and intensively in a genre we were already somewhat familiar with.

Steps 2 through 7, therefore, helped us to fine tune our writing, so that by the time we reached Step 8, we had accomplished two things.  The first, taking our novel from rough/first draft to polished manuscript, could be deemed a complete success if and when we proceeded through Steps 9 and 10 until the book was ultimately purchased by a publisher.  The second accomplishment, however, may have been even more important in terms of our careers than the first:  We learned how to deal with criticism.

For some of us, that second lesson was much more difficult than for others.  And more often than not, those who learned to handle criticism via regular participation in a critique group or frequent contest entries were also those who used that criticism to bring their writing up to publishable standard and ended up with publishing contracts in hand.

Many of those who couldn't handle the criticism, who took everything personally and defended their work as perfect and refused to change a word, who argued with their critique partners or insulted their contest judges, who flew into rages or sank into abject depression in reaction to negative comments, were unable to succeed in a writing career.  I've already detailed some examples from my personal experience of writers who had the talent and skill to write well enough to succeed but who didn't have the emotional fortitude to deal with criticism.

The writer who, in 2013, dashes off her first draft and immediately uploads it to Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords has never gone through the process.  She goes immediately from Step 1 to Step 11.  As a result, she has no experience at all of the process.  In fact, she may have virtually no awareness even of its existence. 

Criticism can be cruel.  It can be malicious.  Not all critics are honest.  Not all critics are competent.  Not all critics are fair.  Not all critics are right.  Going through the process toughens up the writer to the inevitable less than glowing review that she'll receive after publication, but it also helps her to improve her craft.

Even a cursory examination of the many self-published novels flooding the digital bookshelves these days is sufficient to suggest -- if not outright confirm -- that many new writers are woefully unprepared for the realities of the marketplace.  Too many of them, to judge by their blogs and reactions to the critical reviews their books receive, fully expected to publish their books and start collecting huge sums of money.  Period.  Write it, publish it, and get paid.  Nothing else.  And they are beyond disappointed when it doesn't happen.  They are personally outraged.

The blockbuster success of certain works of fan fiction that have been altered for mainstream publication (both digital and print) has not helped to mitigate the expectations of these new writers.  If anything, it has heightened their already lofty expectations.  It has also exacerbated the problem of fan fic fans -- those groupies who may or may not be good guides for Steps 2 through 7 that are essential for success.  They may be supporters, even to the extreme point of being enablers, but they almost never help the writer improve her skills.

Being "kind" to the new writers with their poorly produced books will not help them become better writers.  Being cruel to their books, however, may be the only hope they have.

Sadly, many of these new writers take all criticism of their work as personal insults, and once they've fallen into that mindset, there's not much the critic can do except repeat the basics:

Your books are not yourselves, they are not your babies.  Criticism of them is not bullying.  They are indeed a product, like toasters or bicycles, pencils or baseball bats.  The consumer of your product does not care how much or how little time, effort, or love you put into the making of your product; she only cares about whether or not the product functions properly by her personal standards.  If your product does not meet her standards -- regardless whether it meets your own -- she has the right to complain.  And you, who put the product out there, have no right to challenge her.  Absolutely none.

If you, as a new writer, have not learned the lessons of Steps 2 through 7, if you have not learned both how to write and how to deal with criticism, you might want to step back and start learning.  In the end, you will likely not only be much happier, but you will also probably be a much better -- and more successful -- writer.

The rise of digital publishing has allowed so many new authors to enter the marketplace in ways not available when print dominated the industry.  Writers of novellas no longer have to wait for the right anthology to justify a print publisher's bottom line.  Writers for niche markets can be successful without a publisher's investment.  Prolific authors are no longer restricted in the number of books they can publish.  But digital publishing has not eliminated the need for good writing and good writing manners.  Both, unfortunately, take time.

Take the time, and learn to do it write.

Different words for different folks?

Yeah, I know.  It doesn't rhyme.  In a way, that's the point.

My day job involves work for major insurance companies, and about ninety percent of it is auto claims.  I've heard a lot of excuses for why and how people get into accidents, and most of them are pretty much bull shit.  A few weeks ago, however, I worked on a claim that involved a 16-year-old driver in a nighttime rainstorm on an unfamiliar road.

First of all, let me explain that I'm disguising the details lest my employer think I'm revealing any confidential information.  I'm not.

Second of all, let me assure all readers that the claim in question did not involve any injuries to any parties.

Here's what happened:  The inexperienced driver was on a two-lane road he'd never driven before.  The posted speed limit was 35, but the left hand curve warning sign included a 25 mile an hour limit.  Caught in heavy rain in the dark and with all his attention focused just on seeing the road in front of him, he didn't see the warning sign.  When he saw the guard rail reflectors directly in front and realized he was heading into the curve, he turned the wheel too sharply and veered across the double yellow line into the other lane. 

The driver of an oncoming vehicle in the other lane was traveling extra slowly because of conditions and also because he had seen the approaching headlights.  Experience told him it was quite possible that someone might not see the warning sign or might be driving too fast or might not have their car completely under control.  When he noticed that the approaching car had in fact gone into his lane and was now coming toward him head on, he was able to slow even more and safely turn to the right, thus avoiding a direct hit. 

Both cars sustained substantial damage, with the young driver's vehicle having to be towed from the scene.  He was also given several traffic citations, among them driving too fast for conditions and crossing the double yellow line.  As a result of the multiple violations, his license was suspended until he completes a state-mandated driver education course, and he will not be allowed to drive without another adult driver in the car with him until he reaches the age of 17.  Any subsequent violation will result in automatic revocation of his license until age 18. 

The young driver and his father did not dispute the facts surrounding the accident.  Both of them admitted that he was driving the speed limit of 35 miles an hour, and that such a limit applies to optimum conditions which was not the case at the time of the accident.  Both of them admitted that had he been driving slower he might have seen the curve warning sign and been able to slow down sooner.  Both of them admitted he lost control and didn't have sufficient experience to regain control in a timely fashion.  Both of them admitted he panicked and stepped on the gas rather than the brake at the last second, which sent his vehicle into the other at an even higher rate of speed.

So what's the point?  They're admitting it was his fault, right?

Actually, no, they're not.  Both of them said that the 16 year old driver with barely three month's driving experience should not be held to the same standards of driving safety as the more experienced driver and therefore he's not to blame.

The claim representative, however, points out that other drivers on the road would have no way of knowing that.  The young driver is granted exactly the same driving privileges as other drivers, so why should he not be held to the same driving standards?

To (sort of) quote the father:  "The citation was for driving too fast for conditions.  But he's only been driving for three months and this is the first time he's ever driven in the rain.  How is he supposed to know what's too fast for conditions?"

To quote the claim rep:  "If he doesn't know how to drive in the existing conditions, he shouldn't be driving in them."

To quote me:  "ARGH!"

With privileges, of course, some responsibilities, and I don't think anyone would argue that point.  Nor would most people argue that putting an inexperienced driver behind the wheel of a full-sized automobile is much more dangerous than publishing an unedited manuscript on Amazon or Smashwords. 

But being an inexperienced writer does not excuse one when readers complain about the shoddy product.  The reader who invests her money and her time reading your book deserves a quality product.

If you think it's okay to put your unedited manuscript out there with all the other books but that it should receive special consideration because you're a new writer without any experience and you really aren't sure if your grammar and spelling are as good as that of a professional writer and you can't afford to hire a professional proofreader or editor, then I recommend  you attach a disclaimer to your book's listing.  Something along the lines of: "This book may contain spelling, grammar, and formatting errors.  The author is not a professional and did not hire a professional editor.  Read at your own risk and don't complain."

Many independent or self-publishing writers who receive negative reviews believe they should be held to a different -- and much lower -- standard than anyone else.  But there are independent and self-publishing authors who do care about their work, who do make sure the spelling and grammar are correct, who do pay attention to factual accuracy and internal consistency.  Unfortunately, they don't have an independent rating system to certify their work as "professional."  Is it fair for them to be tarred with the same brush as those authors who can't even correctly spell the words in their book's Amazon description or use the correct verb tense?

Independent and self-publishing writers are driving on the same roads and highways as the traditionally published best sellers.  If they don't want to end up in the ditch, they need to learn the rules of the road.

"Oops" is a word. Learn to use it wisely.

If you make a mistake -- and you will -- fix it.

If someone else catches your mistake, thank them, admit it, and fix it.

If someone else catches your mistake and you don't think it's a mistake, double check your facts before you defend yourself.

If someone else catches your mistake and you don't think it's a mistake and you don't double check your facts before you defend yourself, be prepared to end up making a complete ass of yourself.

If someone else catches your mistake and you don't think it's a mistake and you don't double check your facts before you defend yourself and you end up making a complete ass of yourself, do not call the person who caught your mistake mean or jealous.  You made a mistake all by yourself.  It's not their fault.



An author was caught in an error here:

And I posted my comment about it here:

A month after I posted that, the author responded:

Down there at the bottom of the screen shot.  Can you see it?  She asks, "Exactly what is misspelled in your quote?"

When another reader, not the reviewer, points out that the word "chieftan" should be spelled "chieftain," rather than admit the mistake, the author goes on the defensive.  The aggressive defensive.

What the author either forgot about or didn't know or was too wrapped up in her embarrassment to pay any attention to was that the commenter might be feeding her comments to her GoodReads friends.  Truth is, I'm not experienced enough with GR to even have thought of that myself right away, and since I don't have many friends or followers anyway, my review and my comments don't spread directly to many other people.

The same can't be said of the people who responded.  They have many, many, many friends and followers.  And they warned the author not to argue.  *I* warned her. 

But she said she wasn't afraid of me, that she had not made a mistake at all, and I was just a jealous, failed author who should have helped her (but it sounds like she doesn't need any help because she hasn't made a mistake and has legions of fans).

So she proceeded to criticize her critic and insist she didn't mind "legitimate" comments. 

But some of those people who had been receiving the feeds from this discussion began putting in their own comments, and asking the author to provide sources for her contentions.  What she first provided were just statements without supporting facts.

In fact, she kept posting more and more and more evidence, and lashed out more and more at her critic.

Of course, the "critique" of her work was so inflammatory that no one responded to it for a month. . . . until she did.

And when her claims didn't satisfy the other people who had joined the conversation -- especially when her final authority seemed to be her own superior knowledge and education -- they began to provide counter evidence.

Of course, that wasn't good enough for her.

Again, the author was warned that she might be doing herself more harm than good.

At this stage of the conversation, other people had joined and begun doing a little more research, research that I had already done and that the author could have -- and should have -- done.  Well, she would  have if she'd admitted from the start that her spelling was an error and that what appeared in other instances to be agreements with her were in fact just other errors.

But the other readers were also warning her yet again that she might be doing herself more harm than good.

And they were noticing, too, that the author was contradicting herself.

It reached the point that even the person who had sort of been defending her -- or at least not defending me! -- came back into the discussion with another warning to the author.

Most of the evidence the author cited to back up her contention was easily proven to be wrong, and she kind of ended up being a classic example of the Streisand effect.  (Hey, that's okay.  I didn't know what it was either, so I looked it up!)

If the author had simply gone to the review and admitted she made a mistake and then took steps to fix it, I probably would have removed the comment entirely.  No one else would ever have known about it.

Oops.

Words in response to the trolls and bullies

As difficult as it is to believe, I've been online almost 20 years.  Or maybe more than that.  I'm not sure when I got the first modem and the Prodigy software, but it had to be somewhere around 1992.

One of the first lessons I learned back in those old Prodigy days was "Don't Feed the Trolls!"  I remember a few of those first encounters.  Of course then as now I was mostly visiting threads and discussions about writing and reading, and we'd always get a few doofuses who wanted to make fun of women who read and wrote romance novels.  Then there was a guy who insisted no successful writer ever came out out of a critique group.  By the time I moved on to the GEnie network's Romance Exchange, or RomEx, and then to AOL, ignoring trolls was just another part of online life. 

However, I learned these lessons the hard way.  All too often I'd get suckered into one of those discussions, the kind that you can never win because they're designed that way.  Kind of like the old joke, "So, tell me, Bob, are you still beating your wife?"  There's no way to answer that and save face.

Yes, indeed, I often ended up in the role of the miserable, frustrated little soul, hunched over her keyboard into the wee hours, my brow furrowed in concentration, an enormous thought bubble hanging over my head with the words "Someone on the Internet is WRONG!" 

Most of the time, it wasn't worth the effort.  I changed very few opinions, if any, since all of us were safely ensconced behind our monitors and we didn't have to suffer much in the way of consequences.

The online world has changed a lot since then.  When I started with Prodigy and GEnie and AOL, DOS was still viable and there was no www, no Facebook and no eBay and no Amazon and no PayPal, no Twitter and no Pinterest and no YouTube.  Now we have all that, and more, and we still have the trolls.

As I've come back into my writing career (if you want to call it that) I've believed more than ever in the integrity of the words.  What we write has meaning and it has consequences.  If we are not prepared to accept the consequences, then we should not put our words out in public.  Once those words are out there, once we've hit the post or send or publish button, we've lost control of those words.  They are ours, but they are no longer ours alone. 

One area that has quite obviously attracted a lot of trolls is the whole issue of book reviews.  It's been a hot topic just on this little blog, even though I don't do any reviews here.  I do write about reviews here, however, and one of the issues I've addressed is the need for honest reviews, especially about bad books.

The sad truth is that there are a lot of badly written books out there.  The sadder truth is that a lot of those badly written books are published by their authors.  Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords -- the two platforms I've used -- make digital publishing a snap, and far too many people have been seduced by that snap.  They've published too many books that weren't ready for publication, and worse than that is the fact the authors themselves weren't ready for the consequences.  They don't know why their books weren't ready nor do they know how to make them ready.  All they know how to do is lash out at the critics -- or anyone they perceive to be a critic.

I don't think I'd make a very good reviewer.  I say that even though I have been a reviewer in the past.  But the reviews I wrote for Rave Reviews and for the long-defunct online review site whose name I have completely forgotten were bland and formulaic and utterly commercial.  The opinions were mine and they were honest, but I felt as if they served little purpose other than to announce hey, random reader, here's another book you might want to take a look at.

As I've written elsewhere on this blog, the books I reviewed then were published by established print publishers who had a vested interest in making sure their product was literate.  That was one of the beauties of the old publishing machine.  You either wrote well enough to be published or you learned and practiced until you did.  When you wrote well enough to be published. . . .you were published, and it worked equally well in reverse:  If you were published, then obviously you wrote well enough to be published. 

Now there's no such validation, because anyone can be published.  There are no gatekeepers.

Books, however, involve a three-phase process -- writing, publishing, and reading.  Along with the traditional gatekeeping between writing and publishing, there was another between publishing and reading:  the book review.  Though less a true quality assurance function, reviews did serve to assist readers in making selections, especially in the romance fiction community.

But book reviews have proliferated just the way publishing has.  Where reviewers were few in number and were selected for publication in much the same manner as authors -- You had to have some credentials.  If your review was published in a reputable magazine, it was deemed to have some validity -- now anyone can be a reviewer, just as anyone can be an author.

So what the reader is faced with today is a double whammy:  A flood of self-published, unvetted reading material and a flood of untrustworthy reviews and recommendations.

Independent reviewers who try to wade through this tsunami are often attacked by self-publishing authors as well as their supporters.  This has been documented time and time and time again.  There are groups and individuals campaigning to force bookseller sites like Amazon and reader sites like GoodReads to limit reviews to only positive comments.  Reviewers are scolded if they aren't "nice" enough.  Reviewers who dare to express honest, personal opinions that happen to be negative have been the victims of cyber stalking, harassing phone calls, and publication of private, personal information -- all forms of extortion or blackmail to silence them. 

In other words, the authors whose books are receiving negative reviews have resorted to threats -- and in some cases carried out those threats -- rather than look to see if there is any validity in the criticisms.  And once the author has become angrily defensive about her work to the point of refusing to change one precious word of it, she's in denial and virtually incapable of seeing the errors that have to be corrected.

This is true even when the criticisms are leveled against elements of the book that are demonstrably and objectively inaccurate. 

For example, is the document properly formatted for digital publication?  Just about anyone can look at a Kindle device or the Kindle app for PC or Android or whatever and determine if a manuscript has been properly formatted.  Are there double- or triple-spaced breaks between paragraphs?  No paragraphs at all?  Are the margins reasonable, or too narrow or too wide?  These are the basic mechanical details of publishing the already-written book.  This is the process that makes the digital content look like a professionally prepared product.  This is what the "real" publishers do when they digitize a book.  The self-publishing author who doesn't care enough or know enough to format her product so that it looks professional probably doesn't care enough or know enough to write a good book.  Yet often when these formatting errors are pointed out in reviews, the authors or their supporters deny that the errors exist -or- they insist the formatting errors don't matter, that the reviewer is petty for pointing them out, or . . . whatever.

If there are spelling errors, punctuation errors, formatting errors, factual research errors and the author refuses to acknowledge them she is not going to be capable of handling the editing necessary to fix character motivation, plot continuity, and historical accuracy. 

Many of these problems used to be resolved in the critique group, contest, or "beta reader" process.  I don't know what happened to that.  I know that some of the free publishing sites such as www.booksie.com offer the writer the opportunity to receive feedback, but how much feedback is actually offered, what quality it is, and whether the authors take most of it is unknown to me, at least at this time.  Booksie, at least, allows the writer to delete negative comments.  Denial, denial, denial.

The ability of authors to deny or ignore criticism extends to more formal, commercial digital publication as well.  Ebooks aren't carved in stone.  When a book -- or its author -- receives too many negative reviews, the author can simply unpublish the book and then republish it, wiping the page clean of one-star reviews and negative comments.  Then all the fans and friends and family members and paid shills can repost the good reviews before the meanies get in there.

Reviewers have little recourse.  GoodReads, where I have actually begun writing reviews of some of the books I've read, defends readers more staunchly than writers and at least does not remove books solely because the authors have complained of too many negative reviews.  Once listed, the book remains along with all the reviews and comments.

I'm not afraid of the trolls and bullies.  I won't link to them or their websites, I won't name them, I won't out them from behind their screen names and avatars.  I don't care about them.  I write under my own name, and I will review under my own name.

As a self-publishing author, I care very much about the quality of the other books in the market place.  I'm not afraid to go up against the books published by the traditional publishers.  My work always has to stand on its own merits.   Nor do I fear competition from the hundreds, thousands of books offered at bargain prices by their self-publishing  authors, because I am confident my work is at least equal to if not superior to them.

If there is any threat at all, it comes from the poorly written, poorly presented books that make so many readers reluctant to even try the independent, small-publisher, and self-published fare.  There are no gatekeepers between the authors and publishing any more, and too few trustworthy gatekeepers between the publishing platforms and the readers, other than reliable reviewers.  Because some of the reviewers have either given up on "indie" books because of the actions of trolls and bullies, someone has to step into the breach.

I love writing and I love reading.  I love books.  Although my publishing portfolio isn't extensive, I think I have sufficient credibility to make not necessarily a good reviewer, but a good critiquer.  And the trolls and bullies be damned.