AJ Martin: Blog

I get a fair amount of email from SOL readers and try to reply to everyone. Today I got the following in my email box. I can tell you, with all of the hacking and ID theft going on, I ain't gonna reply to this thing

I apologize for this automatic reply to your email.

To control spam, I now allow incoming messages only from senders I have approved beforehand.

If you would like to be added to my list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once I approve you, I will receive your original message in my inbox. You do not need to resend your message. I apologize for this one-time inconvenience.

Click the link below to fill out the request: <LINK DELETED>

Not on your life buddy ... Not on your life!!!

I know many readers have been holding their breath waiting for Claire to come to a conclusion. It's just under two months shy of four years. I have a feeling that after I get some other things done, more about Jim, Claire, Sandy and Susan, and the rest of the Thomas Clan will pass through SOL.

My thanks especially go out to Lazeeze for his venue we all enjoy. I know his efforts go underestimated but we couldn't be here without his dedication to his SOL.

AJ.

First my apologies to Tom Lerher a satirist song writer only Boomers might recognize. Back in the day one of my favorite of his songs was, 'The Old Dope Peddler'.

Be that all as it may, I peddled more than a few of my "Typos" in the last two chapters, 77 & 78 of Claire. Sorry! I also found a few other things that needed to be changed and added them to the corrections I just released to SOL's posting queue. No matter how hard I try, I always screw something up.

As always, if you find errors in my text, please let me know. It's easy to leave a brief message. I, and I'm sure other authors, would appreciate the courtesy.

Thanks for listening,

AJ.

As an Author here, it gets stuck in my craw when I get a low score with a story. Now, I'm not trying to coerce higher scores here or bring attention to my writing. I'm just voicing my and other authors' discontent with what we feel is the abominable deliberately thrusting that bottom score onto a story.

No matter how great an author's expertise is with the English language, typing errors are going to filter though. Even in the best selling novels. I've caught some. Not often, but once in a while my eye catches one.

You might not realize it if you don't participate here and submit stories. It takes a lot of work. My latest effort by the way is over 135,000 words. With nearly 700,000 characters in those words, that's a load of typing. I don't know why I haven't worn out my keyboard because with all the error correction I go through, I've pounded on it well over a million times just for Claire.

Here at SOL, for the most part we are Amateurs as are those we use to help with proofreading. Errors are bound to be there.

Now, I've only heard from one conservative reader who admitted he'd given me a low score. He notified me he was a stickler and because he'd found a number of errors, I deserved the score he gave me.

I feel every Author should be entitled to rebut a low score. And I did with that one piece of feedback. He explained he was an English professor and he was very critical of simple errors in spelling and grammar.

I pointed out to him he'd only complained about what weren't mistakes; they were all typos. I tend to type phonetically and that does get me in trouble when my spell checker doesn't recognize I'd used the wrong, their, they're or there.

I know the difference and which should be used in every circumstance. But the proofreading eye often sees what 'Should' be there and skips over 'What' is there.

The only thing that upset me was he originally didn't bother to tell me just what errors I'd made. By the time we got into that, I'd caught most of them as I learned I needed to improve my review of my stories before I posted them.

As I've said many times here in these Blogs, If you feel an author deserves a low score, tell them WHY! Plus, if the author corrects the error, you owe him or her a revision of your vote.

Plus, if the codes reveal something you don't want to read, then don't. I know there are subjects I'm just not interested in reading. So I skip them rather than removing that shadow of a doubt, finding what is objectionable and giving a super low score.

I don't think I can convince the habitual '1' scorer's as their goal it seems to me is beyond my understanding and all they want it seems to me is be hurtful in some way.

Nuff said.

AJ.

My huge apologies to all who have read Chapter 69. Right at the end of the story I use the wrong name for the character making a comment.

Sally, has been on my mind as she is being introduced in the next chapter. Somehow I inserted her name when I should have said, Susan.

Sorry. Just my quirky brain misfiring again.

AJ.