Harddaysknight: Blog

I have moved and started working in a different city. I am living out of a suitcase and I am a bit stressed, so I have not been able to write lately. I plan on continuing LiR2, but I have to settle my real life first. I appreciate the patience of my readers and promise that I fully intend to keep writing and posting. Thanks so much

I sold a house I lived in for over thirty years in December just before Christmas. I am about to close the sale on another home about 11 days from today. Moving the junk I have spent thirty years accumulating is very time consuming and difficult. It has severely limited my time to write. I hope things calm down once I move to my new residence. We'll see.

If anyone is looking for a well done, highly improbable, but very sexual story about a young man in high school becoming a super start football player and getting laid by dozens of women, and girls, (often with the all the parents' approval) try "Stupid Boy" It's very well done, but I warn you that you really, really have to suspend your disbelief.

I've taken two weeks off and have very limited internet access in the hills of Pa. I will be posting the next chapter on LiR 2 when I get back to work. Thanks for the patience!

Most of my readers tell me that they easily follow the flashbacks in my story. Now and then, I get an email like this:

"What the hell?
Steve goes from the jungle to playing a concert in
Kiev on the same page?
Was there some mixup?"

I know that I could indicate scenes, and times, by simply writing the scene or date in, but that seems like spoon feeding the reader. I seldom see novels that use such obvious methods. I will simply work harder to make it more obvious when I begin or end a flashback. It seems clear to me when I write it and bothers me when readers are confused, but I will not be using ***** or some other delineator to make it super obvious. Call me stubborn.

I appreciate the readers that take the time to tell me what they like and dislike about my stories. I accept the comments in the spirit they are given. If people are just being miserable, I ignore them. If readers take the time to explain what works or does not work and why, I consider the comment and reply.

As an aside, when I first used The Ukraine as a country a major character was from, there was no turmoil or bad news coming from there, at least that I knew of. I did know they wanted to trade more with the West. I just hope Colombia doesn't go all to hell because I used that country in my story!

I received an anonymous comment telling me that midshipmen would never be in combat, so my story really bites the big one. The commenter did not read the story, at least not correctly. It made me wonder if my flashbacks were too confusing, yet every other reader that I received a comment from understood my use of that device and was fine with it.

My story is hardly rocket science. I began wondering if I needed to go into more explanation, but I've decided against it. I personally dislike stories that explain every move and plot devise used. The story should be written so the average reader can follow it. I cannot, and will not, try to dumb down things for readers that don't understand what the words are saying. As I have said before, I realize very well that my story (almost all of my stories)strains credibility, but that's the world these characters live in... in my mind. I like fiction. I read to escape, to become the hero, at least in my mind, and not to experience man's inhumanity to man. Thanks to all of those that read, accept, and enjoy the story for what it is. It isn't real. It never happened. It never will. But wouldn't it be cool if it did?