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The very worst sin that a writer can commit is wasting the reader's time and attention. This sin can be committed by simply writing a bad story that goes nowhere or contains characters that in the end, the reader doesn't care about.
More commonly, this sin is committed by inattention to mechanical issues such as bad grammar, poor usage, misspellings and typos that make a reader work harder than she must, and, if bad enough, cause her to stop reading the story completely, abandoning the time that she already invested. (Easy writing is cursed hard reading!)
I have flubbed a major goal in re-posting some of my older stories. First, I used an less than adequate editing software and did not verify that I produced compliant ASCII text files (it did not.) Second, I blindly struggled with the SOL mechanism for updating a story and screwed up the posting. Unknowingly, I announced on my SOL blog that the story Steward's Third Mission was ready for readers. Several very kind people have re-read the story and noted these errors. I want to thank them more than I am able in this short space; and I want to apologize to them and everyone else who took the time to re-read the story and shrugged, wondering what kind of drugs did I take back in the 1960s that brought on early dementia.
Thanks to: UncleMerlin, Dinsdale, Quine, te987, adraken, nsn1955, davidl150, wires, joebee, Lion13, Desert Baseballer, zululook, inioth, atoner-90626, Gordon Johnson, CoullPert, and CoffeeMojo11.
Finally, a very humble thanks to Lazeez, Webmaster extraordinary.
It was so simple it plum evaded me."
I've been posting on this site for more than a decade. You'd think I'd know HOW TO ADD A DAMN CHAPTER to an existing story.
Well, I do now.
In a blog post of mine from 2013, I posted:
Wild Bill's Last Hand
I knew that if I wrote anything about Wild Bill Hickock that the long knives would come out.
Yes, I knew that Bill died with his back to the door. What I was commenting on was the almost unconscious habit that I and some other veterans exhibit of placing our backs to the wall.
My good Marine friend, the Late, Great Roy, would always try to arrive at a restaurant or coffee shop before me, so as to have the most secure seat.
Roy passed years ago from health complications of Agent Orange. Rest easy, Roy. I've got your seat.
Interestingly, this reference to Hickok's poker hand has garnered more comments than almost any other piece of the four "Steward" stories.
I'll only say that there is a lot of contradictory information being circulated about Wild Bill's death. What lessons can we draw from it? You pays your money and takes your choice.
On 2022-12-13 Desert Baseballer said:
> You wrote "(even though it hadn’t helped Wild Bill Hickok)".
>
> I have heard the day he drew his "dead man's hand" he had been
> convinced to sit with his back NOT against the wall. He was shot
> from the back of his head.
>
> FWIW, YlMMV.
After I posted "Stewart's Third Mission" (a decade ago!), I was immediately massively unsatisfied. The story seemed rather thin.
So, nine years later I have been re-grooving the "Stewart" stories. I've been addressing grammar errors, typos, etc.
When I got to "Third Mission'' I realized its problem was that that it lacked a B-plotline. So, I added one that can help segue into the next "Steward" story.
Anyway, if you found it diverting the first time, perhaps you'll find this rewrite some small improvement. If you have never read the "Steward" stories, I recommend starting at the beginning with "Flight from Babylon."
For both of you that are waiting, eagerly, for another Stewart story, you'll have to keep waiting. I am reposting the corrected copy of "Stewart's Second Mission."
I am pushing forward with "Stewart's First Contact", but I am trying to actually write the damn thing instead of just letting it happen.
But next up is "Stewart's Third Mission", which is getting a second act.
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