Lubrican: Blog

I have written two new stories in an Alpha and Bravo type thing like I've done in the past. The basic story is Olivia's Escort Service and the difference between the two books is in the foreword.

Both books are virtually identical up to chapter six and then they diverge. I'm starting Monday with three chapters of version alpha and I'll put up three more on Tuesday (if I remember to). After that it will be one chapter a day for until alpha is all up. I'll start the bravo version after alpha is fully posted.

Both books have been published for a couple of weeks now, at zbookstore. I just haven't had time to post them until now.

Thanks for reading.

Bob

I learned some things recently that have suggested I am, officially, a fossil.

This blog entry explains that, but it may also explain a lot of things some people just aren't interested in. So, if you're reading and decide "I'm bored" then click away. My feelings won't be hurt. The purpose of this entry is to explain something I've gotten literally a thousand emails about.

Some of you may have noticed, over the years, that my offerings sometimes had odd displays in them. Most recently, it was where, if there was supposed to be an apostrophe, there was a question mark, instead. In a large number of postings, the ellipses (...) were just missing and there was a large blank space, instead.

This "effect" was caused because of the way I submitted stories and chapters to SOL. I started posting in 2005, at which time, the only things they would accept were html files. So I had to learn to use an html editor. But writing in an html editor was tedious, at best, and sometimes maddening. So, what I did was write in MS Word and save the files in html format. Then I used the html editor to do the final editing and so on. There was a problem, though. Microsoft wanted everybody to know that files produced in Word were MS Word files, so Word embedded all manner of extraneous code in a file if you saved it as an html file.

I had to go through each file and sift out all that extraneous code. I also wanted to get rid of the formatting, which formatted each and every line of text with another line of html code that said how this text should be displayed. By "how" I mean the code specified font, size, color and possibly sexual orientation. It was maddening because it was very difficult to read.

So I did search and replace routines, searching for the code that specified color and replacing it with a blank space. I had to choose something to replace with the code < p > which means "start a paragraph" and then replace something else with < /p > which means end paragraph.

So, what happened was that, as I was replacing code, sometimes I replaced too much code, or only part of the code I needed to replace. Then, when I sent the file to SOL their "grinder" translated all the erroneous code into erroneous text. Does that make sense? When that happened I'd go back to the html file and find the problem (somebody had just notified me about), repair it, and then upload the file again.

What was odd was that, depending on which browser the reader was using, some people saw question marks where apostrophes should have been, and some did not. It was all dependent on how the SOL grinder tried to make sense of what I sent it.

Okay. So, over the years, I probably spent most of a year doing this. I'd write in Word, save it in html, massage the html etc etc etc.

I was not aware that the rules changed. This is because I was a fossil, calmly munching the same feed I had gotten used to when I was "little."

What happened was, SOL began accepting MS Word docs instead of only html docs. They kept accepting html docs, which was why Laz never wrote to me and told me I was a fossil.

So, during this latest code debacle, I guess he finally got fed up with my shenanigans and sent me an email suggesting I stop with the html and just send Word docs from now on.

So I resent everything on the latest book (Frontier Justice) and any of you who read the new chapters today suddenly didn't see fossils in the rock anymore.

What that means is, the only problems you'll see in the future are regular kinds of problems, like misspelled words, timelines that don't make sense, different names for the same character and so on. Michelle and Andy have cut me waaay back on that kind of stuff, but some of it still seeps in when I do final edits after they have sent me back what they have fixed.

I just thought some of you might be interested in how such glaring errors got posted by somebody who has been writing for more than a minute.

Thanks for your patience in the past.

And thanks for your patience in the future.

Bob

I like to write coming of age stories. It's just what I like. I have lamented the fact that freedom of speech in the literary world has been hijacked by those who live in a fantasy world in which nobody has sex until they are adults. Publishers should be able to publish unvarnished coming of age stories without fear of legal harassment via tort, but that's just not the way things are.

So what is an author to do? Well, he can censor the original story by making all characters at least 18 years old. That makes the story read "stupid". I recently got a comment on a story that said if I wasn't going to put any effort into censoring a story (beyond changing ages to 18), so it made sense, then I should just remove the story.

That means I have to remove all my stories. There is no way to "rewrite" a junior in high school into a believable 18-year-old. I can say this person is so stupid they've been held back three or four times, but we all know that doesn't happen in today's educational system. And even if I did rewrite it that way, how is it that this idiot seems to be perfectly normal?

No. There are two reasons I post these fucked up, censored stories.

1. I know there are lots of you who like the coming of age concept, too, and who have good imaginations. Those people can overlook the "age" of the character and use the context of the scene to substitute a different age in their imagination.

2. I'm retired and I supplement my income with sales of my books. The books themselves have to be censored, too, but if a person sends me proof of purchase I'll happily send them, at no additional expense, the uncensored, original version of the book, which reads well and makes sense because the ages are "real".

Now I understand there are a lot of folks out there who don't want to pay for books of this sort. For years and years, if it wasn't free, I didn't read it. But I used my imagination to make reading whatever I found as much fun as possible. And I'm aware that lots of people live on fixed incomes, as I would be doing if it wasn't for book sales, and that they can't afford to buy books. I refer those people to number one, above. I generally don't put the free, posted version of the story behind the pay wall. I used to, but that was before every thing had to be censored. I'd let everybody read it as it was posted and then leave it up for a few weeks, so that people who can't afford a premium membership or to buy books, can still read it for free.

I also price my books very low, by comparison with other authors who write this kind of thing.

So I'm trying to do my part to make this work as well as the religious fanatics will let it work. That's all I can do, other than just stop writing.

And I'm not ready to just stop writing.

Bob

I am sorry I was unable to finish posting the story on time. An emergency pertaining to a friend required me to be away from my computer until today (5 Nov). I submitted the last chapter a few minutes ago (0155 hrs)and it should be available later today.
Thank you for your patience. I see six messages that I haven't read yet and I bet I know what most of them are about.
Bob

With the posting of my recent offering (Uncle's Beach House) the foreword has generated a lot of interest in getting an uncensored copy of the book. Usually, my forward reads, simply: This book was edited to comply with publisher standards. All persons and characters in this book are at least 18 years of age or older"
Then, at the end of the book, I put an afterword that reads something like this:
"If you enjoyed the book and would like to have a copy of the original, uncensored version, send a screen shot of your zbookstore library page to merely.bob@gmail.com and I'll send you the original version at no additional expense."

What this does is supply proof of purchase, which is all I want. If you buy the censored version, the least I can do is send you the uncensored version, too. I'm not a publisher, so the squeaky wheel can't hassle me. What you and I do when we exchange emails is private business. And, to ensure that nobody can accuse me of sending kiddy porn based on the cover, I make sure the cover of the uncensored one displays no sexual scenes.

That works for any of my books that you bought anywhere. Just give me some kind of proof of purchase and we're good to go. And, if the screen shot you send me has other censored books on it, I'll send you those, too.

So, that's how it works. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Bob