Lubrican: Blog

I got hired at Walmart one year as temporary holiday help, and during orientation I learned that wishing non Christians "Merry Christmas" was apparently hurtful and horrifying to them. Apparently a generic greeting that everybody (with a brain) understands means "Hi, I'm happy at this time of year and hope you are, too!" can be weaponized in the minds of those who don't believe in the Yahweh stream of things.

I'm not referring to Jews, who figured it out a long time ago and just smile and nod as we Christians flout our belief all over the place, obviously attempting to convert everybody in sight.

So, since we were forbidden to say "Merry Christmas" to customers, I cobbled together a generic greeting, which is the title to this blog entry.

I confess I couldn't figure out a way to get the Hindus in there, or the Buddhists, but then they're all pretty zen about things and have never shown any indication they care.

What I found out, when I greeted people with "Merry Ramahannaquansmas!" was that they were curious, which allowed me to inform them of Walmart's Scrooge-ness, and I found out almost nobody gets offended when you wish them Merry Christmas, even if they're Satanists.

Regardless of your personal beliefs, this time of year carries with it a measure of hope, and expectation, and joy. And even if all you want to do is get gifts, there are people out there who have a great time getting them for you.

Imagine if, instead of just a couple of months per year, strangers smiled at you and wished you well all year long.

You don't have to believe in Heaven to know that would make this a better place to pass the time.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good read.

Bob

It's been a while, but I'm back with a new story. It's called Dad's Dating Advice. The foreword to that story should alert you that it's not my "normal" story. Fact is, it is my normal story. It's just presented with some twists and turns.

It's a long one (my opinion) with 24 chapters and an epilogue, so if I stick to my normal posting behavior, it will take a couple of weeks to post it.

For those of you who have, again, been inquiring if I'm still alive, I am. I get it. You know I'm a geezer and might pop off any day now. My doctor says that's not likely and thinks I'm in pretty good health.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again,. because it explains why I disappear a lot.

The way I write, I work on two or three (or even four) projects at the same time, drifting back and forth between them as my muse dictates. Eventually I get fired up about one of them enough to finish it. Occasionally, I finish two at roughly the same time.

This is the long-winded way of saying Andy, my editor, has another book he's working on, while I post this one, which he recently finished working on.

So there's this one, and maybe another one after the new year.

Thanks for your concern, and interest, and good wishes.

I treasure them all.
Bob

Something happened that I fixed in a routine kind of way, but which caused problems for at least one reader. I thought an explanation might be in order.

SOL has a limit to the size of a chapter, in terms of how much will fit on one page. I'm sure most of you have read chapters that have a page two or three or even four. I don't personally like that, so I make all my chapters fit on one page.

The way I do that is to write the whole story (or book) and then break it into chapters. I know roughly what size to make each chapter file.

On my most recent post, Life Isn't Fair, I somehow forgot to split the last chapter, which got posted as chapter seven. I didn't realize it was a multi-page chapter until it was already posted. When I found out, I investigated, to find out why, and found that chapter seven was as long as two of my normal chapters.

So I split it and re-posted chapter seven, adding chapter eight, which had not existed when the story was listed as "final".

I didn't think that would matter to anybody, because if you downloaded the story when it was final, you got the whole thing in seven chapters. If you download it now, you get the whole thing in eight chapters.

But one reader went back to what he thought was the last chapter (chapter seven) and looked for something he didn't find. He wrote to me asking where it was.

And this blog entry is the result of that.

So now you know.

Assuming you were even interested (grin).

So why would am I interested?

Well, this isn't the first "mistake" I made, posting this story. At one point, when I tried to post the original chapter seven, my mouse landed on "Foreword" instead. I had completely forgotten I'd prepared a foreword, and it never got posted, until it was mistakenly sent in as chapter seven. I got no less than sixty messages about that. Five of those said that they scored the story low because of it.

Now I've said it before, and I'll say it again now. Scores don't mean that much to me. I get pretty good ones in most cases, and I do see that as validation of a sort, but what tells me how I'm really doing is feedback that's detailed. It can detail why someone liked something, or why they didn't. Either way, it helps.

But people who say "You made a mistake so I'm deducting points" don't tell me anything that helps. And people who tell me proudly "I never give a 10" don't help me (or anybody else, for that matter,) either.

So I really don't worry too much about the scores that those people give me.

Want to know what does worry me?

With all the scores I have that are in the eight range, and with all the nice things reviewers say, I haven't gotten much in the way of nominations for Golden Clitorides in years. That worries me.

I'm not complaining, mind you. If people don't think my stuff is good enough, then they don't. And that means I'm not doing a very good job. That's the worrying part.

On the other hand, I still write because it's fun.

And having fun is better than any score or accolade.

It also means I don't get all freaked out when I make a mistake.

Thanks for reading,
Bob

Happy August. I'm posting a new story called Life Isn't Fair, which is seven chapters of a girl explaining why her life isn't fair. Kids say that a lot, usually because they think the playing field isn't level for them. That's not what's really going on, here, though. Leave it to Uncle Bob to explain things to her.

It will be a chapter a day on the posting schedule, with everything posted by Friday. I know the math doesn't work, but you'll figure it out.

This one can't be published for sale, so you don't have to hurry to finish it.

Thanks for reading,
Bob

In this country where roughly half of us want to go in one direction, and the other half wants to go in the other direction, let us be thankful that we can argue about it and rant about it and settle things with a vote, instead of it being settled by a dictator's soldiers.

Oh, and I'm also celebrating having the freedom to write what I want to. Even though some people would like to remove that freedom, too.

So I'm posting a new story this week. It doesn't really have a lot to do with Independence Day, other than having a soldier in it who suffers for his country when he is horribly injured. But it turns out okay. That's all I'm going to say right now.

I'm not trying to be "mysterious". You find out what the book is about in the fourth paragraph of chapter one. It's how we get there that is (I hope) the fun.

Thanks for reading,
Bob