Grey Wolf: Blog

A bit over a month ago I blogged about there being bad things that will happen to good people, and updated the Foreword to make a stronger note of that. The foreword now says:


One important note: I'm telling the story of many people's lives, seen through the eyes of my main character. Bad things happen along the way, sometimes to good people. If they're outside the story codes, I'm not going to add extra warnings. That seems consistent with many other stories. I don't want to say 'X happens to someone at some point' and have everyone wondering to whom X happens and who the bad guy is who does X. I apologize if someone is upset by something that happens. I'm personally upset by some things that happen, but the story is richer for them, I think. There's lots of happiness and love, but all happiness and love all the time makes for a bland story.


The next chapter (40) is one of the reasons for emphasizing that. The chapter itself tells you there's ample reason for caution; nevertheless, I wanted to blog about it as well. I expect chapter 40 to upset people. I hope that, if it upsets you, it's for good reasons, not because I did a lousy job of storytelling (or story-coding, or whatever).

It also brings up a related issue: cliffhangers. I don't intend there to be significant cliffhangers between chapters; they're an artifact of the serialized posting process. Because chapter 40 ends with a cliffhanger, I'm posting chapter 41 tonight as well (bonus posting, not shifted from another day).

Bonus postings are another topic. I'd planned on more, but there's been a lot of editing going on behind the scenes that've delayed posting extra chapters. I'll write more about that in a blog that I expect to put out next week.

All the best! I appreciate all of my readers - thank you for reading and for your comments, thoughts, suggestions, and everything else. I'm glad you're enjoying this story, and I hope you continue to, even when bad things happen.

I made a slight update to Chapter 21 which posted this morning. If you read it this morning, you've seen that version.

The change is a safe-sex reference. That's entirely in character; later chapters will bear that out (and, obviously, it becomes an issue as what's happening moves towards full-on intercourse). It didn't make sense that Steve would mention responsibility in terms of laundry and sheets and being polite about scheduling and reputations but not encourage others to be responsible in terms of protection and safety. So, updated.

Text in [] was already there and included for context.

[I think she felt strongly about it. Everyone looked like they agreed.] I had one more point to make. "Everyone! Remember your 'birds and the bees' talk. Or that sex ed unit we got in Health in junior high. And if you haven't had 'the talk', or sex ed, or gotten the scoop from someone who has, talk to someone who has. One of the easiest ways to trigger the Spanish Inquisition is to slip up."

Angie smiled. "Remember, accidents cause people." There was scattered laughter, but also plenty of sober looks. Sober is good; rushing into things thoughtlessly is a recipe for disaster.

[Sarah suddenly blushed.]

Hopefully, no one dislikes this change :) 'Safe sex' is in the story codes for a reason!

It's a tradition in my family, and in my main character's family, that one present is opened on Christmas Eve. In celebration of that, I'm posting a bonus chapter tonight.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I've added a paragraph to the Foreword to Variation On A Theme, Book 1. It reads:

One important note: I'm telling the story of many people's lives, seen through the eyes of my main character. Bad things happen along the way, sometimes to good people. If they're outside the story codes, I'm not going to add extra warnings. That seems consistent with many other stories. I don't want to say 'X happens to someone at some point' and have everyone wondering to whom X happens and who the bad guy is who does X. I apologize if someone is upset by something that happens. I'm personally upset by some things that happen, but the story is richer for them, I think. There's lots of happiness and love, but all happiness and love all the time makes for a bland story.

I've considered the caution tag, but I don't really think it's appropriate. This is a slow, coming-of-age story filled with what I hope are relatively realistic people. Bad things will happen. How bad is partly in the eye of the beholder. If you have something that is a particular concern, you're more then welcome to ask me if X happens. I'll let you know (and ask you to not share that).

Please don't ask me "what happens that's bad"; I can't answer that. I don't know what someone's particular sensitivities might be and I might miss one.

There's nothing here that's designed to creep people out or upset them, hence my deciding against the 'caution' tag. They're much more in the category of 'life happens', and 'sometimes bad things happen to good people'.

If something happens that is covered by a code, it will be mentioned. Period. I'm not using this to cover a surprise incident for which there's a code.

If you have comments, please let me know. I don't want to cause someone distress by taking the story to a place they're not comfortable going.

One last comment: 'this' (bad things happening) isn't 'imminent'. There are specific things I'm thinking of; don't expect them in the next week or two. I just want to let people know well in advance that not everything will be happiness.

Chapter updates have been made. Almost all are very small grammar or wording changes. There's no point in checking on them in almost all cases, but everything that's been reported to me should be fixed. It should help later readers / re-readers.

Several people have noted a comment Steve makes about his parents' church in Chapter 6, and the change there is worth noting. The original text was a bit too brief and simply used "Lutheran" to describe things. There are many branches of Lutheranism. Steve's parents' church is a member of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS). LCMS is a quite conservative denomination, which is where Steve was going in his comments. However, that's not what the actual words said. There were and are liberal Lutheran denominations (hence Steve's flippant remark about 'heathens').

The rewritten text makes the LCMS affiliation of the church explicit. I imagine this doesn't matter to most readers, but to some, it does, and what appeared was not what I meant. Now it better reflects what I meant.