Reluctant_Sir: Blog

We are now 36 hours in, a mere day and a half, and getting some very interesting results! I will wait to create the final map until the week is done, but as of right now:

192 Respondents from 30 different countries!

The top counts per country so far are as follows:

1) USA...........99
2) Canada........21
3) Australia.....14
4a) New Zealand..10
4b) England......10

If you have not responded so far, I would appreciate hearing from you. Stand and be counted!

P.S.:
Since I am in the US, I added the extra layer for them and we have checked in from 33 different states so far!

I have spoken, in the past, to readers from England and Germany, so I knew that this website received international visitors. I got a recent email from a New Zealander today as well and that got me thinking.

Call it a bit of vanity, but it tickles my sense of the ridiculous to think that my stories have 'International' appeal!

So how about it, oh glorious readers, where are you from? I'd like to do a wholly unscientific and totally unofficial poll and find out how many countries come to SOL!

We'll run this for a week, posting every other day (since the story is posting every other day as well) and we'll see what kind of response we get.

And, since this is primarily an English language website that resides in the Americas (I think?) then for the US readers who want to play along, let me know what state. I'll see if I can find an interactive map to thumbtack all the responses.

Magic 101 got a great response from readers no matter how you count such things and I couldn't be much happier about how it was received.

Literally hundreds of emails, and well over a hundred public comments, and the vast majority of them were positive.

Just among my stories so far, this one has crept up into the top five in every category that counts, including the number of libraries it was added to... in that category, Magic ranks number one on my list.

I would call this a success so, for everyone who took time to read, comment, email and vote:

THANKS!

[EDIT] I have uploaded a corrected version with reader-supplied updates and changes.

The final two chapters of Magic 101 will be posted tomorrow. I thought it would be fun for the story to end on Leap Day.

Because I was playing with the scheduling headers when I posted this story, the first chapter will post in the morning, the second (and last) will post with the evening batch. Sorry about that.

Dark Days 2: Dawn's early Light will begin posting next week. I will be posting a chapter every two days and see if that significantly effects the numbers. If it does, I'll go back to every three days for subsequent stories.

I have two more stories that are completed and out for beta. It might be a bit before they actually get edited, but at least you know there is something in the hopper.

Happy reading!

Writers are, by and large, odd people with inflated, but ultimately fragile, egos. We write for many reasons; to exorcise our demons or to express our angst, or maybe just to give an outward voice to our inner monologue. We do it to entertain and to inform; to beguile and berate. Why, we even do it to titillate!

We ply our trade at odd hours of the day, often toiling over a sentence or a phrase for hours and then whipping out a dozen pages in a frenzy of creativity and without a second thought.

We dash off a sentence that resonates with the readers soul and then plop down some tripe that makes you wonder why the author bothered to get out of bed. We can be brilliant and bombastic and as base as the meanest, would-be drunken poet, on the street corner.

What we are not, is perfect.

So, what is an imperfect pen to do with problem prose? Get an editor! Or a proofreader! Or both. For some of us, several of both.

I don't know how other writers feel, I don't know many personally and those that I do know spend more time talking about writing than actually writing. I only know for sure that my relationship with the foolhardy, er, I mean, the brave souls who edit my stories is a schizophrenic one.

I love them and hate them and respect them and despise them, all at the same time. I also couldn't do this without their help, make no mistake. They make all the difference in the world.

Each one takes the raw draft and gives it their own individual takes on what they see as problem areas, word choice errors, logical or chronological errors and even continuity issues. Oh! And let's not forget spelling. Oh no, that wouldn't do at all. Why, forgetting to mention spelling would let the reader assume I never have issues with how I spel.

Ahem. Anyway.

When I review their work, each and every red mark on each and every page is a paper cut. By the time I am done with all three versions, if I have not bled out, I consider the end result as a success, even if it never gets posted.

A painful, messy, often almost impossible to bear, success.

Sometimes, when I have been unconscionably sloppy, and the red marks outnumber the black, I hear that little call in the back of my head saying, "You aren't good enough, this is proof." It is my stubbornness, the voices in my head that are clamoring to escape, and the reactions I get from readers that keep me going; that keep me working on the next failure.

Then I post the work. The reaction of the readers... ah, let me tell you something. It is a drug. Don't let anyone tell you different. You might take a good hit and float all day, or a bad hit and wonder how bad it would be to write porn scripts for a living, but it is a drug.

Readers are where the rubber hits the pudding, where the proof is on the road; where metaphors get mangled and similes smashed to smithereens.

Reader reaction to a story is, for me, the reason I bother to share my stories. I would write, regardless, but I wouldn't bother getting them edited or sharing if I didn't want to see the reactions I get from readers.

And I am not going to lie now, not after all of this. Good responses are what drive me forward. Well-thought-out critical responses are, at least, appreciated. Bad responses, well, I just try to get past them and not take them personally.

As for those writers who tell you they are indifferent to the critical acclaim, or the jeers... I don't buy it. Whatever, they play the game their way, I play it mine.

Anyway, after an email exchange with a very helpful editor about this topic, I thought I would share my thoughts.

While the writer gets the cheers and jeers for the story itself, share some praise for the editors and their help in making it readable.