Reluctant_Sir: Blog

Thought I would drop a note and let folks know I have been editing old stories, fixing the myriad mistakes that were missed when they were first posted.

So far, I have updated the following:

A Single Moment

An American in King Harry's Chair

Code Name: Wolf

Incoming

Old Dog, New Tricks

Let me also take this opportunity to thank my readers for making this a pleasant place to hang out and post my stories. The feedback has always been overwhelmingly positive and I appreciate the encouragement.

For those of you celebrating the holiday, be careful.

Remember that every person on the road is drunk and every firecracker has a shorter fuse than you think.

Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, if I had any left to pull out....

I have been in a slump for a couple of weeks, since posing St. Luke and finishing the first draft of another story. That new one needs to marinate a while, until I can look it over again with fresh eyes.

Anyway, after getting a couple of emails from a new reader, about old mistakes in even older stories, I downloaded all of my tales in Kindle format to read through.

Man.... I suck! There are a LOT of errors in my oldest stories. I believe the error count has gone down as I have progressed.(Thanks to editors and proof-readers)

On to the point of this rant!

Everyone has pet peeves.

When I read a story someone else posts and come across certain errors, they make me pause and, if there are too many, put down the story and pick up another. One or two, okay, I get it, but too many just make me want to scream

Let me pick one out of my own story, one that would have made me think about walking away from someone else's story!

Peek vs Peak vs Pique. Yes, you guessed it.

I wrote, "... was a peak into the soul of..." and I hung my head in shame.

SHAME.

It is silly, really, to place such importance on what boils down to one little letter. But...what annoys me in someone else is completely and utterly unacceptable in myself.

It makes me realize that my smugly condescending, internal voice, is a hypocrite and that is not a comfortable realization.

Am I going to change? There is the true measure of a man, no? Will he recognize his own failings and correct them, be a better man?

Probably not. I just want to rant about it. ineffectually, in my blog.

Hush, you're not the boss of me.

I was certain that this would be the story; the one where I would get fewer mistake emails than I would congratulatory (or even hate) emails. THIS WAS MY DAY!

Then, one kind soul (I really mean that, the title of this blog is not a dig!) showed me errors in every chapter but one, some of them so egregious I about had an aneurysm.

To vs TOO? Really?

ARGH!!!!

Then I sat back and thought, silly, eh? To get annoyed at the little things? But we all do it.

Whether it is because of a predictable error that should have been caught, or getting mad at some jackhole who flips you off in traffic. Life is full of little annoyances that can get you down if you dwell on them.

I am sure most of you have read Teddy Roosevelt's speech, the one I referenced in the title, but, just in case, here it is.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

So get out there. Dare greatly. Write. Share... be victorious.

Saint Luke.

It was going to be one of those 'post a couple of chapters a week' setups but, with only 8 chapters, I posted the whole thing.

The story itself was one that was written a while back, before I started in on Dark Days, but I never got around to posting it. It always seemed to need a bit more, a little touch, a... something.

Anyway, give it a read, let me know what you think by adding your comments and, of course, voting. It's not a perfect system, but it is what it is and we are imperfect users.

First, let me start by saying sorry for dropping out for a bit, sorry for not finishing the second Dark Days story, sorry for no updates and sorry for not answering messages.

Not going to list the reasons (excuses) except to say it was necessary. I am not dead, nor have I been struck deaf or blind. I haven't had a tragic accident that left me with no typing fingers or even had a convenient memory loss. I just got sick, then busy.

Shit happens.

I got an email from a friend who told me about the Clitorides awards, and who called me a dick for dropping out and not, at the very least, acknowledging the votes. He was right.

Please accept my sincere thanks to everyone who either nominated me or voted for me.

As to the future, I am not done writing, so I got that going for me. I have only recently had the time, the energy and the desire to start writing again, and have been going through the 120+ unfinished stories on my HDD hoping for inspiration.

Dark Days 2 is not done, it is sitting at 126K words and needs a few more chapters. When will it be done? I have no freakin idea.

Every other story that has been posted is complete, folks. While it is possible that some might warrant a follow-up, it is not a priority, sorry.

I will be a couple of days, probably, wading through the messages folks sent and, if I answered your question here, I probably won't respond individually, sorry.