I've gotten a couple of questions recently that were interesting enough that I thought I'd share them with whoever was interested.
The first was a comment from a reader of Adams' Apples, a book that is a spoof or lampoon of just about everything. If there is someone I did not make fun of, I apologize. The story was conceived about forty years ago and begun in February of 2019, just before we found out we'd be locked down with some new pandemic that was going to kill us all. I was going at it for the most ridiculous scenarios I could come up with and every morning I woke up to see something even more ridiculous in the news.
The criticism was two-fold. 1) The cure was released to the world for free, but suddenly there's talk of government approval and $500 a dose. That's a punchy hole in the plot there. 2) How is it that it was okay for Elisabeth to poison Ramsey, deliberately going against his will to not be a lab rat? How is that acceptable behavior?
Okay. 1) 100 years ago this year, a doctor and grad student in Toronto made a lifesaving discovery and patented the drug. They considered this to be so important to the world that they sold the patent to the university for $1 to put it in public domain. Yet today, Insulin costs between $120-$400 a month and there is no generic alternative. All drug companies had to do was build on the public domain patent with one added feature to make the drug private and jack up the prices. Generics of any medication can only be made after the patent has expired and by simply changing the formula slightly every few years as an improvement on the basic formula, the big pharma companies have kept insulin away from the public which should receive it for free.
2) Whoever said Elizabeth's actions were 'okay?' Really, if that's the only red flag in this story about how absurd the situation was, I was too subtle. And still, people would rather give their families a horse tranquilizer for Covid than get vaccinated. The Covid vaccine should have been offered at about $300 per shot so only the rich could afford it and then everyone would be clamoring to get it for free. And no one would care what was in it.
Well, if that didn't get half my readership up in arms over one thing or another, I've lost my touch. Maybe I should misidentify a firearm and really touch off a controversy. Or I could make a mistake in the baling process for hay. That could keep us talking for a few days.
But my second question was less controversial. I've received this question several times over the past year regarding the Team Manager series, but here it is in a nutshell: "In your mind who’s the girl on the cover?"
I guess I've never talked about my cover selection process. I don't set out looking for a match to a particular character for my covers. I look on a stock photo site for a selection of keywords and review the presented images to see which I think most appropriately represents the story. That being said, however, the covers do end up representing a character in my mind over time. In the Team Manager series, they are easy:
SWISH! is Natalie Armor, Dennis's Number One.
SPRINT! is Brenda Grant, Dennis's Number Four.
COACH! is Amy Unger, Dennis's Number Two.
CHAMP! (not yet fully developed and subject to change) is Lana Brown, Dennis's Number Ten.
If you check out either my Patreon blog today (members only) or my Discord, you'll find a montage of the four cover girls as well as proper photo credits and licensing info. I license nearly all my art from Shutterstock.
And yes, I will be getting the paperback version of COACH! out soon for the two of you who want to buy it.
Another surprised reader went back in the archives and read "Welded Together", the second story I posted on SOL. His comment was: "While this was an enjoyable story, it was not your best as you have demonstrated in so many others." He was specific regarding flat characters and lack of character development.
My response was that this was most certainly not only not my best, but it is without question my second worst story I've posted here. The worst one was so bad and out of character that I had it removed.
"Welded Together" was a concept I had that I didn't execute very well. I was still learning my way around this genre, and it was supposed to be a place holder to keep people aware of me while I was developing the Model Student series. It did, but not in a good way. I even edited the ending to make it less of a downer! But I still thought the concept was sound and deserved a better treatment.
So, I gave it one. In my series of stories titled Pygmalion Revisited, the story "Iron Alchemy" is generally the same basic story, but with much better treatment, more interesting characters, and overall better writing. Pygmalion Revisited is a series of stories based loosely on the Pygmalion myth as told by Ovid. Each story explores a different aspect of the relationship between an artist and his or her artwork or models. Each is in a different medium. I really liked that series and think more people would like it as well. Don't skip the introduction which has the text of the myth as recited by Ovid (translated).
That's it from warm and sunny Las Vegas. I hope those of you who have been impacted by the snowstorms this week stay safe and warm.