Back in the Driver's Seat

I was going to entitle today's blog post 'Getting Back Into Harness,' but that doesn't quite suit. I'm not someone else's obedient workhorse. It might have been better if I had been; the discipline of employment would have had me back at work long ago. But no; I am the captain of my fate, and lately, that ship has been steered into very dodgy waters, and has been becalmed for a long time, like the ship of the Ancient Mariner, and not very much more happily.

My beautiful Emily. Gone, but never, ever forgotten.

It came about when Emily was ill. No, let's be honest here. She wasn't ill. She was dying. As soon as I got the diagnosis, I cut my working hours back to an hour a day. I thought that would keep the flow to things, while freeing me to spend all of my time with her. 

That didn't last long. Within a couple of weeks I had abandoned work entirely, and I didn't even think about it until some weeks after her death. And that was just as it should be.

But that was more than eighteen months ago. Bereavement, however terrible, cannot be made an excuse for giving up on life. What an insult that would be to one who enriched my life with so much joy, and who took an active role in supporting my working life. So I knew I must get back to work.

At first, I thought I was just over-tired. It had been a gruelling five weeks (yes, that was all we had from the time we received the terrible diagnosis) and I was genuinely exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I thought I'd lie about and do not much of anything for a few weeks and then I'd be in a fit state to pull myself together and get on with the long, sad business of adjusting to normal life without her. 

The trouble was, two months later I wasn't any less exhausted. And worse - I didn't care. I could not find the least spark of enthusiasm for doing anything at all. And it kept getting worse, not better. From having to go to bed directly after dinner, to needing to sleep in the afternoon. When I found I was starting to need a nap mid-morning, I knew I was in some kind of trouble. So, like a true child of the twenty-first century, I took my troubles to Dr Google.

That whas when I discovered Dr Rami Nader. He's a psychologist practising in Canada, and he does this marvellous vlog on youtube, all about depression and anxiety disorders. I learned so much from it, and not just mere academic knowledge, but a very present help in time of need. I discovered that I was suffering from anhedonia, which is a symptom of a major depressive disorder. Now, you may say that a Google diagnosis isn't worth jack, and of course you'd be right. But when everything matches, and when the recommended actions actually do help, I think it is safe to say you're onto something. Following the guidance I received from Nader's wonderful vlog, I gradually started to pick up the scattered threads of my old life. I started to take care of myself, I started to take care of the house again. I had a bit more energy as this all happened. You can find Dr Nader's youtube channel HERE. Honestly, I can't recommend it enough. He has helped me so much.

But I still didn't really start back to work. Oh, I tried. I went through the motions. But they were just motions. I worked on so many different things. I'd pick up one book, write 200 words, quit for the day, and the next day I wouldn't be able to bear to face that one, I'd try working on something else... basically, nothing at all was accomplished. In 2021 it's fair to say that I did nothing after Emily was diagnosed.

Of course, from October, I had an excuse. I had my new puppy to bring up. And he was the most challenging pup I have had to raise. Perhaps because I was alone in the house with no support, perhaps because of my reduced energy levels and the fact I was still grieving, perhaps because I was unable to puppy-proof this house adequately. Or maybe it's just Chips. Don't get me wrong, he's an absolute joy. 

Not so little any more!

In 2022, I was determined to pick up the threads. And I did. I picked up SO many threads. And dropped them again. Over and over. I tried working on all kinds of things and got basically nowhere with any of it, except for some formatting and proofreading which doesn't require great personal involvement. I published a few editions of things, but basically nothing new got written.

And now it's crunch time. Chips is almost grown up, and although his conduct isn't at the level I find completely satisfactory, we do get compliments about his behaviour everywhere we go, so he can't be an excuse any longer. It's time to get real.

I started by reviewing what I had that might be worked on. My workspace is in an appalling state. Here, a brief rundown:

1. One novel ready to go but still unpublished - I got the proofing and formatting done last year but the cover designs were beyond my skill level.

2. One new book started in 2021 and never finished

3. One new book started in 2022 and never finished

4. One new book started in 2020 (!) and not finished

5. Revised editions of a couple of hardcovers

Oh, and that's not even counting the things I haven't started but would like to do. Honestly, it's just a total mess.

My usual practice is to start a new book at the new year, but this year, I felt I had better forgo that indulgence. This year is going to be about finishing things. Therefore, my work plan for 2023, which I offer here by way of accountability. The list is in order of priority.

1. Get the Lending Rights claim sorted for Operation Badger. This was released in paperback for the first time last year, and I'm having trouble getting it registered, but it's worth persevering with, because the thought of being entitled to some Government Money that I don't get is just too painful to contemplate. This is a relatively minor administrative task.

2. Publish Barefoot Tango. I am just waiting on cover designs.

3. Publish Operation Checkout. This is the long-awaited fourth book in the Operation Tomcat series. It is probably 70 - 80% written.

4. Publish my dragon book. This is a fantasy novel. Publishing it will also involve coming up with a title for it. This one is probably around 50 - 60% written.

5. Publish the final revisions to Dance of Chaos and Gift of Continence hardcovers. This is just a horrible slog because of the enormous time it takes for Lulu to send a proof copy.

6. Publish my science fiction novel, for which I also do not yet even have a title. This one is really pie in the sky - there's no way I will get this out this year. It's only about twenty percent written and some of that may have to be discarded. It's a difficult and challenging project with a complex plot. But including it on the list ensures that I have enough work to take me through the entire year. I wanted to see my whole year's potential work in the plan.

So, that's the plan. And I'm working every day except for weekends, although still not for long hours. But things are moving forward and some discipline is being imposed again. So that's enough for a start. I WILL have results at the end of this year.

Regrets

 

So, she died. Last year, on 26 June at a quarter to midnight, she slipped out of my hands and went to join the others at the Rainbow Bridge. And except for a single book announcement for a friend, this blog has been dark ever since.

She tried so hard to live, Emily did. She fought and she struggled, but that last day when she was failing, crashing, at the end of her endurance, the medical help we needed was denied us. A young English vet at the CARE clinic in Collingwood refused even to examine her. The operation that would have saved her was scheduled for Monday morning, and all she needed was massive antibiotics and a drip, to sustain her for it. And yes, this has been confirmed by our own vet, who as ill chance would have it, was out of town and stuck with his car disabled.

So there's a lot of regret there for me. If only I'd acted sooner. If I hadn't waited to be sure she could cope well on three legs. If I hadn't waited for the lockdown but just gone on down to the city and accepted that we might be stuck there for months. If, if, if. I lost my precious girl, and nothing, nothing will ever be really right again.

But I have another regret now, and one that could have been more easily avoided. Just weeks after Emily died, I was offered the pick of a litter from one of Australia's top breeders. And although it was too soon, after much havering I said yes, because I knew it was what Emily would have wanted. And in October, I brought home my new puppy. Chips, I call him. That's from something with Emily. I always felt that I was at last giving her the puppy she'd always wanted. The first thing I did when I got him home was to take him to her graveside and show him to her.

But because I was still grieving, and it was so soon, I never posted much about him on social media. I always held back, because I was afraid people would condemn me for 'moving on' with such ease, and I wasn't strong enough to face a storm of condemnation from my friends. I've come to see how stupid this was. No one, no one whom I consider a friend, would have thought the least thing wrong. I was an idiot, I accept that.

But I'm left with the results of it. For years, over my morning coffee I've scrolled through my Facebook memories, seeing the joys and sorrows. But now, when Chips is almost grown up, there are no Chips memories on Facebook. It's still all Emily. And of course I love to see the Emily memories, but there should have been some of Chips. And there have been so many wonderful memories already. We've even been on two road trips together. One day I am going to regret this even more bitterly than I do now. 

So my message today is this. Don't hold back because of how you think you will be judged by the community. It's almost certainly all in your head, some shit you've made up because you were unhappy and not seeing clearly. 

Back with the Books - stunning new fiction from a master in the making

 

I haven't been reviewing books much lately in this blog, or indeed doing much of anything. The whole of last year was taken up with personal matters. The anxiety and exhaustion of round the clock nursing in the first half of the year gave way only to the pain and inertia of loss in the second half, and later to the constant, obsessive exhaustion of a new puppy, and what with all that, it's a wonder if I even read anything, let alone had anything sensible to say about it.

One book, however, stands out from the many I read, and that is A Closet Feminist, by Carla Sarett. Many of you will be familiar with Sarett's biting, sparkling little short stories. I first encountered her work in The Rabbi's Lesson, still one of my favourite stories, with that tingle down the back of the neck that one gets on first reading something by one who is to become a favourite author - you know that sensation, where your hairs prickle and you find your reading speed slowing down to a crawl so that you don't miss savouring every word.

Sarett came out with her debut novel, The Looking Glass, last October, and that's a fine novel indeed, but it is A Closet Feminist that, for me, really showcases this writer's extraordinary talent and the particular shine of her work. It's not the tawdry glare of neone or stage footlights, but rather the sparkles and gleams of the small things; the myriad coruscating points of light from frost on the grass, or the sudden shaft of sunlight piercing through dappled green. To me, it has always been the mark of greatness in a writer, when the ordinary is lifted up and made special, and this quality is present in A Closet Feminist in generous measure.

Available from Amazon

Racism - Unconscious Bias and How it can Bite You

This is one of the dogs I had at the post office

I went to the post office. I had our dogs, Emily and Aggie, with me. Aggie gets nervous if I go out of sight, so I tied them up just outside the big plate glass window, where they would be able to see me at the counter. I had to spend a bit of time in there, because I was sending off some books.

A man I know slightly - let's call him Fred - came in after a few minutes. Hey Tabitha, he said. There's an Asian man out there, he's afraid of your dogs. 

I looked out, and sure enough, there was a man looking rather tentative to go past the kids. Well, they are quite big. Not everyone's comfortable with large dogs. I went out to reassure him. I stood between him and the dogs, so he would feel safe. Don't worry, I told him. They're really gentle, they wouldn't hurt a fly.

'Oh, yes,' said the man. 'I was just worried I'd step on his little paws.' I noticed he did not have an accent. That is, of course everyone has an accent, but he didn't have a foreign acccent; not even a trace of one.

I think it's worth looking at this. The first thing I notice about it is that, although Fred described this guy as 'an Asian man', he had no accent, and was therefore as Australian as Fred and me. In my book, anyway. If you haven't got an accent, you're not a foreigner. This has always worked for me. So Fred assigned him to a category based purely on his features. That's the first thing. Why was it necessary, or even of interest, to comment about the person's racial type? Was this the first thing Fred noticed? If so, why?

The second thing, arising from the first, is that Fred made the assumption that the man's hesitation to walk past the dogs was caused by fear of them. I have no doubt whatever that this was connected to the first thing. Fred is a dog man, as I am, and being frightened of dogs wouldn't be the natural first thing to come to his mind. I think Fred assumed that because he was Asian, the guy was frightened of dogs. 

Let's not get into whether a lot of Asian people are, in fact, afraid of dogs. It's really beside the point. Lots of Europeans are afraid of large dogs. Whether this fear is more a feature of Asian than of European societies, I don't know. I don't care, either. I don't need to know that to be considerate about my dogs upsetting someone who is nervous. It's quite sufficient to deal with the individual case.

What I am getting at here, in my circuitous way, is that this is a thing. This making of automatic assumptions about people, based on racial characteristics. And it's not the kind of thing where we can smugly write it off, saying, oh that guy, he's such a bigot. Because Fred is not a raving bigot. He's a good man. I've known him for years. He'd be utterly mortified at any suggestion that he was racist, and I'm quite, quite sure that he never consciously is. Consciously. And yet.

We can all catch ourselves at this from time to time. The human brain is prone to categorise and generalise; if we didn't we'd be far at the other end of the spectrum. A certain amount of it allows us to go about our daily lives effectively. But when we allow ourselves to apply it to humans, we fall short of what we should expect of ourselves. Just because a person is Dutch, their house isn't necessarily going to be super clean. A person with red hair isn't always quick-tempered. An African looking person isn't necessarily frightened of dogs. In fact, he might not even be African. Who hasn't seen someone who looked Japanese or whatever and then came out with a Scots accent?  Personally, I think accent is a really good way to assign people to a catgory. Accent, speech patterns, language in general come from culture, and that's a much better guide to what someone is going to be like, although of course that too is fallible and will trip you up when you least expect it.

My big point, and I know I've been a while getting to it, because it's New Year's Day and a fabulous party has left my brain a little on the fuzzy side, is that each individual human is unique. I think we all expect or even demand to have that individuality recognised by others; that's why people who speak from a script are so offensive. And, as with any right, the flip side of it is a duty, so we should always be on our guard against our tendency to fail in recognising the individuality of others.

Don't miss my new book, Bloodsucking Bogans, on sale for $1.49 in the Smashwords Summer Sale. Get it HERE

The Deal Breakers

Something independent authors often use to  get the word out about their books is to offer a free copy. Doing this has several benefits. The main thing is that we hope it will place our work before a wider audience, and we may gain new readers who will subsequently look for and buy more of our books, tell their friends, and so on. A secondary benefit is that we may gain some reader reviews.

It's a popular technique. It's easy to do, and it's free. However, people don't always get the massive avalanche of downloads for which they were hoping. In today's blog, I'll be talking about why that is. Of course this is from my own perspective: the things that stop me from taking advantage of a free offer. 

Here, in a rough chronological order, are the things that will cause me to scroll on past a free book.

First of all, I'll say this. I am, and have always been, totally keen on free stuff. I just love anything that's free; this is partly because I'm a poverty-stricken writer, and partly because I was brought up thrifty. I hate to pay full price for anything. So you have that going for you right up front - just the fact it's free makes it worth a look.

Deal Breaker One - The Post Itself.

The actual post in which the free book is offered has major potential to put me off. I'll list the ways in which this can happen in descending order of seriousness.

1. The post contains a quote from the book that reveals it's porn, fan-fiction, or any other kind of rubbish. 

If any material from the book is quoted in the post, this is like a preliminary 'Look Inside', and it has enormous turn-off power, because one assumes the quote has been chosen because it's one of the best bits, so if it is truly horrible, or if it reveals the presence of porn, I know there's absolutely no point looking further. 

2. The post contains spelling or grammatical errors.

This is self-explanatory. 

3. The post contains any degree of begging. 

For example, pleas that you need to sell lots of copies because you're 'a autism author' - yes, I've really seen this - or to feed your 17 children, or to get treatment for your grandmother's broken legs - any kind of begging is so inappropriate in this context that it's enough to stop me in my tracks. If the book can't stand on its own merits, I'm not interested.

4. The person posting is not the author.

I'm not really sure why this is such a turn-off for me. I suspect this might be just me.

5. I've seen the post too many times.

If this book has been offered, over and over again, in a lot of groups, I feel as if I'm being badgered, and I will decline it just on general principle.

6. No buy link is provided.

If you want me to download your free book, you have to make it easy for me. I am not going to lift a finger to chase it.

If you survive all of this, I may click through on the link provided. 

Deal Breaker Two - The Cover.

Back in the days when all books were either paperback or hardcover, I'd have scoffed at the idea that the cover art might influence a buyer's choice. Now, however, when it's all ebooks, I've learned that the cover actually does tell you quite a bit. There are several ways in which the cover will dissuade me from looking any further.

1. It Looks Like Porn

If the cover of the book has a picture of a shirtless man, that's enough to raise an eyebrow, but if his head isn't even in the picture, that's it for me. I know the book is going to be porn, and I don't want to read it. 

2. They Just Haven't Tried

If the cover has obviously been generated using one of the standard templates offered by KDP - yes, Virginia, you can tell, especially if there is a big pink stripe across it - this makes me think it's Amateur City, and unless the blurb is VERY intriguing, I'm going to pass on this one.

3. Amateurish Artwork

I hesitated over whether to include this, because the bar you have to reach for me to think it's okay is very, very low, and in fact all by itself this isn't a real deal breaker for me, but it does put me in a far less positive frame of mind when I look further.

Deal Breaker Three - The Process of Obtaining It

1. The Landing Place

Hopefully, this will be a book page on Amazon or Smashwords. If it is not, it will either be to some bookseller where I probably don't have an account, or to the author's own page. 

If it's a bookseller, you have lost me. I'm not setting up an account with a merchant just to get a free book.

If it's the author's own page, you have probably lost me, especially if I have to scroll through a huge rigmarole of promotional yelling to get at it. I'm not particularly keen to get on extra mailing lists, which always happens if you download from an author's own site. 

2. The Format Offered

If the book is to be downloaded from the author's own page, and it's only available as a pdf, I am not interested. If you can't be bothered to produce a proper e-book, then I can't be bothered reading your book. 

If the book on offer has passed all of these tests, I will now have a look at the blurb.

Deal Breaker Four - The Blurb

1. Poor English

If the blurb contains any failure of correct English, that's a total deal breaker. I've put this first because it is the first thing I will notice. 

2. Porn

If the blurb contains any indication of porn, that is a total deal breaker. Such words as 'hot', 'steamy', 'alpha' have over the years become top porn-indicators for me.

3. Not Original

If I find on reading the blurb that the book is fan-fiction, which I take to be, inter alia, anything that is about characters from another writer's work, this is a deal breaker.

4. Boring

If the blurb fails to catch my interest, that's a deal breaker. Once upon a time it wasn't, but that was in my early days of kindle use, when I had failed to grasp just how many free books are out there. These days, I require to be at least moderately intrigued to proceed to the next step.

Deal Breaker Five - The Look Inside

Finally, if a book has made it this far, I will be opening up the Look Inside feature on Amazon, or the Preview on Smashwords. If I have reached this point, I will probably download the book. However, there are still rocks on which it may founder.

Once upon a time, we browsed in bookstores and opened the book to read a few paragraphs at random. This would still be my preference, but alas! these preview features force one to start at the beginning.

1. Layout

If the first thing I see after the title page is pages and pages of Table of Contents, with nothing more than 'Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc', I will be put off. This in itself is not a deal breaker, but if I have been displeased by anything at all before reaching this point, it has the capacity to become one. This is because it's a really stupid place to put the Table of Contents in an ebook; they should go at the back, and also because if the person knows what he is doing, it's easy enough to set the 'Start' of the Look Inside to the beginning of the actual book, which is all one wishes to see at this point.

2. Language

Once I'm at the start of the book, you have one screen only to impress me. I am not going to turn the page at all, unless I read that first page and see perfect spelling and perfect grammar. There are no exceptions to this.

3. Content

I still won't turn the page unless I'm caught up enough in the story by the end of the first page to care what happens. It's the writer's job to do this. If there is clumsy use of dialogue, if there is a female character looking in the mirror and describing herself, if there's any hint that the book is poorly written, that of course is an absolute deal breaker. Remember, although I've written a long article about this process, in real life it has probably only taken thirty seconds from the point at which I first saw the post.

If I turn the page, and if I still feel the same way after reading another page, that's the point at which you have won, and I'll download the book. I still might not read it, but that's another story for another day.

Any Time Could Be the Last

 I've an inveterate habit of looking at my Facebook Memories. Almost every day I do it - I go through all the posts from this date in previous years, and I relive my joys and sorrows. Sometimes I see a comment from someone who is no longer in the world, and that's a bittersweet moment.

Today I came across a short video of my dog, Beau. It was the last video I ever took of him. He'd been ill for a long time, and he was recovering, and the video is of him happily playing with his squeaky stuffed pelican, and although the ravages of his long illness can be seen in his face, it's a happy time and it made me smile. 

It was sad, too, though, because this was the very last video I ever took of Beau. And six months later, he was dead. I wasn't expecting it; he'd fully recovered, and I'd just spent weeks carefully building up his fitness again, and that day he seemed to be completely back to normal, and a few hours later, he was gone. 

It makes me think about last times. We almost never know when we are doing something for the last time. It could be anything - the last time you hug your friend before the accident. The last time you film your dog. I wish I'd taken more videos. But however many I took, one of them was going to be the last.

Many years ago, I had another friend die suddenly. I was washing the dishes after dinner, and my cat Samson leaped up to the very top of the kitchen cupboard (a jump of about eight feet from the floor, which he executed with effortless grace.) He knocked down a whole lot of cardboard boxes which I had stored up there. It was very naughty of him, but for some reason I was feeling mellow and instead of shouting at him, I just laughed and made some little joke about it. Shortly afterwards he disappeared up the hall. I finished the dishes and decided to walk to the post box to post a letter I had written, but first, of course, a trip to the lavatory. And I found him lying on the bathroom floor, quite dead. I have always been so, so glad I didn't shout at him about those boxes, because those were my last words to him, and I would have hated them to have been angry ones.

We never know when something like this is going to happen. So now, while we are bracing ourselves for Christmas, while we're stressed and tired and overwhelmed with the huge list of things that still have to be done, let's take a moment to be sure that our last words to anyone won't be angry ones. Let's reach out to anyone with whom we've been quarrelling, or having a coldness, or anything of that nature. Let's decide just to let it go, even if - especially if - we feel we are in the right and they are in the wrong. Just let it go.

Because you never know if you'll have another chance.

 

TOP CAT'S ALLEY WRITERS' AWARDS 2020

The moment a very, very few people may have been waiting for - my 2020 awards presentation.

I wish, how I wish, that I were as rich as Stephen King. Then there would be massive cash prizes to go with these awards. As it is, there is only the glory.

Note that not all of the winning books were first published this year. That's because these are MY awards, and therefore it is about when I read the book, not when it was first published. So without further ado, these are the works I feel deserve special mention, from what I've read and seen in 2020.

BEST NOVEL PUBLISHED IN 2020

Charlotte Wood, for The Weekend

Get it at Amazon

BEST ACTION NOVEL

Andy Peloquin, for Lethal Extraction

Preorder at Amazon

BEST ANTHOLOGY
BEST POLITICAL FICTION

Benjamin Gorman and Jack Dye, for Shout!

Get it at Amazon:

BEST CHRISTIAN FICTION

Ray Anselmo, for Flight to Freedom

Get it at Amazon

BEST SERIOUS NON-FICTION

Vladislav Matrenitsky, for Carcinogenic Mind

Get it at Amazon

BEST HUMOROUS NON-FICTION

Biju Vasudevan, for The Ultimate, Complete and Comprehensive Self-Help Book on How to Avoid Being Conned by Self-Help Books, and Also Why To Avoid Them

Get it at Amazon

BEST SHORT STORY

Michael J Sullivan, for The Ashmoore Affair

Jennifer Lee Rossman, for No Collision

BEST MAGAZINE

Marcia Pinskier, for Gesher

BEST FANTASY SERIES

John Kang, for Scions of the Black Lotus

Get the complete series at Amazon

BEST ACTION SERIES

Andy Peloquin, for Cerberus

Get book 1 at Amazon

BEST CHILDREN'S SERIES

Carrie Cross, for Skylar Robbins

Get them at Amazon

BEST DETECTIVE SERIES

Simon Brett, for Mrs Pargeter

Get book 1 at Amazon

MOST LIKABLE CHARACTER

Charlaine Harris, for Sookie Stackhouse

MOST HORRIBLE VILLAIN

James Patterson, for The Mastermind

BEST INSULT

Andy Peloquin, for "pencil-dicked asshole" in Paragon Slayer

FUNNIEST MISUNDERSTANDING OF A GRAMMATICAL RULE

Christina Kaye, for the following:

"Lay (people do this) and lie (objects do this)... people lay in the bed, objects lie on the counter."

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WINNERS!