Famous fiction authors often gain their fame from their series. (I have a few myself, although they haven’t made me famous.) But often their out-of-series books, those that stand alone, are so much better. Unfortunately, they’re often forgotten by the reading public. (As are most of my novels, whether in a series or not!) The novels I consider in this novel are also “evergreen books,” ones as current and entertaining today as when the authors finished their manuscripts. (Many of my books are evergreen.)

Let’s start with Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (1957). You don’t know who Hoyle is? He was mostly responsible for the “steady-state theory of the Universe,” long since proven wrong (the three-degree Kelvin background radiation was the nail in its coffin), but his sci-fi novel is eerily possible and quite original, the cloud being an ET villain that in hindsight was partial motivation for the Swarm in my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.”

King’s Misery (1987) is undoubtedly the horror-meister’s best novel simply because what happens in it is entirely possible. Maybe all author’s should think twice about having rabid fans…or about living in rural New England? (Say what? That’s where Bernie and Stephen live! I used to live there. While the New York area’s winters are often terrible too, they’re not as bad as New England’s.) Maybe to King’s credit, his testifying against the Simon and Shuster merger with Penguin/Random House because it would negatively affect hours (maybe of his ilk, but certainly not me—I don’t care!) might rise to compare with the good warning this novel provides (or was it just self-interest because King is published by Simon and Schuster). Again, with hindsight, I’ll have to admit how King’s author was treated influenced my depiction of Declan O’Hara’s plight in the novella where I introduced that Irish writer. (I made up for that in a few novels, though; in particular, he’s happily married now to the MI5 agent Maggie Bent.) (You might have read more about my opinions of King in my little course “Writing Fiction” — a free PDF download found on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page — which dares to say what King never had courage to say in On Writing.)

With the changes in the lottery rules (the last Mega Millions reached an obscene level!), the possible winnings have increased. Baldacci’s The Winner (1998) will make you wonder how legitimate those lotteries are and, in particular, whether they’re rigged to favor certain players. This is one of David’s best novels and far better than those in his formulaic series; only two others are better (and they’re standalones as well, not in any of his series—see the “Steve’s Bookshelf” web page). I don’t like to gamble or consider suckers who do, even with the lottery, so this novel inspired none of mine. It’s worth the read, if only to cure you from gambling in general and playing the lottery in particular.

I love well-written historical fiction (Declan’s novel about St. Brendan is an example—a non-existent one mentioned in several of mine that do exist), especially about WWII. Gerlis has some good novels in this genre that I’ve enjoyed reading, classic mixes of real history with fictional parts interwoven. His compare favorably with Deaver’s Garden of Beasts (2004), an earlier novel that sets a high bar for the genre (and makes his Lincoln Rhyme series pale in comparison!), only comparable to Follett’s Eye of the Needle. All of these books involve spying, and they probably influenced my portrayal of Esther Brookstone’s days in East Berlin for MI6 during the Cold War.

Authors are influenced by books they read; I’m no exception (and I read a lot!), although sometimes that influence is so subtle I can only detect it in hindsight (overloaded brain…because I read a lot!). But the evergreen books I’ve mentioned should be remembered when you’re looking for a good book to read. Don’t forget those evergreen stand-alone novels! (I hope you’ll remember mine as well.)

This, of course, is a short list of evergreen books, their publication dates running from 1957 to 2004, so any retailer that only features recent books (e.g. most brick-and-mortar bookstores) won’t display them (all too often they favor celebs’ tell-alls and political scandals, the Big Five’s bread and butter). They’re still in print, though, and they can often be found in ebook second editions.

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Come globe-trot with me! Three evergreen novels from three different series will take you, the reader, to many different countries. Aristocrats and Assassins (UN52Q) finds Detective Castilblanco and his wife on an European vacation that becomes deadly. Why is a terrorist kidnapping Europe’s royals? In Death on the Danube (AR72S), you’ll cruise down that famous river along with Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden on their honeymoon voyage…right into danger, as the two sleuths try to find a murderer. And in Muddlin’ Through (TV85M), you can go along on a dangerous tour with Mary Jo Melendez around Europe and South America as she tries to prove she was framed for her sister and brother-in-law’s murder and tries to save the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”). All these globe-trotting adventures that will leave you breathless and asking for more are on sale now at Smashwords for only 99 cents. (Use the indicated promo codes if you don’t see that price.) Bon voyage!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

There are so many options for self-publishing a book nowadays, going from 100% DIY to paid aggregators like Draft2Digital to Smashwords (I purposely omit Amazon—I avoid the Bezos bots as much as possible), that the question in the title hardly makes any sense anymore. To put it more bluntly: Why in the hell would any author bother with traditional publishing?

I have to confess that I’ve succumbed to temptation myself and experimented with traditional publishing: Penmore Press published Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder, the first two books in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (they were followed by seven more, not from Penmore – see below for the latest); Black Opal Books published The Last Humans, the first book in “The Last Humans” series (the second was self-published). (I added Black Opal because Penmore didn’t publish sci-fi, and still doesn’t.) I could list many reasons that explain why I parted ways with these small presses. I won’t go into all of them in this article.

First, the positives for traditional publishing: If you want to try it, pick a publisher that doesn’t require that you have an agent. In other words, avoid agents. Period! Too many are pariahs who have the hubris to think they’re qualified to be gatekeepers for acquisition editors who want agents to keep slush piles small, which they do with a vengeance, making most traditionally published fiction formulaic, schlock, and a waste of time. Dealing with an acquistion editor directly is far better than dealing with an agent. Even if you can find a good and caring agent—an endangered species, to be sure—your agent will always stand between you and the acquisitions editor like a palace guard wielding an AR-15. Moreover, an acquisitions editor of a small press might also be an author who understands you.

More importantly, small presses are a lot more efficient than those publishers that have been swallowed up by one of the Big Five’s publishing conglomerates, but lack of efficiency is my biggest complaint about all traditional publishing. After writing and editing a manuscript and purchasing an appropriate cover, my latest self-published novels are being distributed in a day! No traditional publisher can beat that! It took me several years to see those Penmore and Black Opal books published. I’m sure that any Big Five publisher is much worse. They only rush to press for worthless celeb and scandal books that appeal to the salacious interests of some readers. A good story, on the other hand, runs a long gauntlet of delaying steps, going from acceptance to published book when any traditional publisher is used. I know because I’ve experienced it!

Frankly, I tried Penmore and Black Opal because I wanted to experiment with traditional publishing. For both of them, I looked at their small list of published books and decided mine could find a nice home there among them. I’ve met some interesting authors by doing so, and the acquistion editors at first seemed enthusiastic about my prose. I regret none of that. No one should ever regret a learning experience.

But now I’m cured. I will stick with self-publishing in the future and try to forget about the pain of traditional publishing.

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Legacy of Evil. Due to today’s efficiency in self-publishing, my latest novel from Draft2Digital was published soon after Celtic Chronicles, Book Nine in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, but it’s more of a sequel to The Klimt Connection, Book Eight, where you first met the protagonist. Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan receives his first murder case after a transfer to Bristol PD and a stressful secondment to MI5. An old man’s murder is soon followed by three related ones. Their investigations lead the DI and his team to probe the operations of a national crime syndicate as well as uncover a Russian oligarch’s plans to destabilize the UK. Eventually, both MI5 and NCA become involved. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Thor: Love and Thunder. (Taika Watiti, director.) I finally went to see a movie at a local AMC. The theater had aged badly during the Covid-19 pandemic (no surprise—no ticket sales implying no upkeep), but the seats were still comfy and the projector and sound system seemed to be as I remembered it. However, because this is what’s first in my list that I took home about my experience, you’ll understand why in hindsight I wished that I’d waited for a better movie.

The last really good movie I saw was PBS’s Around the World in Eighty Days (my review is this blog’s 3/4/2022 post), and that was on TV, not the big screen. When you consider how many movie reviews I’ve made over the years—this is the 86^th—you know my movie watching on that huge silver screen has diminished considerably.

When I was ready to make the leap, even though Covid is taking off again, I didn’t want to do it with Tom Cruise’s Top Gun sequel. I suppose the cinema moguls thought that repeating that first zero-plot extravaganza would bring in viewers. Not this viewer! First, I hate sequels. Second, I can’t stand the egotistical and narcissistic Scientologist, who like other actors in that secretive cabal, can’t act. So, as someone who grew up with Marvel Comics, I opted for Thor, hoping for another origins flick like Wonder Woman and The Black Panther.

Big mistake! While there are a few flashbacks to Thor’s origins, the movie was a terrible mishmash of Marvel mythology—Norse gods, Greek gods, demigods, the female king of Asgard (Tessa Thompson), ETs, and that comical and ribald guardians-of-the-galaxy crew (Chris Pratt et al.). The plot is trite and boring: An evil villain, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), wants to kill all the gods with his special sword. (He has a point—pardon the pun—at least in this movie with its many Marvel-ous distortions.) Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and friends want to stop Gorr. End of plot. If you don’t take any of this seriously—a kid using a teddy bear as a weapon put me over the edge—you might have some fun.

I knew this was a bomb when I observed that the best moments belong to Russell Crowe playing Zeus as an old gay guy, complete with faux-Greek accent (on second thought, he probably insulted all three groups, gays, Greeks, and the gods of Olympus). I suppose the ladies in the audience, from twelve to eighty-two or thereabouts in our audience, loved to see Thor in the buff when Zeus whips off all his clothes.

Maybe this movie could serve as a lesson for future screenwriters on how to turn a trivial and trite good-versus-evil plot into two torturous hours of pointless special effects? At a cost of $250 million to make, the movie has to gross $500 to be considered a success. I doubt that it will. But who knows?

At least it was something for us to do on a very hot day—campy fun at times and best when not trying to be serious, where the movie failed miserably. Oh, I forgot to mention that, besides the overwhelming special effects, the music was good when I could hear it over the battle grunts and dying screams of all the warring parties. Otherwise, this movie was an experience I prefer to forget as soon as I can possibly do so. Maybe the minions will help me erase the bad memories?

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Legacy of Evil. Due to today’s efficiency in self-publishing, my latest novel from Draft2Digital was published soon after Celtic Chronicles, Book Nine in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, but it’s more of a sequel to The Klimt Connection, Book Eight, where you first met the protagonist. Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan receives his first murder case after a transfer to Bristol PD and a stressful secondment to MI5. An old man’s murder is soon followed by three related ones. Their investigations lead the DI and his team to probe the operations of a national crime syndicate as well as uncover a Russian oligarch’s plans to destabilize the UK. Eventually, both MI5 and NCA become involved. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

As my American collaborator Steve Moore indicated in a recent blog article, I received some good advice from that old ex-Gardia Michael O’Hara. My difficulties with continuing “The Denisovan Trilogy” are a bit more complicated than described by Steve in that post or in his novel Intolerance, though (the latter is available as a free PDF download—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page).

First, my protagonist Kayla Jones, known as “The One” by the descendants of Denisovans known as “The People,” has become a reluctant shaman among all the galactic descendants of ancient hominins. She’s wise beyond her years too. She now has more of an adult role but believe it’s been foisted upon her,  so in telling her continuing story, I must try to capture the confusion she feels. I suppose there are young adults with those same concerns who can serve as models around or near Donegal, Ireland, but I have yet to meet them.

Second, Kayla is also a very young mother who loves her son. Like many modern women, she must balance family with work, and her work now is serious diplomatic business! I know of real women who have been in similar situations, but they’re older than Kayla, whose youthfulness can create many difficulties.

Third, my experience, and yours as well, I dare say, cannot possibly compare to Kayla’s. Her role has to be played out on a cosmic stage, and it’s one of diplomatic and military turmoil and intrigue that we can only imagine, you as a reader with my guidance, and I as a wizened old author living a reclusive life far, far away from that stage. Of course, in that latter task, I can call on the cosmic imagination of my US colleague, Steve Moore, whose creations cover fictional settings from today’s current world to ones far into the future.

I’m guessing my problems with continuing the trilogy were also felt by J. K. Rowling at the end of her Potter series, which, even though she’s English and not Irish, broke out of the constraints to write stories of more international interest, especially in the US. Did she have similar problems with Harry like I do with Kayla? An interesting question, to be sure, but, of course, J. K.’s problems might have been easier to solve. That Potter series is pure fantasy. I write sci-fi, and my stories must seem real, at least a lot more believable than the magical world of Harry Potter. Nevertheless, I’d certainly discuss all this with her if J. K. ever visits Donegal!

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Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One. While A. B. Carolan agonizes over the next two books in the trilogy at his favorite Donegal pub, you can enjoy reading this sci-fi mystery for young adults (and adults who are young-at-heart!). Young Kayla Jones has dreams she can’t understand. Her future seems determined as the brilliant STEM student looks forward to a research career, but her past gets in the way. As if the chaos afflicting the world and leading to her adopted father’s death wasn’t enough, assassins begin to pursue her. With some friends who come to her aid, she’s on her way to discover a conspiracy that can be traced to prehistoric battles waged by hominins bent on conquest of a primitive Earth. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon). And don’t forget that Carolan’s first three novels are now on sale this month at Smashwords.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Are you thinking about upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11? Did you purchase a new computer, and you’re now forced to use Windows 11? In either case, you could have problems!

I put myself in the latter situation recently. I’ve stuck with Windows, version after version, because I hate Apple’s egotistical attitude of not making it easy to play with devices from other equipment providers—Apple likes to pretend that its products are the only ones in the technological universe! But now the almost equally infamous Microsoft has rewarded my loyalty by hassling me with yet another crappy, untested version of Windows. Mind you, there are some new things I like…when they work!

Did you think Win 10 was bad with its interminable updates? Microsoft vowed that it would be the last Windows version, and there would only be updates. But every week? Sometimes even more often? Of course, what they did was release a buggy beta-version of Win 10 and let users debug it. They’ve done the same thing with Win 11! If you buy a new computer, you’ll get the latest version of Win 11, and it still has lots of bugs that will bite you. And many of them are caused by the OS not playing well with other products, just like with Win 10. When that happens, every help desk at all involved with Microsoft, from the computer manufacturer, in my case HP; makers of printers; external keyboards and drives; and Microsoft itself, point their fingers at everyone else! (For most of these online help desk, there aren’t any live people to help anymore!)

After hours and hours of googling in my search for fixes, I’m finally at the point where I can use Office 365 products (as problematic as they are!)—create an email, document, slide, or spreadsheet—and feel that my computer files are more or less secure. I’d already lost hair in the normal aging process, but tearing out more in frustration with hardware and software problems doesn’t help.

What was worse is that being familiar with Win 10 didn’t help much either. At least I knew how to unlink that useless OneDrive. Why anyone would want to use Microsoft’s cloud after the Russians hacked them is beyond me. I’ve always only used my own remote external drives as backups. I’m not changing from sanity to insanity now.

Printing was a bear too—an angry grizzly that just wouldn’t be tamed. I bought a new HP laptop. Wouldn’t you think it would work with an HP 2035 printer? Nope. Neither HP nor Microsoft helped with that either. Of course, that printer was defective from the very beginning—it never could print PDFs properly—but it was more or less working with Win 10. It didn’t with Win 11. It turns out you’ll find lots of people complaining about printing problems with Win 11, so it’s hard for me to tell who’s at fault, HP or Microsoft—and, of course, they can’t tell you either (especially HP that made the printer). In any case, I solved my problem in a drastic fashion by purchasing a cheap Brother B&W laser printer that cost me about 25% of what I doled out for that junky HP 2035. That little Brother works far better than the HP 2035 ever did! It even prints PDFs!

There were times during this whole painful process when I thought about taking my new machine down to the recycling dump and returning to a typewriter…if I could find one outside a museum (maybe in Tom Hanks’ mansion?). I also at times yearned for my old Radio Shack Color Computer, my first ever personal computer. It didn’t have a bloated and cumbersome Office 365, but its word processing and spread sheet were simple to use and very functional. I could even write machine code for that! New machines are so complicated that no one person understands a particular model.

“Why did I buy a new computer and bring all this aggravation down on myself?” you ask. The answer is simple: I went through three keyboards with the old laptop, the one that came with it and two USB ones—keys dying and labels wearing off, for the most part. (I write a lot!) Imagine using an external keyboard with a laptop: You have to reach farther to type! At my age, I don’t need carpal-tunnel anything. My new machine is supposed to get me through a few more novels at least before I say goodbye to this world. Now I’m not so sure it won’t die before I do, though. Stay tuned.

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules indicated on the “Join the Conversation” web page.)

Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One. While A. B. Carolan agonizes over the next two books in the trilogy at his favorite Donegal pub, you can enjoy reading this sci-fi mystery for young adults (and adults who are young-at-heart!). Young Kayla Jones has dreams she can’t understand. Her future seems determined as the brilliant STEM student looks forward to a research career, but her past gets in the way. As if the chaos afflicting the world and leading to her adopted father’s death isn’t enough, assassins begin to pursue her. With some friends who come to her aid, she’s on her way to discover a conspiracy that can be traced to prehistoric battles waged by hominins bent on conquest of a primitive Earth. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon). And don’t forget that Carolan’s first three novels are now on sale this month at Smashwords.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

While I’ve written about this topic before, I still see a lot of confusion out there. Let’s go over the basic ideas again.

Most fiction is written in a main character’s point of view (POV): The fictional world of a novel is seen from the eyes, ears, and other senses of one or several protagonists, or even a villain’s. But that POV can change from chapter to chapter or even section to section, either because there isn’t just one main character. Authors (even famous ones) mangle POV, their “head-hopping” often causing confusion for readers.

Another POV is omnipotent or God’s-eye view of what’s going on. In other words, the author knows all and let’s the reader see all that he knows. It’s limiting, and it can make internal dialogue awkward. I can’t recommend it.

POV is related to but not the same as person. If I write a story or parts of one in first person, it’s clear that the POV is of that first-person character. If I write a story in third person (much of fiction is written that way), there can be multiple POVs.

Because I like to experiment, the entire “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series has Castilblanco in first person and other main characters in third person with their corresponding POVs (without head-hopping in the same section…unless I’ve made an error).

In The Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, I alternate between the two main protagonists, Gail and Jeff, in first person—it’s a sci-fi rom-com, so I thought readers might be interested in observing the intimate thoughts of each one.

Mangling POV and person is easy to do; managing it is hard. A teeny mangling isn’t a great sin, though, unless it creates confusion in readers. If readers stop to wonder how Sam knows what Samantha is thinking (and Sam doesn’t have ESP!), the author has a problem.

Many authors don’t understand POV and person. In some of my interviews, I’ve asked the interviewee, “How do you use POV?” I receive a broad spectrum of answers. It’s often not considered an element of storytelling as important as plot, characterization, dialogue, and so forth, so it’s often neglected and mishandled. When I started putting my stories “out there,” I mishandled it. An author friend set me straight. Checking for head-hopping is now part of my copy-editing check when I finish a manuscript. I go through every section and ask myself, “Whose POV am I using?” and “Is there more than one?” If I can’t answer either question, I know I’m in trouble.

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Legacy of Evil. This first “Inspector Steve Morgan” novel, both a British-style mystery and a suspenseful spy thriller, is hot off the press (meaning Draft2Digital). Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan receives his first murder case after a transfer to Bristol PD and a stressful secondment to MI5. An old man’s murder is soon followed by three related ones. Their investigations lead the DI and his team to probe the operations of a national crime syndicate as well as uncover a Russian oligarch’s plans to destabilize the UK. Eventually, both MI5 and NCA become involved. (Esther Brookstone doesn’t go away completely. She has a cameo here.) This book is available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Mystery and thriller authors sometimes kill off main characters. I did that in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series (the Mossad agent in Angels Need Not Apply), but I couldn’t do it with Castilblanco and Chen (both have appeared in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series as well, most notably in Defanging the Red Dragon).

Main characters can also be villains, of course, and my arch-villain, Vladimir Kalinin, appears in many of my novels, most recently enjoying roles in the latest “Esther Brookstone” novels. I eventually killed him, though—you might have to read some more of my novels to find out how, when, and where!

But protagonists are special, aren’t they? Readers are often fond of minor, one-book characters even. (A reviewer lamented the demise of that Mossad agent, and an editor lamented the loss of the Turkish detective in Son of Thunder, an “Esther Brookstone” novel.) I prefer to “retire” characters, especially principal ones. Chen and Castilblanco’s retirements aren’t explicit; Esther and Bastiann’s is more so. The latter were getting up in years and were old to begin with (cameos in the “Chen and Castilblanco” series and their first solo novel, Rembrandt’s Angel), so they deserved their graceful and peaceful retirement after fighting crime through nine novels. That suggests the question: Who do I hand these marvelous crime-fighting duos’ torches to?

Castilblanco has his adopted kids, Cecilia and Pedro; you’ve possibly met them. Ceci is a CSI and Pedro is an NYPD detective. Esther and Bastiann have no children, though, so I had to consider alternatives. I rather liked the Scottish plods in Celtic Chronicles, Esther and Bastiann’s last adventure chronicled by her old boss, George Langston. The Irish inspector in Intolerance caught my eye too. But Steve Morgan won. He was an important character in The Klimt Connection. He has a military background like Castilblanco and left his hectic life in Scotland Yard to transfer to Bristol PD. Only that became a bit hectic too! In compensation, he finds romance in the Bristol suburbs, a pairing almost as unusual as Esther and Bastiann’s.

So the “art detective” is out—long live Esther Brookstone! And the “plod” is in—welcome Detective Inspector Steve Morgan.

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Comments are always welcome. (Follow the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page.)

Legacy of Evil. This first “Inspector Steve Morgan” novel, both a British-style mystery and a suspenseful spy thriller, is hot off the press (meaning Draft2Digital). Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan receives his first murder case after a transfer to Bristol PD and a stressful secondment to MI5. An old man’s murder is soon followed by three related ones. Their investigations lead the DI and his team to probe the operations of a national crime syndicate as well as uncover a Russian oligarch’s plans to destabilize the UK. Eventually, both MI5 and NCA become involved. (Esther Brookstone doesn’t go away completely. She has a cameo here.) This book is available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Did these birds become so popular because of those Harry Potter stories? Are these rapacious carnivores so cute and cuddly that everyone loves them? Or have we always loved them because they say “Who”? And did advertisers just discover them now?

As a writer, I have to be an observer, mostly of human nature and not owls! So, I’ve discovered that suddenly something weird is going on: Owls might be replacing cats and dogs as human beings’ favorite literary animals. Why? What’s changed?

Take commercials. There’s the Xyzal owl, the opticians’ owls, and so forth. (I’m lucky to remember any product now because I’m the ad person’s worst target: I don’t pay attention to the the products, just the human drama, especially when they interact with animals.)

What is it about an owl that’s suddenly made this bird so popular? It can’t be about its wisdom. Like most animals that have succeeded in Darwin’s evolutionary Hunger Games (Mother Nature’s epic stories are far better than that sci-fi schlock of the same name), the owl is perfectly adapted to the ecological niches it populates—not exactly wise these days as human beings destroy habitats—and it operates mostly on instinct. Except for Harry’s owl, I’ve never seen one play an important role in literature. Exceptions might be Poe with his raven and Koontz with his retriever, but Rawling has an owl?

Owls really aren’t nice birds either. It’s a carnivore that feeds on small rodents and birds, ripping them apart and swallowing the raw flesh. For hunting, it’s as deadly as a hawk, falcon, or eagle, with comparable or better eyesight and a better sense of smell. An owl is a killing machine!

Maybe I’ve just seen too many PBS Nature shows to think of this flying carnivore as cute and cuddly? Am I just missing something? Readers, let me know.

I think there’s a lesson to be learned here, though: An owl just looks wise, and that happens because we see it idly hanging around during the day (if at all), not when it’s being a nocturnal killer. During the day, it just stares at us with those big eyes, rotating its head through almost 360 degrees to keep us in view and make sure we, the most dangerous animal on the planet, are not threatening them.

An owl only appears to be a wise observer of human beings. In other words, it isn’t something an author of fiction should emulate! A writer truly should be a wise observer of humans to make his fiction seem more real!

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The “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries.” These novels for young adults (and adults who are young at heart!) are on sale at Smashwords for 99 cents each! Give your tweens or teens young adult novels to read this summer, providing them with a head start on next fall’s book reports. The Secret Lab (KU26R), The Secret of the Urns (HQ66E), and Mind Games (MG73K) are all on sale at Smashwords. (Or, if you prefer, each novel has a print version, and you can find those wherever quality print books are sold, but they’re so inexpensive that they’re not on sale.) If the ebook’s sale price doesn’t appear when you check out from Smashwords, use the indicated promo code following the title. All these books’ protagonists are young adults (except for Mr. Paws, the mutant cat in the first novel), but adults can enjoy these futuristic tales as well.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I’m frustrated when I know there’s the perfect word in a given situation and can’t quite remember it. That’s when I remember that my verbal memory has a lot of junk in it: sports terms, even for sports I never played; trivia facts, ones I could easily look up now with Google; technical terms I once used a lot but don’t use at all in my writing; random words from French, German, Russian, and Spanish—a lot from the latter—that often fight with English; and so forth. The hard disk in my head probably needs a serious cleanup defragging!

While I ignore all writing gurus’ advice to write for a target audience to help end this frustration—fiction has no target audience because any reader can like anything—I tend to avoid pedantic and erudite writing, using vocabulary a reader of average intelligence can relate to (that obviously excludes many politicians, especially those who rarely read anything). I let my plots and themes carry the complexity, not my verbiage, because I practice minimalist writing, a style that avoids excessive description and dialogue and permits the reader to participate in the creative process. I give just enough description so that readers can create their own images about what’s going on. (In old crime and detective literature, especially that from the US, that’s often called “hard-boiled” writing.)

But I am always looking for the right word. Most of them just come without effort as I write the story. When not and I know there is one, I just put an X to hold the place. I’m usually able to replace X with the right word when I content edit, which I do paragraph by paragraph, page by page, and chapter by chapter. Of course, sometimes I have to look for another word…reluctantly…but I can do that too, knowing my intended meaning.

I’ve had success with this writing process from my first published novel (Full Medical, 2006) to my last (Celtic Chronicles, 2022). While it seems there are more X’s lately—this old fellow isn’t getting any younger!—I usually can find le bon mot. When I no longer can, I guess I’ll stop writing.

The reader of this article might ask: How speedy is this writing prcess? The easy answer: It varies. Sometimes finding background material slows me down. Other times, it’s long narrative passages (none of them are very long in my prose), especially world-building in sci-fi. But generally the writing process is a speedy one. It’s the other stuff that takes time and is often a major distraction: Editing and marketing often take more time than the actual writing. Social media takes time too. I’m lucky I don’t have a day-job anymore; when I did, it was hard to maintain the pace.

Getting a book written and published is always an adventure, no matter how you do it. You just have to remember to do what works for you. How I do it might not suit you, but it suits me just fine.

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules found on the “Join the Conversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment will be considered spam.)

The “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries.” These novels for young adults (and adults who are young at heart!) are on sale at Smashwords for 99 cents each! Give your tweens or teens young adult novels to read this summer, providing them with a head start on next fall’s book reports. The Secret Lab (KU26R), The Secret of the Urns (HQ66E), and Mind Games (MG73K) are all on sale at Smashwords. (Or, if you prefer, each novel has a print version, and you can find those wherever quality print books are sold, but they’re so inexpensive that they’re not on sale.) If the ebook’s sale price doesn’t appear when you check out from Smashwords, use the indicated promo code following the title. All these books’ protagonists are young adults (except for Mr. Paws, the mutant cat in the first novel), but adults can enjoy these futuristic tales as well.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Towards the end of Intolerance (a complete “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” novel available as a free PDF download—see my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page), A. B. Carolan meets with his old friend, the Irish copper Michael O’Hara, for drinks at a Donegal pub. There A. B. confesses to having a bit of writer’s block. Michael gives him some advice to cure it.

That advice is basically to remember all the tools a novelist possesses for writing a good story. That list of tools is as old as storytelling: plot; themes; characterization; dialogue; direct or internal; bacground and flashbacks; and so forth. Perhaps more importantly, a meta-tool if you will, is a guiding rule, the Goldilocks Principle: Not too much, not too little, but just enough. How much a writer should use each tool or stortytelling element depends ultimately on the story but also on its intended audience and, I hate to say it, genres. I use the plural “genres” only in the sense of categorizations or descriptors. Writing coaches often try to limit writers to one genre, but good stories can often be described in many ways. For example, A. B.’s Origins had mystery, thriller, romantic, historical, and sci-fi characteristics. So, what Michael’s advice comes down to is to use those tools appropriate for those characteristics, following the Goldilocks Principle.

There’s a bit more to the discussion between A. B. and Michael in the novel. A. B. did a fine job with Origins and his previous novels in the “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries” series (on sale this month—see below). He’s worried about the rest of the “Denisovan Trilogy” novels he wants to write. (To simplify its description, the trilogy is planned to be something akin to Battlestar Galactica in reverse: hominids were stolen from Earth and taken to the stars, and the protagonists, the remainder of some Denisovans found on Earth, want to return to the stars.) He just needs to get to the writing. Just do it, A. B.!

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on the “Join the Cnversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment will go to the spam folder.)

The “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries.” These novels for young adults (and adults who are young at heart!) are on sale at Smashwords for 99 cents each! Give your tweens or teens young adult novels to read this summer, providing them with a head start on next fall’s book reports. The Secret Lab (KU26R), The Secret of the Urns (HQ66E), and Mind Games (MG73K) are all on sale at Smashwords. (Or, if you prefer, each novel has a print version, and you can find those wherever quality print books are sold, but they’re so inexpensive that they’re not on sale.) If the ebook’s sale price doesn’t appear when you check out from Smashwords, use the indicated promo code following the title. All these books’ protagonists are young adults (except for Mr. Paws, the mutant cat in the first novel), but adults can enjoy these futuristic tales as well.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!