This week I turn 75 and am enjoying life more than ever due to my writing. It does not matter to me if people write poor reviews, I just love the process of creating a story over weeks or months. Everyone has their own tastes and desires.
At the end of 2019 I started writing Patsy because I was imagining scenes with the characters and would need to write them down. That is how my stories unfold; I have no idea of where they are going until the characters play it out in my mind, usually during the night.
In 2020 I posted three books of the Patsy Project and also a further nine stories. If I wrote Patsy again it would finish about 80k words early.
Erin published Positively Patsy as an Amazon E book in July last year and it has stayed around the top 10% in the Kindle E-books. It has attracted some interesting reviews on Amazon. Comment A said it is dull and uninteresting but several have said it was great and readers have found it hard to put down. Comment B said there was not enough heat in the sex. Comment C said it needed editing (Erin spent over a month on it and I had read it through several times.) Comment D was the one I loved; they said that the characters did not speak Nashville.
Now there could be a niche market, Erin, an English to Nashville translation handbook.
I have had a bit of a rest and hope that I can continue to post my stories into 2022. I have a number raring to go and have finished the first book of a new ‘big one’ which topped out at 86,000 words. I am over a quarter of the way through the second book in the series and have foolishly placed it in Detroit for the body of the story. Is there an English to Detroitish handbook? Following Positively Patsy, this one has the working title of ‘Essentially Egg’.
Happy New Year and all the best to all the BC authors and readers, I hope everyone escapes the C19+.
As a footnote, I have decided that my stories will carry on as if C19 does not exist. I have found that if you try to write with it in the story it becomes a big wet blanket that stifles the plot unless the story is about someone who dresses at home in lock-down.
Marianne Gregory
Comments
Happy Birthday
May you see many more in good health.
Many Happy Returns
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying yourself writing, and prodigiously as well. I don't have the time to write as much as I'd like but did have a very good period of about ten or so years when I was producing stuff every day and writing three serials at the same time, one of which is still running and is probably over 3,000,000 words. Not bad for someone who sees herself primarily as a short story writer.
As they say in Scotland, 'Lang may yer lum reek,' and I wish you a happy birthday and many more years of writing.
Best wishes,
Angharad
Don't Let the Comments Get to You
One person took me to task for Texas Two-Step because I didn't get the height of the bridge correctly. Another person told me she was going to commit suicide because I depicted a "too loving" family in Ma Cherie Amour that contrasted with the lack of support she received from her family.
You're not responsible for the attitude of your reader. That is not in the reader/author contract. Imagine if you told the same hilarious joke to a hundred people in a bar. Eighty percent probably would laugh. Ten percent would groan. Eight percent would walk away before you finished. Two percent would throw their beer in your face. Nothing wrong with the joke. Nothing wrong with your delivery. It's not about you.
Your book was highly enjoyable, five stars. And -- I'll bet you tell a great bar joke. I look forward to buying your next book.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)