Last short story anthology I released had the order as: my best ones first.
I figured by the time people had seen my best stuff, they’d love my “almost good enough” stuff.
And i finished on a favourite about Jesus and gender identity and vampires. It’s a little strange…
The reviews were favourable.

Fascinating! Now my brain will be filled with “how would a nine-year-old rewrite this scene” during my writing session this morning.
I write for 9-14 age range in my current series, but I have always wondered if I should make it 10-14.
No — I was reading LOTR at 9 and know how clever 9yo’s can be.

I’ve had a few four-star reviews lately where I’m really vibing with the reason for the lost star. I mean, i love five-star ones but a good, well-written four-star one can be so much more enlightening.
<ahem>
“Nooo, i don’t read my reviews…I’m an authhhor,” he said, pulling up the review page again.

The worst books are just much shorter spells. The effect can take place with a single badly-formed opening paragraph.
A terrible first sentence.
I stop reading if the first word is “I”.
Begone, foul First Person!

I heard that novels published in sans serifs are a lot easier for dyslexic readers. Apparently it has something to do with the serifs being half the reason for words merging into unintelligible strings.

How are you enjoying my life?
I wondered who had been living it while I sleep.
When you have solved that dilemma, just let me know so I can move to the next stage.
Chapter ten is just soooo hard and far away — and I’m on chapter nine…

I am a great writer (wow, that was harder than it should have been to say!) but my wife gets embarrassed when I write sex scenes.
So I don’t.
I think my move to middle grade was to avoid them.
Then i realised…i only write to make my wife happy and my entire readership is secondary.
Epiphany moment…

Why do orc kings always have such GREAT hair?

My wife would buy the memoirs. Her latest facial beauty treatment ended up with her face looking like it was covered in bee stings. After she emerged from hiding after two days of off-screen “my camera is all screwy today” Zoom calls it looked great.

My last novel was released on Nov 7th. I feel like I have written nothing but marketing posts since then and the sequel has had no love at all.
I think it’s almost time to change tracks again and leave my last book to do what it will.
That is always challenging for me though…

My Potential Book Ideas file has ninety-six entries. Two of them have been released and published. They took 12 months each so I’m on track as long as I live to be 150 years old…and stop adding entries!