Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Numbers. As I recall, the rule in English for highways, interstates, etc. write out the numeral as it would appear on a map. Highway 30's official name is Highway 30, not Highway Thirty.

Also, as a personal aside, I sometimes set stories in a fictional place called Grove County. It sits where the real county sits in which I grew up. There's a highway that runs down the middle - Highway 69. I need to write that as a numeral because I'm twelve.

I'm glad that in the third attempt you dropped the last paragraph. The rest is strong enough to convey your story. The addition of another description in a different tone was off-putting.

I like the concept of the story and have dabbled with it myself. The blurb itself is okay. Some parts feel choppy, with the fragmented sentences. The short paragraphs and the spaces between give it an amateurish feel.

Felix wrote: " I do a lot of crazy shit in my writing

What is this American fascination with the sh1t word? It's excreta and not a substitute for anything unpleasant or even marijuana."

I don't understand the fascination of some fellow Americans who like to piss all over whatever the rest of the world is doing, and I don't understand non-Americans who find every opportunity to piss all over whatever Americans do, no matter how trivial.

Shit is a word, nothing more, nothing less. One of its many definitions is "nonsense" or "rubbish"*. It is by that definition that I'm using the word. I am a writer and that defines me more than my place of origin. As a writer, I cannot let myself fear any word, even if it might trigger the arrogant nationalistic attitudes others might have.

*Straight from the Oxford Dictionary (published in the UK)

Wanjiru wrote: "Tomas wrote: "..."

Comment deleted. No links or self-promotion. Thanks.

Bruno wrote: "As JA Konrath said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The best way is to see your output as a year's work. How many words can you write a day? Even on bad days, 500 words is totally doable. That's 15000 a month. In a year, that's 180000 words. Two books a year is possible."

That's not two books. That's two rough drafts.

I do a lot of crazy shit in my writing and play around with stuff that makes some readers uncomfortable. In the middle of my second novel, the main character begins to read a novel and he's warned that the author is long-winded. I actually wrote out the first four pages of the novel he's reading... four pages describing the main character in great detail. I know some readers will skip it. I don't care. Made me laugh every time I read it.

Kathleen wrote: "Wondering what kinds of text readers skip over. Which is to say, how can we as authors tighten things up?"

I don't give a thought to what readers might skip over. There will be some who will skip your entire book. Should that stop you from writing? Of course not. So, write the book the way you think it wants to be written. If you start worrying about what some readers will snub, you're in danger of putting out a book that is too sanitized and doesn't show enough personality.

TV, movies, memes on Facebook... all this is working to shorten our collective attention spans. I won't give in to it and cater to it. If people find my work too boring because I have some descriptions in it and they'd rather go watch Family Guy or something, let 'em go.

Laura wrote: "Once published I cannot read my books. I just can't."

Constantly amazed at how we're all authors, but in some ways we're so different. I write the kinds of books I want to read but no one else is writing, that I know of. So, after they've been out a while, I love picking them up and reading them again.

The original is still the best and I don't mind the crowns. Take those away, though, and that font is still the best. Of the new ones, I like #1.

There's something missing from the Vonnegut rules, and many tend to leave this part off, even though it is the most important part!

"The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that."

This is important because, while his rules are wonderful, no one should feel tied to every rule all the time.

And to prove I know what I'm talking about, here's me and Vonnegut having a pow wow in a creepy motel about four years ago:

I didn't even notice the crowns until I read the other comments.

Yeah, I'm jealous. This is one fantastic cover and I'm trying to find something to hate about it.

Fine.

The crowns are stupid.

(Not really)

J- wrote: "I'm looking for some because people to review my book... I know swapping reviews is friended [sic] upon ..."

Please review our rules. We're not here to discuss reviews or to swap them. Also, this thread has been full of great advice for anyone who is thinking of giving up. It's rude to derail it to talk about your book and ask for reviews. Thanks.

Stefanie wrote: "anyone heard of book launch international? they contacted me..."

You can't find any info about them. I can't either. They contacted you. Run.

I never stop focusing on success. I do, however, expand what I can call success. Success is not just a sale or a royalty payment to me.

Things I count as successes:
Being proud of my work.
Trying something new in my stories and being pleased with the results.
Weeping like a baby when I come up with a great ending to a story.
Writing something that is better than I've ever written before.
Having someone, sometimes years, after they've read a story of mine, talk to me about the story and still remember details about it.
Looking over an abandoned, terrible rough draft and finding a way to salvage it.

When you love writing more than you love money, success is easy.

Today is the birthday of our founder, Ann Livi Andrews. Everyone bow and offer your gifts.

Or at least say "Happy birthday".

Then maybe you need to read the rules and see that we don't allow links or self-promotion. So, there really is no place for the post - which is why it was deleted.

Esther wrote: "Hi everyone..."

This is breaking so many rules. Deleted.

Tomas, have you tried combining the "creative" and "mechanical" edits? There's no reason you can't look for things to change creatively while looking for typos and other errors.

Chewing one's fingernails would be a no-no, I suppose. Belching might be a bit much.

I think listening to Jimi Hendrix, loud, through headphones killed any dislike I had for mouth sounds on recordings.

"Mouth sounds" never bothered me. The only time I remember being annoyed with an audio book was "The Grapes of Wrath", narrated by Dylan Baker. The narration was fine, including the "mouth sounds". It was the music that was inserted here and there between chapters and sections. It was so much louder than the narration and was so distracting.