Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

Paula’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Jot wrote: "Nice job Paula. Always so eloquent in your words."
Jot, thank you so much. It is always such an honor to win one of these competitions. And, to be honest, I'm rather fond of how this story came out.
Thanks again for your kind words.

Oh, C., thank you! Have you used them? I so much appreciate any info of this sort. Thank you again.

C. wrote: "Paula,

See:
cloudconvert.com"

C., this will help with getting it uploaded on amazon as a .mobi and as a pod book?!

Jot wrote: "I remember having the ability to 10 years back, but that machine is dead. I might have done it straight from LibreOffice, which does allow the export in EPUB format."

Thanks, Jot. Interesting. I think the issue may be one of what Amazon is, for its own profit-grinding reasons, allowing--but hey, I don't know, really. Thank you!

Wow, Jot, that is sad--terrible, really. They are extraordinary animals.
On a different subject, do any of you here know whether there is a way, with Amazon, to publish a .mobi (for Kindle) version and/or a POD version of a book *without* having to use Amazon's KDP process? Using KDP for publishing through Amazon requires giving Amazon an exclusive on the book for 90 days; since I want also to publish it through B&N and/or Smashwords, Ingram-Sparks, etc., I don't want Amazon to have an exclusive for three months. But when I go through my Amazon author's portal to "publish through amazon", the only option for either mobi or pod publishing seems to be KDP.; do any of you know whether there is a work-around? If so, how does one get to it? ---Thank you! Jack McDaniel here has enormously and kindly and generously helped me with the pre-press preparation for the 2nd edition of my 2018 novel, and I was set to go ahead and upload it to Amazon--and this came up! Thank you for any suggestion (even if it's only, "Yeah, well that's how Amazon now--" or the like.

Really liked your story, Jot--super well done ending with a lot of impact.
Wondering if the "grizzly remains" (about 1/3 of the way into the story) were inspired by the camping trip; I sure hope not, but hey.

Jon wrote: "Paula wrote: "Jon, I'd be glad to beta-read your novella, IF you can send it in doc or pdf."

OK Paula thanks!"
Jon, message me via Goodreads message function for my email address, so you can send your novella by pdf. Looking forward to beta-reading it.

Kalifer wrote: "Whew! A lot of work for a joke. The Iditarod will never be the same. I told the joke to my team of huskies and they didn't get it, but they still smiled a lot. One husky, March-Wind, howled, not at..."
Somehow I missed seeing this, Kalifer! Yeah, feed those puppies well; March-Wind sounds really, uh, cool!

Okay, cut a couple hundred words off my piece; it's down to 740 words now. And no more pun--but it wanted to say more than a pun, in fact.

Jot wrote: "Back from camping. Time to write a story..."
Sounds like fun, Jot; I hope it went wonderfully.

Jon, I'd be glad to beta-read your novella, IF you can send it in doc or pdf.

Cool story, Chris. Beautifully paced and flows extremely well/smoothly, and we get a sense of the ambassador's sense of enormous loss and devastation; you've given him a very *real* feeling. By comparison, Abigail could, I think, use some deepening/rounding. The whole sense of place--that very traditional-sf sense of an alien but beautiful world, civilized in alien but wonderfully alien, sophisticated ways--abounds in this story. Very well constructed, too.

Very hard writing a story fully in dialogue, Carrie, let alone one under 150 words and one that readers care about the outcome.
Good work!

Cool blog, Tom! And excellent essay--very pointed, yet true, thoughts on "America's birthday"!

Thanks, Tom and Justin--and, Jot, let's hope for many actually happy birthdays for this and all nations, agreed!

We're science-fiction authors. We may have--maybe--some idea where it can go--the wider world's disaster, I mean. And who knows, re each of our personal lives? Or we can post folksongs on our FB pages, sleep well tonight, maybe dance.

Tom wrote: "The barren, wintry landscape and chilling climate, I guess. Also, that scene in the movie where he steps out on the balcony and throws up his arms to scare off a wolf pack."
Oh yes! For all its over-hyping as part of the time's anti-Soviet propaganda, and for all Shariff's abysmal non-acting, that sure was one beautiful film! (..."Soldiers. . . . Soldiers . . . .")

Tom wrote: "I know nothing of dog sled racing, so I didn't get the joke until I looked up Idatarod. (Thank you, Kalifer.)

I loved the story, though. Very inventive blending of poetic verse and traditional SF...."
Tom, thank you! --Years ago, an old friend moved to Alaska and got involved with someone involved in the Iditarod, so I've known of it for years. And these days, it sort of flashed on me from J.J.'s theme selection. (Doctor Zhivago?--the setting--?)

Thanks, Jot--much appreciated.
Kalifer, nice catch and--yeah, it would've been, but then I saw J.J.'s other parameter and it turned into something else too (I hope!) Oh and huskies, or malamutes ftm, are wonderful, aren't they?

Jack--
LOL.
--Actually, this story may work better, at least this version, with most the first paragraph and a couple other places cut out--down to around 750 words. Just have to find time to do it, LOL.