I'm baaaack

The end of August and early September were busy, busy, busy. I finished and published three books. And then my brain imploded. I've hardly written anything since.

I thought about ideas. None of the already-started manuscript beckoned, although I've been adding a few words here and there to Tiger in the Snow, the sequel to The Barbary Lion. I thought about going back to the more obscure fairy tales for a retelling or may an "after the fairy tale" type of story. Again, nothing appealed.

Then Robbie spoke to me. "Where's my story?" he demanded. This is Robbie, sith brother to Connor in The Dragon Wore a Kilt. Creativity sparked.

The spark's been feeble, though. There's a lot of worrying about the future going on, what with unemployment looming. That's another story, not for this blog. Suffice it to say, that my energies have been directed more toward finding a way to earn a decent income than to developing stories.

So last week, I posted a few outbursts on social media (Google Plus, Facebook).

1. A writer asked for editing of the prologue to his novel. I did and found many, many errors: punctuation errors, incorrect word usage, sloppy formatting, mixed tenses, historical inaccuracies, etc. After pointing out the first several instances of mixed tenses, I suggested he go back to the manuscript to fix them. "What's tense?" he asked me. Egad. Folks, if you're going to write for publication, learn the craft of writing first. I directed him to my favorite resource, the Harbrace College Manual.

2. My next rant came after reading a book in which the heroine exemplified the characteristics that most make my teeth itch: abysmal stubbornness and terminal stupidity. I can't stand heroines like that, especially when the author constantly writes "she's intelligent" into the content. Ugh.

3. My third rant concerned the cliche of the man-whore as hero. What is it about romances that heroes have to be handsome, wealthy (Look, Ma, there's a billionaire on every corner!), and a dedicated womanizer. What makes a woman think that a man-whore's past history of treating women like toilet tissue (something to be used once and discarded) will change just for her? Really, how many women, if meeting a man like that kind of "hero," would turn around and run for the hills?

I'll quit while I'm ahead. Check out my next special: Pure Iron will be offered November 1 - 7 at a discounted price of $1.99. It's a Kindle Countdown Deal. Buy the book, read it, leave a review. I'm hoping it will be a positive review.