Oh the Hell with it. Paging Stacker Pentecost, start the clock.
Day 1. 5 pages, 1,874 words.
Things are pretty quiet. I was delighted to see that Greyblade had gotten a review on Amazon Australia, from a fairly regular and faithful reader and reviewer I do not know personally. It was deeply appreciated. The review even mentioned how complex the story was getting and the reviewer suggested I create a wiki so readers could keep things straight without needing to re-read. It was sort of flattering criticism, I suppose, because hopefully the reminders aren’t vital to the story – they’re only necessary if you want to pick up all the little details.
And you do, right? You do?
You do.
So I had to reply to that review, even though I’ve been told off for replying to my reviews in the past like I’m some kind of amateur, and tell him that I did have one! It’s still very much a work in progress and probably won’t help very much with fitting it all together and looking up “who exactly is this character again?”, but it’s a start.
By the way, I absolutely cannot stress how critical it is that readers share my book links around, and review them anywhere they can (and a few places they can’t, I won’t rat them out). It’s the life blood of independent authors. I do it diligently whenever a friend or even friend-of-a-friend has an independently published book or other art that depends upon word of mouth to get attention, and I try very hard not to judge all the people who don’t do that.
I mean, I fail because I’m me … but I’m sure they have their reasons. Aw, I’m sure they did their best, honestly. Really makes you think, I mean, it doesn’t, but it’s certainly a point.
I didn’t want to sound as harsh as I did there, so I should also add in direct proportion to this, how absolutely amazing and deeply appreciated it is when people do share and review my stuff. This is my life’s work. I consider my family a more important project, but this is a close second.
Even little things like this can make my week.
It’s not fishing for compliments, it’s gasping for air.