Weekly Roundup is an update on what’s going on in my world. Welcome!
This ever happen to you? The book you are reading has been enjoyable from the start, but as you get close to the end things begin to change. The pace of the action picks up considerably while the characters begin speaking and acting strangely. Suddenly, the book is brought to a whirlwind conclusion and you’re staring at “The End”, wondering how you got there.
I’ve encountered this phenomenon many times and it’s always a shame. For whatever reason, the author enters a race to finish the book as soon as possible – and it shows. Perhaps they were tired of living with the characters and simply wanted OUT. It may be their editor slapped them with an impossible-to-meet deadline, or maybe the author simply got lazy and declined to put as much thought and care into the end of the book as they should.
As a result, the readers are left disappointed, having been cheated out of the carefully crafted ending they deserved. How unfair! I didn’t pay for the “lite” version of the book, and you better believe my displeasure will show up in the review. What happened to pride in a job well done? Did the author truly believe no one would notice?
If nothing else, incidents like this remind me of my responsibilities as an author. Readers deserve my best effort from start to finish, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because I want them to keep reading my books into the future. As my father used to say, “If you’re not going to do it right, don’t do it at all.”
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I have missed you the last couple of weeks! The move went as planned, almost, and I’m as settled as I can be. The idea was to find a place to live while I was here for my son’s wedding, but instead I’m camped out in his living room. By the way, the wedding was lovely and a good time was had by all! It was great to see some of my family in attendance, and I enjoyed being together with both my boys for the first time since 2011.
Anyway, as it turns out the rents here are high and there are few units available – I simply couldn’t find anything before I had to return and pack up the truck. My stuff is all tucked away in a storage unit for now, and I am busy searching for a job. Once I secure employment, I’ll begin the search for an apartment. I’m getting too old for this nonsense!
Needless to say, my writing has taken a back seat, and I am eager to resume working on Traitor’s Moon. I actually did get a little bit done on Chapter nine, but nothing significant to report. Hopefully, by next week I will have a job and will have made some progress on the manuscript. As I said, hopefully…
Good luck finding a job and a place to stay! Neither are tasks to be laughed at nowadays.
Thank you! The things we do for our kids…