Sometimes, he blogs when he shouldn’t.

Obviously I won’t be participating in the A-to-Z Blog Challenge next month. I decided back in January, in a fit of optimism, that I should keep my schedule free, just in case. That was even before the clone announced his intention to finish three (or four) novels this year.

I have at least figured out the real reason I’m having so much trouble with that short story I’ve been trying to revise. Should have figured it out sooner. It’s the same problem I always have: I’m afraid to do anything with my own stories if they have my name on them as the author. I don’t worry that the story will embarrass its author; I worry that the author will embarrass the story. The story is good, or at least good enough. Put anyone else’s name on it, and a reasonable percentage of readers will like it. Put my name on it, though, and it instantly becomes the worst crap ever. The characters and settings deserve better than that, which is why I handed everything over to my brother in the first place.

Please allow me now to tangent to something moderately lighthearted…

It’s rather amusing (and startling, although it shouldn’t be) to see someone on Facebook quoting bits of dialogue from a novel I just finished reading a couple of days ago. Yes, this is a tangent, not a non sequitur. It has to do with writing, y’see. Or at least good fiction. I learned how to write first-person narration from reading this novel and its sequels. Not that any of my characters have anything in common with the protagonist. Nothing that matters, anyway. Sure, some of them have the same hair color or whatever. Let’s not take the result of “information overload” too far. I have the same hair color and eye color, but you don’t hear anyone saying I’m based on that novel’s protagonist, do you?

Feel free, by the way, to ignore any parts of this post that conflicted with your preferred worldview. I always blather in (ever-expanding) circles as a way of dealing with things I don’t know how to deal with. How inappropriately normal-human of me.