Review Fuse

Do you ever just get to the point where you need feedback in a desperate sort of way?  You know you need improvement but you just don’t know how?

I live in a small city (which is more like an overgrown town) that does not have anything in the way of writer’s workshops or groups.  Not outside the local university’s classes, anyway.  This is very distressing for someone who’s written 17 drafts of her query and 8 drafts of her novel and still feels like something is terribly wrong.  I may start slamming my head against walls, I don’t know.

So, in desperation, I turned to the Internet.  There are several places you can go, some of which you have to pay for.  I’m paranoid and distrustful when it comes to putting my work online for others to review.  There’s always that fear in the back of my mind that someone is going to steal my work.  Finally, though, I landed on a website called Review Fuse.

Here’s how it works: You post your short story/flash fiction/book chapter.  You then review three or more pieces of other people’s work.  Based on the ratings those people give your review, your work is assigned to similar reviewers.  Lets say all the people I reviewed say my reviews are great.  Then, my work will be assigned to people who write great reviews.  If my reviews are crap, then people who write crappy reviews will read my work.  You receive as good as you dish out, essentially.  This is the theory.

Here is the practical: it works, mostly.  Thing is, though, the people who reviewed me did not give the level of review I give.  I tend to tear something apart paragraph by paragraph and I can be fairly blunt about my criticism (life is too short for niceties when it comes to writing, my high school mentor taught me).  I’m also very specific.  Not only do I say ‘this doesn’t work’, I also say ‘because of this, that, or whatever’.  I then round it out with ‘here is what I think may make it better’.  I had three reviewers.  All three of them said, ‘this doesn’t work’, and that was it.  One was slightly more specific and caught a couple of things the other two didn’t, but s/he didn’t suggest ways of making it better, just ‘fix this’.  And one person, I think, only skimmed it because s/he complained about not knowing the age of my protagonist  despite one of the characters bluntly giving the girl’s age.

(I’ve never understood people who gives this sort of review.  They love it when they get detailed reviews where someone practically tears it apart with a red pen, but they don’t give the same in return.  Are they afraid of hurting my feelings?)

I think the reason why these people were assigned to me is because they got such high marks from other people they reviewed.  This is the first flaw in the system that I encountered.  A lot of times, people are just too polite and too nice when it comes to rating others.  Even I gave them higher marks than maybe I should have.  So, they’re going to be assigned to people who give detailed reviews and want detailed reviews in return.

(Then there’s the fact that, you could give a really good review but because the person you reviewed disagreed with what you said, you’ll get low marks.  You’re a good reviewer but the person thought you were wrong in what you said.  There’s a way to talk to the person, maybe persuade them to change their ratings, but I can see how that could turn nasty quickly.)

The second flaw is, if I understand it right, you get assigned a different reviewer every time you post something.  That works all well and good if you’re writing flash fiction or short stories.  But, if I’m posting chapter 20 of CLARA, all of my reviewers are going to be lost.  And they will probably all comment on that.  But I honestly can’t help it.  There’s a space for a description of what you’re posting, but that’s insufficient.  It’d just be better to be reviewed by people who’ve read chapters one through nineteen.  They can better comment on the scope of your work as well as the small details, which is essential when editing a novel.

I’m going to use this system for the first and second chapters of my work, but I don’t think it would do much good beyond that.  I would recommend this for people who have trouble getting started in their novels or for people who write much shorter pieces of work.  This actually may be helpful for novellas, as well.

The Beauty of Tragedy; Or, What I Did Over Thanksgiving

Every family has its own tragedies.  It’s the price of being human.  A lot of times, the tragedies are the woes that come with growing up, growing old, and dying.  The stuff that everyone goes through.  And then there are the families that are haunted by the larger spectres of alcoholism, drug abuse, and other such demons.

My mother’s family was never what you would call a healthy bunch.  And what some people don’t seem to realize is that unhealthy living (in this case, smoking, drinking, and abusing drugs) will eventually catch up with you.  My mom passed away in 2010 of lung cancer.  Then, my grandparents died (some months apart) after living with ailments caused by years of smoking.  After that, my uncle and then my aunt died of drug and alcohol related causes.  Out of my mother’s immediate family, only my aunt, Aunt C (who I’ve mentioned before) is left.

What a horrible tragedy.  To have all the people you grew up with, most who were there with you from birth on, to be gone.  And Aunt C is in her fifties.  It’s not like she’s in her seventies or eighties and this is just the natural order of things.  She has other people around her who love her.  I’m sure that’s a comfort.  But it’s not the same as the people who raised her, the people she grew up with.

There’s this photo I have, taken when I was around five or six.  It was taken around Christmas.  I think Dad was holding the camera because he’s not in it.  Anyway, in it is my mom, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Aunt P, Uncle A, my little brother, and me.  A few weeks ago, I was looking at it and thought, “Everyone save two people in this picture are dead.”

It’s a dislocating feeling.  For a brief, mind-numbing feeling, the transience of life makes your gut plunge.  So, I have a very good feeling regarding how Aunt C feels.  I don’t know exactly because I’m not her, of course.  But I have a very good idea.

Therefore, for Thanksgiving, my husband and I packed up and headed down to be with Aunt C and her brood.

And that is the beauty of tragedy.

I know, it sounds crazy.  But.  If you let it, tragedy will teach you how better to live.  What’s the saying?  You don’t know what you have until it’s gone?  Well, it’s true or it wouldn’t be a cliche.  We don’t always know how good we have something until it’s gone or damaged or threatened.

That’s why so many of the best stories begin with tragedy.  There’s a character and their life may not be the best but it’s there and it’s good.  And then something happens.  Someone dies.  Something vital is stolen.  They’re betrayed.  Something happens that shakes their world on a fundamental level and then the story follows them as they reorder their life.  As they learn from the tragedy and rebuild.

The greatest tragedy, the one you can’t recover from, is when you lose somebody and you let it make you hard.  Instead of cherishing those who are left, you close yourself off so you aren’t hurt anymore.  Most people don’t bounce back from that, unfortunately.  And then what you have left is eventually gone.  There’s not even the memories of having cherished what was left before it was gone.  And you can’t go back to reclaim that.

When I looked at that picture, I realized I either had to cherish Aunt C now or risk losing her.  And she wants to cherish me but I have to also make the effort from my end.  I have to be available to her.  Myself and my brother both, in our own ways.

Whenever I write a story about a character who loses something, I reach back into that well of tragedy.  I think about Aunt C.  I think about that picture.  I draw on it, shape it, and apply it.  The beauty of tragedy isn’t just that it makes you cherish what you have left, but that you can also make something from it.  You can use it to bring enjoyment into someone else’s life, or warn them.  You can use it to be a better person and show other people how to be a better person.  If you don’t, if you just let it seal you off from everything and everyone, you’re damning yourself to loneliness and darkness.

And the Award for the World’s Worst Blogger Goes To…

Write a blog, they say.  Agents and publishers want to see you’re hip with current media, they say.  Some people won’t even consider you if you don’t have a blog/website, they say.  It’ll be fun, they say.

No, I never know what to write half the time, and then I forget about it for long stretches.  This is my first blog post since the tail end of August.  No wonder I barely have any followers or readers!

(Though, to my followers, I’d like to say thank you.  You are all very appreciated.)

But, here I am, going to give another shot.  I don’t have a good excuse as to why I’ve been barely here.  I’ll try to make it up to you!  I’m going to start this thing up in earnest with a blog post tomorrow!

Rambling Remarks on Depression and Anxiety

Whenever I hear someone belittle depression or anxiety disorders, I have to resist the urge to punch said person.  (That is very difficult to do because Dad is suddenly yelling in my head, “Jab, Suzanna! Jab!”  (He was a boxer.))

The problem some people have with depression and anxiety disorders is that there is nothing outwardly wrong with the person.  It’s easier to have ongoing sympathy and understanding for someone in a wheelchair, or who is bald and stick thin from chemotherapy, or who has some sort of deformity.  It’s not so easy to have sympathy, patience, and understanding for someone who, outwardly, looks perfectly healthy.  It’s one of the darker, nastier corners of human nature most of us pretend we don’t have.  But it’s the truth.

There’s also the fact that there are plenty of people who simply don’t understand mental disorders of any variety.  They don’t understand why the person can’t just ‘snap out of it’ or ‘get over it’ or what the heck ever.  These are people, I’ve noticed (and I may be wrong), who have depended on their own will and their own minds to get them out of just about every woe or sorrow or bad situation.  These are the ‘on their own two feet, dammit, and proud of it’ sort.  They have never been betrayed by their own selves; they don’t know what that feels like.

I want to do a little exercise.  I would suggest that you close your eyes but since you’re reading this, closing your eyes at this point would make doing the exercise a little difficult.  Perhaps you can read and then close your eyes and do it.  I want you to imagine the following:

You’re walking along a forest path.  The trees are bright shades of yellow, red, and orange.  The sky above is a brilliant blue.  It’s cool enough to feel wonderful but not cool enough to be cold.  You’re warm from your walking and you’re nearly home.  There is a walking stick in your hand and it is warm and familiar with use.  With you is someone you’ve known your entire life.  This person is someone who knows you through-and-through.  They have seen you both at your best and at your absolute worse.  They know your deepest, darkest secrets and your most cherished joys.  You know this person equally well.  You two began your journey in animated conversation but now you’ve lulled into a comfortable silence.

The path forks.  You know that home is the right hand path, but your friend convinces you to go left.  Your friend tells you that it’s a shortcut they’ve learned only recently.  It seems counter-intuitive.  (You’re going away from your destination, after all.)  But you trust your friend.  You take the left hand path.

Afternoon darkens into evening.  You’re tired and the day’s mild cool has become a bitter cold.  And you know you are lost.  When you turn to your friend to suggest (in a kind voice) that it’s time to double back, your friend attacks you.  They beat you and hurt you and degrade you in the worst ways, in the ways that are worst for you in particular.  They turn your darkest fears and insecurities against you, using their intimate knowledge of you like a keen-edged knife.  At some point, you black out.

When you come to again, that person is gone and it is full dark.  There is no moon and the stars do not lend enough light and you’ve never bothered to learn how to navigate by the stars anyway.  You also realize that your supposed friend has dumped you in the middle of the woods.  Even your walking stick has been taken away from you.  In fear and desperation, you begin to wander the woods and, from the shadows, your fears speak and taunt.  You have been betrayed, in all the worst ways.

That is how it feels when your own mind turns against you and to become lost in an inner darkness.  Outwardly, a person with depression may just seem a little more tired or withdrawn or moody than usual.  But, inside, it is all darkness and it is a darkness that comes out of nowhere, with neither rhyme nor reason.  The person may know, intellectually, what has caused their depression, but that doesn’t really help.  The mind has betrayed the person and knowing the mechanics of depression doesn’t help as well as you’d think.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’ve been struggling with bouts of anxiety and depression.  Part of it could be situational, I suppose.  My marriage is fine but there are other personal problems I’d rather not discuss in a blog.  At any rate, my body’s reaction to my problems seems a bit melodramatic.  Perhaps I don’t know my mind as well as I think I do, like the traveler in our little story.  There is a certain sense of betrayal.  I need every scrap of confidence and courage I can lay hands on right now and it seems to have left not only the building but the country as well.

Like the traveler, there is the sense of being alone, surrounded only by fear and the dark.  I could be sitting in a room full of people, but when I’m in a depression, or trying to shake off overwhelming anxiety with no rational cause, I feel entirely alone.  Unlike the traveler, I can’t be greeted by someone with a lamp, a woodsman who can lead me out of the dark.  That, at least, is how it feels.

So you can understand why I have to restrain myself when someone belittles a mental disorder.  The mind can build a prison that would outclass Alcatraz or a medieval oubliette.  But if you haven’t gone through it, or haven’t watched (really watched) a closed loved one go through it, you don’t really understand.  And that lack of understanding leads to bosses who fire workers because “they’re lazy”, not understanding that they should give their worker a raise just for managing to show up.

That being said, if a problem gets to a point where it is affecting one’s work and relationships, then the rational thing to do is go see a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist.  But you have to remember that these are people lost in the dark.  There comes to a certain point where one feels like no one can help, that light and warmth and safety are fantasies.  (Or you just have the really stubborn ones who believe they really are managing.)  And there’s also the fact that many people have seen their friends get dependent or messed up even more on pills prescribed by psychiatrists or family doctors who (hopefully) mean well.  My mother was addicted to Xanax.  You couldn’t pay me enough money to take a Xanax.

The odd thing, though, is that there are many writers who struggled with a mental disorder.  Poe and Plath suffered from depression, for example.  In reading the lives of authors, sometimes you can see the hint of an underlying problem.  It seems like one of the requirements of being an author is to be a little “off”.

I suppose an explanation for the connection is that, for those of us who have seen and experienced that dark, we can write about emotion and emotional irrationality better than anyone else.  We can go to the darker places of the psyche because we’ve been there, done that, and got a lousy t-shirt for it.  In a twisted sort of way, having anxiety problems or depression has a good side.  We can pour our fear, anxiety, loneliness, isolation, and sense of betrayal into our work.  We understand a side of human nature, that deep well of dark and sorrow, that most people will never experience.

So while my own mental turn certainly has me concerned, I’m not altogether surprised.  I’m a writer, after all.  It’s almost expected.  My mother had panic attacks, so maybe there’s something genetic to this as well.

And I didn’t write this to garner pity.  Your concern is appreciated but I didn’t write it so people would be concerned.  I wrote this so that when your friend or relative or loved one comes to you, sleep-deprived, quiet, withdrawn, and with a certain haunted look in their eyes, and says, “I’m depressed,” you’ll pause and think about the traveler, rather than say something stupid like, “Oh, maybe you just need a vacation.”

If a vacation cured this, I’d go to Key West and never come back.

What I Have Learned Thus Far

I’m not a published author.  Well, let me take that back.  I’m not published in the sense that my name has appeared in well known magazines.  Most of my work (all poetry save one short story) has appeared in the literary magazine of my alma mater and, as far as I know, copies of that don’t make it off campus unless it’s in someone’s book bag.  I doubt you’ll have heard of the two publications my work has appeared in (and I am not counting the textbook where a project I took part in appears as an example).

Point is, I still have a lot of learning to do.  Here is what I’ve learned, so far, in case anyone cares:

1.  Do what feels right.

I have read so many blogs and articles, many of which tell me to do outlines and character sheets and plan and plot until I look like Napoleon about to go on campaign.  I  can’t do that because I don’t know all the choices my characters make until they’re in the middle of making them.  When I have tried to force plotting, my characterizations felt forced and unreal.

This has taught me to do what feels right because if I force myself into a shape not my own, then it’s a disaster.

2.  Turn off the Internet.

I don’t really keep to this rule as much as I should.  I tend to do research as I need it and I can’t Google if I’ve turned off the WiFi.  But I do close all of my browsers and, when I’m really desperate, use Scrivener’s full screen option so that all I see is the blank page.  The only way to escape that is to either hide under my desk or hit the “esc” button on the upper left of my keyboard. The point of the rule is to write without distraction.

3.   Having a window to look out is a bad idea.

I used to really like having a window behind my desk.  But then my husband, when he moved stuff around in the spare room, he put the computer against a wall.  I protested.  He shrugged.  I tried to write anyway and found I wrote better when all I had to start at was beige rather than a landscape that could actually hold my attention.  My husband is a wise man, though I think he was thinking about his writing needs rather than my own.

4. Take breaks.

This blog post will appear on a Friday morning but I’m writing it on a Monday afternoon.  I’ve just finished Chapter Seven of ASTRAEA.  (People have kicked in a door.  A woman is screaming.  It’s all quite intense.)  But I needed a break.  So, here I am, working on a blog post.  If there was no post to work on, I’d probably pace the house or go out to check the mail or maybe clean a little (though that last one is highly unlikely because I am the worst housekeeper ever).  Point is, it’s good to step back, do something else, then get back to the trenches.  Some people, like Stephen King, can keep going, but he’s more than a little insane (kind of have to be to be a horror writer, I think) so I think it’s his insanity and workaholic nature that keeps driving him.

I need to stretch my legs (mentally or otherwise) every once in a while or I’ll start thinking about gnawing at my wrists in order to get away.  Or open tumblr and start browsing the Tom Hiddleston tag (don’t judge me).

5.  Writing is hard but we love it anyway.

It’s makes you bleed, scream, tear your hair, cuss out the computer, have existential crises, all while you’re also howling with the joy of it.  The Doctor says he’s a madman in a blue box.  Writers are madmen with pens, masochists of the mental variety.  We keep going even when we don’t even know where we are.  We sing while we tramp through over the volcanic ash of Mordor because we’re doing what we were born to do.

I know this short little list doesn’t seem very important or inspirational or even groundbreaking.  But as I discovered each of these, it was another step in discovering what sort of author I am, what sort of voice I carry.  It’s important, I think, to acknowledge what we’ve learned, so that we’ll have the humility to say we’ve grown.

Stephen King, Writing, and My Mom

I’m currently reading ON WRITING by Stephen King (yes, I know it’s not on my summer reading list (yes, I’ve given up on that venture (more on that later))).  I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, ever since I first spied it on my library’s bookshelf.  Then it was recommended by somebody on some blog that really meant something to me on that particular day and I just wanted to read it even more.

But I also felt like I owed it to my mother to read what King has to say about writing.  In order to better explain this, I’m going to have to direct your attention to my childhood.

In ON WRITING, King describes his childhood memories as trees shrouded by fog and that these are the kind of trees that look like they want to reach out and grab you.  I can relate.  I don’t have a very coherent set of childhood memories, just flashes of pictures and feelings: a ruby-throated hummingbird drinking from an azalea, eating cherry tomatoes in the garden and hoping I don’t get caught, the look of a meadow bathed in honeyed summer sunlight.

I also remember Mom’s bookcase in our second home.  Dad built the shelves for her (why go to Wal-Mart to buy cheap crap when you can build something decent for yourself was Dad’s philosophy) and she stuffed them full of her novels.  A good chunk of her library was made up with Stephen King, both under his real name and his pseudonym, Richard Bachman.  And they were all hardcover first editions.  Mr. King may never know this, but my mother was a diehard fan ever since CARRIE came out in 1974.  She used to say that if he died before finishing the Dark Tower series, she was going to bring him back to life just so she could kill him.

She should have been more worried about herself.  Mom passed away in 2010 before she had a chance to buy and read THE DOME.  I inherited Mom’s book collection, and though we’ve gotten rid of some of it, we’ve kept her King library.  It resides in our walk-in closet, something my husband did without my knowledge, and when I discovered what he had done, I didn’t want to change it.  In my memory of that bookcase in our second home, King’s books seemed to loom as volumes of darkness and bitter humor, like a monster lurking in shadows.  Closets are plenty shadowy, so it seemed so perfect, I didn’t want to move them in with the rest of the books in our airy, light-filled spare room.

My Dad always encouraged my writing, but it was my mother who taught me to love reading.  When she wasn’t gardening, cooking, or cleaning, she was reading.  She read while she ate.  She read in bed.  She read in an armchair with her feet curled up under herself.  When her glasses became too weak for her increasingly bad sight, and we didn’t have the money to replace them, she pulled them up to rest on top of her head and just held the books closer to her face.  As King says, you can’t be a writer if you don’t read.  Mom wasn’t a writer by trade but she had the soul of a writer.

Most of all, I remember her reading Stephen King, over and over again.  I saw the affect one writer can have on someone’s life.  It made me realize that a book is never really finished until someone reads it.  It’s like singing to yourself.  When it’s just you, you’re passing the time.  But when there’s someone there to listen, then something magical happens.  A connection is formed.  Emotions are moved.  Something deep and beautiful and extraordinarily human is born, which makes it both resilient and fragile.

Because Mom taught me how to love reading, she had a deep impact on  my writing.  You can’t write well if you never read.  It’s not so much about learning the mechanics.  It’s like trying to learn how to swim if you’ve never seen anyone do it.  You’ll make an utter mess of it for a good while and even then you’ll probably never get it right.  And you’ll never be truly comfortable in the water.  The same goes for writing.  You need to see how other writers do it.  If words never move you to tears or make you laugh or cause you to want to find an adventure of your own, how can you possibly hope to inspire those same feelings in others?

All of this I learned because of my mom.  And because Mom loved King, and King wrote a book on writing, I felt like I owed it to her to hear the man out, to see what he has to say.  I’ll never know the true extent of King’s impact on Mom’s life.  That’s something we never discussed because, to be quite honest, though I’ve looked at the books often enough, I’ve only ever read one: THE EYES OF THE DRAGON.  And that was only because Mom told me it was a fantasy novel and that I would like it.  That was years ago, and I remember Mom’s hopeful look, that this would inspire me into the same love she had, that we would have something we could share.  But though I liked the story well enough, I didn’t try any of the other novels.

All I know is that he and his words meant something profound to her.  They moved her.  They gave her a world to escape into when she needed it (which was often because we didn’t have easy lives).  I stood from the outside and thought, “I want to inspire that.”

So, a couple of days ago, I thought, “Well, Mom, lets see what the man has to say, because he obviously has something to teach me.”  And, so far, he’s taught me plenty, making me wonder what I’ve missed out by not reading more of his novels.

So you know what?  After I get done with this and read a couple of other books waiting on my Kindle, I think I may go into that shadowy closet, flick on the light, and pick up that first book, bought 38 years ago, and see what Mom’s love was all about.  Wherever she is, she’ll probably roll her eyes and say, “Took you long enough.”

Crap Happens

Yesterday, I realized it had been at least two weeks since my last blog post.  And, once more, I come to you from a fluffy pillow and the sweet assurance of aspirin.  If apologizing to my back, profusely, once a day, for no other reason than the fact that the lumbar region exists would keep it from hurting as often as it does, I would be the most eloquent apologizer on the face of the planet.  The government would pay me to apologize for them in case they feel like some minority that got a raw deal needed a nice verbal apology (because that always wipes away the memory of years of persecution, neglect, and all-round sorry treatment (I bet the Cherokee have altogether forgotten about the Trail of Tears)).

Some days, I really hate blogging because I don’t know what to blog about.  Robin McKinley can talk about ringing bells at an abbey and make it sound like the most epic thing since man landed on the damn moon.  I was freaking riveted.  I actually thought at one point, “Is she going to make it?”  AND SHE USES FOOTNOTES. I hated having to use footnotes in college; I can’t imagine willingly using them in everyday life.

But, I shall take a page out of her book and try to tell you a little bit of my everyday life.  This might get depressing.  Or boring.  Or both.  We’ll just have to see.

So, my Sundays usually involve church, visiting, lunch with husband and father-in-law, and work.  If not work, then the afternoon isn’t a whole lot different than any other day of the week when I’m not working, other than I feel like I have an actual reason for not doing anything other than read, write, and maybe watch a movie.  (And sometimes I can think of a good reason to get out of lunch.)

Yesterday was a work Sunday.  I won’t go into specifics of where I work or what exactly happened because I don’t want my boss mad at me.  But, as one of my coworkers put it, it was a day straight out of the freaking Twilight Zone.

Nothing went right.  Twice, words fell out of my mouth that came out totally the opposite of how I meant them.  Computer programs inexplicably failed for one coworker while the same programs worked fine for everyone else.  A wheel came off of a cart for no apparent reason.  No, seriously, it was in mid-roll.  One moment I’m going through a catalog, the next one of my coworkers is calling for help because if she lets the heavy cart slip, there goes her toes!  We still can’t figure out why or how the wheel came off.

We were swarmed with customers, which isn’t unusual on a Sunday, but it just seemed like there was a heightened sense of tension in the air.  There were more people who were upset about one thing or another.  People get upset.  It happens.  It’s part of our job to get them un-upset and make sure they get what they need before they walk out the door.  It just seemed like there was more than one crisis situation.  One coworker was really, really, I-hope-they-aren’t-dead late, which was unusual for this person.

It was just wild.  I almost faked an intestinal parasite just so I could go home before the building exploded, because it seemed like that was the direction the day was headed.

And then it stopped.  About an hour to an hour and a half before closing, the tension lifted, the crowds dispersed, and electronics went back to normal.

If you live in the Southeast or along the Gulf of Mexico long enough, you learn a very important life lesson: the best weather is before and after a hurricane.  The most beautiful sunrises and sunsets bookend some of the worst weather most people in my part of the world will ever see (apocalyptic, we-may-all-drown-call-Noah weather).  I was reminded of that today.

Life in general isn’t so different.  I had a really good time at church that morning.  Had a little self-revelation.  Felt peaceful.  Walked into one of the upper levels of Hell.  Then it all settled, suddenly and without warning, and the day ended (kind of, sort of) on the note that I would have liked for it to have ended.  And it all happened for no reason that I can fathom.  I felt like I stood with my Native Americans ancestors, who probably didn’t have a decent reason for why hurricanes came as they did, when I shrugged and said, “Crap happens.”

Crap happens.

(Oh, and still working on the sequel to CLARA, which I have renamed ASTRAEA.  And I’ve finished editing CLARA.  And I actually mean it this time!)