Power's going to be out for the night. No work possible, alas - best laid plans, etc.

Be well, be kind, and I'll catch you when there's electricity again! 🤗

Read a new-to-me short story by Alice Munro this afternoon, and now I'm just going to sit here in the dark, my phone on its last bar, and think about how far I am from the level of literary control I need to say everything, everything I still have any ache in me left to say.

(It was "Wenlock Edge". Some writers can just cut you to the quick on the thin veneer of civil society we all move within, you know?)

(As you can tell, my brain won't shut off just because the power did. 😅 Going for a walk!)

Power's out; laptop's dead. 3 writing tasks left to complete today, but for now I'm thinking about a street friend who makes 40-90mil (13-30CAD) a day begging, which is more than his kid's mum makes (30mil, 10CAD) working 4-11 at a food shack. & even that is a step up from a Venezuelan friend who used to get paid nothing working at a restaurant if not enough clients showed (exploited migrant workforce). We live such starkly different lives of precarity. What would it take to alleviate them all?

(With thanks, as ever, to @thewebrecluse not only for the rec, but also for her generosity with the expertise that underpins the solid A/V counsel she provides. It's *all* labour that deserves proper compensation - and I'm supremely grateful for the gift made of so much hardwon past experience. ❤️)

Still in the testing phase, but I was recommended an app that beautifully clears up background noise, so if I'm satisfied with the quality, I hope to put out an audio version of Children of Doro, too. (Sneak peek for Patrons soon. YouTube playlist planned.) 🤞#AlwaysLearning #Indie #IndiePublishing #WritingOfCoSo

My tree hero of the day - my "treero", as it were. Knocked over, still we rise. 💪🏻

Off I go. 🤞 🏃

(Morning, CoSo!)

I haven't been able to get up for early morning exercise for a while - and this atypical day and night humidity has really been leaving my heart and back extra ache-y all week as well - so I'm accountability posting before bed and rebooting good and early tomorrow, because the meat sack needs it. 🤞🏻

Sleep well and wake better, CoSo.
(And hydrate!)

I'm putting together next week's book club post, and having a wee chuckle at the optimism of David Graeber and David Wengrow's text at times. Are you SURE about this, Davids? Whole corners of the internet and/or rightwing media are *totally* ready to call something an evil fish or tree. 😅 #CoSoBooks #BookClub

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a sitting writer in possession of a good hour for prose, must be in want of an excuse to fritter it away on the question of whether a single comma stays or goes.

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoso

The philosophical core of my Thucydides-in-Space novel lies between these three societies - with a twist on one of them. #AmWriting #IfYouKnowYouKnow

My only contribution to the global nonsense today is a friendly reminder that "Charles" is "Carlos" in Spanish, so everyone here is talking about "Carlos III" - and you're welcome to reverse-colonize the monarchy with me, too. :)

🤗 Good morning to everyone, but especially to everyone who sometimes needs a few minutes after waking to decide if what happened in their last dream was real. 🙃 I see you and the struggle with that brilliant fiction-engine of a brain of yours!

Audio book readers:

I'm planning to record an audio version of Children of Doro, but debating whether to leave in the footnotes.

They carry information that absolutely deepens the character of my neurotic AI narrator, but audio books often leave them out.

If left in, they're coded with the word "footnote" and pauses.

Alternately, when I first sent my agent the manuscript, they were embedded in the body of the MS - so they could also just be read as asides.

As a listener, any preferences?

(It's too bad the era of stapled-together model-specific computer 'zines is gone! 😅 Anyone else have fond memories of those awkwardly thrown together articles about the future of computing, the tips and tricks sections, and all those wee programs printed in full for others to try out on their own machines?)

👌 Good. Bring it all down. :) Bring back the more collaborative computer-innovation cultures of the 60s and 70s instead.

#News #Technology https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/05/google-engineer-open-source-technology-ai-openai-chatgpt

According to stats from the top 10 majors, 15% of trad-pub books sell under 12 copies. 86%, under the 5,000 threshold for commercial viability.

So... 10 right out the gate for an indie-published title ain't half bad! Two more, & I'm over that 15% slice of the curve! 😅

(I'm sharing because industry transparency is important. Myths of easy success can leave folks feeling like failures for *very* normal, middling outcomes. Thank you to everyone who signal-boosted yesterday! 👍)

#WritersOfCoSo