The Personal Opinion Roundup

I’ve talked a lot about how other people have responded to my books. I’ve also sometimes, but not always, shared how these responses affected me, everything from pleasant surprise to anger to a back-to-the-drawing-board analysis of the manuscripts. But I’ve never actually shared how I personally felt about my books. Especially since I’ve been gradually moving towards my work being mainstream quality fiction that meets genre expectations, I haven’t said much about my attitudes to this more polished work. I’ve redone my mission statement as an author—you can see in the header that I now define my work into 4 ideas “Inspire. Encourage. Amuse. Challenge.” And I’ve written a lot about it on the Home page of the website, as I’ve grouped my books into 4 genres instead of just a rambling list of publications. But what do I personally feel now? I thought it would be fun to let you know. Five books this week and five books in a later newsletter.:)

• The Birthday Present—This book has changed profoundly over the past 8 months, in a movement that has been both quiet and explosive. Neither one of the stories was rewritten much (and Millhaven Castle not at all) to synchronize them into the same world. The differences are subtler than a mere rewrite. This is a totally different book now and a MUCH better one.

• A Year with the Harrisons—This book is kind of weak. It isn’t my best work and never quite shook off the casual, unprofessional tone of its original release as a serial of PDF downloads on FB. But there have always been some readers who didn’t like it for no good reason, and that’s a primary argument for keeping it around. Must be more to it than most people thought.

• Facets of Fantasy—This book has aged quite a bit. There are still some good moments that get you involved in its melodramatic situations, but a lot of the character interactions look unintentionally funny at times. “Jurant” especially is just hard to take seriously right now and Don Tachimant’s permanent scowl and chip on his shoulder bring angst to the edge of absurdity.

• This Merry Summertime—This book is on the backburner. People were very interested at one time in my satire and my takes on writing craft and classic tropes, but no longer. However, the book still has much to offer. It shows my influences, insights on life, and background (more realistically than in Harrisons), and will be valuable to readers down the road.​ ​
• City of the Invaders—This book was always my least favorite. Others loved the story and it got consistent praise, but the more it moved into real dystopian instead of a fuzzily shown future era, the more I felt it had a distinctive and questionable quality about it. There's a latent edginess underlying the book like a razor. But I’ve come to realize everyone was quite right. It’s a REALLY good story. :)

And there will be more updates.