Still writing?

A young friend, a student, asked me if I were still writing. I told her that I was, though I haven't published anything in about a year. Although I published Are You Okay? I refuse to do the vanity press sort of thing. The book is just a convenience for me and my readers. I don't have to paste links to all these magazines' web addresses into emails. And even if readers do take the trouble to track them down, it's often hard to find a specific story. These journals update their content constantly, which means you have to search through their back issues (or "archives," as they call them) to find a story that may have appeared some months ago.  I have about six stories being currently being considered by various magazines, and several others that are in the works. I could, of course, just put together another collection and give it to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but I don't want to go begging for readers. I'd like my work to be judged on its merits, not promoted just so I can brag about it.

I'm not a marketer, that's for sure. I did enlist the services of a firm that assured me that they would sell 250 copies of my book within the first six months of our agreement. They put together a campaign with graphics and blurbs for Instagram and TikTok and put a mock-up of a web page. But the problem, you see, was that they didn't bother to read the book. The promotional materials they turned out would have been fine for Marvel Comics, or the horror stories I read when I was in summer camp. but those of you who have read any of my stuff know that's not where I'm at. And not what the stories are about.

Out of curiosity, just to see how it worked, I asked Chat GPT for an analysis and critique of some of the stories. It was interesting. Sometimes Chat GPT was utterly off the mark. Other times it was actually fairly astute. I don't use it to edit or rewrite, naturally, but as kind of an outside reader, not a friend, so that I can see how a reader might respond. It was usually a lot more accurate than my human publishing assistants. Maybe they should try using Chat GPT. It would probably do a better job.

Well, lesson to be learned: Don't use AI to do your writing for you! If you want to play around, just to see what it can and can't do, that's a different matter. But to actually compose something, forget it.

And the other lesson is Don's sign up with these forms that promise to promote your book (for a price)! Total rip-off. They don't even bother to read it.

Anyway. Yes, Faith, I'm still writing. One story that's in the "under consideration" category is a strange piece about a man who witnesses what appears to be a murder on a street. The protagonist is coming home from an AA meeting one foggy evening, feeling good about his recovery, and he sees one man attack another on the street near his own apartment building. But when he arrives at the scene and sees the victim, apparently dead, he can't reach out his hand even to touch him. Why does he freeze like that? I wanted to capture the rainy city street, the near-Gothic atmosphere, and yet the sense of hope that Doug, my protagonist feels, as he walks from the church basement to his modest little apartment.

I hope someone picks it up.

And there's a longer story about a teenager who's not in AA, but should be, and his sister who has to deal with him. That one was hard.

And my St. Petersburg story is done. That was fun.

As soon as any of them appear in print, or on line, I'll tell you about it.

Thanks for reading.

https://www.alanricefiction.com/