Writing & Indie Thoughts
Gonggong Ahoy
Between scientists and conspiracy theorists I’m not sure which give scribblers more crazy wonderful character ideas. Although— I challenge any author of science-fiction, who is also diligent in their research of real-life science and theoretical physics, to swear that they have never ever had a tinfoil hat moment. Such as when Google starts popping up conspiracy theories after you innocently ask it something quantum. My television is connected via my internet provider through a little box thing that they supply, which puts me in the very happy situation of being able to watch Youtube videos on my TV from the comfort of my couch with a nice glass of vino. Probably not ideal for a writer of things, vino notwithstanding. Youtube, being just like its daddy Google, will then recommend similar things to your recent views and send you spinning down rabbit holes all over the place, while holding tightly on to your tinfoil protection against the deadly rays being directed at all times, by dark forces, at your noggin.
Sometimes I wonder though. What I’m currently wondering is whether NASA and Co get some sort of thrill out of deliberately taunting innocent conspiracy theorists. Several ancient legends tell of a rogue planet—either a single planet or a system of small planets circling a brown dwarf star—depending on the legend. It has been called all sorts of things—Niburu, Nemesis, Wormwood, the Destroyer, and so on. Nothing about its apparent destined arrival is in any way fabulous. Some have it appearing in the sky with gassy wings. Mostly they say that it is going to do some damage to our world, if not destroy it completely. All agree on its redness though. Modern doomsday planet experts predict pretty much every year that it is sure to appear imminently and either squish us all like bugs or send us into some kind of ice age shortly on the heels of planetwide floods, earthquakes, and other horrible stuff in general.
So when Planet 9 was actually discovered a few years ago there was a whole lot of conspiracy theorist “I Told You So-ing!” Much orbit plotting happened and soon our beloved conspiracy theorists shared their plottings to show a huge elliptical orbit taking thousands of years as Number 9 zoomed way out to the Kuiper Belt before zooming right back to an alarmingly close proximity to Earth. Time frames coincided nicely with everything from Noah’s flood to the destruction of Göbekli Tepe and other strangely amazing constructions of humans in the distant past that we cannot at all reproduce today with all of our cleverness. Explanations were offered of our similarity to Hugh Howey’s characters as post apocalyptic “rememberers”. Apparently this thing zooms by every so often thousand years and sends us down the snake to the bottom of the ladder. While good stuff for science-fiction—Planet 9 is a fabulous part of one of the books in my own series—I gave the idea of being squished no more thought after reading about it a couple of years ago. Then, in the past few days, up popped planet (225088) 2007 (OR) 10, which was found, with its own little moon, beyond Neptune in 2007. I assume that Planet 9 and 2007 (OR) 10 are one and the same potential death star. At least I hope so. Two Destroyers would be a bit much on the universal humour scale.
This planet has remained monikerless until now while its discoverers apparently needed to “research” it a little more. It was originally dubbed Snow White as it glowed white and was assumed to be small, and only something rather large would reflect white from that distance if it was a dark colour. As things turned out it was not small and white after all—it was large, and RED, and in possession of its very own methane. “Checks tinfoil hat” The scientists who discovered it are asking the public to help by choosing one of three available names for the not so newly discovered planet. ONLY these three names are available to choose from. They, and their meanings are:
Gonggong. Gonggong is a Chinese water god with red hair and a serpent-like tail. He is known for creating chaos, causing flooding, and tilting the Earth.
What’s that you say?!!!
Holle. Holle is a European winter goddess of fertility, rebirth and women.
Vili. Vili is a Nordic deity who defeated frost giant Ymir and used the body to create the universe.
As for Gonggong—all I can say is please let’s not pick that one. The other two, while seemingly rather boring and innocuous, have too much to do with winter and frost (read ICE AGE after SQUISHING) for my tin hat liking—not to mention the rebirth bit–which would only be needed after a good squishing after all, so I would like to suggest a slightly sweeter name for that poor innocent planet. Seriously scientist people, couldn’t you just have gone with Rose Red seeing as Snow White turned out to not be white? Luckily Amazon is already aware of the danger and writers have a whole lot more to make real.
International Childrens Book Day
Today is International Children’s Book Day. It is also Hans Christian Anderson’s birthday. The annual event is sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People and has been celebrated since 1967. Each year a different national section gets to be the international sponsor of the day. An author from that country writes a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator designs a poster for that year. The 2019 sponsor is Lithuania, and both the message and this year’s poster are by author illustrator Kęstutis Kasparavičius, with the theme for the year being “Books Help Us Slow Down”.
The objective of the day is to share great children’s books, so of course, who but the fabulous Myrtle the Purple Turtle could I share on such a day?
Written by Cynthia Reyes for her daughter Lauren, the first Myrtle book shares the lesson that while people might sometimes appear to be different superficially, we are all just the same. It shares messages of love and friendship and never judging before knowing all you need to know. Illustrating book one was wonderful and terrifying in equal measures for me. I did not want to get it wrong. I am sure I did get quite a lot wrong, but Cynthia and her family were all involved in the birthing of the visual Myrtle into the world, and they were kind and patient as the little purple turtle came to life.
Myrtle is a lovely Turtle. Not an ordinary Turtle. She is Purple and different from other turtles. After being bullied by another turtle, Myrtle tries to become someone else. In the end, Myrtle and her friends help children learn to not be afraid of being different. Myrtle the Purple Turtle is a thoroughly engaging story that stresses the importance of self-acceptance and friendship.
Myrtle’s second adventure was much easier, illustration-wise, but I was plagued with life dramas that just kept coming, so it took a lot longer to become reality than it should have done. Once again, the Reyes and Reyes-Grange family astounded me with their patience and care, and Myrtle did indeed get to show a whole bunch of animals that just because you’re a little slow, that does not mean that you can’t succeed at anything that you set your mind to.
Myrtle the Purple Turtle returns with another great adventure! Myrtle and her friends are turned away when they try to join in a game with others. The friends walk away, feeling hurt, but that’s just the start of the story. Find out how Myrtle, Gertie, Hurtle and Snapper solve the problem, in this second picture book about Myrtle the Purple Turtle. A perfect book for children ages 3 to 8 (and adults who like turtles), it follows Myrtle the Purple Turtle — a bestseller, praised by thousands of children and adults, teachers and librarians around the world.
Now Myrtle has begun her third adventure. There are new creatures around The Big Pond to meet, and a new obstacle to be overcome in this sweet little purple girl’s own inimitable way. This journey will be much quicker to publication than the previous two, so watch this space for more of Myrtle.
Thank You and a Few Freebies
A massive thank you to all who shared my cover reveal post for The Secret Life of People and the request for answers to questions. There has been a HUGE email response and I am very busily answering everyone as well as requesting interviews for future posts with some truly amazing people – and catching up on comments and posts too. If I haven’t answered you yet I promise that it will be by no later than tomorrow. Thank you very much to all of you!
At the same time I am rearranging the layout of the book and adding the results from all of your answers to the questions. I do think that I should have added another question to “Do you believe in life after death?” in the form of “What do you believe happens after death?”, so if anyone feels up to answering that one in the comments or privately it would make me a very happy bunny indeed.
In the few weeks leading to the launch of The Secret Life of People I’m going to be dusting off some of my older books and shorts and putting them on either free promotion or Kindle Countdown deals for anyone who hasn’t read them yet. Currently Echoes of Narcissus and Nkoninkoni are free and African Me & Satellite TV will start its 99 cents Countdown Deal sometime tomorrow if anyone fancies a read. In case you think that Nkoninkoni is some kind of foreign, an especially huge thank you to the very popular author Kevin Cooper for his review of it, which can be found here. While you are there I thoroughly recommend that you start on his own list with a download of Miedo – absolutely brilliant!
A Couple of Questions and Cover Reveal
After a couple of very ‘educational” years, and a whole lot of stress every time I happened to think about my unfinished work, and also my as yet unpublished books lying around gathering dust, I’ve come out the other side quite happy that I did not in fact publish them when I wanted to. It would not have been fun, and publishing a book should always be fun. After a couple of health scares to the point where I assumed that I was on the verge of departing this mortal coil, and stressing over every little thing, I finally realized that not only have I no intention of expiring any time soon, living in fear of the future, the present, or the past, is absolutely useless to anyone. So I decided that as far as my health was concerned, I was going to go herbal, and as far as anything scary was concerned, I was going to go eyeball to eyeball with whatever came up and see who caved first. So far I feel great health-wise with the herbals, and my inner critic and her cohort, the craven one, have gone into hiding. Which is why I am particularly happy that I never got around to publishing my non-fiction book, The Secret Life of People, because I had yet to figure out the final chapter by living it. Now it is almost ready to make its debut and I am more excited about it than anything else I’ve ever written. There are a couple of things I’d like to get a few people’s beliefs on, so I’d be grateful for any answers to the questions below. If you don’t want to put your opinions in the comments I would really appreciate an email via the contact me button above.
Other news is that Cynthia Reyes and her daughter Lauren’s Myrtle the Purple Turtle has already begun her third adventure, and it is, of course, just as fabulous as that little turtle’s adventures always are. I’m getting caught up quicker than I thought possible and very happy that my online friends are still going strong, and also still talking to me after my long absence. Here goes with the questions.
1. Do you believe that you are living a fulfilled life?
2. Do you think that people have a purpose, and if so, do you know what yours is?
3. Are you satisfied with the way the world and your country is governed?
4. Do you think that civilised societies today are on the right track?
5. If you work, are you happy with your job?
6. If money was no object, what would you do with your days?
7. Do you believe in life after death or reincarnation?
8. Do you believe that there will be consequences for good or evil acts?
9. Do you or someone that you know have problems with anxiety or depression?
Thank you!
Can Words Be Dangerous?
Writers all have their own quirks. They all have different ways of coping with stress or “writers block”. For me, writers block has never been a real thing in a way that I couldn’t write anything at all, but it has been a thing insofar as what I could write joyfully. I love writing non-fiction and I love research, but writing fiction has always been the thing that I do that makes me happier than doing anything else. Fiction writers hold the universe in their hands, and they can literally do anything with it. I think it comes with a responsibility though. Good fiction can change minds, and sometimes it can change lives.
I’ve always had a broad spectrum of genres that I enjoy to read in both fiction and non-fiction. History, good literary works, humour, and horror. In my teens there was a short sojourn into soppy romances but that didn’t last very long. Always at the top of my list have been science-fiction and fantasy. An early addiction to Stephen King and Dean Koontz however led to sleeping with the light on for a long time, and to this day I dip into horror sparingly. King’s books are amazingly cerebral when you consider his writing style. He gets psychopaths in ways that are fabulously terrifying to read. I’m really not at all into the new “let’s make friends with the devil” trend though.
The biggest problem that I have with trends like these (see also the It’s Sexy to Have Vampires Sucking on Your Neck – poor hungry guys) is because in the hands of really good writers, blood-sucking demons can start to look very cool, especially when they’re tall, have six-packs, have a good reason to be pitied, and possibly are a tiny bit sparkly. A great writer can make readers feel sorry for the devil himself, while really wanting to help him get over his traumatic childhood. When a book like that becomes a bestseller it becomes a bit of our social history. Just like Shades of Grey set off a generation of people thinking that it is quite acceptable for young girls to be treated like rubbish, as long as it made for good jollies all around in the end. That particular book has to go down in history as one of the most badly written—ever—but it is still loved and defended by a whole lot of people.
Fairy tales seem to last forever, and there are still people today who believe that fairies actually exist. Maybe they do. Maybe the act of writing about them makes them pop into existence somewhere. I do like to think that the creatures that come alive in my mind when I write them exist somewhere now in our vast universe. If you believe in the law of attraction, you create in your life what you focus on. This has been proved right a lot more than not, so it makes me wonder, what happens when we concentrate on evil things, in whatever form, shiny and good-looking or gnarly with big claws and teeth? I’m not innocent in this respect because of the seriously gnarly and evil Nefandus in one of my own books—those guys scared me when I wrote them—still do as I write more of them.
The thing is, it is clear that they are the bad guys. They don’t have groupies Googling “how can I summon a Nefandus that has a lot of muscly bits?” That is not as funny as it sounds because there are actual Google searches of people trying to find out how to either become a vampire or locate one. It just seems wrong to me to put books out there where the devil is the one who has been wronged, and to glorify powers that have historically been seen as demonic. Banshees are no longer feared—rather their “powers” are considered enviable. Aliens are eminently bonkable, their being related to fish notwithstanding apparently. Demons are great as long as they look good and had an unhappy childhood. Vampires—well—
I remember when the Interview with a Vampire books and movies came out. I remember feeling a lot of pity for those poor things—and admiration for their gorgeousness. Almost every teenage girl in the eighties had a crush on Tom Cruise—back before we found out that he had to stand on boxes to look smoulderingly down on his leading ladies. And the whole couch bouncing thing of course—
That’s just the opinion of this particular scribbler though. Reading is all about escapism after all, and we should be able to differentiate between what could be possible and what is just too way out there. Still—you never know—while I like to think of friendly cartoon Pegasus and dragon having marshmallow parties with their buddies somewhere out there, I would not be so happy with some of my other “creations” zooming around anywhere at all.
You Can Call Me Anything, But
It’s a term of respect around here apparently. I’m fine with children calling me Tannie (that’s Aunty in Afrikaans), but I object to anyone who is already grown up aiming that moniker at me. Unless I am their actual aunty. Apart from the fact that writers are ageless—that comes with the territory—there is something deeply insulting being called Tannie by anyone with more wrinkles than me.
Any time anyone over forty says Hello Tannie to me they’re unwittingly heading onto dangerous ground. It will instantly jar me from my semi-permanent mental state of communing with those fabulous folk who populate my books, and elicit a malignant stare, at the very least. I tend to want to inform these elderly but apparently younger than me people of our distinct lack of similar DNA. So far I’ve (mostly) managed to control myself, but it has had me peering in the mirror and wondering what it is about my looks these days that makes me come over as venerable enough to be considered their Tannie. Should I be swopping my denim shorts and purple toenail varnish for a purple hair rinse and twin set jerseys?
Nope. I’ll just do what I do and put it in a book. My very interesting journey of the past couple of years hasn’t left me much time for personal writing, but when the urge does hit too strongly to be ignored I’ve been zooming off to bang out a paragraph or two of my “interesting journey” inspired new fiction book, Mopani Mansions. Even though quite a bit of this trip has been painful or fearful to the max, it’s also taught me to fear less, learn from pain rather than wallow in it, and it’s inspired my weird writerly mind and sense of humour rather than squashed it.
The whacky, weird, precious, or just plain wonderful people who have come into my life in one way or another lately have mostly found themselves arriving in Mopani Mansions, and now of course we will have the coolest, sexiest, and most fabulous Tannie there too. She will be allowed to do all of those terrible things that occurred to me to do every time any aged and arthritic fellow had the temerity to assume I would be honoured to be called Aunty.
I have a couple of launches for my fabulous author clients coming first, but around June this year I’ll be letting Mopani Mansions loose on the world, and also my long ago finished but yet to be edited non-fiction work about living, dying, reality, and all the bits in between. That’s the fabulousness of being a scribbler. You can’t keep us down, and we NEVER get old, no matter how many times we get called Tannie. We can be unicorns forever, and so we will be in our worlds. Read the rest of this entry »
Writer’s Publishing Workbook Release!
I’ve been a very crazy busy bunny these last few months. I still have absolutely no clue what’s happening with my life as a whole, so all I can do really is do what I do best and try and enjoy the ride. I’ve made some fabulous new author friends who have signed on as clients for my proofreading, formatting or cover design services just lately, a couple of whom made such an impact on me, I’ll be introducing them here at some point along the way. In the meantime I want to share one of my own projects for all you scribblers out there.
It’s no secret that I love helping Indies. Back in the mists of time I shared every mind-blowing “secret” that I discovered along my own publishing journey, often inciting the wrath of those who thought that those secrets should only be shared for lots of cash. I’ve never been partial to secret keeping when it comes to helping writers on missions to be read. My The Absolute Indie eBook shares all that you need to know from start to end with loads of helpful links at a very reasonable price. Now I’m adding the first (and fattest) paperback workbook in the series, which means that you will have all you need in one spot, not only information on the hows and whys, but also all the information that you pile up about your own published book, that is so easily misplaced.
Reminders and places to take note of all you will need to keep, as well as useful worksheets and exercises for all the stops along the way – including Procrastination Palace, where you get to be just as you as you fancy being you. ISBN’s, ASIN’s, Blurbs, Schedules, plans for Marketing, lists of Social Media. You will never have to frantically dig for any information related to your book or any aspect of its journey ever again, right down to the fonts, colours and sizes used for your cover design. Dates, names, costs, and details, all right there at your fingertips.
The only writing workbook you’ll need. Writer’s Publishing Workbook is big enough for all you want to add to it. A4 size with a whopping 150 pages of information and worksheets, you’ll write everything in it, add your own information, including printed images that will all be in one physical spot when you need them, rather than having to dig around online. I’ve also set it at a really low price for the launch – $8.99 in the USA and £6.29 in the UK.
Enjoy your new big, fat, EVERYTHING YOU NEED writer workbook!
The Amazon Review Policy Elephant in the Room
The whole Amazon review policy debacle that started a while ago is not going to go away, so we should probably make firm decisions as to the way forward as far as how we are each personally going to review books in the future. There’s a great post covering the whole subject very thoroughly on Anne R. Allen’s site right now – definitely a must read for anyone not a hundred percent sure about what is going on with this issue. I’ve posted on this briefly over at Lit World Interviews a while ago but it’s worth revisiting on a personal level. Anyone with published books on Amazon needs to take this seriously.
Firstly, we must accept that Amazon can, and does, remove books for sale on their site if they feel that the author has violated their terms of service. Many of us have over the years reviewed books by others who have also reviewed books by us, while still blissfully unaware that this was not acceptable by them. Because we zoom around in the same writerly circles it’s inevitable that we’re going to spot and buy books written by authors that we follow online – especially in blogland. I reckon that an author is much more likely to leave a public review of a book that they’ve read. Leaving a review would probably not occur to the majority of readers, and logically in the writing world, reviews from your peers are gold. Not according to Amazon’s rules though. Now that we are aware of this, and we have seen the review takedowns and author warnings, we have two choices. Continue posting reviews to Amazon for books whose author’s we are online “friends” with, and risk serious repercussions as far as the potential for Amazon closing our KDP accounts is concerned, or only post reviews there for books by authors that we have no contact with at all.
It’s a bit of a mess as far as I’m concerned. I very often seek out the authors of books that I’ve liked, read, and reviewed. I then proceed to follow them all over the place. Reading their blogs inevitably leads to commenting and also quite often, making “friends’. I’m not taking those reviews down after the fact – or any reviews I’ve published so far. Now that I am aware of what’s going on, I’ll be more careful. The online writing community is a wonderful place. Writers are different – different in the nicest possible ways. There are some not so nice writers out there to be sure, but they’re generally zooming by at a rate of knots on Twitter demanding that you buy their books and like them on Facebook right away, while not listening to or looking at anyone else, so unlikely to be chatting with anyone who isn’t perceived as some sort of possible benefit to them anyway.
Apart from the good that will come from zapping the real crooks as far as reviews go, this is a shame and a blow for all decent scribblers. The writers I know are nice – honest, and mellow. Kind, thoughtful and understanding of others. Writers are special. They are broad-minded, funny and so, so truly clever. Adventurous and stubborn in good ways – ways that learn the things that seem impossible to understand to begin with. Sometimes when you look at the torrent of books floating around the ether these days, it’s easy to forget the small core of the real deal scribblers riding the waves in there. You guys who never give up, and keep on writing because you don’t understand not writing, even when your royalties barely keep you in toothpaste. When your book is reviewed by one of your tribe, it’s common for such a kindly soul to be filled with gratitude, and if the reviewer is also a published author, to reciprocate, buy their book, and leave a review if you like it. That’s become a bit dangerous to do now.
It’s understandable that Amazon want to remove fake reviews, and good news for any potential readers who could be duped into buying something nasty on the strength of them. It’s also understandable that it would be very difficult for them to process each review individually. So, sad to say, I don’t think that they can change this stance, or stop the ongoing takedowns. I don’t consider myself a book reviewer, and I don’t review a lot of books publicly, and those mainly for Feed My Reads SA. I also as yet haven’t actually ever posted a review of less than five stars – not because I’m lying – when I don’t think a book deserves a five star review I don’t post it. I don’t want anyone to see me as a book reviewer and I don’t want to post bad reviews. That’s just me though. I honestly think that I should be allowed to post a public review of every book on my Kindle that I’ve legally bought from Amazon, whether I “know” the author online or not
I really don’t think that it’s a good idea to poke a hippopotamus with a stick though. Those guys don’t always behave logically but if they bite you, you’re going to feel it. Same with this situation. Don’t poke that Hippo unless you’re prepared to lose your right to publish your books with them. I think that it’s much wiser to post reviews for the books of your online “friends” everywhere that you can online, except as an actual review on Amazon. You could post the review in the Customer Discussions section on the book’s landing page on Amazon though – that is allowed. As I said, I’m not going to take down any of the reviews I’ve already posted, because each and every one of them was posted in good faith and honestly written about books that I’ve read, but if they do get taken down then there’s not much to do about it. I also have some books on my Kindle that I’ve already bought specifically to review for Feed My Reads SA, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t post those on Amazon on behalf of FMR as I always do. Not sure now. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t with some of these “rules”.
Definitely have a read of this Amazon FAQ if you’re still not sure where you stand on this subject.
Image Courtesy: Pixabay
LOL and Stuff
I saw an episode of Come Dine With Me where one contestant actually said the letters OMG quite a few times. She obviously wasn’t trying to be funny – saying this seemed to come out as part of her normal conversation, but I do wonder why anyone would actually say the letters rather than the words in the first place. You aren’t going to get a sore mouth or fingers by verbally saying whole words. Maybe when something’s funny she could just deadpan say ROTFL rather than actually laughing. Or simply LOL if it wasn’t all that funny. Hopefully we’ll never get to saying Smiley Face or Like in our conversations. Everyone who zooms around online these days is part of this culture of communication. I do love my smiley faces, but I wonder where we’ll all be in another ten years as technology advances even further.
These days people probably don’t get bored in waiting rooms and come over all Mr Bean. Everyone has a phone, and everywhere you look people are looking down at them or aiming them at something or other. I’ve got a couple of books downloaded onto Kindle on mine, although admittedly I’ve never used it to read – I mainly wanted to see what my Kindle books looked like on my phone because us Indies need to see our scribbles on as many devices as possible. They look cool. I’m sure that lots of people do play games or read on their phones on train journeys and so on though, and that’s just the same as reading a book anyway. But everyone else who is not reading is also doing something on their phones. Personally I’m way too interested in people watching, but that’s just me and my nosy ways. I remember reading a story ages ago where those big headed grey aliens who go around apparently abducting people and fiddling with them in terrifying and offensive ways turned out to be us from the future. A future where we’d spent all our time physically doing nothing. All our activity happened in our heads, hence the overly large noggin and wasted away tiny bodies. The aliens wanted to use us, their ancestors, to fix their problem.
Personally I’ve noted that the old bod tends to expand rather than waste away with too much of sitting, but you never know what could happen as technology advances. Maybe a skinny pill really will be discovered at some point – one that exercises you without you having to unglue your eyeballs from whatever screen you’re looking at. Anyway.
Hopefully all you properly seated for the month NaNoers are going great guns. This is one time that the dreaded writer’s block can’t get you, because what you write doesn’t have to make perfect sense right now. So remain firmly on bum and scribble to the finish line. Kick that rotten block to the kerb!
Do What You Love
It’s brilliant to be properly back in the bloggerverse. I’ll be finishing up a couple of cover designs this weekend before diving into my sci-fi series book edits again next week, and now that I’m finally having some quality time back at my computer again with two of my favourite things, I’m pretty much grinning all the time. I abandoned my sketching and painting for so many years that I really didn’t think that I’d ever get back into it, but lately all the rust is falling away and I’m amazed at the huge joy it brings me. It’s weird how we sometimes stop doing the things that we love for whatever reasons, sometimes forever, and that’s a huge shame. It’s also weird how so many of us humans think that getting pleasure from an activity must mean that it’s not work and not worthy of our quality time. It’s the same with writing – how can it be your day job if it’s your favourite thing in the world to do? The truth really is that if that’s what it is – your true happy place, you’ll probably do it so much better than any other kind of “work”. It’s definitely worth striving for, to spend your life doing the work that you love, rather than getting to the end of it and looking back with huge regrets. Put as much work into work that you love as you do your day job, and with a bit of luck and elbow grease it will eventually be your day job.
Now that I’ve discovered that our illustrious scientists have discovered that Earth is actually a billion years older than they thought it was I have lots of tweaking to do to my series. Tweaking, I reckon, is the most dangerous thing to do as far as inserting all sorts of terrible inconsistencies is concerned, especially in a very long story that you’ve been away from for a while, but an extra billion years is way too cool for me to pass up. Anyway – now I’m off to paint covers and ponder what weirdness could possibly reside in dark matter.
Jo Robinson 