MY CONSTANT FRIEND IS A COMPUTER SCREEN

 

Time was, I sniffed at folks who spent the majority of their non-working hours in front of screens.

I felt I was better than the potato couches (a.k.a couch-potatoes) planted in front of televisions.

I looked down at generation Z-ers who sat next to each other all the while staring at their phones.

Okay, I still bristle at that last one. If there’s a live human to look in the eye and talk to, the screen, no matter its size, is better left in the back pocket, and the device’s pingings are better ignored.

But as to the rest, I’ve joined the minions who start and end their days in front of a screen.

Even before the blasted pandemic, screen time kept growing exponentially. The lockdowns cemented it as the hangout place outside of which there’s a vast silent desert.

Writing is already a keyboard and screen activity. Add Zooming, Facetiming, virtual touring and video chatting, and the real world where barometric pressures manifest as actual breezes becomes downright exotic.

I have to do something about that. But where do I reach out to find new living breathing friends? Online, of course.

I couldn’t beat the screen-starers, so I joined them.

INTERNET TROLLS and OTHER PESTS

 

For the one percent who do not know what a troll is, there are two definitions.

1.      (In folklore) An ugly creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf. 

1.      A person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word "troll" to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities.—

Neither is pretty, but the first have use in fairytales while the second are as useless as can be.

 

It’s tempting to engage with #2 trolls. Here’s my way: NEVER-EVER do that. This is precisely what these dark tormented souls want us to do. We can’t fix them. We can block them on sites we control, but they will pop up on others. They don’t change/reform/see the light from thoughtful responses.

 

Putting on my psychologist hat, I understand the online trolling impulse comes from the need for attention. If they can’t get it constructively, they get it any which way. It’s a misunderstanding of the notion of “being somebody.” To these poor souls, any attention is better than being ignored.

 

My prescription: IGNORE.

Thoughts about CENSORSHIP

 

Every chat-board I’ve ever joined and then chose to stay has been moderated.

 

The few I glimpsed that had no moderation took five minutes to degenerate into rage, hateful posts, and virtual violence, which was no place I’d voluntarily hang out.

 

Thus, I confronted the matter of free speech and censorship with a personal preference, while intellectually grasping how problematic it is.

 

Let’s be blunt: moderated = censored. Censorship means that disinformation and gratuitous violence is kept out, but vital facts and alternative ways of seeing things can also be kicked to the annals of the Interwebs.

 

I know of no way to settle this that doesn’t harm us in some way. 😬

 

Personally, I’m congenitally moderate. I have a tendency to see two sides of most coins. Thus, I also prefer to keep extremists out of my periphery. Thus, I also live with the contradiction of approving censoring speech while knowing there’s harm in it.

 

I don’t know how you approach this matter, especially because of late  both extremism and censorship have increased to levels that are blatantly detectable.  I constantly worry if I’m getting a true set of facts to evaluate life choices.

 

So this is where I sit at the moment: I do not want to hang out where there’s no moderation. But I think there should be corners of the public sphere that are wholly free. I just won’t visit them often. I also think that every public space should state that it is or isn’t moderated.

{Full disclosure: I moderate comments on this (my) blog. To date, I've only censored spam. Trust me you didn't miss much except for links to useless merchandise and a few death threats 👀} 

 

There is no organized party for the likes of us, but if I were the organizer sort I’d be making signs that say: 

👉MODERATES UNITE 👈

(No exclamation, because— duh— we’re moderates 😉)

The World’s Most Best GREATEST---

 

Yup. That^

Have you in your sphere someone who prefaces mentions of people and things with extreme hyperbole? I do.

😱

A doctor who had some experience with a sub specialty is referred to as “the world’s foremost authority on XYZ.” A friend who once collected some doodads is now “the world’s best expert on doodads.” The doodads themselves are now “the world’s most collectables.” You get the idea.

The internet has made hyperbole almost compulsory. Noticed how posts are labeled “So-and-so DESTROYS So-and-so?”

And for good measure, in the link So-and-so is referred to as “the world’s greatest.”

 

It takes both discipline and intention in writing well not to resort to hyperbole, but use neutral words to such an effect as to make an impression. This requires education and practice.

It also requires discernment, something increasingly lacking in public discourse on the Interwebs.

Simmer down, y’all. Take a deep breath and take it easy.

Digital Life and Death

 

’Tis a truth, which should be universally acknowledged, that life and death on this earth does not parallel life and death in the digital realm. (Apologies to Jane Austen)

 

I have Facebook friends who passed away. Their Facebook pages and timelines still live. I have blogging friends I had followed whose blogs had died, but I happen to know the blog owners are very much alive.

 

Many of my posts on this blog are scheduled ahead. In the event that I leave this earth, posts will continue to appear for a time. The only hint that I’m no longer here would be the complete lack of comments, as I moderate all comments and will no longer be there to do so. (Hint: if you want to check my earthly pulse, just comment 😉)

 

On people search sites I found my parents and other dearly departed people continuing to age. Apparently, these sites, which make their fortunes collecting public data on all of us, can’t bother to scour records of death.

 

Strange worlds we live and die in; two parallel timelines that only partially intersect.

To Google or not to Google Oneself?

 

Aye, that is the question*

*(Maybe not THE question, but A question)

 

Alas, we use “google” as a verb now for “internet search.” There are other options, though I still use Google because it reigns supreme.

 

I have found that occasional googling (or Duck Duck Go-ing, Swiss Cow-ing, Gibiru-ing Bing-ing and more) can bring up some surprises about self. Hopefully they are nice surprises, but the question is whether it should be part of anyone’s digital hygiene practices.

 

I think at this day and age where so much of life’s connectivity is digital, it is healthy to look oneself up now and then. I know writers look up their published books. I recall some on a chat board saying they are stalking their own titles. Stalking suggests obsessional behavior. But doing a bi-annual search just in case something very wrong (ouch) or something very right (yay) is floating out there— is rather sensible.

 

But it is an awkward feeling, I confess. If you are creeped out by looking yourself up, just don’t. So far, I have found at least four nice surprises, (a review I was unaware of that is now quoted and linked to my website, a blogger’s review of one of my published articles, and more) and one not so happy thing, (a site purported to give personal info on anyone and everyone decided to confuse my age with my much-older DH.) But on the whole, I found what I expected to find. I’m not famous, so that is about what I anticipated.

 

Two friends, who insisted there couldn’t be anything about them on the Interwebs, were proven wrong. There is something somewhere. But if you don’t mind, don’t care— that’s fair. Don’t look. You don’t have to.

 

Like most things in life, I straddle the middle ground: no staking/haunting, not avoiding. Once or twice a year does it for me.

 

If you ever found real surprises while googling self, I’d love to hear about it. At the very least, it would make a good story.

*This^ actually happened to a writing friend

Should a Writer Have a Website?

 

The question of what sort of web presence a writer should have comes up regularly on chat boards.

I’m not a fan of shoulds. If you’ve read my past posts, you probably know that. I won’t deny the discomfort I felt when I first made a website with my name domain. Touting one’s work and personal self feels weird and also somewhat unseemly.

But I also think there’s gigantic cognitive dissonance in wanting to be published (i.e. make public) and at the same time wanting to personally hide.

Unless you dream of doing a J.D. Salinger act, which means writing a classic and then disappearing as an ever-growing mystic aura radiates from the mention of your name, writing to publish means having some public presence. This is true for traditionally published authors, aspiring writers, and even more for the self-published who effectively become publishers and marketers.

While social sites are nice places if you like such hangouts, there is no substitute for a site you control under your own name. I think this post by agent Jennifer Laughran says it well, in her own take no-prisoners verbiage.

 

A few common reservations you can wipe off the deck immediately:

*It doesn’t have to cost much, though free options are not as good for various reasons. There are many inexpensive options that won’t force ads or a domain of the hosting company.

*It doesn’t require hiring a professional web designer. Nice to do (and worthwhile) if you are independently wealthy or already successfully published. But most web hosting services have templates that are intuitive and even non-techies like me can work with.

* It doesn’t have to blow anyone’s socks off, like the sites of famous bestselling authors. Start small and plain, but start.

 

Your website, under your own domain name, is your bit of real estate in the digital world. It’s a place to see you, (photo, please) your books if you have any, and a way to connect.

 

Of course, you don’t have to. You don’t have to write or publish anything. You only have to eat, drink, sleep, and try to be kind to others. But if you wish to share your work, get thee a website.

©From Author Vashti Harrison’s site

Let’s FACE It

Warning: this is on the gruffly side 😖

In the last year, I’ve gotten many Facebook friend requests where the person requesting chose not to put a photo of their FACE on their profile.

Yes, if I know you in real life and I’m sure it’s you, I’ve accepted. But the vast majority (like 95%) are people I’ve never met. If we have very few FACEbook friends in common, I assume this is a fake profile or some sort of spam. But most show that we have hundreds of friends in common.

This would indicate they are part of the kidlit publishing community, as most of my FACEbook friends are.

Some have chosen to put a photo pf their dog or pet ferret as their profile picture. For a banner, they put a lovely sunrise or field of wildflowers.

I mean, seriously?

I know we’re spooked by the use of our photo for nefarious purposes. I think that if this disturbs you greatly, maybe FACEbook is not the place you want to be to begin with. If you suffer from social anxiety and you fear your appearance will be judged, maybe this is not a good venue for you. Whatever the reason, why are you approaching people who don’t know you in real life with such?

I don’t accept such requests. I’m a basically shy person, so I understand the impulse to hide. But get over it if you choose FACEbook to engage with strangers.

Of all things, this^ is the banner of a site that offers to help you create a “memorably beautiful Facebook timeline.” Honestly, I’d pass.

Let’s FACE it and put a FACE on it. It isn’t your dog or a pretty postcard who’s asking to be connected.

A Facebook Group for EVERYTHING

In an ever-changing world, living half a world away from where I grew up, I found myself thinking about one particular restaurant my parents took me to with some regularity. It disappeared long ago, and we stopped going there long before it vaporized.

It was such an oddity that there were times I wondered if I had really been there, or it was something I dreamt.
The name my parents used was “The Cooperative Restaurant.” It had only two entrees to choose from— meatballs or boiled chicken. If you didn't want either, then no food for you. The servers were burly grumpy folks, who hurled the plates on the tables with such force that the meaty juices sometimes sprayed the customers. The servers either yelled at you or yelled at each other. The sounds of crashing dishes and blood-curdling cursing that echoed from the kitchen behind the swinging doors, were part of the ambience.
It was cheap, and the food was rib-sticking good, in a homey sort of way.

It was so peculiar, and didn’t fit the rest of my memories. Did we really go there? Was there ever such a place?

Turns out there are others who remember, and I found them in a closed Facebook group for folks who grew up in west Jerusalem. More than a hundred commentators in the group waxed nostalgic over the place, first called “The Workers Restaurant,” then “The Cooperative,” and finally “Sovah,” before it met its inevitable demise. I, who was four and five years old when I ate there, knew little of its history, and the older commentators input surpassed the riches of my memory.

Which takes me to this final thought for today's post. Anything and everything that interests you is likely to have a group of others who share your interest. I already belong to a few writerly groups. There really is a Facebook group for everything.

Ageism

Yup, another ISM for you

When I was twelve years old, I had a friend who naturally waxes philosophical. Her utterances made her the perfect friend for me, because I had an unquenched thirst for meaning, and still do.

And so, when she sighed and said, “From the moment we’re born we start aging,” I gasped and realized I was on a march to old age, and it wasn’t thrilling to my then self.

Many years later, this process has gained concreteness but lost the darkness I felt then. This is because of unexpected peace I gained over the years, (something no twelve-year-old imagination contained) and the recognition that what I love to do best I am doing better all the time.

Which brings me to the matter of ageism in the writing world.

A year ago, another writer, wise and talented a storyteller as you'll ever find, wrote to me about her experience of ageism: “...Each book I write is better than the last, and everything I write now is better than anything I got published then. But none of it matters, except to the extent that growing craft is good for its own sake. God sees, and that matters most.

But in spite of all that — yes, I wish writing and publishing goodness still ahead for us both.”

Older writers are better writers. But let’s not go the other way and hold it against the young’uns, either.

ISMs are not good for our souls, ever yearning for meaning.

Writers as Marketers

{🙀The "you" in this post is mostly me waving a finger at myself 😼}

{😽You, the reader, are just fine 😻}

As one who gets inner-nourishment from creating stories, I understand other writers who say they are not marketers. The story’s the thing, right?

“I just want to write.” I’ve heard this often, and sometimes that came from inside my own head.

If you want readers, you want to publish. Whether it’s traditional  by a commercial publisher (i.e. be published) or self-publish, publishing means to make public.

“I don’t want to have to sell, I want to write.”

Yeah, right. Then write, baby, write. Keep it in the drawer, and then write some more. For the drawer.

But if you want to share your writing with anyone other than dutiful family and patient friends, you must market.

Let’s face it. If you want a crack at the door of the large and medium size publishers, you need an agent. You have to market your work to a legitimate agent, who will be compensates when your work sells.

That’s the least you must do. So no need denying you’re a marketer right there.

If you self-publish, you become a full time marketing team. No getting around that.

In other words, the notion that a writer is not a marketer needs bursting from the get-go. It’s a matter of how and how much.

Embrace it, and go forth.

The Machinations of WORD

The title refers not to word machinations, but to the Microsoft writing program WORD.

Writers know not to count on its spellcheck to find every typo. We certainly know not to trust its grammar check, which while helpful, is flawed.

But recently I’ve encountered some new bugs. On an R & R, I agreed with the suggestion to change the name of a character. In the past, whenever I resolved to do so, I entrusted WORD to help.

So the first thing is to use the Find function, and then the Replace function. Say, for example, that you wish to change the name Amy to Lucia. Ask WORD to find Amy, and it will tell you it found, say, 237. Then ask it to replace all with Lucia. Next, ask the program to find all the possessive Amy’s, such as in “Amy’s hat” and replace with the possessive Lucia’s. It will find fewer, but some, and you will command WORD to replace all. Done.

Well, not really. You still have to go over every line in the novel's manuscript, because there may be references to the old name that would not fit the replacement. For example, if someone says, “I suppose you are named after Amy Adams,” the line would not work as “I suppose you are named after Lucia Adams.” Then there are the part-name mentions, such as someone calling out “Am...” when the change would require it to be “Lu...”---

Or if a character says, “Amie, do you spell it with an ‘ie’ or a ‘y’?” it would not make sense in the replacement.

Thus, while the WORD program has made it easier/faster. All changes still necessitate a read-through.

But the other day, working on a name change with a thorough read-through, I encountered something I have never seen before. The first mechanical hiccup was that half the replacements were followed by four blank spaces, not the standard one space between words. And worse, WORD didn’t flag these extra spaces. I figured I must have done something wrong. I mean, a mechanical machine can’t mechanically make capricious decisions. Maybe I pressed on something. Who knows?

But then I discovered that in two places, and only those two, WORD simply failed to replace the old name. There is was. What in the mechanical brain of this mechanical beast would make it come up with such mischievous machinations?

Bly me. But it was a good reminder that there is no find and replace for the human proofreader.

Listening to Books

Do you like Audio Books?

My experience is both limited and mixed.

I listened to a few books on long drives. I can firmly state that they helped me get through the long commutes. I have a friend who swears gardening and house cleaning are much improved with a good book in her ears.

But it is a different sort of experience. It is not reading, as the content and plot are absorbed, I suspect, by a different part of the brain.

For one thing, the complete focus that reading while not doing anything else is gone. Paying attention to the traffic or the weeds is not trivial. For another, the emotional flavor of the words is colored by the reading voice, and the reading voice is rarely the inner voice inside your head.

In other words, (pun intended) the reader makes all the difference.

Here is a link to a good post about writers who are tempted to produce/read their own audio books.

So far, my personal experience is that for less demanding commercial books, audio books are fine. Especially with a good reader. Exquisite literary fiction still needs my reading eyes.

Galileo and the Scientific Truth

On this date, February 26, in the year of our Lord 1616, Galileo Galilei was formerly banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

Now, I am not anti-Catholic (emphatically not) or anti-religious. The church had its reasons, with worry that challenging this dogma would lead to questioning all dogmas, an unstoppable process. Indeed, history showed this fear to be justified, and the loss of dogmatic faith that had already begun then, continues to this day. The church had reasons to fear that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, an expression so vivid I’m using it despite it being a cliché.

The thing is, four centuries later and a formal reversal of this ban by the church itself, we still ban thinking that we fear will lead to abuses of the social fabric and result in hurtful conduct. Only now, it is happening in the name of freethinking.

We haven’t changed. We’re still terrified of our own species propensity to abuse one another, and in the name of protecting us from ourselves we fire/take-down/ban/shun uncomfortable ideas.

I know real tolerance and considered debate when I see it. We’re not there yet.

Saluting the brave Galileos out there. You give humanity some hope.

Social Media Stress and the Take Down

Apparently, that’s a thing. And it’s not funny.

Social Media Stress, not to be confused with Social Media Phobia, is what happens when you live your real life on social media. It causes some to compare their lives unfavorably to the glowing images streaming through the feed.

But there is a darker more noxious aspect to this stress--     The Take Down.

And so I watched one Facebook friend whom I know in real life disappear from the virtual space because of a barrage of attack-comments, something I later learned is called a “take down” campaign. This particular friendly acquaintance shared many family events and relatives' successful milestones on social media. Something in the life of one of her nearest has rubbed someone wrong, very wrong. Then came the attack dogs, mostly under pseudonyms, and now none of us can see her anymore.

The stress was too much.

The Scarlet Letter, a book taught in English lit classes to the young as a cautionary tale of a society gone hysterically wrong, has had the opposite effect. Young’uns have taken to social media to shame and hang a label when politics or social stance or even a less than thoughtful comment somewhere don’t align with their own. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850’s novel lives on, not as a record of what we don’t do anymore, but as blueprint of how it was done back then before we had better tools.

I’m sad. Especially when the shamers carry the flag of diversity and inclusion. I guess tolerance does not apply to people who don’t think like them. I once knew a vegetarian who said he was ready to kill people who ate meat. No kidding. Totalitarian Liberals fall under the same flag, and with them, we’re all taken down.

This is my plea for real diversity: race, religion, identity, sexual preference, and varied political affiliation. All are welcome in my life.

And if I ever am called on such on social media, I hope I can manage the stress. Probably not. But then, you wouldn’t know because I will cease to be here.

NaNoWriMo* Part 2

*I explained this in an old post, here

As the month of November comes to its inevitable conclusion, all across this land writers either pat their own backs because they made it or wail that they did not reach the goal of fifty-thousand words in thirty days. The latter is more common, as it turns out.

I hope that if you participated you made your goal. I hope that if you didn’t make it, it was worth doing anyway.

But I must say I don’t get it.

Writing by the word count is something I finally understood as helpful to pacing in a novel. Butt-in-chair is also something I understand. Sometimes it’s just like that. You have to sit and do it, muse missing. Writing every day is what many think is the only way to do it if you are serious.

But writing with the crowd?

For me, the very notion that I am part of millions doing the same thing at the same time is an anathema. I have no illusions that when I sit down and conjure a story I am doing something no one has ever done before. But, at the same time,I tell myself I’m doing something of singular value. If I don’t do it, it won’t be done.

I also found the value of the self-discipline. "Self" here stands for creating in a pace and a manner assigned to oneself. I struggled with this issue until my late twenties. I had no problem meeting others’ deadlines. But I rarely managed to finish anything that no one was waiting for and that was self-assigned.

Then I found a way, and I’ve been fortunate ever since. Thank you, the great guardian of creativity, for this gift.

If National Writing Month is your thing, I raise a toast to you for the fine effort. I hope the result is just as fine. But if you failed to meet this goal please consider that your way of creating may not fit with this painting party, and keep looking for how *you* work best to do your best work.

The Egregious Agent Caper

A few months ago, the kid-lit writing community buzzed and booed when someone finally spilled the beans on the perfidy of one agent, who then abruptly quit the Internet and shut her agency. Her clients, an awesome list of talented writers and illustrators, were left hanging. If you missed that particular blowup, something of it can be glimpsed here.

On another thread, an animated discussion was ongoing. Was there a way to know this agent had gone off the rails of proper business practices? Could writers ever know before signing if no one dares to speak about such matters in public and name names?

One source, which does allow specific names, is an excellent writers’ virtual water cooler, called Absolute Write. Another is Querytracker.  Neither would have helped in this particular case. There were no warning signs, except for some former clients who knew something was off but did not speak up.

It’s a thorny matter— what to say and where. There are plenty of sensitive folks who take rejection poorly, and let’s face it—this is a field where rejections are the rule. We never want to mess with someone’s livelihood, and it is too easy to destroy anyone’s name. Negativity should be kept to a minimum in the public sphere, and so I fault none of those who knew something was off but made no public mention.

My way of saying this minefield is unavoidable. Most agents are hardworking, and most do good work. But you can’t know, and the proof ultimately is in the pudding.

Agents have become the sifters for the big publishers, culling the most commercially viable manuscripts. Time was, when having an agent was a choice if a writer wanted to be traditionally published. Having an agent meant you could focus on writing while your agent focused on getting publishing contacts. The doors for writers and illustrators to approach directly still exist but they have left nary a crack opening.

So time was, but is no more. We take a chance, we hope, we do research and enlist our ever-useful gut instinct. And still, bad things happen to good people.

Just like the rest of this worldly journey. Like the stories we write. It takes courage.

Remember to DO THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY*

*Note to self

Blogs are dying. Lack of visitors has made many bloggers become former bloggers.Not only this blog, but other personal blogs.  


The survivors are specific aggregators of useful information (think make-up tips, relationship advice, celebrity gossip, none of which I happen to be a user)—these blogs, when well done and their authors work hard at gathering followers, are doing well.

But not the sort of blog I so reluctantly launched seven years and three-hundred and fifty plus posts ago.

There are times I wonder if I should continue, or let it sit inactivated but not deleted, like so many still on my Reading List. There they sit and stare like the Egyptian Sphinges (plural of Sphinx) by the pyramids of Giza.

Only these mysterious beings get plenty of visitors who come daily to return their frozen gaze. Maybe the analogy isn’t the right one.

Some months ago, one of the personal blogs I really like and follow had the author state that one of her mood lifters is remembering to do things that make her happy, like writing in her not-much visited blog.

I, for one, am glad she does. But the key was that it makes her happy.

Works for me. So I’m still here.

Facebook Falsehoods

Just got another one. “A Facebook friend wants you to like...”

Facebook, in addition to being the unwitting conduit of fake news and falsehoods of other kinds, has been an affordable advertising tool for some and a connectivity tool for many. I always understood my data, such as Facebook thinks it has, is how they are able to provide this tool without a monthly charge.

The only controls explicitly given are the privacy layers that only innocent friends and colleagues (who are not hackers) are effectively blocked from causally seeing. Hackers see all, and Facebook certainly does. That’s okay with me. Everything on my timeline is fully public. This is how I use Facebook, as an ad.

Thus, most of my Facebook friends are not personal connections, but colleagues.

I’ve written before to say that on my social media pages (which very much includes this blog) I tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But I never considered telling the whole truth because many things of me and mine are private.

Which brings me to this pesky habit of some who think it is fine form to ask others to like this or that.

I like what I like, truthfully. All my likes are my own. If I didn’t “like,” it may be because I missed the post. I don’t spend many hours scrolling or I would have time for little else. But when I get one of those requests to like, it is an automatic forgetaboutit.

You may not think so, but it has a whiff of falsehood. Something related to paid reviews, which are malodorous to say the least. Actually, they stink.

Because, to me, even my Facebook public face can’t be a fake. If I liked yours, know that I really liked yours.

The Truth and Untruth of Statistics

"Figures often beguile me. Particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

Mark Twain

{ Chapters from My Autobiography, published in the North American Review in 1906}

And so I find myself, having just finished the fifth draft of a new novel for middle grade readers, staring the stats WORD popped up.

Time was, I wrote long hand, then revised and typed a story, only to ignore the numbers. WORD insisted on telling me the word count, but I looked the other way. I was writing literature, not counting beans.

I remember the feeling of diminishment when I encountered writers who spoke about word counts for different age groups, chapter page counts, and output counts per writing day. Everyone, it seemed, was counting.

I honestly couldn’t figure out why, and determined not to write-by-numbers.

Only they are everywhere. And while they say nothing about the quality of the story or the art of the telling, turns out they do count.

In the business of publishing, they count quite a bit. To quote Agent Jennifer Laughran’s iconic post on the subject, outlier word-counts put her in the mode of  “...I am tying a noose.” I don’t want that responsibility. I also want my work to be considered for publication.

Innovative work should not count these counts. But the numbers will let us know how far off the expected norms we’ve ventured, and then choose to do so knowingly and deliberately.

These Stats still lie in the most fundamental sense of not telling that all’s well, or that I must take some drastic action. The readability statistics only sit there, telling their truth. It’s not an important truth. But it is one I  now look at , just as I look at the WORD program’s mechanical (and often wrong) grammar-check at which end these stats pop up.

For me it is about marching forward having looked at all I could know about what I wrote. It means that if a reader calls the story “too long,” this is not a matter of length but the feeling it drags. The strengths and faults lie in the art, not in the craft. The mechanical checks and algorithmic statistics deserve a glance, and then the option to dismiss or heed from a place of awareness.

Phew, these latest revision stats look okay. But who's counting?