Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.

Sounds good to me! There’s a heavy emphasis in the week’s artwork and community on diversity and inclusion, as there should be. After all, a huge percentage of books banned across the country are those focused on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ subgenres, characters, issues, etc. You know, like ones about scientifically accurate information about gay penguins… or history books that tell true stories about Civil Rights. According to the ALA, 47% of challenges included these types of topics or people.

Who is leading the charge to ban books? The usual suspects, of course. Florida, Texas, and Utah top the list of states. 92% of challenges came from organized groups trying to ban whole lists of titles at the same time. In 2025, 66% of challenges ended up with books being banned.

Hm… 66… only one digit off from that number they claim is from the devil. A coincidence? Ha.

More terrible numbers:

4,235 titles were targeted in 2025, basically tying the record of 4,240 from 2023. There were only about 2,500 in 2022. These people are getting more active, more successful, and more horrible all the time.

Why do people want so many books banned?

Why do you think? Control. Racism. Homophobia. Bigotry. Keeping people uneducated and away from alternate truths so they don’t develop critical thinking skills. You remember the quote, “I love the uneducated?” Well… yeah. They want to keep people that way. It makes them easier to control.

Why am I getting political?

Everything is political in a world controlled by politics. Wouldn’t it be nice if reading books wasn’t? Unfortunately, there are too many bad people out there trying to stop others from learning, growing, thinking, and experiencing unique things.

Literacy rates are dropping. In the past five years, the lowest proficiency level of literacy has gone from 19% of adults to 28% of adults. Roughly 54% of adults read below a sixth-grade level. The average literacy score for US adults has dropped 13 points since 2017.

That’s damn scary.

Let books be. Protect the freedom to read.

It’s a catchy song, and I get stuff stuck in my head far too easily.

The song itself is not about writing, of course, and takes a bit of a dark view of all the sensory information in the world ‘today’ (the today at the time of writing, which has only gotten worse really) and how it both augments and obscures what’s really going on.

That, too, matches how to use description in stories.

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Basic Description Tips

1 – Don’t over or under describe.

A good tip, but not cleanly defined. It’s up to us to figure out what too much and too little are. How do you do this? You figure out what details serve the story and only include those… with perhaps a couple more here and there because they’re awesome or paint a more artistic picture of the world, character, or what’s going on. It’s about pacing, too.

2 – Use all five senses.

Unless your point of view character doesn’t have one sense (i.e., they’re blind or profoundly deaf), use all other senses. Not only does this make things more realistic (even when you’re not writing realistic fiction) and relatable, but it’s a powerful tool in immersion.

People tend to focus on vision. It’s our strongest and most reliable sense. However, smell is the one most closely tied to memories. Touch stands in when all other senses falter.

3 – Specificity = More Immersion

Vague descriptions only work when they’re purposefully vague… like when a character is stuck in a dark basement with ear and nose plugs in and their hands tied and they’re only half conscious. How often does that happen though? If some senses are blocked for any reason, the other sensory information becomes more important. If they’re tied up in a dark basement, the murmur of voices above them and the scent of salty sea air and rotting fish drifting in the window become even more vital to your scene.

Specific doesn’t mean adding more descriptions or making it ‘fancy’ or purple prose. Yes, you usually have to use a few more words, but that doesn’t mean you go on and on. Consider “He sat on the red couch” vs. “He sat on the crimson velvet couch, the gold tassels tickling his ankles.” Which one immerses you in the experience more?

4 – Use the Most Effective Figurative Language

Metaphors and similes can really help you describe things in ways that make sense to the POV character and the overall mood of the scene. Avoid cliches. Don’t go overboard. Don’t mix metaphors unless that’s something your close point of view character would do.

Red as blood is a cliché, but what if a fighter who just came back from a huge battle is trying to describe something that color? It might work for them, but you still have to make it less boring. Make it specific. Red as the smears and splatters of a knife-thrust is much more visceral, both literally and figuratively.

Senses Augment and Obscure

Back to my original point inspired by the XTC song.

When you describe stuff going on in a story, the setting, or the characters, the main point is to augment the experience for the reader. You want them to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel what your characters do or how your world is. That’s immersion, the most powerful magic of storytelling.

But what if you don’t? Descriptions can obscure and trick readers just as easily. The hard part is doing it purposefully in a way that doesn’t actually confuse them. (Curmudgeon’s hat… I’ve seen people in writers’ and readers’ groups get quite confused about examples of this. Maybe it’s the dwindling lack of critical thinking the world’s suffering with? Know your audience.)

How do you use descriptions to obscure things on purpose? Perhaps more important, why would you want to? Stories frequently have hidden things – secrets, mysteries, double agents, red herrings – designed to trick the reader. Think of the sensory information as a magician’s sleight of hand. While you’re waving around a loud argument in the silk-draped parlor, someone’s sneaking in the back door to steal the silver.

Since I’m self-employed, I also wear soft clothes in whatever suits the temperature during the day, too. I’m not a fashionista at all, and comfort always wins out over style. (Well, I have my own personal sense of style, but that usually only extends to weird t-shirts in black, gray, or dark, subdued colors.)

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What is Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day?

To be honest, I learned about it only from one of those ‘Strange Daily Holiday’ sites and haven’t found much else. Some company called Pajamagram launched it as a marketing thing in 2004 and invited people to stay in their PJs all day as a reward for getting US income taxes done.

It appears to have some interest internationally, however. The Guiness Book World Record for number of people wearing one-piece pajamas together happened in China in 2015. There were 1,879 people apparently. The earlier one – only 752 folks – happened in the UK.

Those people weren’t wearing them to work, though. I think a lot of self-employed or work-at-home people do wear what could pass as pajamas all day sometimes. Heck, lots of people wear pajamas out to the store these days, too. (I am not some curmudgeonly old person who gets angry at this, by the way. Wear what you want as long as it covers you up enough for public viewing.)

What Does This Have to Do With Writing?

Well, I’m a writer. Writing doesn’t require any particular uniform or level of professional outfit to get the words down on the page. You can wear anything from a unicorn onesie to skimpy lingerie and still work on your novel, short story, or script. Comfort helps so you don’t have anything distracting to get in the way of the words flowing.

Anyway… Happy Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day. I hope you have the opportunity to celebrate.

What many don’t know is how much backstory they should include and, especially, how to do it so it’s not boring or annoying. Before I get into things, let me repeat that I don’t think I’m the Ultimate Authority on Fiction Writing. Of course not. EVERYTHING in fiction is subjective (Well, not everything… There are rules like what semicolons do or genre conventions.) I spend a lot of time reading, writing, and learning stuff about fiction, though.

Two Main Types of Backstory

You have world backstory – what happened in the world before the plot began. And you have character backstory – what happened to the character specifically. The first is about world-building, and the second is about psychology and human behavior.

Every good book has both but not necessarily written into the story itself. It exists… unless you’re writing some kind of speculative fiction in which the world and character did not exist before Page One at all.

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World Backstory – What Matters and How Do You Share It?

This probably exists more in fantasy and science fiction where the world is decidedly not Earth or at least not the world as we know it now. It’s also more important in historical fiction where readers might not know all the details into life during those times.

You have to find a way to show the reader the world’s past because all that stuff went into creating the world as it is in the present world of the story. (Did that make any sense at all?)

The bad way to share the world’s backstory? An info dump.

Carmok wasn’t always the gleaming metropolitan city on the edge of the Broole Sea. Fifty years earlier, the demon mages swarmed through the region, killing everything in their path. After the war was won, it took twelve years for the rebel commander Serine to rise to power. It took another twenty for the agricultural economy to regrow enough to support the art and architectural guilds.

Boring! This isn’t a history text book. Granted, this isn’t a huge info dump. It’s just one paragraph. It’s still kinda boring. Also, it’s probably not important for the events in the book itself. If it is, find a way to mix the details into the plot.

The iceberg comparison is real. Most stuff stays hidden.

Most writers have heard about the iceberg theory of writing. About 90% of the stuff that affects the story remains hidden (About 90% of icebergs are underwater.) It simply doesn’t matter if twelve years passed before Serine took over unless you’re writing specifically about related people or events. If it’s simply twelve years later when your characters visit Carmok, they’re going to deal with how it is now.

Same thing pertains to historical fiction. You could get wrapped up researching hemp growth and rope production, but that won’t matter one bit if a highwayman is tying up a count he waylaid on the journey to his country estate.

Character Backstory – The Past Makes Them Who They Are

I’m a huge fan of learning about human behavior, psychology, and sociology. Stuff affects who people become as they grow up and experience life. Your childhood really does influence your adult beliefs, thought processes, fears, goals, and everything else.

In a book, none of that really matters all that much! (Again, as long as the story isn’t about your character growing up or overcoming specific trauma.)

Maybe Serine became a warlord because her parents never loved her and her evil uncle groomed her to be a weapon of destruction. That might be interesting IF Serine is the main character who undergoes some sort of redemptive arc. It’s not at all necessary if your character has to live under Serine’s tyrannical rule.

How to Share Backstory

No info dumping. Blend the backstory into the current story. Bring up stuff only when it needs to be explained. Trust your reader to get things without over explanation.

Exposition – Telling the reader important stuff – backstory included – midst the active part of your plot.

· Keep it short

· Keep it pertinent

· Make it from the character (or narrator) point of view

· Don’t shove it into the action

· Avoid “As you may know…” kind of telling

· Let readers infer stuff from what you share

“Your family owns all this land?” he asked, eyes widening at the rows of pepper plants that stretched toward the horizon.

She nodded and tucked her hands in the patch pockets on the front of her dress. “Oh yes, claimed it right after the war, my grandfather did. It took a while for the plants to grow again. Too much blood in the soil, Gramps always said.” She pointed off to the right. “The battle for Carmok Hill happened right there.”

“And it’s not odd?” he asked, “knowing so many died right where your peppers grow?”

Laughing, she grabbed his sleeve and steered him back toward the house. “It was years ago. No one’s haunting our peppers.”

Flashbacks – Psychological ‘journeys’ your character goes on, which are triggered by a specific thing in the present that sends them back into memory. They are not just scenes out of chronological order!

· Use a reasonable and character-specific trigger

· Show the flashback as an active scene

· Have an appropriate return to the main flow of the story

· Make them emotionally impactful

She snitched a slice of pepper from under her mother’s knife and popped it into her mouth before any chance of scolding. The heat burst on her tongue, almost painful, and brought her back to the first time Gramps offered her a slice in the far fields.

“Life comes with pain,” he said as his pocketknife excised a chunk of red flesh and scraped the seeds onto the ground. “But it also comes with sweetness.” He looked far afield as if seeing something other than the rows of plants surrounding them. “That’s why we fought here, and that’s why so many died.”

The same burning juice ran across my tongue, and I blinked back to the kitchen and my mother’s low chuckle. “You’ll burn your lips off one day, deary,” she said and slid the peppers into the pot.

Okay, I wrote these in about five minutes and didn’t bother editing or anything. They’re not the best examples of sharing backstory that ever existed. I don’t think they suck, though. You get a hint of what happened before and why it matters to the characters in the current story. That’s what backstory should do… and not much more.

Again, this is all subjective. Some people love reading pages of exposition about the history of a made-up land or the details about how things worked in days long gone. It’s a balance, as if everything in writing.

I have no such guilt and don’t really understand it. What is there to feel guilty about? And who are you afraid to offend?

The writer? They won’t know who didn’t finish their book unless you know them personally and tell them. Besides, if their book is so problematic, badly written, or boring that you don’t want to read it, why would you want them not to know that? It’s helpful information.

I’ve seen some people say that they feel they owe it to the writer to finish every book. Again, for what? Yes, the writer put effort into creating the book (You could argue that they didn’t put enough, though, if the book’s no good.), but people put effort into stuff all the time that you don’t waste your time on.

I’m an Old Curmudgeon

Maybe my age has something to do with it. I’m 51. I recognize clearly that I don’t have enough time left on this planet to read all the great books out there – and coming out all the time. It sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it other than read faster.

That means not wasting time on books I’m not enjoying.

The curmudgeon bit comes into play, too. Now, first let me say that I never, ever, EVER rate a book badly after DNFing if it’s just not the book for me. Maybe the plot went somewhere I don’t enjoy. No problem! Other people will love it. I just set it aside and move on with life.

But there are some books (quite a lot self-pubbed, unfortunately) that are just bad. Objectively so. Yes, I believe in objective quality when it comes to writing. What makes a badly written book?

· Wild inconsistencies

· Gaping plot holes

· Gratuitous everything

· No grasp of grammar, spelling, punctuation

· Wrong pacing to a large degree

All these things, by the way, are fine SOMETIMES if they serve the story. For example, if the book has an unreliable narrator on purpose, there are going to be inconsistencies. You’re not going to find proper grammar or even punctuation in a first-person tale from someone who doesn’t know or use them. The Road (Cormac McCarthy) with its lack of ‘weird little marks’ is not a bad book.

When to DNF?

Whenever you want.

This is another conversation I never quite understand. Whenever I say I might DNF a book on the first page, there are some who vehemently state that’s not fair. Why not? Sometimes the first page sucks or I can tell something (like the POV character’s voice, for example) is something I don’t want to deal with for 300 more pages.

Some folks make rules for themselves like they must read 25% of the whole book, or two chapters, or half, or up until the first plot point using the beat sheet/outlining formula.

Why? I mean, obviously if you want to give a book longer to get going in the right direction for you, have at it. I’m not trying to convince anyone to give up earlier. If things really pick up after the fourth chapter, why didn’t the author start with the fourth chapter if that’s where the story really begins?

(Deep breath.)

There are about 11,000 books published every single day in the United States alone.

Of course, lots of them are not in any genres I’m interested in, and quite a few of them aren’t even novels or short story collections. If even 1% of them are, that’s 110 books every single day to potentially enjoy – impossible!

I read super-fast and have no life, and I can’t even read one book a day in most cases. DNF should be guilt-free. There’s enough to cause us stress in today’s world.

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Aside… I once came across a writing prompt forum or site (don’t remember what) with prompts that were basically entire stories with a ‘what happened next?’ kind of prompt every single time. To me, those lead the writer WAY too much and don’t give them enough opportunity to stretch their creative muscles. Virtually useless.

Today’s writing prompt for my flash fiction Friday: carry, pine, drift, pocket.

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The wind from the west carries the scent of pine, blowing back my hair from sweaty temples as I stand atop the wall. There’s nothing strange about this. As the fields empty and the people’s thoughts turn to evenings by fires, the forest always makes itself known. It’s the time for the woods, the pine, and the wind. It’s the time for me to take up my lonely vigil again.

Twenty years on, and I still wait for his figure to appear on the horizon, out on the dusty road where I watched him walk away so long ago. I carry the stone in my pocket and his name in my heart. I doubt I’ll ever get to bear his words, his thoughts, his feelings again.

I’m not his parent, and certainly not a love. We met on a chill evening in the late spring. He tried to slip his hand in my purse for any small coins he could find. I noticed. Of course, I did. I knew he was coming the moment his worn shoe hit the cobbles at the far end of the street.

Sometimes it’s hard having the sight tapped into the things that lurk behind the world. Sometimes it’s the answer to everything.

I stopped him, of course, brought him home and gave him bread and meat. Offered him ale and purpose as he grew. He left on this same night twenty years ago.

My thoughts drift in those uncomfortable ways that come more easily as time passes. He could be lost, my chosen son. He could be dead. I shake my head and tuck my hand into my pocket to touch the stone. He could be happy and spare no thoughts to the strange old man who set him on his way.

With one final breath of pine-scented air, I turn away from the view and back to the stairs. Sometimes I try to believe that I’ve lost my sight and that’s why I can’t feel his long-awaited approach. I’m only fooling myself. I still see the pain of loss clearly and the years stretching out alone before me. That never fades.

There are a lot of metaphorical meanings you can take from the idea that books and stories are the seeds for greater things. When children have the freedom to explore a wide range of books, it opens up their minds to options, possibilities, realities, and fantasies that help strengthen and broaden their minds. When someone restricts a young person’s access to books, it’s like failing to water a garden or provide sufficient nutrients

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Too Many People Are Currently Trying to Starve Children’s Minds

(And bodies but decimating SNAP and erasing free school meals is another topic.)

Just like a well-balanced meal provides all necessary nutrients for health and growth, a variety of books from diverse perspectives about wide-ranging topics offer more to nourish a child’s mind. Sticking with just one topic or stories from a very narrow authorship leads to weakness in one way or another. Some people don’t want kids to recognize options. They don’t want them to develop empathy or critical thinking skills or even academic knowledge outside of a very particular worldview.

The Benefits of Unrestricted Reading Are Profound

You can find TONS of stats about how reading often and from a young age improves everything from self-esteem to school grades. It increases vocabulary, cognitive development, and mental agility. Books also support children’s unique identities and make them feel like a vital part of the world no matter what the differences from their peers. Kids get validation that they’re okay just the way they are.

The ability for a kid to choose a book for themselves and complete it is a huge confidence booster. It gives them agency. That simple act – of going to a library or a bookstore and making their own choices – builds a long-term ability to discover and trust themselves, too.

International Children’s Book Day and all the literacy and book-sharing programs out there focus on one main thing: the right for children to read freely and widely. This simple thing does plant innumerable seeds that can grow into so many amazing things over time.

Good grief, I’m throwing out a bunch of odd phrases this morning. (Sips coffee.)

Since this is about writing fiction and not how to craft a great prank, I’m going to spin the topic quite a bit.

When world-building for fantasy stories, do you ever make tricks or pranks a part of the culture you’re creating?

I’m partial to jesters (see my last name and my logo), and their job is to tell jokes and play pranks and do tricks. I don’t actually write official jesters into my stories, though. So, how about the regular folks? Do they play tricks on each other? It’s an entirely human thing to do, and I’m sure elves, dwarves, and whatnots are just as likely to try to make each other laugh or – meanly – get one up on each other.

Using Tricks for Your Writing

There’s a whole other side to tricks or pranks in writing. I recognize I’m stretching the meanings here a bit. You don’t want to play actual pranks on your readers. They’ll toss your book at the wall and cross your author name off their ‘Must Read’ list.

That is… if the pranks abuse the writer-reader relationship. In a way, things like “It was all just a dream!’ are tricks. They subvert expectations, yes, but they also hurt the reader. They lose enjoyment of the whole experience because you did something not-so-nice to them.

Don’t do this.

What kind of tricky writing can work?

Unreliable Narrators

I wrote a whole post about this a few days ago. Sticking to the point of view of someone without a firm grasp on reality or a purposeful interest in deceiving can absolutely work.

Red Herrings

These can exist as story elements, such as a false clue in a mystery, or as part of the structure of the story itself. Start out presenting the book as one thing and then subvert expectations to turn it into something else. You have to do this carefully or risk alienating readers.

Meta-Fiction and Interference

‘This is a true story,’ but it’s not. Talking about found footage or documents that don’t really exist. Adding asides or footnotes from faux research or experiences that contradict or add another level to the narrative going on in the main story. Stories within stories can work well, too.

Messing With the Timeline

Non-chronological stories often involve a lot of trickery. The reader may know something that happened in the future before they understand the source of it from the past. Likewise, learning the past may affect what they already surmised from the present.

I occasionally see some very disturbing posts or comments about how things like flashbacks and different POVs confuse readers. Maybe people are getting dumber or attention spans have dwindled so much they can’t remember what happened earlier in a story? That’s a whole different conversation.

My point here is that you have to deploy these writerly tricks and pranks very carefully if you want them to have the desired impact. Amuse and confuse… but only temporarily. Readers still need immersion and a satisfying experience.

Every year, there’s a theme of sorts, which are all things espoused by the Fellowship and other important characters in the stories. Love and friendship. Hope and courage. Service and sacrifice

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Unlikely Heroes – 2026 Tolkien Day Theme

If you want to focus on the vast collection of Tolkien’s work, you can find a lot of unlikely heroes to root for, most especially Frodo and Sam. But this author’s work doesn’t only apply to the entire width and breadth of fantasy fiction that came afterward. You can also view reality through the lens aligned with these themes.

The world needs heroes right now… badly. But I’m not talking about big, strong, dedicated individuals who throw themselves in harms way or take on established evil. (Well, we can use some of those, too, to be frank.) We need everyday heroes, unlikely ones.

Frodo and Sam hung out, drank beer, smoked pipe weed, laughed with their friends, gardened, and did… whatever Frodo did, if he worked at all. Wrote books. Combed their foot hair. The big bad didn’t even come to their little world until Frodo was already on his way. Leaving protected them (although not the people in Bree much), but they didn’t have to DO much out of the ordinary until they were directly under attack.

Even if you’re not directly under attack, you can be an unlikely hero.

Standing up and saying something even when it’s uncomfortable or kinda scary can make you a champion of someone else OR for yourself. Even posting online saying ‘that’s wrong’ can help strengthen the side of hope, courage, love, and friendship.

The bad things happening in the US and the world today are way too big for any one little hobbit to handle. If we wait around for the kings, the wizards, the angels, and the other folk closer to the problem to do something, we’ll either be waiting a very long time, getting into deeper trouble, or ending up much like the poor Innkeeper in Bree, who was smashed into the mud by the hooves of evil trampling all over him.

It’s not all about the big stuff, either.

My content here isn’t going to get preachy or *gasp* political too often. This is primarily about books, writing, reading, and literacy. (Not that those things aren’t tied into the above anyway!) It’s impossible to not get affected by things, though.

To bring this back to the book community, sometimes being a hero means buying someone’s book or leaving a review, making a recommendation or sharing ideas and feedback, or encouraging someone when they feel like giving up. In the midst of all the horrors and hate, it certainly doesn’t hurt to make someone feel better about their passion or past time.

· Must be AI.

· Must be crap.

· Must be ghostwritten.

They simply don’t believe that another writer can do more than they can. I find this comes from people who hardly write anything most of the time. They take two or three years to finish a novel. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but there’s nothing wrong with writing one more quickly either.

The Math

1000 words per hour is a reasonable rate of writing fiction. No, everyone can’t write that much. Plenty of people write more. It depends on a wide variety of factors. To make this super accessible, let’s use 500 words per hour. That’s about eight words per minute – less than one sentence.

500 words per hour X 2 hours per day = 1000 words per day.

1000 words per day X 20 days per month = 20,000 words per month.

20k words per month = One complete novel draft every four months.

That’s 3 complete novels a year working very slowly for two hours a day on the weekdays.

There are plenty of reasons why someone can’t write that much. They don’t have two hours a day. They broke their hand. Writer’s block (a whole other issue I have opinions about). That’s fine! No one has to write for two hours daily. There’s no gatekeeping for ‘writerdom’ here.

Hopefully, most people can accept that some people CAN write for two hours and others absolutely DO write more than 500 words in an hour (most of us).

Some people put out a novel every single month. Not possible, you say!

Time for more math.

Most people who do this aren’t writing epics. Let’s take 80,000 words as a good count for most genre fiction. Some romances are shorter. Some fantasy is longer. It’s an average.

80k over a month = 2667 words per day.

IF you write only 500 words per hour, that’s 5 hours – less than a full-time job.

Most pro writers write more than that, however. I can do 2667 in two hours on a good day.

But what about editing? Book covers? Marketing? Sleep?

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Well, if you’re writing a fresh draft three hours per day, you have plenty of time left to do everything else. Plus, you use professionals to edit, design book covers, etc.

· 4 hours fresh draft writing

· 1 hour self-editing the previous book

· 1 hour administrative stuff (emailing your editor, cover designer, etc.)

· 2 hours marketing (ugh!)

That’s a 7-hour workday. That’s STILL less than full-time work.

Can you do it if you have two jobs, a toddler at home, chronic illness, etc.? No, probably not. But that doesn’t mean no one can. It’s really not that hard to work seven hours a day if that’s your career. Every single full-time employee in the world does that every workday.

Do I have a point about writing productivity?

Somewhere in here, there’s a point. Okay, more than one point.

First, stop assuming everyone who’s faster or more productive than you is cheating. That’s not only false, but it sounds like sour grapes.

Second, productivity isn’t a measure of how good a writer you are. You’re not competing with full-time folks for word count numbers – IF you’re not trying to go full-time with a rapid release and publication plan.

Third, productivity is a good thing for people who want to make this a career or income earner. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Some writers have a few masterpieces in them (or just one). Most of us will never write a masterpiece. Instead, we have to make money with fiction another way. Quantity helps. Quantity without any quality doesn’t! But if you write that much and care at all, you’re not putting out crap.

One of my back burner projects (that I pull out and work on when the muse hits and have no direct plans to finish – I have way too many of these!) involves a young man who is either losing his grasp on reality or actually slipping uncontrollably between the real and a fantasy world. There’s a video game tied up in the mix: an exploration of perceived reality and immersion.

He’s probably the most unreliable narrator I’ve ever written because he honestly doesn’t know what’s going on a lot of the time. It gets both worse and better as the story goes on. There are more shifts that are hard to believe, but he has more genuine belief in them. It’s fun and tricky to write because I don’t want the reader to know which is which (mental illness or fantasy portal stuff) pretty much all the way through the book.

A little Wizard of Oz-ish. Was Dorothy really in Oz or was it just the bump on the head from tornado damage? In there, the answer’s pretty easy unless you’re a horrible cynic with no imagination. Hopefully, it won’t be so obvious in my book. (I am NOT comparing my book to this masterpiece.)

WHY Is There a Distortion? Why Is the Narrator Unreliable?

There are tons of reasons why a narrator is unreliable. They might not realize it themselves or they might choose it for their own unique reasons.

· Fantasy or magical reasons

· Dishonesty

· Mental illness

· Mind control

· Purposeful trickery

· Trauma response

· Biases perspective

· Self-preservation

· Limited capacity or knowledge

I’m sure you can think of more. Fleshing out these reasons is part of the fun. In a vintage children’s story, a bump on the head is good enough. It’s the cliché “It was all just a dream!” conclusion.

If you try to do that in a book targeting YA or adult audiences today, readers will hate you. It’s not enough. It’s boring, a cop out, a letdown.

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How Does the Unreliability Manifest?

This depends on the cause, but they all still have some basic similarities. Your character may contradict themselves either verbally, mentally, or in actions. For example, they tell another character (or the reader) one thing, but they act in a completely different way.

The simplest example of this is someone saying, “I’m fine!” and then trembling and biting their nails. Obviously, you can’t believe that they’re actually fine. One normal, human hiccup like this doesn’t make an unreliable narrator, though. It’s just one moment.

Another way to show it is through sensory gaps. The character doesn’t notice something they obviously should OR they ignore something they do notice, dismissing it as unimportant. Tricky to pull off in first or third limited point of view. After all, if the character doesn’t notice something, they’re not going to share it with the reader.

A lot of unreliability can come across in tone. Do they get confused, hesitant, over-confident, or start to ramble? These are signs they’re hiding something whether they know it or not.

The Ethical Contract With the Reader

To be frank, I think the main ethical contract writers have with readers is to make the book have an impact. It doesn’t have to be a good one. NOT that we aren’t responsible for writing a good book, but that we can leave the reader with a sense of disquiet, unease, or even anger or sorrow. If the reader wants to throw the book across the room at the end, it better be because the story affected them so much, not because the author wrote so badly.

So, how does that come into play with an unreliable narrator? The reader has to have something to believe in. It helps if they feel like they’re (eventually) let in on the secret that the narrator is hiding.

In my aforementioned book, I’m not sure if I’m going to do this or not. I kinda want readers to be left still wondering if all the fantasy stuff still happened or if it was all in his head. Why? Because it’s disturbing, and I like disturbing things. IF I ever get it done and publish it, it’ll be in the fantasy genre, so people will assume the stuff really happened, I’m sure, just like Oz really happened for Dorothy.

Readers need to have empathy for the main character or narrator. That’s necessary for the enjoyment of books, I think. Even if they hate them, there has to be something they can understand and connect with. That humanizes them, which brings me all the way back to how human it is to be unreliable.

Off to write…

Romance gets picked on a lot because the readers are predominantly female. Good ol’ misogyny, huh?

The Theme of IWD 2026 - “Give to Gain.”

It’s mostly about developing a mindset of working together, being generous, and donating (time, money, energy, etc.) to equality and women-centric organizations and causes.

It made me think of one of the common quotes I see kicking around some writers’ groups: “A rising tide lifts all boats,” which has famously been used by JF Kennedy in an economic speech among other politicians, and in a sermon in 1647 in regard to missionary work.

Not the best used meaning of the phrase, if you ask me.

Does a Rising Tide Actually Lift All Boats?

When looked at as an inspirational phrase, the main idea is that when everyone supports each other and elevates their position and mindset, everyone ends up better off than they were before.

I tend to think this is true. Supporting fellow writers or women or whatever group you’re a part of, is a good thing to do.

From a purely selfish perspective, helping others puts you in a better position to get help, recognition, sales, support… whatever it is you’re looking for. You buy my book, I’ll buy yours.

It both makes sense and, unfortunately, doesn’t have too many examples in the real world. It seems the people who step all over others and destroy other’s lives get to the top. Mega yachts float much more easily than little rowboats, I guess.

Does it work for women? There’s unfortunately just as much divide in the realm of womanhood as there is anywhere else these days. What is a woman? (Anyone who identifies as a woman, if you ask me.) What rights should women have? What’s a woman’s role or place? (Ugh.)

Is it possible to lift up other women who don’t want to get lifted? The ones shoving themselves into some usually male-defined roles? I think we still have to try.

And I think a lot of it starts with understanding perspectives and my favorite thing in the world: empathy. Reading books by women writers from all places and walks of life can absolutely help. Supporting different voices gives them a stage to let their needs and wants to be known. A book purchase, a kind word, or a recommendation can help the ride rise. Hopefully it will open some eyes, too.

My words:

• Clock

• Ivy

• Scar

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My Story: (15 Minutes Free-Writing)

The ivy crawled over the window, making the interior of the room a deep green that reminded me of Joe’s eyes for some wild reason. I hadn’t thought about Joe in months, but there he was taking up space in my too-tired mind.

He’d disappeared one night while we crouched on the edge of the sewer water trickling down into the dark. It was a good enough place to stay and wait for the sun – better than a lot of places up top where danger lurked. At least there weren’t dogs or hogs in the sewers. People sometimes.

The ivy shifted with a gathering wind, rustling low in ways that pissed me off. It would be harder to hear anyone approach, and that sometimes meant the difference between sleep and new scars. Having Joe there for a while helped. He liked keeping watch.

Maybe he left when he got tired of keeping watch for someone like me.

I rubbed the scar from the first night without him. It wasn’t anything dramatic, not like the one across my collar bone or the weird puckered one from the gunshot. This was a small thing, less than an inch long and healed smooth and pink. It didn’t mean anything much in the collection of all the others I had, but it reminded me a Joe, and I guess that was something that would stay stuck in my head longer than I expected.

The ivy swayed again, trembling leaves attached to sturdy vines. The crunch of footsteps sounded above the wind, and I tensed. Froze solid in the corner of this old house filled with rubble and plastic.

They got closer, and I could make out two rhythms working their way out of the cracked asphalt and weeds. Two people, maybe like me and Joe for a while, maybe a matched set that wouldn’t live without each other.

Something in my heart ticked over, a little twinge of memory and longing that had no place in whatever was left of the world. The footsteps came even closer, as regular as a clock ticking down from the past to a future I couldn’t even guess.

Who goes there? I remember Mama reading books with castles and knights to me, tucked small and safe in a sleeping bag by a fire. My lips twisted against the temptation to call out and discover that future… make it now. Something smarter in my brain told me to stay still, stay quiet, and hope for them to pass.

A boot scuffed, and one of the people let out a little huff of a laugh. The other murmured something low.

In a second, my mind made up, and I stood up and moved toward the ivy-covered window. I pushed it aside with a shaky hand, leaned out, and opened my mouth to say something.

The people – one tall and gangly in a flapping raincoat and the other shorter in a hoodie and jeans the dry, dusty gray of everything – walked on, hands clasped, not noticing me yearning and wishing and terrified behind them.

They walked on and I sank back onto the rubble, clasped my arms around my knees, and let the deep green take me under and back into memory once more.

---

Well, that was 15 minutes. A rather generic, ill-formed post-apocalyptic idea. In my head, the main character was a young man, scrawny and tired, with straw-blond hair and threadbare jeans.

Ray Bradbury once said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

Several years ago (probably more than that… time flies), I took this suggestion to heart and started writing short stories as often as possible. Some came directly from my head. Some stemmed from random writing prompts I came across. Others were targeted specifically to submission calls.

I don’t remember who made the suggestion, but I read somewhere to keep seven stories on sub at all times. When a rejection came in, do another sub right away. I wasn’t quite as strict with this plan, but that year I did have several of my shorts published. Won a few contests

.

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I have no clue why I stopped. Well, that’s not entirely true. I undoubtedly stopped for the same reason I stop most things. (Undiagnosed but obvious ADHD) and getting distracted by real life and other projects.

Short Story Submissions – Good Idea?

At this point, I’m not sure how the market for shorts has changed. There are FB groups filled with sub calls I scan sometimes. My bookmarks for Submittable and Submission Grinder still exist. I’ve even collected a few other options to look at.

Is it a good idea to start following Bradbury and whoever’s advice again? What can a writer get out of submitting short stories.

First of all, you can get quite a lot from WRITING short stories. Practice. Feed your creativity. Expand your mind. Have fun. Short stories take a lot less commitment that an entire novel, of course. Finishing something also gives you that all-important dopamine burst.

SUBMITTING short stories is something else. It teaches you to accept and get more comfortable with rejection. That’s an important thing in the writerly world, if you ask me. It’s everywhere.

What Do You Get From Sub Acceptances?

The most obvious benefit is the thrill of having your short story accepted and seeing it in a magazine, anthology book, or – more likely – on a website somewhere. Knowing people can read it is awesome.

You may also get money. In fact, it’s probably a good idea only to submit to places that will pay you something. Maybe you’re not in it for money. Look at it this way: A place that can’t afford to compensate you in any way probably doesn’t have a lot of readers supporting them. Your story will disappear into the ether.

The main alternative to getting paid is if you find a charity or fundraising anthology you want to support. Places that are honestly using the money for a good cause can take my story and hopefully benefit from it.

Hopefully, you also get some recognition of your name. If someone likes your short story, they’ll notice your name and maybe look up your books and buy one or two. Does that make submitting stories a good marketing decision? Eh… not really. Unless you’re getting into the BIG publications or anthologies that have heavy marketing efforts behind them, you won’t see a wild surge in sell-through. It can’t hurt though, can it?

That’s what it comes down to in the end. If you have time, energy, and inclination, writing and submitting short stories can’t hurt… at least not for long.

People reading your book have probably lived some kind of regular, real-world life. They’ve read other books, watched movies, and followed TV series. They even – gasp! – experienced some things that directly affect them, too. They know that fire’s hot, water’s wet, and someone who lies to them will damage their ability to trust.

When you’re writing a story for them to enjoy, you don’t have to tell them these things. You shouldn’t tell them everything.

Why? Because reading is a relationship between the author and the reader.

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Both parties have to come to the experience with the willingness to put in what it takes to make the impact intended. Stop rewarding lazy people who want everything handed to them so they don’t have to think. Support the expansion of thought, empathy, and both technical and emotional intelligence!

So, what does this actually look like for writers?

I read a lot. Like… multiple books per week sometimes. One thing I see too much of in recent, mostly self-published book is… too much. There’s too much explanation and details and telling about pretty much everything.

Part of it, I think, is that the writer feels like they took so much time and energy to come up with everything, that they just have to put it in the book for everyone to enjoy. Another big part is that some writers just don’t know that they’re not supposed to. Others maybe feel like if they don’t over-explain, their readers won’t understand.

I get that. I do that in real life with people in person. It’s a common neurodivergent thing.

In writing. It’s different. Here are some tips that might help:

1 – Your Readers Aren’t Idiots

They’re really not. Trust them to figure stuff out, infer things, deduce, and feel without getting everything spoon fed to them. If they’re not too great at it yet, reading can help them build those skills. They’re important.

2 – Your World Is an Iceberg

Only a small percentage of any setting shows as the characters move through it, but all the other stuff you developed affects what shows. Make your characters live in the world, not give a travelogue or documentary of it.

3 – Avoid Emotional Dumping

This is a bit of a ‘show, don’t tell’ issue a lot of the time. Don’t tell readers how to feel or what emotions they should be experiencing. This often backfires.

4 – Don’t Double-Up on Description

If one of your characters drools and has heart-eyes for another character in chapter one, you don’t have to point out that they’re attracted to them in chapter two. Once you establish that the alien has three tentacles, you don’t have to mention every single thing all three tentacles are doing in every scene (unless it matters).

5 – Stop Repeating Everything

Too many writers show… and then tell the same thing right afterward. This is boring, repetitive, and wastes words. Your reader just saw a thing happen. They don’t need you to also tell them what happened.

Extra Note on Fantasy Writing

Fantasy is, by definition, more reliant on world-building and in-depth explanations about stuff that doesn’t exist in the real world. No one has ever come across a magic system on their way to the supermarket or met a centaur on the subway. (Well, maybe in NYC.)

You have to explain and show more, but that doesn’t mean you should allow things like those listed above. Even the hardest magic system ever written doesn’t need an entire book’s worth of explanation about exactly how many eyes of newts or fairy wing dust scoops are needed to make the Elixir of Blargh. The readers want to know how your character got their fairy wings and if they messed up and accidentally made a Potion of Blick instead.

It all comes down to one simple truth: your readers are smarter than you think… OR they have the ability to get smarter by reading your book. Even the fluffiest, easiest read can teach people things. Don’t insult them by over-explaining, being repetitive, or hand-holding through their imagination.

Read Across America Week is organized by the National Education Association. It started in 1998 and coincides with Dr. Seuss’s birthday. It’s not just about encouraging kids to read more and supporting literacy, but to read diverse books that actually teach them about things, places, people, and situations outside their own little worlds.

It’s kind of amazing that the ‘national’ anything is still supporting diversity (and books) these days, isn’t it?

What’s the point of Read Across America Week?

To promote literacy, encourage a love of reading in young people, and to challenge them to read more diverse and inclusive stories.

How is it celebrated?

In most cases, schools make kids read more, do activities surrounding books and reading, and maybe (hopefully!) introduce more culturally diverse stories.

Like most things schools and community groups do these days, they often host Read-a-thons that double as fundraisers. Friends or family members sponsor kids’ reading achievements and raise money for the organization. Doesn’t it suck that schools need to get parents to pay their kids to read instead of the government actually funding education appropriately?

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What can you do to help?

Support fundraisers, give donations, work in book drives, stick more diverse books in Free Little Libraries, read to your kids, read on your own to set a good example.

But I forgot about it. Is this a sign that my brain is slipping? I am 51, after all, and I guess I could start getting that age-related forgetfulness thing (perimenopause, too, which can contribute! Sorry for anyone who doesn’t want a bit of real life sprinkled in here, but more women need to talk about the reality of stuff, I think.)

The novel was a mess of fantasy cliches when I wrote it, and it still has quite a few. There’s an illegitimate prince, assassin, secret thieves’ group with strange ties to the crown, evil wizard guy trying to seize power, forbidden magic… I even threw in some romance. It even has a prologue! I started this novel literally decades ago.

I still like the story.

The characters still intrigue me. The plotline is fun, I think. But is it worth publishing?

I’m one of those strange writers, it seems, who don’t believe that everything I write is publishable. So many others I meet (usually younger and less experienced) think their first novel should be great and worthy of publication. Maybe it’s learning? Maybe it’s self-doubt? (I have TONS of that, too. Whoever told you confidence naturally grows with age was lying.)

Why I put off stories I think are pretty close to done.

Fear mostly. It’s funny. I’ve published over 20 books on other pen names (I write various types of romance and non-fiction, too.) and haven’t had the angst I feel when I consider publishing more under M. Lori Motley. Maybe because this matters more; it feels more like ME.

Maybe I have to pretend to be brave just like I’ve done for most of my life and just get things out there. It’s not like I’m expecting a runaway bestseller.

I’m rambling…

Some people don’t want to learn. Some don’t even seem to believe that they have to learn. Some think they’ve learned and spout out incorrect stuff all the time, getting defensive if anyone contradicts them.

That might sound like what I’m doing right now.

Writing is the one place where I actually feel like I know what I’m doing. Most of the time. That doesn’t mean I believe everything I write is a masterpiece, and it certainly doesn’t mean I never get stuck or uncertain about how to write something. Claiming that would be ludicrous, and I wouldn’t trust anyone who does. I’ve been writing (outside of school) for 30+ years, though, and I really, really love learning stuff.

This isn’t supposed to be an article about me. It’s supposed to be about Point of View (POV). The term’s struggling some at the moment. Have you seen those videos that dub themselves POV thing? And then they’re just a normal video? What does that even mean?

Never mind that every single video or book or poem or anything is from someone’s POV.

What Is Point of View?

It’s about who (or what) is the person viewing or experiencing whatever’s going on. In fiction writing, it’s either an independent narrator or a character.

POV in writing is also first person, second person, or third person.

First Person = I

I never knew that frogs got frustrated when you walked near ponds at midnight.

Second Person = You

You could never trick a vampire into a meeting at the park.

Third Person = He/She/They/It

They strolled through the labyrinth, casually knitting the yarn they left to find their way out into a stylish scarf.

That’s all just word use, though. That’s simple to remember. In writing, POV is about a lot more than that. It’s about intention, character (or narrator) voice, and such.

First Person

The character is telling, showing, experiencing, and describing the story, their inner thoughts, feelings, and everything else. They’re living it. The writing should reflect who they are, how they speak, etc.

In first person, you would never use big, fancy words if your character is a country bumpkin with only a fourth-grade education. You would never describe how things look if the character is blind.

Second Person

In general, you wouldn’t use this at all unless you’re writing a Choose Your Own Adventure type book.

Third Person

There are two main types of third person POV: limited and omniscient. Limited is also called close sometimes, and there are varying degrees of closeness.

Limited means you write from the POV of one character (at a time). You still reflect their thoughts, feelings, and experiences completely like in first person.

Omniscient means the POV comes from a god-like being who knows all, sees all, and isn’t limited to one character at all. It’s not as popular anymore, and some people try it and end up head-hopping instead.

Head-hopping is bad. Why? It looks sloppy and can be confusing. What’s the difference? Head-hopping is when the POV jumps around from one character to the next. Omniscient has an external narrator (not a character usually) who is, well, omniscient.

Head-Hopping

Mitzy crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip. Bob was always pissed off at her.

Bob sighed and imagined murder techniques he’d heard about on his true crime podcast. Mitzy was overreacting again. She should just calm down.

POV is bouncing around like a rubber ball without any cohesive structure or intention.

Omniscient

Mitzy crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip. She always assumed Bob was an angry guy in general, but this cemented it. She could see it was her that was the common denominator.

Bob’s mind filled with true crime podcast techniques. He wished she would just calm down and listen for once but didn’t know how to say that in a way that wouldn’t make her more upset.

It wasn’t about the dandelion bouquet. This argument played out the same no matter what triggered the same old feelings of resentment.

There’s one narrator that moves smoothly through the experience with a stable voice and higher awareness of what’s going on. It’s not just what they’re doing or what’s in their heads. It also gives insight into the situation.

What POV Is Not

Point of view has nothing to do with passive voice. It has nothing to do with present or past tense. It has nothing to do with show vs. tell. All these things can affect first person or third person stories in similar ways.

I’ve seen people claim that first person can ONLY be written in present tense. People have said that omniscient is a cop-out because the writer gets to explain everything. Some writers even say that head-hopping is fine (ack – gag – bluck). We have to have some standards!

These statistics get thrown around a lot. They’re terrifying and disturbing, but they’re also a bit challenging to understand. When a lot of people think ‘illiterate,’ they imagine someone who can’t read at all. Those people absolutely do exist, but there are levels to ability and understanding. There are also TONS of reasons why people never really learned to read on a higher level.

WHAT Is a Sixth-Grade Reading Level?

For people who attended high school or college, reading at a sixth-grade level sounds really bad. It’s not as dire as you might think.

Novels commonly read at this level include:

· Hatchett by Gary Paulson

· Anne of Green Gables by L. M Montgomery

· A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

· Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Examples of vocabulary words studies in sixth grade include:

· Analyze

· Perspective

· Consequence

· Independent

· Civilization

For most people, this level of literacy is quite fine. They can read instruction manuals, texts from friends, how-to articles, and plenty of entertaining and fulfilling things.

WHY Are People Illiterate?

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Three main problems exist in this country that explain why people are illiterate.

1 – Learning Disabilities

Conditions like dyslexia affect up to 20% of the population, and many kids don’t get diagnosed… ever. Why not? Because the underfunded and under supported public education system doesn’t have what it needs to do so, the programs to help, and prefers to push ‘problem children’ through to someone else’s problem than actually help them.

Up to 50% of the prison population in the US has dyslexia (and 80% is functionally illiterate). If you think this is because people who don’t or can’t read are more violent or evil, you need to examine that mindset more closely.

2 – Underfunded and Under-supported Education

Kinda covered this already. Lower income area schools don’t have money for reading specialists, learning centers, diagnostics, or the best teachers. They also have to deal with more social/socioeconomic issues that take up a lot of time and energy… and passion. I can imagine it’s hard to maintain enthusiasm for extracurricular help for the kids who need it in the face of the government taking away free lunch so the kids can actually grow, thrive, and learn.

3 – Social / Socioeconomic Challenges

Generational poverty. Interrupted schooling. Parentification of older kids. Cultural anti-intellectual or anti-education attitudes. There are people out there who are proud they’ve never read a book… Although really, that pride is probably a mask for lack of self-confidence or ability. It’s easy to hate (or pretend to hate) what you don’t understand.

When you live in a place where the powers that be are actively working AGAINST education, expanding knowledge and experience, diversity, and critical thinking, things are only going to get worse.

What Can We Do About Literacy?

On a societal level, a lot, but we can’t even get everyone to agree that LGBTQ+ people deserve to live, or that food is a human right, or that people with different colored skin are still human.

What can we do on a personal level? Support literacy foundations and organizations. Volunteer if possible. Many, many schools and libraries (Universe bless libraries!) have literacy help programs. Donate books to daycare centers, schools, and prisons.

Read to your kids. Not just when they’re four years old and you’re trying to get them to sleep. Read to them a lot all the time. Make them care about books. Turn off the tablet and phone and have reading time for 20 minutes a day. Lead by example.

Why should we all care?

This is a tricky question for a lot of people, less so for people who read. Why? Because reading helps build empathy. You have to put yourself into characters’ points of view in order to enjoy the stories. That translates into improved understanding of the people and situations around you.

Also, reading offers exposure and information about pretty much everything that you can’t get if you stick with social media posts or video shorts in your chosen topic. The more widely people read, the more they know and accept the world around them. It opens eyes, minds, and hearts.

The world needs more of this. Our country definitely does. There are plenty of people in power right now who don’t want us to know what’s going on or be able to think critically about it. They don’t want us to see the person next door or on the other side of the world as more similar than not. They want to be able to trick people into a status quo that benefits them, not us. The ability to read and understand – and the regular practice of it – AND helping others expand their own horizons, too – fights against all this.

It’s a really good way to escape and de-stress sometimes, too. And we all need that.

What started as some Catholic saint martyrdom thing turned into the romantic hearts and flowers holiday hundreds of years ago. Now, it’s an excuse to eat Conversation Hearts and chocolate. (Although have you seen the new hearts? They’re all weirdly smooth with laser-engraved messages like ‘YAAAS’ and a smile emoji.) I still like the things, but I like Necco wafers, too.

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But I’m not talking about Valentine’s Day

Besides this celebration of love (and commercialism, like most holidays these days), February 14^th is also International Book-Giving Day. This lesser-known holiday was invented in 2012 by some bloggers and children’s book authors. The goal was to spread love in a much better way: by giving people (especially kids) books.

I like this holiday much better. Books are much more valuable than heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. It’s a lot more enjoyable to sit at home reading than it is to brave brunch crowds of other people trying to impress their loved ones.

I’m not cynical about romance. I think love is great. Books, though….

Why is giving people books so incredibly important?

There are a whole bunch of statistics floating around about literacy rates falling, the number of people reading for pleasure every year dwindling, and book sales decreasing. There are far too may news stories about evil people in power banning books or speaking out against exploring new ideas, diverse opinions, and anything that expands horizons.

Books are portals to other worlds. Even if you don’t read fantasy. Even if you stick with academic non-fiction. They still open doors to new ideas and critical thinking. Reading improves literacy. Books are hands-down THE most important thing kids can have access to beyond the basic necessities of life. (Hey, isn’t it interesting how the people who want to ban books also work to end programs that give kids access to food?)

How do you pick the right book gift for someone you care about?

If they’re already a reader, it’s easy. Pick something they don’t have in a genre they love. You can buy used. You can drive them to the library. Things don’t have to be expensive.

If they’re not a reader, you can still find amazing books that align with their interests. Consider graphic novels, audio books, or art books with a lot of pictures. Make it an experience. If you have the time and inclination, create a little Book Club for Two and read the same book at the same time so you can chat about it.

Picking books for kids is easy, too. You can either challenge them or help them fall in love with reading. Throw in a box of conversation hearts, too, just to sweeten the deal.

How am I celebrating?

I’m single (happily divorced forever) and have no intention of any romantic entanglements, so Valentine’s Day is nothing to me. Book giving day? That sounds a lot better. If nothing else, I’m going to treat myself to something from my long To-Be-Read pile.

Open some doorways. Fly through a portal or two. Expand my mind.

The good stuff. Happy holiday to you all!