The Delightful Lightness of Writing as an Amateur

I have, from day one, approached my author/publishing career as an amateur. I have had no regrets for doing so. Indeed, it was the best decision I've made both as a writer and a publisher. It made both writing and publishing simply fun, as it should be, since, as a decade in the business has shown me, writing fiction is a rotten career; a "career" where failure is the norm. Take it seriously at your own (considerable) risk.

I should define the term "amateur" as I mean it. I take up the banner of K G Chesterton who defended the amateur in his biography of Robert Browning thusly:

“The word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.”

Or, as he put it more succinctly; “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”

The brilliance of this approach is that, while it allows for success on your own terms, it eliminates failure, save, once more, on your own terms. And if one focuses on the love of, in this case, writing, failure is found only in the sense that one thinks one can, hopefully, do it a little better the next time. Little "failures". Really, these little failures are merely challenges to build on, the spice of life, rather than a real failure. Besides, success is always built on failures. So whether something one writes seems to work or doesn't, it's always a matter of choice, your choice alone.

And irrelevant. 

Irrelevant because the only thing that is relevant is the making of the art, the writing of the story, and the joy of doing so, not the results. Creating is what is relevant. The result will, hopefully, give you joy as well, but if not, you just dive back into the process that you enjoy to produce something better.

The delightful lightness of approaching writing, or any creative endeavor, as an amateur, is the freedom the amateur mindset gives you to create, or attempt to create, exactly what your heart desires. No norms to comply with, no markets to serve, no accolades, rewards, or the mirage of wealth to bend and shape your creation into something that isn't entirely yours. As an amateur those considerations don't, or at least, need not matter. You have the freedom to pick and choose what you think should matter, and what doesn't. You can even try to make a commercial success out of writing, if you care too, just as long as you remember that it is just a game, and the odds are heavily against you. You can do just what you want, and how you want to do it. No compromises are necessary.

This is the thread that runs through the joy of approaching art as an amateur; it gives you freedom, and along with that freedom, comes the control you have over the entire process. You are your own master, answering to no one. How many things in life can you say that?

Freedom and control! The ability to keep your work entirely yours. To create a work of art rather than produce a product. The professional writer, a producer of a product, must become a clog in the machine, a small part of a bigger enterprise, over which the writer has little control over.

Still, if the rewards of the professional approach to writing compensated for the loss of freedom and control, I wouldn't kick. But they don't. It is estimated that 1 in 1000 manuscripts get published in traditional publishing, and only 1 in 10 of those lucky few are still getting published ten years later, i.e. you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a ten year plus long career as an author. Then consider the fact that most of those authors are aren't actually making a professional income from their work, despite being "professionals". Indeed, for most writers, no matter what they call themselves, their writing is only a part time job, a paying a hobby. And the same is true for most self-publishing authors, even those with professional aspirations, since the vast majority are probably making pocket change, if not losing money, when trying to meet the "professional" standards promoted by the people who may actually make their living off of selling their services to authors.

But enough negativity. I'm here to celebrate the lightness of playing with words, with characters of one's own imagination, and with a story of one's own to tell. And the challenge of doing it just right, by your own lights. And to write the next one even better.

And maybe someday, should you may find that you're not afraid of making a fool of yourself. That you think what you've created is good, at least good enough. It's something you can share with whoever you want to, however you want to, all the while remembering that, as Chesterton, points out, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Failing is not an option when sharing, even if you charge money for your story, since making money is not your goal. It is the doing of it, the writing, the creation, that is what is what is worth doing. Making it is yours, and yours alone.

Have fun writing!

 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 110)

 

This week, in keeping with my recent theme of wandering outside of my well trodden "cow paths" of reading, we have a work of psychological literary fiction. 

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Winter Journeys by Audrey Driscoll  B

Winter Journeys tells a deep and dark story of Llona Miller, a woman who never quite finds her place in the world. Not in our world, anyway. Llona's life's story is told in two interwoven streams of narration. One is set in 2007 and is told mostly in third person narration. The other is set in 1987-88 and has Llona herself narrating her life as an education major senior in a Canadian college.

The 2007 story line recounts the life of the now 40-something year-old Llona after she is laid off from an office job she'd held for three years. It had been the best job she's ever had and she does not take being laid off very well. Not well at all. She quickly, and seemingly helplessly, falls into a deep depression, and perhaps paranoia. She becomes a bitter, unpleasant person, angry at the world she's never quite fit comfortably into and the life she's had to live, as she makes halfhearted, and unsuccessful, attempts to find a new job. 

Llona's own 1987-88 story turns back the clock, recounting her experiences as a college senior in a collage educational program - a program that she does not really want to be in, but is taking to please her down-to-earth parents who believe that an expensive college education should lead of a job. Huh? 

Given a chance to take a course outside of her education field of study, she chooses a course on German Romantism. Though out of her element, it leads to her discovery of the works of Schubert and his Winterreise song cycle in particular. She finds herself powerfully drawn to the romantic world of a spurned lover who sets out on a winter's journey, especially when sung by Julian Northridge. He becomes something of her ghost-lover, taking over her imagination and her life.

Through her narration the reader is introduced to something of the history of Schubert's and his song cycle of the winter's journey of a spurned lover.

This obsession leads to a life-defining traumatic experience. 

Since I generally don't go into plot details in my reviews, I will only say in Winter's Journey Audrey Driscoll spins a very powerful and atmospheric story, a deep psychological study of an unhappy, socially awkward person, someone who is drawn into the romantic ideal, that is to say, of following one's feelings regardless of where they may lead.

Drawn far too deeply into that dark romantic ideal.

Those songs, her unhappiness, and her ghost-singer lead her to, many years later to, well, a winter's walk of her own. And perhaps another ghost, one who plays a harmonica.

I must admit that this type of story isn't my cup of tea see my criteria above. This disconnect is reflected in my grade. This is not a light novel and I found it impossible to connect with or like the protagonist. I recently watched several booktubers talk about a book called Mistic River by Dennis Lehane. That book, as well as in a number of Stephen King novels, explores the effects of trauma on young people and how it effects their life. Some get over it, others are never able to get beyond it. This story explores trauma's effect on the life of Llana, who is one of those people who never gets over her traumatic experience. As such, it is a story for the many readers who like deep character studies, and dark places. If you are one of them, you will find this a finely written, intense, and I would think very satisfying read.

The Darval-Mers Dossier All Ebooks & Audiobooks Now Available!

Redinal “Red” Hu had been given a simple message to deliver. ‘If you care for her, stop seeing her.’

A message that could be considered either wise advice, or a dark warning. Considering that it was delivered to the young scion of one of the wealthy Great Houses of the Commonwealth of Lorria, it was probably both. Especially when, with only a little investigation, Hu discovers that the “her” in the message is the future Head of the House of a bitter rival.

Alas, young love.

Young love between the contending Great Houses had always been a daring and dangerous thing. But never more so than during the ruthless secret struggles between the Great Houses that ruled Lorria which soon led to the Humanist Manifesto and the Second Founding.

The Darval-Mers Dossier is a mystery story set in the world of Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, some fifteen hundred years prior to those stories, which is to say, in the era when the advanced technology of the First Founding was fast failing, and a new course of society had yet to be decided on.

It is written as if it was the prequel novel to a series of fictional novels of intrigue known as the Red Wine Agency books which played a role in the novel Chateau Clare. The Darval-Mers Dossier is the story of how Redinal Hu, an ex-attorney, now majordomo of one of the Great Houses of Lorria – with a sideline gig of taking on odd assignments for his old law firm – becomes Red Wine, a gentleman for hire, serving the Great Houses in their secret struggle to shape the future of the Commonwealth.

C. Litka spins tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richly imagined worlds. In The Darval-Mers Dossier he has a written mystery story with his usual cast of colorful, fully realized characters. If you seek to escape your everyday life, you’ll find no better company, nor more wonderful worlds to explore, than in the stories of C. Litka.

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Missed Me by Just Sixty Feet and Six Years

 

Ever since watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid, I've wanted to see a real tornado. Tornados are such a (relatively) rare, deadly, yet whimsical phenomena, something larger than life, seemingly out of fantasy. They're vast, whirling Jinns, dancing destructively across the face of the earth, meteorological explanations be damned. They kill people, they level homes. Something you really don't want to meet. Nevertheless...

In July 2020 I did get to see a very small and brief tornado from the top of our hill, here in Eau Claire. Below is a photograph of the funnel cloud.

It lasted less than a minute, barely touching ground, and it could be viewed from  a nice safe distance. The place where you want to view one.

Fast forwarding to the present, or rather to 15 May of 2025. A line of storms swept across Wisconsin with a number of tornadoes embedded in it, fortunately they were fairly small ones that did not level towns like the ones elsewhere the following day. The sirens sounded here in Eau Claire twice. My son Jack was visiting us on his way to Nester Falls Canada for spring fishing with my brothers, brother-in-law and some other friends, guys who've been going up for opening week for the last 50 years. But I digress. Jack is also intrigued with tornados and follows all the storm trackers on YouTube as well as using the radar they use to identify tornados on his phone. So we stood in the parking lot and watched the sky and radar for the potential tornados that where heading our way. They missed Eau Claire, though the south side of town got battered with golf ball sized hail. And then, during the following weeks everyone in town was battered by calls from roofers who descend like locus where hail damaged roofs will need to be replaced. I digress yet again.

However, later that afternoon, a small F2 tornado with 120mph wind briefly touched down in Juneau Wisconsin, which is the town where we lived for over 30 years before we moved to Eau Claire six years ago. Below is the track of that tornado in relation to the little town. I have a couple of shots taken by the storm tracker's drone flying around where the "X" is on the map. All the little triangles are reports of various levels of damage. Most of the damage to the west (left) were trees down and windows broken. It was on the Main Street's north end where roofs were taken off and houses damaged. 

The photo below is the drone shot looking south. I have indicated where our old house is. It is hidden in the trees, but the street you can see turning towards the drone is Meadow Lane. On the left side of the photo you can get a glimpse of where the heaviest damage begins. If you want to see more pictures, the live stream on YouTube is still available HERE and  you will have to scroll to around the 5:15 hour section to find the footage.

Below is  map with a closer focus on the location of our house, the house in black, relative to the track of the tornado as determined by those who investigate such things. Meadow Lane is a bit off kilter to the houses, offset to the west (left).

The hardest hit area is just above this map along Main Street. I think the fact that those houses where on the ridge, and maybe 20 feet higher than our house meant that they were more exposed. I also think that because our house was tucked under the ridge, the wind hitting the ridge may've lifted the funnel just a little, as there don't seem to be trees down in our yard, and we had plenty of them.

And just to put the tornado track in scale, there is a photo of our house as it is today from Google Street View taken from the street in front of our house where the tornado is said to have traveled along. 

Below is a wider view (a screen shot, so the detail isn't very good) of the destruction along Main Street within half an hour of the tornado. There was a storm chaser following it and he sent up the drone. The big tan building is the nursing home. It lost a lot of windows. Beyond it was an ex-motel, now apartments which lost most of their roof, and the power line poles were down all along the road beyond.

I haven't run across any photos of the tornado itself. I gather that it was "rain-wrapped", i.e. the funnel was in the midst of the rain & hail, so it couldn't be seen. So I didn't actually miss much had we still been living there. The good think is that only one person was injured, and of course a number of people were left homeless and lost a lot of their property. Still it could've been far worse.

We have tornados in Wisconsin every year, though the ones that level large swaths of towns are a once in 30-40 year storms or so, unlike on the great plains and the deep south. But considering earthquakes, forest fires, flash floods, and hurricanes, I don't think we can kick too much about our tickets to Oz.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.109)

 

Having signed up for Kindle Unlimited, I have embarked on a quest to find something after Emma M Lion to make my $.99 worth it. Not that I need to do so, as Emma is worth far more than that. But well, I should see if there are any other treasures buried in Kindle Unlimited millions of books.

I picked out several, stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. One was You Are Here, by David Nicholls, billed as a funny love story. I read several pages and found the vibe not to my taste. Plus, it is set in the present day, which is a setting I have no interest in. What was I thinking? I'm not even going to count that as a DNF. I also picked up the book below, mostly on its title.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

What comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown  DNF 55%

From the title I thought it might be a cleverly written book, which is what I love in books. From the title, it appeared to be a light fantasy romance novel. Still, I thought it might be worth my time, of which I have plenty. However, as I started reading it, it became increasingly clear that not only was I not the target audience, which I knew going into it, but that it was far from clever. It became ever more simple and boring as the story went along. No stakes. The characters were pretty basic. The plot, rather silly. YA. 

Still, I suppose I should review it. 

The female protagonist, Hester, is a spunky hick from the sticks, who decides to attend, without an invitation, the "Commoners Ball" at the palace with an eye to getting a good meal. At the door she is told that without an invitation she can't get in. Commoners means non-royalty, not any old riff-raff subject.

Enter the two princes. Lucas, the elder and serious one who is expected to marry a princess, and Hugh, the carefree and mischievous one. Hugh, as a joke, saves Hester from being kicked out of the ball. They then run into Lucas at the ball. Lucas falls for Hester, and she for him... but of course, she's just a farm girl in the big city, and he's the crown prince whose duty is to marry the princess his father wants him to. 

Later, Hugh has fun taking Hester, against her will, around town and to the palace. However, he sees that his serious older brother is attracted to Hester, and seems to be trying to get them together, for some purpose of his own. Which I'll never find out, since I couldn't get to the end of the book.

While it isn't listed as an young adult book, it certainly is. If not a middle grade book. While I know a lot of adults read young adult books, I'm not one of them. So, as you can see, while I gave it a chance, the longer I read it (it's a fast read) the more juvenile and tedious the story becomes. And I simply decided that neither the characters. story, nor the writing had anything to offer to me, so I called it a day.

Now, if you discount the fact that I'm not its target audience, the author has succeeds in what she likely set out to do - in her debut book even! - which is to write a lighthearted retelling of Cinderella that has managed to find its audience. Which is very impressive. It was released this past September, (2024) and in March 2025 it has a 4.5 star rating with 1,800 ratings and is currently the 2,928th best selling book on Amazon, This ranking means that the book is selling over 1,200 copies a month. This is an impressive debut for a self-published author. Hats off to Mrs Brown.

Oh well, I had been only reading this to keep me from finishing the Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion, too fast. Nothing but a few hours lost. I can afford them.

The Darval-Mers Dossier in Paperback

 

The Darval-Mers Dossier is now available in paperback for $9.99 on Amazon. You can find it here. The ebook version is now available for preorder on Amazon here for $2.99. It will be released on 5 June 2025. With an audiobook version to follow shortly afterwards for $3.99.

The free ebook versions of the book will be available from Google, Apple, Smashwords, B & N, et al on or before 29 May 2025, with the free audiobook version on the Google Play Store following shortly, and from Apple whenever Apple gets around to releasing it. Stay tuned for the exact date!

The Yin and Yang of Writing

Isn't it rich? 

Isn't it queer?

Losing my timing this late

In my career?

-- Send in the Clowns

It's not my timing that I've lost. Indeed, it has nothing to do with losing anything. Rather it's discovering something, this late in my career, that gives me the same melancholy feeling as the words of that song does. At 75, I am late in my career, and I regret not realizing there is a yin and a yang in writing until now.

I am not pretending that I discovered something new. While I've not taken courses in writing, I have no doubt what I've discovered on my own is taught, in some form or another, in writing classes. I could've Googled it to find out. 

But I didn't.

Because I wanted to talk about how and what I discovered as a personal tale, rather than as a lesson.

What I realized is that there is a yin and a yang in writing - as there is in all things. This realization came to me while reading Beth Brower's The Uncollected Journals of Emma M. Lion. Or more precisely, in rereading them. 

Yin and yang, usually symbolized by the circle above, can be thought of as a combination of opposite, but interconnected forces, that interact to form a dynamic system with the whole greater than the two parts. These forces are fluid, each with the seed (the little circle) of its opposite within it. The white "yang" is considered active, expansive, bright, open, and male, while the black "yin" is reactive, passive, dark, mysterious, and female. Everything has elements of both within them, in varying degrees, at various times. 

Including writing.

Though in the case of writing stories, the  colors of yin and yang are usually reversed. Black, or the color of the ink, is the active force of yang in writing. It is the color of the letters, the words, and the sentences that drive the story forward, the active, expansive force of the story. The yin, in writing, is white, or the paper. This yin has two characteristics, the visual - the light space surrounding the dark lines and blocks of words. And the metaphorical, in the sense of making up all the parts of the story that are left out as unnecessary, implied, unsaid, and/or left a mystery. 

It is the importance of yin, the white space, in writing that only now has struck me. I came to realize this because the Emma M Lion books are written as journals. As such they are composed of a series of dated entries, sometimes just a line or two, and sometime brief paragraphs separated by time and subject, and at other times verbatim transcriptions of scenes and dialogs. The variety of these different types of entries, and the variety of the white spaces that enclose them, eventually struck me as intralegal to the story and the way it's told. But these books have a a lot of metaphorical white spaces as well, which are even more powerful. Beth Brower, in writing as if we are reading a journal, often leaves things unsaid, half said, implied, or simply mysterious. It is the brevity of words, descriptions, or events that opened my eyes to how one can use the yin of writing - the lack of writing - to enhance the story. What you don't write is every bit as important as what you do set down in words.

To take one example; she has one character who limps from a mysterious injury. Other than being tall, his character is described in terms of a looming storm. She  didn't need to do more than that for us to build our own image of a man, brooding, with contained, but pent up energy. In addition, he, like all the other characters, major and minor, have pasts, parts of which are slowly revealed in little episodes over the course of many books. This is the metaphorical "white space" of writing; the things not described in words, but implied. This yin of things not said serves to hold the interest of the reader every bit as much as what is said. And it implies that even the minor characters, which we know very little about, will, someday, step forward and play their part in the story as it goes on. This is the power of white space, of the mysterious yin.

I hope to give more mind on this type of white space going forward. What can I leave out, hint at, mention in passing, or suggest?  Is it important? Or is it busy work? Is an elaborate description essential? These, of course, are judgement calls, but considering that if not saying something works better than stating it, will probably make me a better writer. It can also regulate the rhythm and pace of the story - sometimes  saying less speeds things up, sometimes saying less pauses the story a beat or two as the reader considers the little mystery resulting from not saying everything, depending on what is said.

As someone who uses ten words were five would do, this realization has had a profound impact on me. Not that I was totally unaware of this on an instinctive level. Often those five extra words are there because the come from the character within the story who is narrating the story, and is used to build the character. But now, by putting a name of the art of saying less, it will make me more mindful of what needs to be said, and what needs not to be said, even by the character. 

But this yin, this white space, is more than mere word count. 

I also have come to appreciate restraint in making everything crystal clear. Everything doesn't have to be spelled out. I think you can trust readers to read between the lines. And sometimes it might be useful to keep them wondering, not quite sure what exactly is going on - that's life, after all. Readers find the mysteries fascinating. Why cheat them of the fun of wondering? There will always come a proper time to clear up mysteries, if they're important. Until then, I think you can use hints and little mysteries as story-strands, threads, that tie readers to the story and pull them along through it. 

In summery, seeing the story as both words said and unsaid will make me mindful of what I'm saying, how it needs to be said, and if it needs to be said.

I've also come to realize that there is the physical yin as well in books. The yin of what you see on the page. In how you use white space visually. The white space on the page is an important as the text. Ideally, a page contains an interesting play of dark text, words sentences and paragraph, and light white space giving a sense of solidness when required, as well as a lively fleetingness, a rhythm of fast passages and slow ones; yin and yang when it is appropriate in the story.

For example, long paragraphs of dialog can make for speeches instead of conversations. Massive paragraphs of description can make for slow reading. Or skimming. Visually they are large, square, solid blocks of text. And when you consider the text as the yang of writing - the driving force of the story, these large, square blocks of text are hardly an active and driving force in the story. They can bring the pace of the story to a crawl. The opposite of what the text should be doing.

Of course, there are many reasons, many moods, and variety of pacing necessary in stories. At the proper time, blocks of text can serve a proper purpose in a story. As does lines of text that run, dance, and play like a brook, in the "air" of white space, when such liveliness is needed. In considering the feeling one wants to create, I think that one needs to not only consider the words, but how they are arranged on the page. How they look, not just how they read.

English has all sorts of rules on how to construct sentences and paragraphs, which, if take literally, will make one's writing formal. Creative writing is a different beast altogether, which need not, or should not, be constrained by formality.  

The mindful use of white space on a page by they mindful use of lines of text and length of paragraphs, will, I think, make for better, more evocative writing. It is a matter of writing with a rhythm, rather than as a dull drone. 

So, my takeaway with my discovery of the yin and yang of writing is that visually and metaphorically I need to open my eyes to what I want to say, what I need to say, and what is just as important, what I don't need to say. And to say it with a pattern of light and darkness, lines and spaces, that dance.