I have already put up one post on my illness. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes less is just less.
I can’t decide which this falls into.
One of the complications of my disease is that for whatever reason, periodically I go through what I call ‘relapses,’ weeks or months where it feels like I teeter on the edge of a paralytic episode all day, every day. When I am fighting off episodes of paralysis, during these periods of relapse or in the normal course of the disease, I seem to lose my ability to reason clearly. I call those ‘mud-brain days’ because it is like thinking through mud.
Last year when I was preparing my first book, Temper the Wind, I was in the middle of a relapse. I had two versions of the book that I was trying to blend into a single coherent whole. I thought I was doing fine, but I was not. Just how ‘not fine’ I was is glaringly obvious to anyone who purchased my book during that first month.
Every now and again I run into a review from some poor soul who purchased my book during that time and never got the notice from Amazon that a revised edition was available. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t make these notices obvious, and the buyers have to do a bit of digging (which they, of course, don’t know they need to do) to find it!
I owe so much to my very first reviewer, a woman who was much kinder to me than my first efforts deserve. She gave me 4 stars and her review reads as follows:
“This book reminded me of the biblical story of Rachel. The book flowed well and was interesting. The reason it’s a 4 star instead of 5 is there are several places in the book where the author repeated entire sentences. If you like historicals, this is a must read.”
To Amazon reviewer ReMMick, I say, A Thousand Thank you‘s for your generous review and for preventing me from humiliating myself any further!
If you purchased Temper the Wind prior to June 18, 2013, my most abject apologies. A clean version is available, and you should be able to get it.
And I promise that I will listen to my body better, and not let urgency, excitement, or idiocy get in the way of producing a clean edition of each successive book.
(original blog date 5/18/2014)
