October was a better month for me (even though I’ve got all of a day left), managed to add another 15,000 words so Death: Diaspora is now around 82,000 or a little over half-way through. Half-way? you ask, well, yes, remember I’m actually still writing the hexalogy as a trilogy (just to keep you, dear reader, and my publisher on your toes) so the 250,000 word goal is for books 3 and 4, Death: Diaspora and Death: Deceit.

Part of the reason for doing a little more this month is my putting the tv and devices in the dungeon (i.e. The Chez Soledad Spare Room of Eternal Damnation) and keeping it locked and off-limits until, well, forever. All we ever watched was the news but it’s so full of Trump, Harris and all the assorted malarkey (a favourite word from one of my favourite comedians) that it kept me wound up all night unable to slide back into creativity. Dump the news, dump the dumps. If I was Confucius or Sun Tzu I’d come up with a better, balanced saying, or even Nostradamus and you’d get a quatrain, but that’ll have to do.

The only thought writing-wise I have this month (apart from the above) is about a wonderful tension that the writing community lives under, and one that the community in Death: Diaspora and the subsequent volumes never quite reconcile; that of being a cooperative group hell-bent on competition.

Once the manuscript’s done, an author’s mind turns to sales as surely as a young man’s does to lust in spring, and regardless of what is said by economists and advertising execs the market is limited. Huge perhaps, but finite. So by definition we authors, and publishers, while not being at each others throats are in there competing for the hard earned dollars our limited market of readers have, and woe betide those of us in niche genres, it is even smaller, tougher and more competitive. Jump ahead (or back) in time to being an author in the process of writing or editing and social media is full of like-minded, gentle souls who encourage every pen/key stroke, make the appropriate happy noises at rudimentary cover art, and are more than willing to share their advice, time and knowledge to any who ask.

At this point both Richard Dawkins and the entire patriarchal line of the Medici’s are screaming in my mind, reminding me that it all could be the worst form of subterfuge, an incessant, subtle game played by the more adept authors simply to crush others who are less cunning and represent possible threats. After all, what better way to eliminate a possible competitor author than to beta-read their work and give misdirection, refer them to the wrong publisher, or tell them that adorning their cover art with swastikas and entrails is a marvellous way to differentiate their work in the romance genre?

Cynicism aside, it is curious how we keep this juxtaposition in mind and body as we write. Perhaps it’s the realisation that barely 1% of us will, no matter how the cards fall, break into whatever ‘success’ is deemed to be; or that barely 1% of the 1% will gain financially, and I mean gain rather than just be able to eat occasionally, from the craft. For me, I choose to think it’s because that out of all of us who are alive and writing now only a handful will be remembered and re-read in 1,000 years time. It is a temporary, wonderful, short and precious gift to be an author, one that shouldn’t be squandered on hate and jealousy.

As one ancient writer once said, we are all grass, flowers that bloom briefly then pass, no more to be remembered.