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Every now and then I stumble across an author who makes me feel like the world’s biggest hack.
My spouse reads about three books a week. That’s how I “found” Sue Monk Kidd.
Kidd writes historical fiction. The first book I read of hers was “The Book of Longings.” It is the fictional autobiography of Jesus’ wife published in 2020.
I’m now reading “The Invention of Wings of Wings” (2014) -- which alternates between two points of view: a young black slave in Charleston, South Carolina -- and her same-age mistress who was given the slave as a present on her eleventh birthday. It is set in the early 1800s.
Both books are staggering in the amount of detail. Kidd must have done a tremendous amount of research for both novels.
Often people on BC ask how they can become better writers. I believe one of the best ways is to read good literature and emulate those authors’ efforts.
If I could write a tenth as good as Sue Monk Kidd I would be extremely pleased!
Another author I’ve recently enjoyed is Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and her stories about a young girl during WWII in England.
On a totally unrelated subject . . . be very careful with Amazon. They’ve reached a new low. About a week about I ordered about thirty reams of paper. I’ve ordered a lot of paper through Amazon for my business and did this as a matter of course. The price seemed extremely good. A day or two later I remembered I hadn’t printed out the invoice for my accountant. Imagine my shock when I noted an over $900 shipping and handling fee. I was able to get the order canceled and replaced with an order under Prime with no shipping fee.
I noticed a while ago that one of my books was selling on Amazon for over $800. I began to notice other items selling far above retail. It seems there are resellers preying on the unobservant.
I blame this on Amazon. They could use algorithms to find outliers on pricing and shipping and handling.
That’s all I’ve got. Good writers and bad business models.
Jill
Comments
You gotta watch those resellers
I look for shipping and handling fees as well as import fees. They like to jack up prices which only shows up on confirmation of order pages.
Sell something at one dollar and add on $15 shipping fee is common. By out stock of item and do the same with import fees.
Every writer has something a little different to add, however what is an over the top author to one seems a hack to another. But we demand “perfection” and criticize those we feel are doing something wrong to the point they just give up writing.
“Proper” English…there is so much variance now between countries that proper doesn’t apply. Heck even common local sayings are seen as insults elsewhere.
I just roll my eyes, literally, and keep reading. There was an author here with a very good story who used grammerly to help write it. I lolled when I saw that and expected a comment eventually on grammar or spelling. Wish she would come back. Don’t even know if she is an unlisted victim of covid.
My point is simply the old saying of beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The common result of good writing
The one thing that all good writers of longer pieces of fiction ( a gimmick will get you by in a short story) have in common is that they create characters the reader identifies with and needs to see what happens to them. The best writing however technically flawed it might be creates unforgettable characters Like Natty Bumpo, Tarzan, Sherlock, James Bond, Frodo, and Liza. I'll bet almost every American knows just who every one of those is.
.
Only
Four out of six. I was only a fan of one -- as a child. (I've soured on him more recently.)
-- Daphne Xu
It is the fictional
It is the fictional autobiography of Jesus’ wife --- is there a factual one?
BOW suitably opened
アンその他
Don't Know
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Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The Bride of Christ
The Bible does mention the bride of Christ. However it speaks of the church as being the bride of Christ.
There are those (not Christians) who say that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. Some of those maintain that he had multiple wives.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Walmart, BestBuy, Amazon...
Walmart's and BestBuy's marketplace sellers do the same thing. The biggest problem is that places where we expect to buy from a Company (Amazon, BestBuy, Walmart) are letting smaller businesses do shitty business to make a "piece of the pie" while hiding behind the fact that "well it's not us, it's a marketplace seller"...
On the other hand, I bought a product on Amazon from the manufacturer, and when it broke, I contacted Amazon. After asking me to contact the manufacturer, who never responded, Amazon stepped up and made right on my order. As much as I hate to praise Amazon, this is one transaction I don't think other marketplaces would have taken the initiative.
Now that being said, eBay is actually a great seller marketplace. It was setup with marketplace sellers in mind, you are never confused whom your are purchasing from, and quite honestly, it just works. If only eBay had a prime-like shipping option for sellers who chose to participate, it would be awesome.
-Piper
Walmart
I had an experience with Walmart where one of their market place vendors shipped the wrong product. I ordered a sleep shirt an the vendor shipped three silicone rings instead. The shirt was valued at about $25 and rings at $3. Walmart suggested that I contact the seller, I had the same experience as you; no response from the shipper. I contacted Walmart again and told them that I had no response and they refunded my cost and no one asked for the rings back. I still have them somewhere. I've never even put them on my finger. I don't know who would think that silicone rings was good idea.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
I don't like Amazon
For a number of reasons. Mostly it's that they come close to being a monopoly. (See the requirements for Kindle Direct) Beyond that the business model that gives them the "overnight" edge is very hard on their employees. I don't like doing business with a company that I couldn't stand to work for.
I used to buy from Amazon. Not very frequently, but maybe about 3 to 4 times a year. I had filed for bankruptcy in 1984 and determined to live on a cash basis after that. As a result, up until about 10 years ago, I didn't have a credit rating. (Too little credit history to rate; so said Credit Karma) But once when I ordered something from Amazon, they offered me free shipping if I'd apply for a credit card. Well, I knew that no fool would give me a credit card, but I'd take the free shipping, so I applied and forgot about it. Three weeks later a credit card showed up in the mail. So I went to Amazon and made it my primary payment option; went to the bank site and set it up on auto pay and again forgot about it.
In 2015 I started drawing SS, with the plan being that I would retire in 2017. In 2016 I determined that I would need a reliable car when I was retired so I went to buy a late model used car (cash). When the salesman was writing up the deal, he ran a credit check on me and told me that they could finance the whole purchase with nothing down. I told him that I didn't have a credit rating, but he told me my credit score was over 700 and I had excellent credit. I paid cash anyway and went home to check Credit Karma and he was right. I did have a credit score of over 700.
So in that sense Amazon was good for me. However I think the real story is that Chase bank is the real hero of this story because it was them that extended me the credit when I was a poor credit risk.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
The Book Of Longings
I used to be a very conservative Christian, but never found some of what they taught to be credible. Women have had to struggle so hard to get any voice at all, and were often over ruled by misogynistic males. My memories of their cruelty still lingers in my soul. The "Dan Brown" books carry a lot of weight with me. Jesus had brothers and sisters full stop. I may have to look the book up and read it myself.