A Twelfth of Carrabis – July 2025 Newsletter

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• Musings
  

• RoundTable 360° Series or Singular?
• Sister Rika Chandra’s Five Copywriting Musts
• That Think You Do Volume 2 needs First Readers
• August Writers’ Workshop
• Greg Hickey’s ChatGPT Woes
• Talk with the Editors
• Sister Susan Boucher’s Beautiful & Terrible Things
• A Little Game
• I’m published here

I’ve been taking classes. One side is writing, the other is marketing.

I’m taking writing classes because I have some weaknesses in my crafting.

I’m taking marketing because – as far as marketing myself and my work – I suck at it.

To that end, I’ve learned a great deal. Much of it I wish I hadn’t learned. Some confirms previous learnings, some are new learnings.

I’ve written about a marketing class instructed by publishers, agents, and editors (PA&E) which I took long ago. I didn’t learn much new about getting stuff in front of such, I learned a great between class sessions when people chatted, when the PA&E “let their hair down.”

What came out was a slight (I’m being generous) contempt for people seeking publication be it with an established house, a magazine, a journal, what have you.

They joked about rejecting work because they were too tired to give it a good read, were festering over office politics, missed breakfast, didn’t enjoy their lunch, were hungover, their partner said No or were otherwise in- or un-attentive, and god forbid they had to read something first thing Monday morning or last thing Friday afternoon.

Automatic rejection, those.

This all ties together because I recently attended a con and had the opportunity to listen to several PA&E both on panels and in elevators, hallways, washrooms (perhaps it’s different in the women’s washroom?), at bars, and in restaurants.

I’ll be writing a blog post about it all, and soon, meaning some time next month at this point.

Remind me if I forget.

(what I learned didn’t make me happy)

RoundTable 360° – Our 31 July 2025 RoundTable 360° session is Series or Singular? -Some creatives repeat what works — the author who creates a series; the actor who plays the same character in different productions; the artist who paints only wildlife, landscapes, portraits; the musician who can’t escape the 1-4-5 ¾ structure — rather than exploring/expanding into something new. Other creatives can’t repeat their characters regardless of their efforts. The former is easier — the brain already knows the pattern so not much new is needed for creation to occur. The latter is more challenging because the created world is new each time. That bumps into audience recognition. Does your audience want the same dish regardless of restaurant, or do they seek out different meals regardless of whether they’ve visited a restaurant once or a hundred times? This also bumps into “What is repeated?” Authors who can’t create a series character often repeat themes and (in essence) write the same story multiple times. Actors are drawn to scripts/plays where similar situational/relational dynamics on stage/screen. Musicians are fluid yet locked into one or two musical styles. Artists paint cinematic vistas be they backyards or deep space. Is it really a matter of discovering what your audience wants repeated and delivering it to them? Or continuing the inner exploration which drives creatives to repeat what’s repeatable? Or both? Reserve your place at the RoundTable for Thursday, 31 July 2025, 1:30pmET (please check local times).

Sister Rika Chandra’s Five Copywriting Musts – Telling a story or writing an excellent copy requires structure and planning, and Rika offers five key principles to keep in your back pocket. Read Rika’s The Five-step plan to copywriting.

That Think You Do Volume 2 needs First Readers – 2025 is a year of many projects and many works-in-progress for me. One such project is getting That Think You Do Volume 2 ready for a July August 2025 release, and we could use some help. Specifically, we could use some first readers willing to read it through, offer comments, suggestions, edits, let us know their thoughts, write reviews, perhaps a Foreword, perhaps some backcover copy, … Email me if you’d like to be a first reader, and thanks.

Writers’ Month Long Workshop – August Writers’ Workshop – August 2025’s writers’ workshop covers many if not all phases of craft and storytelling. The August workshop is on Wednesdays, 6-27 August 2025, morning and evening openings available. Sign up here. You can an idea of what craziness (and learning!) will ensue on my Experiments in Writing posts.

Brother Greg Hickey’s ChatGPT Woes – While research his next novel, Greg prompted the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT with “Please find me a quote from a Raymond Chandler novel about people snooping, spying or generally invading each other’s privacy” and received ten relevant quotes listed with the novels they came from. He modified his search and got ten more good options. Another modification returned more useful results. He pared the list down to his ten favorites and dug into each quote to see where and how it was used in the listed novel. That’s when I ran into problems. ChatGPT said one quoted was from Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, but the quote didn’t come up in a google search. Greg asked for the chapter and got “Chapter 1” and again, the quote didn’t exist. Greg asked for the source paragraph, got a response, and now three strikes and you’re out, ChatGPT returned a paragraph starting with the quote, but it wasn’t there. Finally, Greg asked, “Are you sure this quote is from Farewell, My Lovely?” ChatGPT replied it had made a mistake. It had not found an actual Raymond Chandler quote; it had made up a line that sounded like a Chandler original. Ditto 75% of ChatGPT’s responses. Let this be a warning to anybody using AI for research: it ain’t there yet. The difference between reality and not-reality has special meaning to Greg; his To Build a Dream deals with an ICU-bound cancer patient wondering if his dreams are powerful enough to save his real life—and what it would mean for his real life if he prefers his dream world.

Talk with the Editors – Wilderness House Literary Review EIC Steve Glines and I (Senior Fiction Editor) are holding monthly open chats with authors interested in a) writing for us, b) improving their craft in general, and/or c) increasing their chances of being accepted by other markets. Meetings are held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month from 9-10amET. So, want to know how to write for us? Want to know what gets our attention? Want to know how to write better for whatever market you’re interested in? Join us for our next “Meet the Editors” Zoom session on 29 August 2025, 9-10amET. Seats limited! Sign up and talk with us. We’re relatively easy going and fun to be with.

Sister Susan Boucher’s Beautiful & Terrible Things – I’ve not read all of Susan’s work and the novels I have read are impressive. Beautiful & Terrible Things is a multi-award winning novel of friendship, individuality, and the shared struggles which makes humans what they are. “Beautiful and Terrible Things offers a compelling portrait of modern American life in a major city with its vibrant culture and rampant social issues. At once enlightening and entertaining, it reminds us that friendship has the power to validate, destroy, transform, and save lives.”

A Little Game – The rich aunt and uncle of a curate famous for his hell&brimstone sermons visited while the curate wrote next Sunday’s speech. Aunt May glanced over the curate’s shoulder and read “UNCLE AND I SHALL OWE DEVIL…” She hurried to her husband without reading further, and he stormed into his nephew’s study demanding to know the meaning of his words. The curate listened carefully, asked a few questions, then showed them what he’d written. Red-faced and ashamed, they apologized profusely and gave his church a hefty donation. How did the curate’s sermon actually start such that Aunt May misread it as “UNCLE AND I SHALL OWE DEVIL…” The first five people to get back to me with a solution get a free Those Wings Which Tire, They Have Upheld Me ebook. The first person to get back to me with a solution which makes me laugh gets a signed copy of That Th!nk You Do Volume 2 when released (probably next month). (and no looking it up on the internet, folks!).

I’m Published Here – Slowly I’m catching up, and July was good for me. Sunset at the Red Arrow Grille appeared in Academy of the Heart And Mind. Family Patterns, a chapter in my upcoming non-fiction That Th!nk You Do Volume 2: Romance and Relationships. was published by BizCatalyst 360° Mitre was published by Wilderness House Literary Review (and Steve Glines, EIC, gave the story high marks. Yippee for me, right?).

That’s it for July. See you next month!

Enjoy!