Earlier today I went to check out any recent reviews of my current long story (Hercules III), but there weren’t any and then I started looking at the slow ebbing of the number of readers. Oh well, if there isn’t anyone reading, how can I wonder why there are no reviews. And, then I remembered a writer saying something about writing for yourself. Wiki to the rescue. I thought it was Elmore Leonard saying that, but Wiki came up with someone else. It seems Cyril Connolly (a critic) said: Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. The New Statesman (1933-02-25). (If you’re interested, go to his Wiki page and find out who and what.)

(As an aside Elmore Leonard (he has a Wiki page, too) came up with:

1. Never open a book with weather.
   
2. Avoid prologues.
   
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
   
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
   
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
   
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
   
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
   
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
   
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
   
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
    

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

* Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle” )

And, so, I shall no longer be concerned there are fewer and fewer readers and hardly any reviews, even if they’re constructive criticism, which I rarely receive (I can’t be that good.) (see, Renee Stevens blog entry November 18, 2014, Constructive Criticism: Part 1)