About paper books…
February 12th, 2026 | Ramblings
When I first started writing, it was pretty awful. Not because the stories were bad, but because I was a terrible student of English. I had no native talent for language, and public schools seem to have a goal to make everyone hate literature and reading, or expressing yourself by writing in a standard, understandable way.
Silly boy that I am, I take written language as code for speech. When it came to punctuation, I thought putting a comma where I would pause was logical. Really.
I found editors can’t deal with people as grammatically impaired as I am. I did, however, get a great deal of help from the Grammarly program. Slowly, my writing has improved to the point that when I engage Grammarly, it disagrees with me much less often.
Unfortunately, my few paper editions are frozen at a level of grammar and spelling that is now embarrassing to me. Also, the paper editions have provided only .056% of my income from books. I’ve made less than $500 total from them.
Thus, I decided to unpublish all my paper books. I understand there are now formatting options for print software programs. I’ll look into them as a possible way to bring back paper editions, but it isn’t a priority in my life.
Right now, at 78 years old, and being a caretaker for my wife, just continuing to write is time-consuming and challenging enough. Also, I like writing, and formatting is work.
I hope you readers understand.
Mac’ C
Actually, punctuation in English began as a guide to reading aloud – that is, as code for speech. It’s called “elocutionary punctuation” by scholars. The push to make punctuation purely syntactic, controlled wholly by grammar, was in the 17th and 18th centuries, along with other supposed “rules” such as “you must not split an infinitive”.
Syntactic punctuation does have more justification than some rules foisted on us by 18th century grammarians, because pauses of various lengths often are grammatically significant in spoken English – but not always.
So putting a comma wherever you would pause if you were speaking isn’t poor English; it’s just Elizabethan.
Your books, digital and print bring enjoyment to me. Keep writing as long as you can, and I’ll keep reading as long as I can. I just tend to throw punctuation where I think they look best, and sometimes, I’ll throw them around just to piss people off. at this age I dont give two hoots what anyone thinks.
Isn’t it a sign of the times. I held off on switching to ebooks for years after Kindle came out and they became popular, stubbornly sticking to “real” editions.
Now I can’t imagine the days when I was dropping $5k +/- per year on paper books. I use an iPad with the Kindle, Nook and Apple book apps and carry around thousands of titles every day … including every one of yours.
Hope you’re well and happily writing. Don’t sweat giving sacrifices to the punctuation gods; great storytelling transcends, um, dubious use of commas and, well, like … dashes and – you know.
I tend to put commas where I would pause. But what amazes me about your writing (among other things) is that for someone who is deaf, you just nail conversations and make them real. It’s one of the many reasons I prize your writing and have you on the very short list of those authors whose works I’ll buy sight (or review) unseen. Keep’em coming, and the best to you and your wife 🙂