One of my writing heroes, Kate Atkinson, does this thing with close third/stream of consciousness narrative that absolutely slays: she'll change the very close focus from one character to another WITHOUT losing the reader or making it weird. In general, she goes a chapter at a time with one character then another in a next chapter, which gives the reader time to adjust our bustle, as it were.

Oh, Kate Atkinson, you rockstar. Her debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was told in first-person, but with an unexpected and engaging omniscience. She won the Whitbread (now Booker) because of it, I think.

​Here's the opening line: "I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall." 

But I digress.

I am not a master at this. For She Taught Me Everything, I used a straightforward first-person POV so that readers are 100% with the main character as she tries to figure things out.

WIth this current book, I wrestle with the focus. It's a story about two kids in love and it's also about their whole village. How can I be sure that the reader knows who's the focus?  (Which presupposes that I myself get whose POV would be most useful at any given time. QED)

In revision, where I am right now, I want to be sure everything points back to the best POV person to tell any particular part of the story.

This means both large and tiny changes.  For instance in this exchange between Auda and her father, I want to highlight Auda's viewpoint. ​

Instead of referring to  "his shoulders," she notices "her father's shoulders." Not sure this tiny connection between them is earth-shaking, but I think it adds up.

And then, to make sure the reader understands the mix of feelings and impulses that Auda feels (affection and responsibility), I've expanded on her sense of guilt and presented some physical evidence of how she's managing her emotions.

All this attention for a wee bitty scene in a made-up story: one might ask, without irony, why?  

I know, believe me, I know. I ask myself this existential question on the regular. Why am I doing this? 

The short answer: because otherwise these people and their little troubles just rattle around in my beezer, firmly requesting my attention when I have a minute, please, hey you, how does it all turn out?  I haven't the willpower, honestly, to ignore them.

And besides, it might be fun for someone else to hear.

Thanks, readers, for sticking with me.

​Wish the story luck, for it's going back to the editor this week! 

And poof! just like that, I am now part of a class-action suit against Meta.

But why?  It's a little complicated, but first an overview of copyright.  ©
​
​Copyright, as we have defined it since the 1970's, is the innate right of any creator to control what happens with their creation (book, song, drawing, movie, sculpture, all the cool stuff) for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years.  

The idea being that if you've gone to the effort to make something, you should be able to profit from and control (to some extent) what happens to it for long enough for you and your heirs to benefit.  

Which is why, if someone wants to make a movie of your novel, they need to obtain the movie rights from you.  You can make a deal or not make one, depending if you like the cut of their jib.

Or for example, the fellas in Aerosmith can say no (or send a cease-and-desist) to some rando using "Walk This Way" at a racist pep rally.  If those jerks want a rally-song today, they should turn to something older, like, say, 1923's "Yes We Have No Bananas" by Forman and Nash, or better yet, find a likeminded collaborator and compensate the artist for the use of the work.

©

​There are a few exceptions to copyright, but they are small and specific: anyone can quote a small part of of copyrighted work, for instance, for the purposes of review or scholarship. 

We all use copyrighted material, assuming we read books, buy artwork, listen to modern performances of music, watch K-drama, etc., etc. And we mostly pay fair value for the pleasure: buying a copy of a book, paying taxes that support libraries, purchasing an entry ticket, keeping up on subscription fees, or even renting our ears and eyes to advertisers by the 15-second-increment.

The wicket grows sticky almost instantly when the user of the copyrighted material puts that original work to use for gain.  Like when Vanilla Ice five-finger-discounted the "Under Pressure" rift from Queen and David Bowie for "Ice Ice Baby." ​

Vanilla Ice, bless his goofy heart, ended up having to apologize, give credit to David Bowie and Queen, and pay for the use of the riff, btw.  See also "cautionary tale."

And that's copyright generally sorted. Now the Artificial Intelligence (AI) kerfuffle.

Say Jane Doe, avid reader and would-be novelist, buys a copy of Novel X and reads it, later crediting the influence of that novel in her own success as a novelist. How is that different from Llama AI gobbling Novel X up in an effort to learn how to write and speak? ​

Such a good question. I have opinions!

To start with, what would AI be doing with Novel X anyhow? Overly simple explanation: the way that these AIs like ChatGPT, Llama, and even Grammarly learn language is through examples. Give it Shakespeare, and you get Shakespearean English. Which is not helpful when you want to make your hastily written e-mail sound more businesslike. Alack! A pox on your deadline, sir!

So in order to be really useful, AIs need an ocean of source material. Like, say, a library.  Only thing is: copyright.  ©

To get hold of Novel X, someone somewhere somehow in the AI world has to upload (which is to say made an electronic copy) the work. 

For instance, an impatient fan got the clever idea of having ChatGPT finish the last book in the Game of Thrones series in author George RR Martin's style. Except of course, George RR Martin holds the copyright to those books, and he never gave permission for the series to be electronically copied to ChatGPT.

​Cue the lawsuits.  ​​©

Third, and I suspect this will be the sticking point legally, Llama AI is not a human, working on creating an original work of her own; it's a for-profit business product that stands to make bajillions of dollars for Meta as well as for users of Llama, a list that currently includes Google, Goldman Sachs, etc etc. More than 170 million downloads, according to Meta's own website.  

Bajillions of dollars, let me reiterate, off the backs of many, many writers like me.

And what do we get?
Zip, and absolutely no creative control when someone wants to imitate us. A bad actor could easily say anything in imitation of my narrator's voice.  Like, "Hey Google, write me a 30-second TV advertisement script in the tone of Margaret Atwood's The Testament for a new non-hormonal drug regimen for ED."

Which is horrifying and exactly the opposite of creative control. ​​

REFERENCES
https://routenote.com/blog/all-the-songs-now-in-the-public-domain-2024/

https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/

https://abounaja.com/blog/copyright-infringement-cases
https://www.txpatentattorney.com/blog/common-copyright-violations-you-probably-commit/

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-court-trial-over-use-of-copyright-material-ai/741985/

https://authorsguild.org/news/meta-libgen-ai-training-book-heist-what-authors-need-to-know/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/meta-has-revenue-sharing-agreements-with-llama-ai-model-hosts-filing-reveals/

​https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-revenue-and-net-income/

​https://about.fb.com/news/2024/05/how-companies-are-using-meta-llama/

https://originality.ai/blog/how-do-ai-writers-work#:~:text=Essentially%2C%20an%20AI%20content%20generator,content%20that%20matches%20the%20prompt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technicalwriting/comments/1ddr4tz/tech_writers_how_do_you_use_ai/

https://wjlta.com/2024/03/05/plot-twist-understanding-the-authors-guild-v-openai-inc-complaint/

https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-books-ai-completed-removed-lawsuit/

Kobo is Toronto-based alternative to Amazon's Kindle. The company has its own e-reader devices, its own catalog of books, and phone and desktop apps—it boasts 30 million users and a global reach.  You can use Overdrive and Libby to access library books on your Kobo device. 

I'm not trying to sell it, but it has an appeal. 

And, after So. Many. Tries. there's a Kobo book deal on She Taught Me Everything. Whooot whoot!

Kobo users will get 30% off the cover price for the next couple of weeks. It's advertised by newsletter and on the site's "deals page."

If you're curious for details, I give up something like 45% of my royalties during this time in exchange for Kobo promoting the title to readers who might like it.  
 
My marketing efforts, admittedly, lack an overarching logical framework. There's a lot of seat-of-the-pants, learn-as-I-go, last-minute efforts to figure how this or that works. All to the new neurological pathways good, right?

Kobo has not been a huge seller of the book (Amazon has the numbers), but it continues to find new readers there and I do have reviews on the site (a key element to sell any book is proof that the book exists!).

I did put together a couple of videos for the various social media (O TikTok! O Insty! Hello Facebook!), but If my strategy were a bit more organized, I'd stack promotions on this Kobo deal.  Alas, I have been wrestling with novel 2 and my ducks are not in a row. They are flapping and quacking like mad, honestly.

But I do salute and celebrate this victory. Thanks Kobo!

Kobo user? I want to know about it — drop me a line in the comments.

As with birdwatching, so it is with authors.  Oh, I've seen Stephen King stepping into his big black SUV at the Publix, but most writers are drab birds, well camouflaged and not terribly showy in the wild. 

Until they gather in flocks. ​

When USF used to host the Suncoast Writers Conference, it was a bit of amusement for my sister and me to play "Spot the Oddity."

For instance, the guy in the brown wool cloak and Gandalf staff? On a hot Florida afternoon, btw. Def a fantasy novelist.
10 points to Gryffindor!

Oh, and that lady with the Crocodile Dundee hat who thrust a photo at Connie May Fowler in the signing line. Connie May, a charming and delicate woman, looking up at the Dundeehatter with a look of horror. "It's the trailer park where you grew up!" the woman said. Then she added, in case we had doubts, "I'm a writer too!"

I went to a reading in maybe 2013 where the poet—lovely writing, by the way—was sporting a leather jacket and lace spats (like Madonna circa "Lucky Star"), but NOT ironically...  We listen, and we DON——oh, I do so judge.

Mostly, even as I judge, I'm curious about why. Perhaps the choice is driven by the panicked thought of so many watching eyes, when many writers spend their days deep, deep within the safe snail-shell of their skulls.  

PS: If you're in Gainesville, swing by the Sunshine State Book Festival. It's excellent people-watching. I'll be there, trying to sell some books and meet up with my flock.  

​https://guides.fscj.edu/writers/ConnieMayFowler
​https://writersalliance.org/event/2025-sunshine-state-book-festival/

​​

It's quite possible to use a pencil and a pack of cocktail napkins to write a novel. Allen Ginsberg famously used toilet paper when writing "Poem from Jail." 

Bruce Chatwin is a Moleskine notebook fancier, while William Carlos Williams used the backs of envelopes. (Don't get me started on WCW and his poems. Not a fan.)

Between interruptions, Jane Austen filled thin cream paper to the edges using a quill pen and oak-gall ink. Marilynne Robinson's first drafts are in ball-point in college-ruled spiral notebooks. 

Not putting myself into that elevated league, but I prefer the smooth slide of graphite across paper when emptying my bony cauldron of thoughts.

When it comes time to organize these pencilings, I use my laptop and Scrivener, a word-processing/organizational software that has a bunch of helpful tricks not available to cocktail napkins.  

With Scrivener, ​I can make chapters and then shuffle them around without the sort of cut-and-paste formatting consequence that can drive a person to drink.

Scrivener gives me a list of chapters so I can navigate quickly—plus it builds in handy spots to stow research and background material.  I'll pop an interesting phrase or scene into "Extra words," or take notes on a character in the section "Characters,"  or add a cool website to Notes.

Scrivener also composes a de facto outline of the story as it gets written, which can prove handy if—ahem—a person neither plans nor outlines her story ahead of time.  

Of course I could make a nested folder of Word files.

I could also improvise finger-paint in the style of the Marquis de Sade. ​

But the lingua franca for the industry, and what my editor uses is Microsoft Word.  

So the time comes when one must bid a fond adieu to clever and kindly Scrivener. Instead, I wince under the brutal overhead light of Word.  A software that does count up my words on this project, along with offering the odd bone-headed grammar suggestion and—IRONY!—refusing to accept the existence of new words.

Sidebar: Even now, in 2024, editing and proofreading seem to come easier for me on paper: not for the use of a colorful pen and the elegant symbols of the copyeditor, there's science that suggests we slow down and read more carefully when it's on paper.  Which tracks for me.

Science behind the paper v. screen rivalry
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7510370/

​This study on the same topic has some flaws, and is focused on non-fiction and study, but it's interesting:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300101?via%3Dihub

And yes, for those of you dear readers following along: a morning spent on Pass-A-Grille—that generational home-beach— brought the name for this second book a little bit closer.  

I circle it like a moth hoping to touch flame.

​That faint tang of singed Lepidoptera? Impending good news. 

I'm both wracked with doubt about the current project and also passionately loving it, which seems to be the writerly condition in a nutshell.

​That cognitive dissonance of huge self-confidence (it's brilliant! I really got it this time!) pairs well with a deep, DEEP anxiety about how the project will appear to other people (ain't nobody, no how, no where, EVER gonna like this steaming hot mess I have created).

But, as with so many worries in this world, one must look away from the void and carry on. So while the project is getting edited (squeee! it's with the editor!), it's time to move on to book design.

This is a fairy-tale inspired short novel. Think The Last Unicorn, Greenwillow, The Princess Bride, Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. All of which one can judge by the cover...

On She Taught Me Everything, I calibrated the book interior design from the cover. I commissioned an artist to make the cover and then coordinated the font and spacing to that and the general literary genre.  As someone described the job of book design, "You want your book to stand out, but not too much."

Overall, I want this new creation to feel pretty—bougie even—intriguing, consciously a touch old-fashioned. I do NOT want readers to expect a spicy-romantasy (be still my beating loins!), even though it's about true love. 

Look how a font sets the stage, even with place-holder Latin instead of content for the chapter:

That first, swirly font tells me to expect either a breezy self-help book or, possibly, a romance set in some retail world. So no.

And the second, hmmm, maybe a gritty speculative fiction? Something urban? Also no.

The chapters in novel #2 have text titles, not just numbers (see also "consciously old-fashioned"), which affords a chance to make the chapter openings a little extra.  

I am not a designer, but I do have opinions. Here's a chaotic look at how I'm shopping fonts:

The choice really sets the stage, I think.

Plus, get this, turns out it's the work of a few keystrokes to insert a bit of graphic art into a wordy document. Which translates into interesting chapter openings!—at least for the paperback book version. The ebooks, well, it's more of a hit-and-miss situation for artwork.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

First steps:

Nothing is set in stone, but I am liking this experiment so far.  

Like a Balrog, the thought reaches me from the void: But What About That Title?

Sigh.  Yes.
​It's still between titles. I'll be going to the beach to think about it soon.

"Mathy Math, Math-Math."  That's how one of my friends hears any discussion of numbers: "Mathy-mathetty-math-math."

But even the most innumerate of us have landmark numbers.  These are the numbers that maybe we learned to count by (5-10-15-20, for instance) or numbers that just feel less challenging to keep in mind (100 vs 97, or a dozen vs 13).

I'm approaching a landmark number as an author—a fact that is truly of interest to nobody but me. Has that yet stopped me from writing about anything? No.
​

During my feverish rush last year to get current in my understanding of modern publishing, I gathered some depressing facts. About half of the US population does't read even a single book a year. Not a surprise, but oh! poor creatures!

Also, most books will sell less than 300 copies in the US (1000 copies factoring in all formats across the world). Not just in the first year, btw, but ever.  So if, let's say, you just so happened to be pouring your life-force into the creation of a book, this base truth is helpful for framing one's expectations.

Joyfully for me, I have at least 300 friends kind enough to buy my book. I am grateful for each one. It's a deep thrill every time someone tells me they have read it.

Which brings us to the wonderful-to-me landmark number: 1000.  On Goodreads.com, a website helps 150 million readers track and rate books, She Taught Me Everything is inching closer and closer to the 1000 mark.  

​Meaning that nearly 1000 readers on that site—mostly strangers! people who love to read and who judge by covers!—have either already read or plan to read the book. 
​

They might be getting it from the library (ooh! If you use the library, consider requesting STME), or from a bookstore, iTunes or Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Amazon...

But 1000. Whatever expectations I had six months ago, this number feels a lot bigger than 999. ​

I spent most of the school year when I was 10 hiding out at the school library. Not really hiding out: my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Jarosz and I had what my mom described as a "personality difference." 

It's happened several times since: I meet someone and, AbracaBADra: I'm unable to say anything without offense; my attempts to reverse course only make it worse, and--ugh. It's weird. It seems chemical. It's inexplicable and powerful. 

​But the fifth grade, a person has fewer options.

So my love for libraries runs deep. And part of my lifetime writing dream has been to see my own book on those shelves.  

​I do understand, with the perspective of decades of library visits under my belt, that the shelves of a library are not immortal. Titles churn through and are lost to library fundraising sales.

​But then again: a book in the library...that's something. 

I dutifully submitted a copy of She Taught Me Everything to the local county public library system, but while awaiting the thumb up or down, I noticed this...

Looks like the system has already purchased an e-book copy, and THERE ARE SIX PEOPLE IN LINE to get it!

Well, how about that? I wish I could share this joy with the librarians who helped me through 5th grade. 

I wasn't a theater kid. I DID play the vamp in my high school play –– let's go ahead and blame the hair for that one –– but I'm not usually one to muscle my way to center stage. 

As for my novel, it would be pretty to think a book will simply find its readers by the quality of existing –– like the movie starlet perched on a stool at a soda fountain. 

...But the trick is that she must be SEEN perching. The Hollywood fantasy persists in our screen-heavy world long after soda fountains have faded into history. Hence my flurry of Instagram and TikTok activity.

Since I don't have the budget of a big publishing firm, here I am, adding my voice to the democratic chorus of social media.

One excellent piece of advice I heard was "don't be spammy." So instead of incessantly jabbering on about me-me-my-my book, I'm on one of those other topics I can piffle cheerfully: other books I think people will love.  

Shocking as it is to hear my own voice and get the visual (again, blame the hair), I'm embracing the experience.

And from time to time channeling my inner Sophia Coppola...

It's all an experiment, really.

October finished up with me working the phone banks and hitting a few of my favorite bookstores.  Publicity is always a challenge, never mind whether it's a busy newsday or a slow one. 
​
But here are a few mentions.

Feel free to pop by and give them a thumbs up if you feel like it. It's kind of amazing how mashing that "like" button makes the almighty algorithms pay attention to a thing...It's Matrixy, but hello 21st Century capitalism --!

Here' the book featured on a blog (oooh!)
https://proofpositive.com/great-books/she-taught-me-everything/

And here's a quick interview with the author...
https://digitalbooknook.com/2023/11/01/interview-with-amy-smith-linton-author-of-she-taught-me-everything/?fbclid=IwAR1zU-IgZzBToK-HuAuwejyn0k2iMLsRpudCltscY3GtRmLP01sJ6j9e72Q

And, oy, even on Pinterest...
https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/486318459776918697/

Scroll down to see tweets (or are they exes?) at
​https://twitter.com/BackyardBooks
https://twitter.com/dgtservices/status/1719685939990343998/photo/1

I don't spend a lot of time perusing the good and not-good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. It's not why I write. But again, it's a kindness to the book if you'd like to react to online reviews.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195660796-she-taught-me-everything

https://www.amazon.com/She-Taught-Everything-Smith-Linton/dp/B0CJDJVWXK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1X7NKI8CF1V9&keywords=she+taught+me+everything&qid=1698893395&sprefix=she+taught+me+everything%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1


And ooh...world-famous in the vest-pocket world of the Would-Be Farm.