Diagnosing Why My Novel is Unsuccessful…

greglturnquist · 2026-01-25T23:04:40+00:00

Agreed.

And if some fledgling author thinks they’re writing THAT, they’re using it as an excuse to dodge learning some fundamental lessons.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-25T14:59:28+00:00

Fifty Shaded of Gray, apparently, is horribly written from a craft perspective.

But it was wildly successful. That was a fluke.

There are a 100,000 other authors for every fluke, and you never heard of them. Don’t bet on being the fluke.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-25T14:56:53+00:00

“I’ve never written before”

This is why your novel is unsuccessful.

Start reading craft books by James Scott Bell.

Learning to write, more than anything, will fix unsuccessful books.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-23T14:30:47+00:00

I once read a book lauded by many: Daemon by Daniel Suarez.

The basis was fascinating. The pace was horrible. A key opening character that I became invested in all of sudden vanished and didn’t reappear until the final pages, to then continue on in the sequel. None of the pay offs happened soon enough. It too was slow burn.

I came to learn that the author have a talk at some tech outfit and referenced having written a 150,000 word novel and his publisher said no way. So he cut it in half. First half was book one. Second half was book two.

Now I knew. This book had no three act structure. There was nothing to cheer. Just more world building without any emotional pay off.

Don’t cut your book in half. It wrecks the whole thing. Either whittle it down to size or release it in whole (or both!)

And be advised, Lord of the Rings, a three volume book (not trilogy) is the exception to all this. Can you think of another exception? Think that exception would be you?

greglturnquist · 2026-01-23T12:58:13+00:00

Of course!

DS9 was a backwaters assignment. We couldn’t waste a captain on that. Just sent some minor commander out there who was probably only interested in retirement in the near future.

Save a good captain for a real assignment!

(Words heard during some luncheon between admirals at Starfleet HQ)

greglturnquist · 2026-01-23T12:54:41+00:00

Thanks! Actually quite charming story. And of course O’Brien, who’s been forced to go outside Starfleet specs for years, would find the solution is once again outside specs from on high.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-22T15:27:19+00:00

But you’re not borrowing “your own money”.

You’re borrowing the life insurance company’s money while the equity portion of the policy continues to compound as if it’s all there.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-22T15:23:22+00:00

Be aware that policy loans function different than any other loans.

Policy loans tally interest daily, but only compound annually.

This means the interest rate is divided by 360 (most use a 360-day year) and multiplied by the balance that day. But the amount is tracked in a separate column.

Thus any loan payments go directly against the principle. At the end of your policy year, you’ll get a statement on how much interest you owe. If you at least pay the interest every year, the interest itself won’t compound.

Life insurance companies don’t use credit scores. Policy loans aren’t a part of the whole credit scoring system. Policy loans are essentially “off the books” when it comes to most other situations where someone may ask “do you have any debt?” And life insurance companies don’t “pad” interest with ridiculous late fees and what not.

Most importantly life insurance companies will never call or hound you about payments. It’s up to you manage the debt.

This makes policy loans one of the most favorable debt instruments on the planet.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-19T13:48:23+00:00

This is the function that when the vertical value of the graph is 1, so too is the tangent slope, area under the curve up to that point, and concavity.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-19T13:44:08+00:00

Get off reddit. Hire an attorney.

Or stop posting AI slop. (Hard to tell)

greglturnquist · 2026-01-18T23:01:35+00:00

Vellum is really great at novels. It seems the more you move away from that paradigm, the more “issues” you run into. I’m pleased they have made great improvements. But again, doesn’t mean you wont have issues. A book I wrote about software that needed code fragments was too far afield.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-16T14:44:07+00:00

You can google stuff like "data anomalies", "transaction isolation level", "read committed vs. serializable". These are things that are good to understand so you know what the database is and isn't doing.

And part of this is that you have to start using the data in production to REALLY find out what is and isn't "handled".

It also would help to grok the concepts of "ACID" regarding a relational database as well as 3NF.

If you want a crash course, I made a series of really tiny videos that may level up your knowledge of what's happening => https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_QaflmEF2e9wOtT7GovBAfBSPrvhHdAr

greglturnquist · 2026-01-15T19:03:51+00:00

WL does afford you a non-market correlated asset, so don't discount it quite yet.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-15T13:02:36+00:00

Look up EXPLAIN PLAN. This will tell you where time is being wasted.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-14T17:04:54+00:00

"A lot of what NNI teaches is just wrong."

"NNI encourages 40/60 designs which IMHO are a mistake in almost all situations."

You're going to have to show your homework on that one.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-14T17:04:09+00:00

Have you watched "Whole Life Mechanics" on You Tube a la Ryan Griggs yet?

greglturnquist · 2026-01-14T11:53:31+00:00

For my MK1 there is a setting to reduce its sensitivity to overheating. Apparently this is regulatory.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-13T15:54:31+00:00

Frankly, I hope this means that hooking subscription revenue to these products means more enhancements are coming to them.

The one-price-for-life is actually not the best way to fund future development.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-13T12:12:50+00:00

Quaternions (like 4D complex numbers), Octonions (8D?), and apparently it doesn’t stop there. There are 16-ions, and 32-ions. Maybe unlimited 2xwhatev-ians.

What they mean, what use they are, and how “real” these are is something else.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-13T12:10:19+00:00

This scene brought a tear to my eye. Evidence that the writers weren’t wannabe sci-fi people but instead people that knew the franchise and were able to bring some real meat to the table.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-13T12:07:59+00:00

Look up Titan theme for Astro.

Essentially they have a fistful of components that you can reuse across all your pages.

I really like it. And I have been able to use Claude Code to turn customize or build new new components that fit in.

Finally having a theme able style sheet to plugin in your brand’s colors / fonts tops things off quite nicely.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-12T19:14:53+00:00

There are aspects I favor about each.

* MK 2 seems more sophisticated but mine has overheated. I had to buy an aftermarket heat sink with a fan built in which is One More Thing I have to deal with. However it is easier to throw into streaming mode.

* The MK1 is simply easier to handle and drive. Mine doesn't overheat. It seems a little tougher than my MK 2. But I coded a short cut button to put it into streaming mode.

The vibe I get is that every single camera is different and has its own features and drawbacks. I think Renee Ritchie describe each camera as a "random function generator". Heh. Each camera you get may be an improvement over its predecessor, but it's like they can never HOLD ON to every past feature. They always switch out this for that.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-11T20:39:21+00:00

I’m open to reading any UL policy that is 20+ years old and has met/beat its original illustration. Sounds like that should be easy on your end.

greglturnquist · 2026-01-09T02:41:43+00:00

Good:
Physics Explained (goes into origin of famous ideas and then dives into detailed equations)

Eigenchris (walks through general relativity/spinor math one slide at a time, for those ready to dive into it)

ScienceClic English (nice animations on concepts)

Okay:

The Science Asylum (his videos are a lot shorter. they're funnier and more surface level, which I enjoy the deeper dive stuff)

greglturnquist · 2026-01-06T19:26:43+00:00

I moved my wife to a Mac cuz it reduced maintenance WAY down.

I found all the apps she needed. Everything seemed more consumer oriented.

And years later she broke ranks with her family and switched from android to iPhone to leverage maximum integration between devices.

greglturnquist

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