2 October 2026 — Q&A Update
Q&A Part 7 (2 October 2026)
Q. The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse, if I understand correctly, is a story suitable for Halloween?
A. I suppose it is, in a stealthy sort of way.
Q. Any chance of it being finished before that most solemn of holidays?
A. None whatsoever. But as I told you last time, I do intend to have the pre-order up by mid-October. I’m working on the promotional copy right now.
Q. Your favourite task!
A. And I’m also writing new copy for The Many Charms of Mrs. Quarterhorse and Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift.
Q. And the book of short stories?
A. I’ll get back to it soon.
Q. So the sum of our conversation this time is merely that all is well?
A. All is absolutely not well! To be writing three separate promotional texts all at once? I’m at the moment so tortured by this labour I’m actually relieved to be talking to you, just to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.
Q. So that’s all I am to you, an else?
A. Yes, but I am at the moment unusually compliant, and prepared to treat you with more respect than you deserve. Ask me anything. I’ll answer honestly, with no snark.
Q. May I still be snarky?
A. Be as tyrannical as you like. I’ll sit here and answer your questions like a good boy.
Q. Will there be a sixth Mrs. Quarterhorse book?
A. I’ve been sketching it out for years, and I’d love to get going on the first draft, but at the moment I can’t afford to further fragment my attention. But then, my first drafts tend to begin spontaneously. I’ll toss all the notes aside and just start typing. After that I’ll write in a fever until I’m done. About three weeks, barely even stopping to sleep.
Q. It takes only three weeks to write a first draft?
A. Yes, but those three weeks are truly manic, steady typing! Remember, I’ve been working the story over for years, I know it backwards and forwards, I just need to get everything down! And while it might only take three weeks to finish that ferocious first draft, it takes several months to work the resulting mountain of text into a second draft. Another few to write the third. And then so on for years. Occasionally I’ll even scrap the whole thing and start again from scratch. My novels go through nearly a hundred drafts before they’re done.
Q. That doesn’t sound like the proper way to write a novel.
A. It likely isn’t. I have no idea how other writers write.
Q. A hundred drafts?
A. Not an exaggeration.
Q. So the sixth book will not be finished for years?
A. If it goes like the last five, then it will indeed take several years.
Q. Do you expect readers to wait that long? Particularly since this year you’ve set a standard of releasing books every few months.
A. Well, that was because I wrote the first five books concurrently and so they were all pretty much finished at the start of 2026. I should add that during the years it will take to complete the sixth book, I will at the same time work on other projects. That’s how I was able to write the first five in only seven years—when I tired of one, I hopped to another. Hop, hop, hop, for seven years.
Q. But will readers wait that long?
A. Well, no, obviously!
Q. Your business model seems to be failure approached from several directions at once.
A. It’s possible the sixth book won’t take years. Who knows, it might just take a single year? Perhaps I’m getting better at, faster at it.
Q. Aren’t you presently spending six months just putting a finishing polish on a book you began seven years ago?
A. Very well, I’m definitely not getting faster.
Q. Does this hypothetical sixth book have a title?
A. It’s presently called Six Nights with Mrs. Quarterhorse, but that’s just a hastily chosen placeholder. A better title will likely present itself while I work the text.
Q. I presume it is about six nights with Mrs. Quarterhorse?
A. It is indeed that. The structure is six long chapters, six novellas, one after the other, six nights in a row, each rolling into the next, with the whole rolling toward something monumental.
Q. So, there won’t be the usual prologue and epilogue?
A. There will not.
Q. I’m not sure if I like this new approach.
A. I assure you, a prologue and epilogue would be inappropriate for the story I’m telling.
Q. No, no, not that. What I don’t like is this new approach of me asking sensible questions and you responding with sensible answers.
A. Ask me about King Kong, then, since that will surely churn up the snark in you.
Q. You’re not still wasting time on that stupid thing, are you?
A. I am, and after you’re done with me here, if I find I cannot face the accursed promotional text, I’ll likely instead transcribe a little more music for King Kong from Pelleas while editing by ear a few chapters from The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse.
Q. So your time will only be half wasted.
A. Oh no, it will be entirely wasted. The world has no more interest in my Quarterhorse books than it will in my King Kong.
Q. Perhaps we could dream up some cross promotion, so the two will fail side by side.
A. Fail is the wrong word! Whether they’re any good is the standard. But since I have fully accepted that I’m working in a void, with no sense of good or bad but my own, I’m not sure what would count as failure.
Q. Falling down the stairs?
A. That would depend on what I’d intended to achieve when I approached the first step.
Q. Reaching the bottom with no broken bones?
A. Very well, that will be my metric. If I can complete my Quarterhorse books and King Kong both, without breaking any bones, I will have succeeded.
Q&A Part 6 (3 September 2026)
Q. So, you’re scribbling yet more promotional copy for the Quarterhorse books?
A. At the moment, just for the first two. I can’t get them right. Books I can write, summaries I cannot.
Q. Brevity is the soul of wit.
A. No it isn’t.
A. Not much. Another variant of the “Mrs. Quarterhorse is reading over my shoulder as I type...”
Q. “...covering me with cookie crumbs...”
A. You’re right, I need a new angle. But I refuse to be bullied once again into writing text intended to hook a potential reader. There’s nothing hooky about my stories. I’m not going to pretend they’re something that they’re not. The problem is, while I know what they’re not, I don’t know what they are!
Q. You recently described them to me as a fool’s errand.
A. That was you, to me.
Q. Was I wrong?
A. No, but I’m not honest enough to call the books a fool’s errand in a promotion.
Q. While on your way to the gutter, are you continuing to work on the next book in the series, The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse?
A. I’m working on it every single day. It’s a very good story, the best of the books, I think. While there’s no chance it’ll be done by the October 6th deadline I naively gave myself, that deadline at least will mark the pre-order date, for publication ideally in the first week in January.
Q. And who exactly will be pre-ordering it?
A. Hopefully a few discerning weirdos.
Q. Is it a suitable January read?
A. What is a suitable January read?
Q. A story with words familiar to people in January. Like, say, mittens—yeti—block-heater—
A. Content like this is why the internet must remain dead.
Q. Shall we give up being the metaphorical falling tree and take our words to social media where someone might actually one day come across them?
A. No, let’s remain where we are, being read only by bots stealing text to train AI systems for billionaires. Perhaps Google will start working ecstatic quarter-horses into its search replies.
Q&A Part 5 (29 July 2026)
Q. How goes the war?
A. I should be on furlough right now after finally completing Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift, yet here I am, forced to endure a shelling of questions that will all be either snide or stupid.
Q. Which do you prefer?
A. Snide.
Q. Now that four of the five Quarterhorse books are available for purchase, are you going to finally start trying to sell them?
A. I have no immediate plans to market the books beyond the single low-ball Amazon sponsored ad that is maybe seen by one person a week.
Q. Then all these years of work were for—?
A. I’ve already explained that I can’t afford a proper ad campaign, let alone the never-ending series of campaigns necessary to keep books in the public eye. And all that just to break even! A Kafkaesque future of only ever netting zero dollars yet considering it success. The self-publishing environment is, I have learned, not for actual authors. There are only two ways to make it pay: you either crank out low content muck, or you get noticed by someone with the right connections. The odds of the latter are worse than just buying a lottery ticket.
Q. Have you considered just buying a lottery ticket?
A. That’s merely Kafka on a smaller scale. I’ll keep spending my pittance on Kinder eggs, thanks.
Q. Despite the Mrs. Quarterhorse series being a fool’s errand, you do still plan to finish The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse?
A. It’s in a publishable state right now, but I’m not through with it yet. It still needs work all around the edges. Although I’ve met my deadlines for the first four books, there is no chance I’ll have the fifth completed by the sixth of October as I’d planned. I’m aiming for January.
Q. What’s a few more months after six years?
A. I’m also working on the book of short love stories I may or may not have previously mentioned. Most were written last year and are also in a publishable state, but the novella that anchors the collection needs work, as well as the story that gives the collection its title. I want them both to be perfect.
Q. So by love stories, you mean paperback romance, smut, or what?
A. They’re proper love stories set in The Age of Nothing. The end of the world is perpetually nigh, and the bombs do eventually start dropping. These are nonetheless good-natured stories, at least I think so. They’re sweet and not at all depressing. Except perhaps for one or two that came out a little darker than I’d planned. All together they’ll make an exhilarating read!
Q. And you are going to publish the collection on Amazon as you have with the Quarterhorse books, refuse to do the necessary marketing, and watch it likewise disappear into the stinking ocean of low-content muck?
A. Yes.
Q. You’re an idiot.
A. It’s possible the collection might catch on, though. It’s easier to peddle short stories because the payoff is quicker. The Quarterhorse books are such slow-moving things, they require a proper investment of time before their value is felt.
Q. Do you expect the short stories to convince readers to give the Quarterhorse books a try?
A. That would be nice. But in reality—? We both know how this will end.
Q. Then let’s stop talking about reality. What’s the update on your King Kong?
A. Kong is absolutely real! When I need to get away from my writing for a while, I like having something completely different to occupy me. The animation shouldn’t be a problem, but the audio this time requires an expertise I don’t yet have. So, I’m acquiring it, little by little.
Q. Wouldn’t that time be better spent acquiring the expertise you need to market your books?
A. You said we were going stop talking about reality!
Q. Are we talking about reality? We both know you’ll never gain that expertise!
A. So we’re going to fantasise about marketing?
Q. It might be useful. Visualising yourself solving a problem is a good first step to actually solving it. Imagine yourself addressing a boardroom. You’ve got Mrs. Quarterhorse pie-charts, a laser-pointer, a big tray of sandwiches on the table, and you’ve prepped everyone to expect synergy, paradigms, game-changing social-media substrates, the works.
A. What am I wearing?
Q. A kiwi-green onesie and a teeny-weeny pork-pie hat held on with a rubber band.
A. And my well polished oxfords with argyle socks?
Q. You left them in the hall because your feet were itchy. Now you’re barefoot, making smack smack smack sounds while you circle the tile floor. Not very professional.
A. The sandwiches?
Q. All egg salad. The whole room smells like boiled eggs. Did I mention it’s really hot?
A. The room or the sandwiches?
Q. Everything. Puddles of sweat under every chair. Steam coming off the sandwiches.
A. No air conditioning?
Q. Worse still, the furnace keeps coming on.
A. Have I at least got the room’s attention?
Q. Everyone is staring at the stinking sandwich heap.
A. Shouldn’t we open a window?
Q. It’s been tried. They’re too steam-warped to open.
A. The door, then, at least!
Q. You want to choke the office with the stench of your discount platter of rotten eggs and stale pumpernickel? And anyway, you can’t get to the door now because your bare feet are stuck to the floor.
A. Well, that was a delightful fantasy. Gives me much to think about. Thank you.
Q. What are you glaring at me for? Did I ask you to take off your shoes?
Q&A Part 4 (20 June 2026)
Q. How now brown cow?
A. The now of the brown cow is thus: Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift is available for pre-order and presently undergoing a final go-over. The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse, however, I have come to realise will not be ready in time for its intended October 6 publication date. It’s an enormous thing, and sanding it down into an easy read will take a few months longer than I’d calculated.
Q. So it’ll be done early next year?
A. I expect so.
Q. Won’t this delay cause undo hardship for followers of the series?
A. The three readers of the Quarterhorse books I am certain will be able to get on just fine in the interim.
Q. Only three?
A. Perhaps two, maybe four. I have no idea. If just one person finds something in the stories worth reading, I’ll be satisfied.
Q. Seven years of work for one reader?
A. I’d once thought I might make some small living off the stories, but I’m well past that delusion. And anyway, I could have cut my losses and published earlier drafts of all five books years ago. I chose to keep working on them over and above what was necessary.
Q. But you do still need to make a living, no?
A. Yes, unfortunately. For too long I’ve been living on tuna, rice, and peas! My diet would be illegal in prison. Fortunately I’m no gourmand. The occasional bag of Hawkins Cheezies is enough to keep me happy.
Q. Isn’t it about time you focused on marketing, building a readership, and perhaps earning enough income to afford the luxury of the occasional banana?
A. It was time five months ago when I finally published the first two Quarterhorse books!
Q. What are you waiting for?
A. Ideally, death, so I can get out of it. I’ve set up some low-ball Amazon sponsored ads, but hastily, no thought into them. I can’t afford to properly advertise and I can’t bring myself to watch any more of those odious “How to...” videos on navigating all this nonsense. I was planning to set aside the whole of November, after the fifth book was complete, to get my house in order.
Q. So with Ecstasy delayed, your hypothetical marketing plan is also delayed?
A. I wish it could be delayed forever. Let’s talk about something else.
Q. You have two other projects going besides the Quarterhorse books?
A. Yes, my collection of love stories and King Kong.
Q. Shouldn’t all your time be spent on Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift?
A. I prefer working on more than one story at a time, so when I get sick of one I can move on to the other, back and forth. Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift is essentially finished. For the last year I’ve only been sanding its roughest edges.
Q. And what, pray, is King Kong?
A. You’ve never heard of King Kong?
Q. The one I’ve heard of doesn’t belong to you.
A. Yes it does. The movies are copyrighted but the story is in the public domain.
Q. And what are you doing with it that hasn’t been done already?
A. King Kong has been an ever-present force in my imagination. I didn’t care for movies when I was little, and I still don’t. King Kong was and is an exception. It was so beautiful! I couldn’t understand why other movies couldn’t be more like it.
Q. You are talking about the 1933 original?
A. Of course.
Q. If it is already a thing of unique beauty, why remake it?
A. I’m not remaking it. I’m making something different using ideas I’ve tossed around since I was little. The full working title of mine is King Kong: The Apotheosis of Ann Darrow.
Q. Uh huh.
A. Uh huh all you want. I know what I’m doing.
Q. And this will be a novel?
A. It was going to be an illustrated book. A combination of pictures with written dialogue.
Q. You mean a comic?
A. No. No speech balloons. Rather, illustrations and dialogue written out like in a script, with brief descriptions of setting and action where illustrations don’t suffice.
Q. But you’ve changed your mind?
A. Well, I never actually wanted to tell the story this way, it was simply the closest I could get to the movie I wanted it to be. But I am presently wondering whether a movie might not be impossible.
Q. A short animated movie, like Traces of a Benevolent Face?
A. The same general look, possibly, but longer, perhaps even over an hour, and with an emphasis on the soundtrack rather than on the animation.
Q. Didn’t Traces take you two full years?
A. Yes, it was my last completed project before starting the Quarterhorse books.
Q. If it took you two years to make a twelve minute movie...
A. As I said, with King Kong I intend to emphasise the soundtrack, so the animation will be kept to a minimum, it will be more like a slideshow. Traces of a Benevolent Face had no dialogue, it was all pantomime. King Kong will be mostly dialogue. It is a totally different story that needs to be told in a totally different way.
Q. And music?
A. Music is what encouraged me to reconsider making King Kong as a movie rather than settling for an illustrated book! I’ve built much of my story on Pelleas et Melisande. Debussy’s music is critical, and the book would suffer for its absence.
Q. The King Kong story might be in the public domain, but I can’t believe any recordings of Pelleas et Melisande are.
A. You’re more perceptive than usual. Almost as if you’re listening to what I’m saying.
Q. Almost as if.
A. I’m making the soundtrack myself, transcribing it note for note with MuseScore. The latest version is extraordinary, and its samples are better than any I’ve ever heard. So, little by little I’m building my King Kong score.
Q. From Debussy’s sheet music? Every note, every instruction for every instrument in the whole opera?
A. No, just the segments I need. The interludes, mostly. I’ll use them for each of the King Kong scene changes. My story follows Pelleas’ structure, at least at first.
Q. That makes no sense.
A. It does so! Ann Darrow at the start of King Kong is absolutely Melisande, and Denham is Golaud.
Q. I don’t see it.
A. Nerts to you then. Debussy’s score will play throughout the movie, although the story itself will gradually transform into something very different.
Q. It would have to if you’re introducing into it a twenty-five foot gorilla.
A. Kong doesn’t show up until the second half, and then only briefly.
Q. Are you absolutely sure you know what you’re doing?
A. I mention King Kong only because I am presently transcribing the score while editing Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift by ear. Two things at once. Very efficient. While plonking down notes I listen to Adrift spoken aloud, and pause every time I hear something that doesn’t sound right. I’m stopping constantly, every few minutes, so my work on the transcription is moving slowly.
Q. So, to sum up: Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift will be available on schedule, this coming July 21. The Ecstasy of Mrs. Quarterhorse will likely not be finished until early next year. And King Kong: The Antithesis of Ann Darrow will be available...?
A. Apotheosis. It will not be available for years, if ever. Even if it only becomes a book, it will take a very long time to complete.
Q. And so we can wrap up this interview?
A. You forgot my book of short love stories! We should have discussed it rather than King Kong, since those stories are the best things I’ve written. The resulting collection will be excellent, I haven’t the slightest doubt!
Q. I didn’t force you to go on about King Kong.
A. I couldn’t help it. I’ve had King Kong on the brain since I was three.
Q. How about we save the love stories for our next chat?
A. We really should be discussing the Quarterhorse books, since it’s on them that I’m banking my ongoing solvency!
Q. Again, I didn’t force you to go on about King Kong!
A. You’re supposed to be guiding these interviews. Next time, keep me focused.
Q. Perhaps from time to time I could slap you in the face?
A. If the slap doesn’t set me straight, the consequent waft of your Drakkar Noir sure will.
Q&A Part 3 (24 April 2026)
Q. The third Mrs. Quarterhorse book, The Many Charms of Mrs. Quarterhorse, is finally available for sale?
A. Yes. And it’s 10,000 words lighter than when I began its final polish.
Q. That’s more a sandblasting than a polish.
A. What matters is that it is a far better story than it was two years ago when I last put it aside.
Q. And now you’ve begun the final sandblasting on the fourth book?
A. I’m committed to getting all five books published before the end of the year. I’m not stopping for a breath, I’ve lost all sense of time. By the way, what month is it?
Q. April.
A. Of 2024?
Q. Afraid not.
A. I started these books in 2019! If I’ve not finished them by the end of the year, if I’m still applying a final polish in January 2027, I permit you to kill me at my desk. And do not allow me the last words traditionally granted to condemned men because I’ll drag those last words well into the 2030s.
Q. Quick one to the back of the head. Got it.
A. At the moment I’m not actually working on the fourth book. I’m writing promotional text for it, the book description that will accompany the cover when I set up the pre-order page at Amazon.
Q. And when will Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift be available to purchase?
A. Good, an actual question! Those Qs and As preceding our conversation were beginning to look a little strange. July 21st is the date I have in mind. Gemini chose it, actually. I simply asked for the best possible date within a summer window. Not sure why it picked that date. It likely explained why, but since nothing it says can be trusted I didn’t bother reading. Don’t care, really, I just needed a deadline so I wouldn’t keep polishing forever.
Q. You said in an earlier interview that you used Gemini to help promote your books...
A. The release dates were the last things I asked of Gemini before ghosting it. Turns out AI doesn’t work, not even for simple conversation. The novelty of talking to a computer ended when I realised that computer was an obsequious Gollum secretly plotting my ruin.
Q. Your books aren’t exactly flying off the shelf. Do you blame Gemini’s promotion advice?
A. Oh no, that’s on me. First off, it’s possible the books just stink and I’m too close to notice. But even if they’re as good as I hope they are, I simply haven’t applied myself to promoting them, and I haven’t the financial means to pay someone to do it for me. I tried tossing the responsibility to AI and it didn’t work. I might as well have asked an onion. I couldn’t blame an onion for failing at such a task, could I?
Q. You could, if that onion had been lauded as a unique problem-solving genius.
A. Fine, I’ll pin all my failings onto the AI onion and chuck it into the wasteland.
Q. How far along are you on the description for Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift?
A. Putting it off. Typing this interview instead.
Q. The story is about Mrs. Quarterhorse’s boat adrift in a dense fog, correct?
A. Part of the story, yes.
Q. How about this: “Join Mrs. Quarterhorse aboard her yacht as it drifts through the seven veils...”
A. And what are these seven veils?
Q. The fog, for one.
Q. We’re halfway there.
A. Two of seven is not halfway.
Q. What about the damp tea towel Mrs. Quarterhorse must wear over her face to breath the dusty air?
A. That’s stretching it, and we’re still not halfway.
Q. Surely there must be some sensual connection we can make between Salome’s seven veils and your story.
A. Well, at one point our protagonist reads the provocatively-titled book Caravan of Pagan Delights.
Q. Oscar Wilde would have been all over that.
A. The actual caravan, yes. But a book with that title? Unlikely.
Q. You’re probably right. I hear he mostly read Mickey Spillane.
A. The book Caravan of Pagan Delights is only used in my story ironically to contrast with our protagonist’s dreary drift through the fog.
Q. It seems to me you should have written the Caravan of Pagan Delights story instead, and let an unwritten Mrs. Quarterhorse Adrift provide the ironic contrast.
A. What’s done is done. And if you’ll excuse me, work not yet done requires my doing.
Q. I’ll let you know if I come up with any more veils.
A. Just slip your notes under my door, thanks.
Q&A Part 2 (29 January 2026)
Q. The first two Mrs. Quarterhorse books, Mrs. Quarterhorse, and Mrs. Quarterhorse at the Masked Ball, are finally published.
A. Not without difficulties. I’ve only just returned to work on the third book, The Many Charms of Mrs. Quarterhorse, after two years away from it. It’ll take a dozen more drafts to get it in shape for the April deadline I’ve set for myself.
Q. That’s cutting it close.
A. I refuse to let my revisions get out of hand like they did with the first two books. Two years I spent polishing those things and I’m not sure they’re all that much better for the effort. The third story is essentially finished. Even the cover is drawn. There’s no reason I can’t have it published by mid-April.
Q. What were the difficulties publishing the first two books?
A. The Kindle versions look excellent on a Kindle, and the downloadable versions look fine on the Moon Reader app. On ReadEra, though, another popular reading app, the styles don’t appear as they should. The * * * asterisks that indicate pauses in the story are all scrunched up, you can barely see them without making changes to ReadEra’s default settings.
Q. Since when could you download epubs from the Kindle store?
A. It’s a new service. When you publish an ebook now at Amazon you have the option to leave it DRM-free so buyers can, if they prefer, read the book on devices other than a Kindle.
Q. So you can now read a book bought at Amazon on a Kobo?
A. If the book is DRM-free, yes. And as for the Kobo, I tried out the downloadable epub on my own Kobo and it looked exactly as it should. Except for the cover.
Q. What’s wrong with the cover?
A. It’s not the right size. Takes a few page turns to get through it.
Q. Not the end of the world.
A. Still, it’s annoying. And there’s nothing I can do about these little glitches. Hopefully readers of ebooks are familiar enough with html peccadilloes to overlook them. My own epubs, the files I upload to be published, they are very clean code, lean and simple. These little flaws I’m whining about are truly not my fault! Unfortunately, no book will ever look the same everywhere.
Q. What other difficulties have you been having?
A. Amazon briefly ruined the Mrs. Quarterhorse series page, replaced it with a portion of one of the book descriptions. And then the book descriptions had to be changed because of how they appeared elsewhere without their html, squashed into blocks of text impossible to read. The new descriptions are shorter, simpler, and able to be de-html’ed without becoming incomprehensible. You’d think basic html in 2026 should be stable, wouldn’t you?
Q. If the bold tags on these Qs and As work, that’s good enough for me.
A. And then my old placeholder ASINs of the Quarterhorse books that I’d created years ago and subsequently deleted started rising from the grave. Please don’t make me explain them again, those phantoms have tormented me enough.
Q. Have you read the AI-generated summaries of your books?
A. They are currently curdling my milk. Thankfully they only appear on small mobile devices. I hope readers understand that writers do not write those summaries. They describe my stories about as well as the word “shoe” describes Jesse Owens at the Munich Olympics.
Q. Back to DRM. Digital Rights Management. You’re against it?
A. Yes, it’s stupid.
Q. Isn’t it meant to protect artists from being robbed?
A. It doesn’t matter what it’s meant to do. In reality DRM does the opposite. People buy digital books, albums, and movies not just to be able to read, listen to, and watch them. They also want a sense of ownership of the thing. Anyone can illegally download any book, album, or movie they want. They’ll then possess it, but there’ll be no corresponding sense of ownership. Ownership comes only when you properly buy something. But what DRM does, by telling the buyer that they can only read a book, or listen to an album, or watch a movie on a certain device or on a certain app, is compromise the meaning of ownership so thoroughly it no longer has value. People want to properly own things, and DRM makes that impossible.
Q. So, no DRM for your books?
A. DRM can go suck an egg.
Q. Strong words.
A. As strong as they get.
Q. Your stories don’t use bad language. Why not?
A. Because my mum’s ghost would smack me if I used it, that’s why.
Q. So, no bawdy talk to look forward to in the next book in the series, The Many Charms of Mrs. Quarterhorse?
A. The word fink is used at least once.
Q. Scandalous.
A. Are we done here?
Q. First tell me again when The Many Charms of Mrs. Quarterhorse will be available.
A. I won’t know for certain until I’ve finished the next draft, but I’m aiming to have the pre-order page at Amazon up by the end of next week, with the book to be published on April 16, 2026.
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| Amazon's terrible AI-generated book descriptions; I did not write these! |
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| How the optional downloadable epub looks on Moon Reader (top) and ReadEra (bottom). |
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| Showing how the * * * breaks are squished by default on the ReadEra app; changing Text Align from "Original" to "Justify" will make the breaks reappear, although still not as they were meant to appear. |
Q&A Part 1 (2025)
Q. Why this ridiculous Blogger page instead of a proper website?
A. Because it's good enough.
Q. But it doesn't look professional.
Q. Sheen.
A. Why?
Q. So it will be taken seriously.
A. Anyone unable to overlook a lack of sheen is not worth being treated seriously.
Q. Isn't your ultimate purpose here to sell the Mrs. Quarterhorse books?
A. Yes, I suppose so.
Q. Then you shouldn't alienate potential customers by denying them the professional sheen they expect. Do you not want their business?
A. People who judge content based on sheen are also the sort who buy books, read them, then return them for a refund.
Q. Fair enough.
A. Furthermore, I'm opposed to sheen for its own sake. I'm sick of sheen. Website templates, stock photo libraries, generative AI, all there to effortlessly give the same professional sheen to absolutely everything everywhere.
Q. Just because turds are now presented with professional sheen is no reason to dismiss sheen itself.
A. I disagree. I now fully associate professional sheen with turds. To be clear, I'm only dismissing professional sheen, not professional content or functionality. As I've already stated, this website, mere blog though it may be constructed upon, is simple and clean, qualities rare among sites with professional sheen. This website functions as it should, and the content, while meagre, is at very least interesting.
Q. You mentioned AI. I was just about to bring it up.
A. It does churn in the belly like an imminent puke, doesn't it?
Q. I take it you don't use AI?
A. I often pose questions to Copilot or Gemini.
Q. To do what?
A. I'm currently using Gemini to navigate through promoting my books. I have no head for this sort of thing, and am more than happy to be walked through it. Unfortunately, since Gemini is a habitual liar and nothing it suggests can be relied on, it's not really very helpful! I continue with it, nonetheless, in fits and starts, because I can't bear to watch any more of those excruciating self-publishing how-to videos. The only thing more grotesque than the self-publishing ecosystem is the how-to self-publish ecosystem. I'd rather be lied to by a robot, thanks, and dragged down to financial ruin.
Q. Do you use AI to improve your writing or artwork?
A. No!
Q. Not at all?
A. Not one dot, not one word! Look, I've been using grammar checkers for as far back as I can remember. I use them to find mistakes that I've overlooked, like a their instead of a there, an its instead of an it's, stuff like that. Sometimes, no matter how often you proofread a text, a mistake that should stand out is somehow invisible. So, I'm grateful for grammar checkers. I'm more than happy to have troublesome phrases pointed out. But that is all I want from a grammar checker, a simple prod. I have no interest in suggested changes. I have never, not once ever, used grammar suggested by AI, and I never will! If a writer is letting AI write for them, even just to tweak the wording of a single phrase, that writer has crossed a line!
Q. So you're saying that if I write a 300 page novel, but use a grammar checker's suggested rephrasing of a single sentence, I have crossed a line?
A. Yes.
Q. That's a bit extreme, don't you think?
A. No. Look, if your job is writing pointless memos, then by all means let AI write them for you. After all, the people you're sending them to will likely be using AI to read them. But if you're working as a creative professional for living breathing humans? Forget it! If AI writes one single word for you, you've crossed a line.
Q. AI is just a tool, isn't it? No different than a hammer.
A. Yes, a hammer that will build you a house entirely on its own. Furthermore, keep in mind that AI is just a big averaging machine. AI text that you judge good enough for your book is also being judged good enough for millions of other books the world over. Everything will soon look and sound exactly the same.
A. Here's one they should try: "Find me a line of work for which I'm actually suited."
Q. If an artist is at least open about using AI, that's okay, don't you think?
A. It might be if AI weren't trained on stolen data! Any creativity in its output is already there in the stolen input. So, an artist being open about using AI is only admitting they steal from other artists. Confession is good for the soul, I guess.
Q. Moving on. If this site's admitted purpose is to promote the author S. C. Marchere's novels, why no corresponding social media presence?
A. You mean, why are there no Georges Presse, Marchere or Mrs. Quarterhorse Facebook pages?
Q. Not just no Facebook, no nothing. Just this blog masquerading as a website.
A. Facebook and Twitter pages were set up once, I think, but never used.
Q. Why not?
A. Look, I'm sick of talking about myself in the third person. I'm Marchere, okay? I'm the one answering these questions. And the reason I'm not on Facebook, or X, or anywhere else is because I can't be. I can't do social media.
A. No, I'm the opposite of shy! I can't shut up is the problem! Long before Facebook I've chatted online in forums. I love talking to people. I could chat all day and all night. You know how conversations branch out. Furthermore, I carefully read every post and put as much care into my own, no different than if I were a proper Victorian lady at a desk with pen and paper, tending to my daily correspondences. I simply cannot use emojis or any sort of shorthand. Not even in messages with family and my closest friends! If I have to message someone that I'm going to be ten minutes late, for instance, I'll stop to work out a suitable phrase! Causing me to be twenty minutes late. Facebook would have killed me. I saw immediately how it consumed people in my circles, and knew that for me it would be infinitely worse. I'd love to spend every day just chatting with people all over the world, but if I want to ever get any work done, I can't. And since I am incapable of meeting social media halfway, I have had to exclude it from my life. Same with peanut butter. If there's a jar around, I'll empty it.
Q. Surely you could manage a simple Facebook page just to promote the Mrs. Quarterhorse books?
Q. Aren't your family and friends inconvenienced by your refusal to use Facebook?
A. Constantly. Whenever they've done anything worth sharing, they have to email or message me about it, attach pictures, a lot of work they don't have to do for anyone else. I'm a nuisance, I know it.
Q. It surely also means you are out of the loop regarding the news of the day.
A. That I am okay with.
Q. Not to get you all worked up again by mentioning AI, but it seems one of the problems with having no social media presence is that you might be mistaken for being AI yourself.
A. AI doesn't use as many exclamation points.
A. I use them, too! They're useful little things. Sometimes a comma, colon, or semi-colon just looks weird, don't you think? Em-dash to the rescue. And that reminds me of another legitimate use for AI. I once asked it to write me a macro so I could hotkey the em-dash.
Q. But back to my point, doesn't it bother you to be mistaken for a bot?
A. Just because I don't use Facebook?
A. I'm here, aren't I?
Q. So at least part of the reason for this interview is to demonstrate your corporeality?
A. Yes. I'm not overjoyed to be real, by the way.
Q. Let's talk about something real. The Mrs. Quarterhorse books. They're supposedly going to be for sale one day?
A. I'm aiming for the first two books to be ready some time this autumn. (Edited to correct: the first two books were published January 13, 2026 at Amazon.)
Q. When did you start writing them?
Q. And the other three?
Q. You've recently written some short stories as well?
A. Yes, I've been writing them concurrently with the novels. I can only work on the same thing for a few hours straight, so having several projects going at the same time just makes sense.
Q. Will the short stories be published?
A. They all conform to a theme. One of two themes, actually. Eventually they'll be collected into volumes. I've sent some of the stories to publications, hoping to perhaps direct interested readers to this site. (Edited to add: one of these stories, A Lost World, has been posted here in its entirety.)
Q. So then, someone clicks on a link and arrives here.
A. Yes.
Q. And then what?
A. They'll learn about the Mrs. Quarterhorse stories and consider reading them.
Q. How hopeful are you?
A. Not very. The books are really good, I wouldn't publish them if they weren't. I don't lack that sort of confidence! But the amount of competing material out there is overwhelming. Never in human history has there been such a steady, heavy flow of new fiction. Add to that the unceasing bulldozer dumps of low-content dreck and the ever-thickening AI gas-clouds, and the odds of being noticed are next to nothing.
Q. And if you're never noticed? Do you have a plan-B?
A. I barely have a plan-A!
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