Rantin' ravin' givin' out but with a purpose!

I used, once upon a time, participate on forums, Amazon, Createspace, Linkedin, and the like.

Now I don't as most of the time you are wasting energy, and writing time.

I did try on CS to help people who posted bits & pieces and asked for advice on their writing.

But when a person gives real, true, trying to be helpful advice - they get abused.

Some plonkers even go and having written a glowing review of your book saying BUY THIS BOOK, write another that says DON'T BUY THIS BOOK.

And the real laugh is that both reviews appearing alongside each other on the Amazon review page are almost identical except for the shouted DON'T.

Makes me laugh that the other writer can't see the absurdity of this.

But the posts that turned me off were questions like "How long should a paragraph be?" The hoary chestnut about chapter length also raises its head - again and again.

Yet most of the posters on these writing forums think they are writers: they are not!

Writing gibberish that is not punctuated or edited or spellchecked BUT published is not the work of a writer/author.

But the real question/comment that sent me screaming, raving, trembling into that dark night was, "My first book of 800 pages is not selling." Someone replied that that if the story was worth telling and needed 800 pages  to tell, then serialise it. But when your Facebook pals are telling you the work is perfect - then you can ignore advice from writers who have published and are selling.

But all of the above is just a ramble.

I decided my short stories would take 20 minutes to read, now my first two are for sale on Amazon.

So that's how long a short story will be for me for a while, and amazingly each has a few paragraphs as well - but no chapters.