Reading the reviews

While I hammer away at the last few chapters of Restraint, people reading have left me some absolutely wonderful comments--comments that are to my creative satisfaction what a big royalty check must be to a published author.

Every now and then, though, I go digging around to see what people are saying about the story who aren't addressing their comments directly to me, and then I find some fun things.

One advises other readers to use global search-and-replace on the ridiculous character names, and convert them to [specific other names preferred, apparently, by the recommender] to make the story readable.

Another, in a similar vein, cautions potential readers that so many real-person names are unrecognizable that they'll have trouble following the story, and warns that the same authorial arrogance has led me to change the very name of Christmas to Michaelmas.

I'm so tempted to take the Gutenberg text of Pride and Prejudice and change every instance of "Darcy" to "Benedict Cumberbatch" now. And swap every instance of "Christmas" with "National Day of the Cowboy!" (complete with exclamation mark), like this:

"I sincerely hope your National Day of the Cowboy! in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings..." because how could it not?

and

Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Benedict Cumberbatch was continually giving offense."

Then you could change the "Bingley"s to "Martin Freeman." There'd be no end to the fun!