Counting Down to the 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978)
Happy 2026!
It is our 30th anniversary here at Space Dock 13!
On the web since 1996!
You have encountered an extremely old website that continues to exist in old web ways, the same way it has done for now three decades.
In spite of being now 30 years old this year, started in 1996, it is still heavily active and old pages updated daily, new pages added daily, still now in 2026. All hand written, all hand coded (no AI), all by me, same as it ever was.
We Still Exist: The Old Web Did Not Go Away, You Just Forgot How To Find Us
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This site was NOT designed for mobile devices (as they had not been invented yet when I created it) thus this site looks best on a computer, at 1280x768 or above. |
This is a very old website created in 1996, so, yes, javascript is needed for the site to work as it should. If things don't function, you may need to update javascript drivers on your device |
This site tries to be mobile friendly but it's been online since 1996, so old pages may not load right on mobile devices, and as this site has had pages added near daily for 30 years there are now over 20k pages here. |
Having started out in life as a GeoCities site, this site contains glitter, bright colours, blinkies, moving gifs, and other things the old web was known for. |
What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing?
f you are here looking for aliens, ufos, demons, cryptids, haunted cars, curses, Etiole, the wild man of old orchard beach, the goldeneagle car, the white monkey, or any of that other weird bullshit, you want this video:
...and after that video, you want these ones:
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 Wendy Christine Allen, 2019, able to sit up in a chair for the first time in years, and able to raise up my arm and wiggle fingers. This was when I started playing Witcher 3 on Twitch as part of my physical therapy to regain finger movement. Playing Witcher 3 daily from 2016 to 2019, is how I regained the use of my thumb and two for fingers on my right hand... it is also why I stopped playing Witcher 3 in 2019, once I had strengthen my two forefingers enough to start typing again.Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer Counting Down to the September 23, 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978) If you are here looking for The Twighlight Manor series, The Crystonite Wars series, The Wild Years series, The White Rock Asylum for the Criminally Insane series, The Twisted Tales series, the Captured By a MerMan series, The Space Dock 13 series, The Kats of Planet Ptarmagin series, the stories about Miss Citten the Eel-Kat, or the stories about Etiole... ALL of those series were combined and consolidated into The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Pink Necromancer series in 2014, so ALL the different series, are now under one series title. List of the published titles still in print: The Index of over three thousand stories in The Pink Necromancer series What the series is about, for those new here: |
If you want some stories to get you started in The Pink Necromancer series, reading these first will give you a good introduction to the 3 main characters:
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My Elves Are JellyFish...and I asked Google AI and ChatGPT 5.6 what they thought of this.
As requested, my daily writing prompt series is now available print paperback editions on Amazon.
There are 20 volumes of this writing prompt series currently planned and in varying stages of finishing, hopefully all 20 will be published by the end of 2026. I likely will do a 2nd series of writing prompt books in 2027.
Coming soon (Nov/Dec 2026)... patterns for my slow stitched embroidery:
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The first of the Visual Novels/Video Games for The Adventures of Quaraun the Inane/The Pink Necromancer series is published and available on Itch.io, there are 3 more planned for release in 2026, 6 more planned for release in 2027, and the big 60-hour 80k word 150 page one (Quaraun Goes To the Fair) is planned for a 2028 release.
There is a Pink Necromancer card game and a Pink Necromancer board game, as well as a Pink Necromancer table top RPG supliment for Dungeons and Dragons, all in the works, and to be released over the next couple of years as well.
I shouldn't have to say this, but people keep contacting me, so apparently I do:
- No, I do not believe in aliens. Stop contacting me to ask for alien information. If you believe in aliens, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.
- No, my car is not haunted. I've debunked that rumour many times now. . Stop contacting me to ask for haunted car information. If you believe in haunted cars, I think you are insane, retarded, or both.
- No, I am not connected to Stephen King. I didn't even know who he was until you idiots started contacting me asking about him. I had to look him up on Google to find out what you were even talking about! If you have questions about Stephen King, go contact him and ask him. I'm not him. I don't know him. I know nothing about him. I've never read one of his books. I've never seen one of his movies. I can't figure out why you people are even coming to me to ask about him in the first place!
- If someone told you I believe in aliens, if someone told you my car was haunted, if someone told you I was connected to Stephen King, you NEED to contact the FBI agent in charge of my son's murder investigation and TELL HIM WHO it was who told ou, exactly WHAT it was they said, HOW they contacted you, WHERE they contacted you... because it is a KNOWN FACT that my son's murderer is the one who started all these slanderous alien, haunted car, Stephen King rumours, and the FBI is trying to catch her.
If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
Do you know who this woman is?
On August 8, 2013 she drove a backhoe over my house. On November 14, 2013 she arrived at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me with a golf club and murdered my son. One June 24, 2016, days after my first attempts to walk again, she attacked me with a shopping cart at Scarborough, Walmart, reinjuring the Nov 14, 2013 injury.
She crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet id-ed the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club.
Complete details of EVERYTHING she did is on this page here.
 The golf club woman who called herself Clair as she looked November 14, 2013. Her hair is a weird chin leangth pageboy (very Medival style cut) platinum blonde with wide brown/black dyed stripes in it (like a reverse of Lily Munster, but the stripes are several, almost like a zebra). I am 5'6" and she was a LOT taller then me, like closer to the height of a man; she had thin lips like a man, and large nose like a man... she COULD have been a man disguised as a woman, given the ease with which she severed my spine....she's is a LOT stronger then is typical for a woman). She was wearing a chambre blue denim "blazer jacket over shirt" and a button up mens shirt (possibly flannel) and blue jeans. The bulk of her yelling was focused on accusing me of being transgender, even while ripping my baby out of my 8 month pregnant belly and bashing his head in with a golf club. |
 The Claire woman as she looked during her shoping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart June 2016, the attack with left me paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Her hair was dyed dark red, and she drove away in a gold Volvo 240 Station Wagon of a late 1980s/early1990s model, with a "458" on the lisnce plate.... If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office. |
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If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
Good god! We just found out about yet another slanderous rumour this woman has been spreading? When does it end? How many more of these things are out there?
Video explains what else she's done ...
If you have any information about the woman who crippled me with a golf club, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
 If you encounter anyone claiming my car is haunted, demon possessed, or somehow connected to Stephen King please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
If you encounter anyone claiming I believe in aliens or was an alien abducttee, please give the information of who, when, where/location to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office. |
If you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.  If you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine 04064-1520 on August 8, 2013 please give the information of who it is to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office. |
I am sick and tired of people not giving a shit that my son was murdered!
I am sick and tired of jackasses making up rumours and lies about me and my car, calling me an alien abductee and my car haunted, just to try to cover up my son's murder!
What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing?
[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]
What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing?
[/quote]
I think everyone has their own system. I've heard some do beta first and others do editing first and others doing multiples back and forth (which is what I do.)
I've got 3 betas who are my standard go-tos. They get it before any editing, so what they are reading is the rough draft just as it popped out of my head.
My method is somewhat different than what I've heard others say they do, as well. See, I absolutely refuse to use "email betas". All of my betas are people loyal to me and I hand them print outs. I have a beta reader read it before it gets edited and ask them to write right on the print out, point by point EVERY thought and impression they had as they were reading it. (Note, I'm not asking them to edit or look for errors.) The print out I give them has 1.5inch margins and double spaced lines, so there's a lot of white space for them to write on.
The reason I do it this way, is because, while they are reading the story, they are able to write their first impressions right on the page, while they are reading. I find the feedback is far better this way. Email betas, will read the story, set it aside, then write up their comments hours or even days after reading. There is a big difference between comments written on the page as they read it, and comments written in an email a couple of days later.
I had one story I did this with and the first thing my beta reader had said was "Boy do you love your pronouns". I asked her what she meant by this and she told me that on page 1 all the characters were named, but that for the entire 30 pages afterwards not a single name appeared in the story, it was all "he" or "she" from page 2 onwards. I had no idea that I had done this, and after she told me this, I looked at my other stories and realized this was a huge problem from me - I did it A LOT.
Thing is, the email betas did not mention the pronoun issue. Only the paper print out betas mentioned it. I went back and asked all my betas about the pronoun issue and every one of them said they had in fact noticed while reading, and had intended to comment on it, but that by the time they had gotten around to writing up their review, it just had slipped their mind they had forgotten about it. Oh well. No biggie...wait...what? No biggie? How is that no biggie? That's pretty huge biggie.
Well, I went back and changed this error in a lot of my stories, I fixed it by a system of 5s: name, pronoun, pronoun, pronoun, name; so that I never used a pronoun for a single character more than 3 times in a row.
I had about 30 betas I use in rotation and I sent them a bunch of the stories, to read. Same thing was happening over and over. Betas who wrote on the hard copy as they read it, picked up on tons of stuff, including the pronoun error, because they were writing their first impression comments as they were reading. They wrote long rants about everything from typos and errors ("I love your story but you can't spell worth sh%@") to character inconsistencies ("You know she's a hard a$$ back in chapter 2, now she's being a wous, what's with the whimpy act all of a sudden, it's out of character for her?") to plot questions ("Why in the he11 did you have him do that? That makes no sense at all, shouldn't he have been doing this instead?")...they would write in the lines, around the edges, on the back of the page, and attached more sheets. Every thought that went through their head, ended up on the page.
On the other hand, my email betas would write 4 or 5 sentences that amounts to "You dude, this is great"...uhm, yeah, that's not helpful.
So, yeah, I have personally found that beta readers are going to be very helpful, but only if you hand them a print out copy and a red ink pen and tell them they have permission to massacre your work. And don't flip out on them, either or they won't tell you want they really think next time. During beta reading is the time to be brutal. The last thing you want is a beta reader who pats your shoulder and tells you it's great. You want a beta reader who tears your story apart word for word and rips your characters apart...that's the only way you'll ever find those errors and flaws so you can correct them.
If you don't have betas yet, make sure you find ones that know the difference between a beta reader and an editor though. That's the thing that always bugs me: that beta readers seem to THINK they are supposed to edit the story. No, no, no,no, no! Betas read the story and tell you first impressions as a reader. Okay, if the typos and spelling and grammar are a huge issue that prevent them from reading, sure, you want them to tell you about it, but it's NOT their job to do the editing for you!
It happens to me all the time, I'll hand them the story (always hard copy print outs now, I never work over email anymore, for the reasons stated earlier) and say, "Write down anything you think of as you are reading." And I'll get back an edited manuscript. I'll ask "Why'd you edit this?" They say "Well you told me to write down what I thought and I thought it needed editing, see, I said it needed editing right here, and I pointed out all the places that needed editing."
I mean, I don't mind that they do that, but it's not what I wanted them to do. Betas are supposed to let you know if your plot is plausible, you characters likeable/believable, did the story flow read smoothly or was it choppy and confusing? If it needs editing, yeah, fine, I expect them to say something like "Oh, by the way, this really needs editing, I saw a lot of errors", but it's not their job to sit there marking up every single error they found. Make sure they know that.
I think some of the confusion is, that a lot of authors do expect betas to edit, and so a lot of betas end up assuming that they are just expected to edit as well as read. So, tell them up front, that you are not asking them to edit, you only want them to review the story/plot/flow/characters/etc.
I have 2 sets of beta readers that I use. The first are my 3 regulars who read everything I write. I turn them for all my work, because I know they'll tell me EXACTLY what they think. If they hate it, they'll tell me, and they'll tell me why they hate it, which characters sucked and why. These guys are brutal. It has to get past these guys before it'll go on to anything else (more betas, editors, etc.) I rely on these three guys to tell me EXACTLY what they think. If they don't like the story, a character in the story, a scene, a plot twist, whatever, they will tell me and they will tell me EXACTLY why they didn't like it. These guys are brutal. Brutal honesty is what I expect from a beta reader.
Here's a point: are your readers going to be mostly men or mostly women? And are your main characters male or female? Pick your betas to match.
I chose 3 men in the 20s as my beta readers, because I write primarily male main characters, but I'm a woman. So one thing I look for is 'are my male characters actually acting like male characters?'
My 3 betas a very different: one is a "super mega geek-geek" (D&D, video games, comic books, sci-fi, Whovian, Trekkie, science nut, walks around with physics books and books by Michio Kaku - you'd think he just walked out of Big Bang Theory) and he introduces himself to people "My name is ___, I'm a geek", one is a "super mega music geek" (band tees, stacks of CDs and vinyl, name a band, any band, any time, any genre - oldie, pop, 80s big hair, new metal, rap, German industrial, punk, visual kei, grindcore, indie, you name it he knows it, can recite every song title off every album, tell you the history of each band member and probably has it on his iPod), and the other is "the health nut" (tracks everything he eats, is into weight lifting and bodybuilding, and hopes to one day look like The Rock.) .... the thing they all have in common: they read... a lot.
They read a lot of sci-fi and horror and I write sci-fi & horror. They are best friends and they get together pick a book, read it, than watch it's movie, and get into debates tearing the movie apart over all the reasons it WASN'T like it's book (this includes comic book movies too). There is nothing these guys love more than finding everything that is WRONG with a book.
If these guys do not like something in your book, they think nothing of getting up on their soap box and telling exactly what they think is wrong with it. They nit-pick every little detail, inside out and upside down. If you do not have a thick skin and a hard turtle shell, you'll never make it pass one of their reviews. You'll be hard pressed to get a 2 star review from one of these guys, and THAT is why I picked them as my primary betas. Because I know I can trust them to find all the flaws and tell me about them.
If my main character is acting like a sissy or a dweeb, that's exactly what they say to me "___ is such a dweeb, REAL men don't say things like ___".
I had one character, whom they said "___ does not make a good hero, not with all those stupid silver spoons stuffed so far up his *ss." I was like, 'Silver spoon? What do you mean?' Next thing I know they were throwing out all the reasons, lots of them: "He's such a momma's boy!", "Yeah, and what does he do for a living?", "Always running to daddy for money", "A girl could kick his butt", "You wrote him like he was a girl!"...Well, I never saw these things at all, but once they pointed this stuff out, I was "OMG! They are right! How did I not notice this?"
and that's what a beta's job is, right there, the show the author,, hey you're perfect character, ain't so perfect and this is how we readers are seeing him.
I know to expect a very thorough review from these guys, when I ask "So what did you think?" and they answer with "It's stupid." Why is it stupid? "Oh, well, because...." This is what I look for in beta readers, some one who is not afraid to speak their mind and just tear my characters and the plot to shreds.
Sure I want to be told "I liked this because....", but if I'm to make my story better, I need to be told "I hated this because..." It's the only way I'm going to improve my story. And that's why I like these 3 betas, because I can rely on them to tell it like it is and not just say what they think I'll want to hear.
I never have to worry about these 3 guys trying to edit my work. They couldn't care less if the grammar or spelling was wrong. They'll tell me "You can't spell worth sh*t, you know that right?" But that's the end of it, they don't try to correct my errors.
I run into the editing problem with my second group of beta readers.
My second group of betas changes all the time, because I will go to a local college and give an English professor a stack of drafts (1 copy each of 15 to 30 stories, depending on how many students in his/her class). The teacher uses the drafts as part of the Creative Writing program. The assignment is to write a review of the story in question. It is intended to promote critical thinking. The students are instructed to write on the printout, any thought that pops into their head as they read it. They are given 15 minutes to read and then 30 minutes to write a review of what they read. The teacher tells them to look at plot and character development and assess them.
At no point are they instructed to edit the draft, the goal is to write a review of the story itself. This assignment leads into a group discussion afterwards, where the students discuss character development and story plots. (I was once a student in this class, now I'm the author providing the stories for it)Students who wish to do so, read the story out loud, then read their review, and than talk about why they thought what they did and the rest of the class debates if they agree of disagree. (it's a 3 hour class).
Well, when I get my drafts back, I get them with the student reviews stapled to the draft, and the reviews vary from one lines "This is stupid" or "I don't get it" or "WOW! Amazing" or "Dude!" Others are long essays detailing absolutely every thought that went through their head. Most are just a single paragraph or two.
However, frequently, these drafts come back edited! The mis-spelled words crossed out, grammar corrected and the grammar rule scrawled into the margin, etc. On these, the paper attached is NEVER a review of the story, plot or characters, but rather a detailed rant about miss-spellings, grammar, and typos, usually stating that they were [i]"unable to concentrate on the story or it's characters because of all the glaring errors that were jumping off the page at me and screaming in my face"[/i] (as one student put it.)
Or "How do you expect me to read this, I can't even tell what it says the spelling is so bad, are you sure a professional author wrote this?" Usually if the student edited the draft, they also wrote a rant about how angry they were over the fact that anyone existed who was so stupid they couldn't spell, and how do such stupid people make it in the world... :o
I sit in on these classes from time to time. The teacher does not tell the students I am the author. Instead the teacher tells the students I am a Education Degree Student, sitting in on a class for a homework assignment, to observe his/her teaching methods. Because they have no clue I'm the one who wrote the stories, they just say the first thing that pops into their head, and for the students hung up on correcting/editing the drafts instead of doing the assignment they were asked to do, they are always justify their lack of doing the assignment, by claiming they were too "morally outraged" over the spelling errors to even consider what the story was saying.
I also noticed a trend: younger students (just out of high school) are less likely to notice the errors and attempt to edit, while the older students (non-traditional college 35+) are LESS likely to review the story and will almost always get hung up on trying to edit it. (This came from observations made in the classes I've sat in on.)
I found this to be very eye opening. Sure they did not do the asignment they were asked to do, but clearly they were deeply upset at being asked to read a rough draft that had not yet gone through the editing process. They are always very vocal in the reasons why they absolutely refused to do the assignment.
Sometimes they get so angry over it that I half expect them to make signs are start marching around the college screaming "No more bad spelling! Death to bad spellers!" Basically they felt offended, as though they were being forced to read something that was beneath them. I found this important, because, it mirrors what I see in book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. People expect to be given good quality work. They expect to be respected enough to not have to read crap. They expect a story to have been edited before they are asked to read it - EVEN if they know it is a first draft they are being asked to beta read!
It always amazes me when a BETA READER gets upset over reading an unedited first draft, because, betas typically read the story before it goes to the editor, BECAUSE the author will use the beta's comments to write up a second draft, one improving on plot errors and character
Sometimes I wonder if I should have stuff edited before I hand it over to betas, but then I realise, I would lose a ton of valuable feedback if I edited before betaing. For example, I might be tempted to let editing slide, had it not been for the open display of vehement hatred for bad spelling, I have seen displayed by some students during those class discussions. I run my stories through 10 rounds of mass edits, as a result of seeing how much readers hate to read badly spelled drafts.
I think of my betas as being the reviews I'd get if my book went to print without them. So, while I don't discourage my betas from editing if they feel they must, I don't encourage it nor do I expect it either, because my editing process is an entirely different round from my betas reading process.I consider betas readers completely separate from editors, which results in my stories getting multiple rounds of eyeballs looking at them. I beta first and edit after because often my betas point out things about characters or plot, which I had not noticed and later during the editing process I end up making changes to the characters and/or plot as a result.
I know some writers expect their betas to edit, and I know some betas think editing is part of the job, but me, all I ask of my betas is "Read it and tell me what you think." Surprisingly, the lack of editing, is often top priority on the opinions of many betas. This tells me something: When it comes to publishing a story you can have bad characters and many readers won't mind if it's a good story, or you can have a bad story so long as the characters are good, but bad editing is not going to fly. Readers can forgive bad characters or bad stories as being artistic license of the author, but they'll never forgive bad grammar and bad spelling. My betas taught me that.
A lot of authors hand their betas a questionnaire as well. I think it works better for email betas, than it does for hard copy betas though. I did a questionnaire thing a couple of times, but I found it less helpful. It resulted in mostly one line comments in answer to the questions, which was okay, but lacked any real useful deep thoughts. The "Tell me what you think about the characters and plot, make note of everything that popped into your head as you read it," seems to work better for me.
oh, and I will point out, obviously, if the stories can be read in 15 minutes of class session, they are typically only 3 to 10 pages long. So, I'm talking about short stories in my own use of betas, not novels, nor collections of short stories. I know there is a time issue for a lot of authors too, most seem to give betas a time period, something like "Get back to me in 2 to 4 weeks on this". It seems to be pretty standard to expect a beta reader to take 2 to 4 weeks to read, review, respond. Every time I see authors/betas saying it takes more than a week to beta, I ask myself "Don't they know this is a business? You can't run a business like that!"
I don't know, I guess I'm one of those people who just expects people to get things done on time. I won't wait around for the laggers. If a beta reader hasn't gotten back to me in a day or 2, I'll not ask them to read again. But still I'm one of those people with a MySpace badge that reads "I read Harry Potter in 72 hours" (nobody uses MySpace anymore, but anybody remember those?) So even with novels, I don't see why there would be a 3 to 4 week time lapse between some betas getting the story and the author getting the response back, especially not with most novels only been half as long as Harry potter was. That seems like a wicked long time lapse to me. Perhaps I'm more of a curmudgeon then other authors, but I won't wait around 4 weeks for a beta reader to respond, and I'd certainly never deal with them again. Time is money, the clock is ticking, every second counts, and well, 4 weeks is long enough to be seen as a set-back in my eyes.
Of course I can understand, if the author has 4 weeks of other stuff to deal with and so gives the betas 4 weeks, yeah, that makes sense. But it seems like usually the time lapse is not the author giving the betas 4 weeks, but rather the betas giving the author the run around and taking 4 weeks for the author to drag a response out of the beta. I've seen blog posts where authors will mention having trouble trouble getting betas to respond, and how they have to keep asking and asking and asking before the beta FINALLY weeks later send a response, along with "Oh, life happened and I didn't have time to read it...." Those are the ones that get me. If life happened, well why didn't they tell the author "I'm sorry, something unexpected happened and it'll be a few weeks before I can read your book, you might want to have another beta take my place this time."
I suppose it could be augued "Well, they are volunteering their time, and they have a life and ..." Yeah, but...they DID volunteer their time, presumably because THEY HAVE FREE TIME TO WASTE, you know, nothing going on in their life to prevent them from reading your story the day they get it and responding withing 2 or 3 days, and if it takes them 4 weeks to find the time to read your draft, seriously, that doesn't sound like somebody who had enough free time on their schedule to volunteer their time. They really have no business telling you they have time to read your story if they don't have time to read it and spend 4 weeks pussyfooting around before they get back to you. I mean, I look at this as, I'm running a business, and I have deadlines to meet, and to make me wait 4 weeks is well, the only word for it is inconsiderate.
If it takes them 4 weeks to read a story and respond, than there's something seriously wrong. I wouldn't trust somebody who lied to me, told me that free time to read and respond and took 4 weeks to get back to me. Once a liir always a liar I say. I don't like being lied to. If they tell me there's a problem, you know somebody's in the hospital or whatever, I'd be like "Okay, you take care of that, let me know when things are back on track."
But than that brings be back to me 3 beta guys...see I pay them to read for me. I have found that volunteer betas, goof off and take long, long, long turnaround times, where as paid betas, it's bam, read, reviewed, and back in my hands in 3 days or less.
I don't pay the college students, because the teachers use this has an in class assignment so they are getting college credits for beta reading, but the 3 guys who are my regular betas, they do get paid. Payment varies and could be $10 per story, or a $10 SubWay gift card, or a gift card to BullMoose Music Store, or I take them to Pizza Hut for dinner, or an all you can eat buffet (and three 20-something guys can eat a lot) or take them to a movie, whatever. Usually it amounts to about $10 in either cash or food or gift cards per guy for every time they beta read a story. Plus they get copies of the final print book as well. So I typically spend $30 per story, to have them read it. Most of the stories I write are 10 printed copy paper pages (25 - 35 published pages) so I pay my 3 regular betas at a rate of $1 per page (about $10 per story). At a story a week, 3 readers a story, that comes out to about $1500+/- a year to have my stories beta read.
I wonder...is it because my betas ARE NOT volunteering, is that the reason they are on the ball and respond to me in only a few hours/days, not weeks? The college students, they don't get credit if they turn the assignment in late, the 3 guys, they don't get a "free meal" if they put off responding. They have an incentive to get back to me quickly, because in essence they are getting paid on some level. So I wonder are betas be more professional and more timely in their responses when the author pays them?
I know a lot of authors don't pay their betas, but I have noticed that those who do, tend to say they get beta results from their betas, so it might be worth looking into paying your betas, if you have trouble getting them to respond in a timely manner.
[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]
The when its done being edited do yu edit it a second time?
[/quote]
I will usually run each story through several. I never publish anything until it has gone through at least 5 edits. As many as 10 edits are not unusual for me.
My process goes like this:
It gets beta read, than I rewrite it, than it gets edited via an GrammarChecher software program. Than it goes through yet another program. I have 7 different programs I use and they each find things the others missed.
After this it gets printed up and is given a manual red pen edit on hard copy.
At this point all of the edits were done by me, myself.
After this it is handed to my 3 betas again. They tell me if it's better or not.
Than it gets handed over to a third party editor, who does the actual final edit...which may or may not be the final edit. The last thing to happen is the whole thing gets run through a grammar checker software again.
[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]
Also do any of you order print books and send them to friends when you first publish your work? I have thought of doing this for a couple friends who i will be having in the dedication of the book. (maybe 10 copies total?)
[/quote]
Yes.
Always.
Every book.
Every time.
This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
All Rights Reserved.
Note: there are likely spelling errors on this site, and I am unlikely to see the ... I fix them when I find them, but, there are many issues here...
Note: English is not my first language, Shetlean Scottish is my native language, there are likly spelling and grammar errors, as I do not know American English and am attempting to write it by sounding words out.
Many times that Americans think a word on my site is misspelled, often it is not misspelled, it is just I mixed up languages and wrote it in Scottish without realizing I mixed the Scottish in with the English. Also our grammar is somewhat reversed from English grammar so words that are seeming in the wrong order for American English, is usually because they are in the correct order for Scottish and I either put English words in Scottish order by mistake or was unaware English put them in a different order then Scottish does.
For those unaware, Scottish Shetlean looks like this:
American English to Scottish:
a bit (piece) = a party --- EXAMPLE: "And some know a bit of Latin " > "And somme kan of latyn a party "
a long distance from = A piece fae
a piece of = the bit --- EXAMPLE: "The duck ate a piece of bread " > "The deuk ett the bit breid "
about the banks (on the shore/at the beach) = aboot da banks
accomplishments = kunnandi
After = Back o --- EXAMPLE: " After Halloween" > "Back o Hallomas "
alive (living) = kvikr
Always on the move = Never aff o da go
am I not = amn't I --- EXAMPLE: "Am I not invited? " > "I amn't invited? or Amn't I invited?"
are = is --- EXAMPLE: "Are you going soon?" > "Is ya to be going soon?"
autumn = dah haihst
belong to = fylgja
best = bettah moost
betray (verb) = svíkja
bewildered = villhyggjandi
building = biggin up --- EXAMPLE: "building confidence in everyday use " > " biggin up confidence in ivvryday øs "
built = builded --- EXAMPLE: "He built a new porch." > "Hims builded a new porch."
cast a spell = hoodooed
cat = kat (sounds like "caught") --- EXAMPLE: "Is it an orange cat?" > "Be he a o'jinn kat?"
child = bairn
church = kirk
color = colour
danger = hœttr
daren't = darena
daring = djarfr
dark = dökk
dark elf = Dökkálfr
dark-elves = Døkkálfar
darker = dökká
do you agree = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "That's a fine looking woman, do you agree?" > "Dair's ah right bonnie lass, eh?"
do you want to come too = ,eh? --- EXAMPLE: "I'm going to the store, do you want to come with me?" > "Me go to shope, eh?"
each = eche --- EXAMPLE: "Which each person can understand " > "That kan eche man understonde "
educated = lered --- EXAMPLE: "Both among the educated and the uneducated " > "As wel among lered as lewed "
elf = Alfr
Elf = Álfr
Elf Home = Álfheimr
Elf World = Álfheimr
elf-advice = Ælfred
elf-beautiful = ælfscyne
elf-friend = Ælfwine
elf-guardian (female) = Ælfwaru
elf-guardian (male) = Ælfweard
elf-powerful = Ælfric
everyday = ivvryday
eyelids = eye ledes --- EXAMPLE: "He closed his eyelids." > "Hims did shut hims eye ledes"
fair = faire --- EXAMPLE: "Going to the fair." > "Done gone went to the faire."
feild = felde --- EXAMPLE: "Standing in the feild." > "Stoodt in thems felde."
further = ferther --- EXAMPLE: "I looked further." > "I dids lokid ferther."
green = grene --- EXAMPLE: "Look at the green hedges and woods." > "Look see at thems heigges and holtz so grene."
handsome = braw --- EXAMPLE: "He is very handsome " > "Him wicked braw "
have faith = trúa
Have no doubts about our doing it = Nae faer o wis
Have no liking for this. = Hae nae brou o this.
have not = ain't
He knows how many beans make five. = He kens the laid frae the croun o the causey.
He knows which side his bread is buttered on. = He kens whilk side his bannock's buttert on.
Head for = Mak wye for
head rope in fishing nets and lines = baak
head to head = Be at the knag and the widdie
horse fly = klegsie
I = Me
I Think = Me thinks --- EXAMPLE: "I think we're late. " > "Me thinks that we is late. "
I wish you well for the future = Lang may yer lum reek (translation: Long may your chimney smoke)
idiot = eejit --- EXAMPLE: "You idiot." > "Ya eejit."
idiot = numpty
if = iffy or yif--- EXAMPLE: "If you don't mind..." > "Iffy yas does no care mind...."; "If you'll stay with me long enough = "Yif ye so longe with me wil dwelle". "
I'll be even with you = A'll see day aboot wi ye
know = ken
looked = lokid
looked = lokid --- EXAMPLE: "I looked up." > "I lifte up me eye ledes and lokid ferther."
magic = hoodoo
naked = nøkkviðr
needle = bodkin
neither = nouther --- EXAMPLE: "Who know neither Latin nor French " > "That kan nouther latyn ne frensch "
No = Nay --- EXAMPLE: "No, I don't think so. " > "Nay, me thinks not. "
Nobody knew = not-knew nobody
Noontide = Da heicht o da day
NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "Did you meet the new family next door?" > "Dids ya gets a chance to stop by and meets with thems new folk that move-ed in down yawn there next doors to ya, eh?"
NOTE: Extra words are often added. --- EXAMPLE: "He went to Rite-Aid to pick up his prescription" > "Hims did go to that yawn there new fangled store the new folks call that Rite Aid place, to gets himself some of thems there pills what the doctor gone and tells him to take each morning, a-yep, hims did."
old = olde --- EXAMPLE: "But educated and uneducated, old and young " > "Bot lered and lewed olde and yonge "
orange = o'jinn
out = oot --- EXAMPLE: "The cat wants to go out." > "The kat he do wants oot."
outside = oot dair
people = fokk --- EXAMPLE: "the people of Shetland " > "Shetland fokk "
people = folke --- EXAMPLE: "Look at all those people." > "Lookie at all thems folke."
poorly = febelly --- EXAMPLE: "Who know French very poorly " > "That kan frensch ful febelly "
Recognising = Recognisin --- EXAMPLE: "Recognising the bilingual nature of Shaetlan speakers " > "Recognisin da wye at Shaetlan spaekers is bilingual "
shield = skjoldr
Since = For --- EXAMPLE: "Since that is your native language " > "For that is youre kynde langage "
tell = telle --- EXAMPLE: "I'll tell you in English " > "In englysch tonge I schal you telle "
the = da, de, or is not used at all --- EXAMPLE: "I went to the store" > "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to da shoppe" or "Me goes to shoppe"
them = dem, dem dair --- EXAMPLE: "I went with them" > "Me goes wit dem dair"
there = dair --- EXAMPLE: "I want those potatoes" > "Me be wanting dem dair tatetas."
they = dey
To where = whither --- EXAMPLE: ""Where you go, I will go." " > ""Whither thou goest, I'll go."
understand = understonde
understand = understonden --- EXAMPLE: "Some understand English " > "And somme understonden englysch "
very = wicked --- EXAMPLE: "very good" > "wicked good"; "very bad" > "wicked bad"; "very cold" > "wicked cold"
Where = Whither --- EXAMPLE: "Where is the restroom? " > "Whither is the privy?"
Yes = Yea or Aye --- EXAMPLE: "Yes, I think so. " > "Yea, me thinks so. " or "Aye, me thinks so. "
For anyone actually interested in learning my native language, the Scottish government has THIS listed as the official dictionary of our people: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61d7352954b7fd1c9dbdfef4/t/65ddb2749d5e0541a01009c0/1709027964496/Spaektionary_2024feb.pdf
The Scottish government provides this document to show our language in use: https://www.shetland.uhi.ac.uk/t4-media/one-web/uhi-shetland-images-and-documents/documents-/shaetlan/Shaetlan-Language-Plan-2022-Shaetlan.pdf
More information about our language can be found on this website: https://www.iheardee.com which is written in my native language.
However, there is also other reasons why words might be misspelled, or why I might not understand someone when they speak to me.
My grandmother Helen Ricker Allen, was from Unst, Shetland, Scotland, and she the one who raised me. She taught me to read and write, but it was Shetlain that she taught me. She died when I was 8 years old, and I was locked in a woodshed after her furneral, I escaped the woodshed 27 years later at age 31, and have been trying to learn how to speak and write English since then.
It is a very great struggle.
At age 37 I took remidial reading and speaking classes at Southern Maine Community College, but we are Gypsies and Gypsy men do not allow us Gypsy women to have education, and so, while at college, on November 14, 2013, I was beaten with a golf club, while I was 8 months pregnet, breaking my spine, hips, and knees, killing my baby and leaving me quardepaleic since.
Now my primary focus these past 13 years has been on relearning to use my hand so I could type... as of 2023, I have regained the use of my right thumb, and first two right fingers, and after 10 years offline, I am back online due to I can use three finguers.
I never went to school, so I do not know maths and numbers and sciences, and I do not know what else would have been taught to me in school. We are Scottish Gypsies and Gypsy culture does not allow females to go to school. Being born female was already a great sin, but my grandmother took great risk in teaching me reading and writing. At 4 years old I was punished by my Uncle Bruce for knowing how to read, by being beaten in the face with a cinder block brick, that broke my right jaw and left me with garbaled near-mute spoken words ever since.
Because no one ever spoke words to be face to face from he time I was 8 years old until I was 37 years old (I escaped the room at age 27, but did not start college until 37), I have no training in how to vocally sound out or speak the words I write or read. I can read words, but I do not know how to sound out or say those words. I can write words, but I do not know how to match the written word against the spoken word. I struggle to associate spoken words at all, or make them match up with writen words.
Esentially, written words and spoken words are two completly seperate languages in my brain, and I have difficulty understanding spoken words.
If you say a sentance to me with your mouth, chances are very high I will have ZERO understanding of what you said and I will not be able to ander you.
However, if you WRITE down that exact same sentabnce, I can understand you and can type a written responce to you.
My doctors tell me this is a side effect of extreme isolation and neglect and lack of human contact during my toddler, childhood, teen, and young adult years, and that my brain never deveoloped to comprehend spoken vocal words due to no one ever speaking to me in over three decades of the first half of my life.
While I can read and write, American English (somewhat) I do no know how words are sounded out, what they are supposed to sound like. I readand write by shape recognition, not by sound/vocal recognition, so when reading and writing I do no "hear the words in my head" as I am told most people do when they read and write. In other words... I see "c a t" and think "c-a-t" I do not think "cat" nor do I "see" an image of a cat, no do I "hear" the word cat spoken. I'm told that this is very rare and that most people read and write by sounding out the words and linking them to visual mind images, while hearing the sound of the word in their head. I neiher hear words in my head no see images of things in my head. I'm told this is what makes me both a speed reader and speed writer, because I'm not tripped up by hear sounds or seeing images in my head like nomal people would be doing... however, I'm also told this is why my spelling and grammar are very poor, because my brain is not hear the sounds of the words or seeing visual images of the objects the words represent, so my mind also does not register spelling and grammer errors at all.
As I was only let out of the woodshed on Sundays to go to the Cape Elezabeth Ward Church of the August Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I was never allowed to go to school or hospital either. No adults ever talked to me because I was evil for comitted the sin of being born female, so I never learned how to speak properly and do not know how to sound out words to say them.
I was 42 years old, in 2016 when, while having an MRI for my spine, the doctors found out my speak issue was caused by a broken jaw as a toddler that was healed wrong because not being allowed to go to doctors. I had surgury to fix that, and since 2016 have been trying to learn how to use my jaw and touge so I can speak vocal words now.
Since 2023 my primary focus shifted to relearning to walk. I can now, in 2026, sit up for 2 or 3 hours a day, and can sand with a cane for a few minutes, and can walk for around five thousand feet in 2 to 3 segments a day, with the help of pushing my wheelchair like a walker.
As of 2026, with a slight return to using my fingers and legs, I am once again focused on trying to learn the American English, but I live in mortal fear of my uncles and male cousins, as they are so hateful of allowing me to have education.
have no one to help me to know if I am doing words correctly, and as such, I have no way of knowing if there are spelling and grammar errors, but I asume there are, and I fix them when I learn them, but I do not know what I do not know and spelling American words is a thing I do bnot know.
I have Low Fucntioning Kanner's Syndrom, also known as "RainMan Type of Autism" aka REAL and ACTUAL Autism, not to be confused with Aspergers, High Functioning Autism, or and of thr 861 illnesses on the Autism Spectrum. An Autism Spectrum Disorder is an illness that has symptoms similar to Autism but IS NOT Autism. If you have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, it LITERALLY MEANS you do NOT have Autism.
I am medically diagnosed as "kanner's syndrome, actual autism, the rainman type, profoundly retarded autistic savant, with a general IQ of 73, and an writing IQ of 221" but they added that they did not know how to properly diagnose me as I am "technically a feral child" and they don't know "how much is the autism, and how much is simple horrific levels of abuse and neglect induced post traumatic stress disorder that will go away with proper socilization".
It means I know how to write, I can write a lot, and it is next to impossible for you to teach me how to do literally anythig else because my brain only knows how to write and doesn;t know how to do anything else..
There's a reason, when I do book signings, people are quick to say: "Okay, what's the joke? why is this stupid retard here? where's the real author? I know this retard isn't the author. where are you hiding the author, why is this fucking retard here"
The end result is, I have near zero social interaction... my 3 years in college was the ONLY face to face interaction I have ever had with humans in my entire life, and I struggle deeply to understand MOST words used by MOST people when they ask me question. And so I suffer from a huge lack of understanding many words people say to me, how to translate those words into spelling, and how to translate what it is that has been said.
The fact remains hat until there exists a human on this planet who is willing to sit down and teach me what words spoken line up with and match what words written, this deficent is unlily to improve. But the fact also remains, that I am simply far too profoundly retarded for anyone to even try to make any attempt at all even to speak a friendly "hgelloe" or "good morning" when passing me on the street, so I have lost all hope of anyone ever either being my friend, being willing to teach me how to match spoken words to written words, or how to speak to other humans.
While there are around 20k pages on this website, most of them are blocked from search engines, with only around 800 of them available for appearing in Google/Bing/etc search results. The remainder can only be accessed via the various links found throughout this site. This was done deliberately on my part, and I did it because the bulk of the pages on this website are chapters from 138 novels and 423 novellas, so only the first page of each novel and novella indexed by search engines, and the remainder are linked in order, one page at a time, via clicking "next page" at the end of each. So if you are looking for a specific page from a specific novel, Google can't help you.
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Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day! ꧁✨🌸🔮🦄🔮🌸✨꧂ And if it’s your birthday today: ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🐇་༘࿐꧁ᴴᵃᵖᵖʸ☆ᵇⁱʳᵗʰᵈᵃʸ꧂🤍🎀🧸🌷🍭 |
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Get an email whenever Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻 publishes on Medium.
I also write on these locations: | Amazon | Ao3 | Blogger | GumRoad | Medium | Notd | OnlyFans | Tumblr | Vocal |
Do you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Avenue, Old Orchard Beach, Maine on August 8, 2013? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son on November 14, 2013 at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me July 26, 2016 at scarborough WalMart,... they arrived the first time with a backhoe on August 8, 2013, that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since....
... which means it is now only a few weeks from the 14th anniversary of my son's murder. I was 8 month pregnant November 14, 2013, and a student ay SMCC, and coming out of the Buglight Lighthouse art studio after art class, when a still unidentifiedwoman wielding a golf club attacked me, severed my spine, while I was 8 months pregnant, triggered early labour, then killed my son minutes after he was born.
While accusing me of being transgender, screaming "transvestite freak" and "look at that thing, that's Ken's son in a dress"... while I was 8 months pregnant.
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My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son and crippled me, arrived the first time with a backhoe that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since. |
The backhoe driver returned November 14, 2013, armed with a golf club, used it to break my spine and smash my baby's brains out on the ground
On November 14, 2013, my son was murdered. I was 8 months pregnant, leaving my college classroom, and just getting into my car, when 3 strangers, a man and two women, armed with golf clubs leapt out from behind my car screaming "kill or be killed, kill the transvestite freaks, kill them all before they kill us! look at that thing! That is Ken's son, look at how it's dressed! kill the transvestite freaks! kill or be killed"... while the bald man and the red haired woman chanted this over and over, the blonde woman, lunged with the golf club.
She severed my spine, I am now a quadriplegic, and been paralyzed arms and legs, and in a wheelchair for 13 years now. She broke my hips, my knees, my legs, ruptured most of my discs, and shattered three of my vertebrae so bad that the shards of bone acted like glass and embedded themselves into my spinal column nerve bundle.
The attack also triggered labour.
My son was born in that parking lot, and he lived only a couple of minutes, before the deranged blonde woman, beat his head in and smashed his brains out, with the same golfclub she had just used to sever my spine and leave me crippled for the rest of my life.
Realizing that I was not transgender, and they'd just murdered a baby, the man grabbed the 2 women and forcibly dragged them away to a 4 door white pickup truck, and they left me there to die.
The FBI told me later, that a few weeks before this attack, and transwoman, had murdered a cis woman, in a parking lot, abou 20 miles away from where I was attacked. The FBI, believes that my attackers, had somehow found out I wrote transgender fiction, connecting my real name to my penname, (my father's name is in fact "Ken", and I do have a brother) and believed that I wrote transgender fiction, because I was myself transgender, even though I'm not transgender. The FBI, believes the attackers, thought I was my brother, pretending to be a woman.
The FBI investigation, into my son's murder, has dragged on for 13 years, and still now in 2026, continues on, with the FBI, still not having yet identified my attackers, and only guessing at what their motive was.
Thus we come to 2014, and the full swing change of the series I write. WHY my series, went from just a transman main character living life, to the full blown Mpreg genre series that it now is today.
Before the attack, I had a chance of having a baby. I don't know. And because I'm in America, I'm too old to adopt. You have to be under 45 years old to adopt a baby. That is the law in America. I was informed this, when we tried to adopt, now that my injuries leave me unable to get pregnant a 9th time.
Thus began my obsessively writing, my transman main character, pregnant. Always pregnant now. Every time. Every story. Stories that now fully focus on pregnancy, labour, miscarriages, babies dying, babies living, raising babies... the whole series, since 2014 has devolved into an outright baby obsession.
Meanwhile, reborn baby dolls were suggested to me by my therapist, and have also become a deeply obsessive part of my life. Because 13 years ago my son was murdered minutes after he was born, because a transphobic bigot mistook me for being transgender, I'm STILL in a wheelchair, struggling to relearn to use my arms and legs, now 13 years later, and I'm still DAILY dealing with police officers and FBI agents who while they are trying to find my son's killer, they are also daily reminding me... oh, yeah, my son was murdered, literally ripped out of my belly, by a transphobe. Who still has not been located and walks free to kill again.
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The golfclub woman as she looked during the golf club attack at Southern Maine community college November 14, 2013. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026. If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 |
The golfclub woman as she looked during the shopping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart July 26, 2016. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026. If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 |
The 2nd woman as she looked at both attacks, her hair goes all the way down to her knees. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.  If you have any information about the identity of this child murderer's accomplice, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 |
Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
I am a legally blind quadriplegic, and low verbal, I have also published 138 novels in the last 48 years. It's not as impossible as people think. The problem being blind and quadriplegic, medically have different meanings then how those two words are used medically.
Fewer than 3% of all blind people see nothing. While 97% people who are classified as fully blind are able to see up to two feet in front of them. Legally blind means I can see more then two feet in front of me but not far enough to see twenty feet in front of me. In my case I can see about eight feet.
Quadriplegic, has varying levels, it means having a damaged nerve bundle in the spinal column causing limited mobility of all 4 limbs, (in my case this was done by a women wielding a golf club, who also beat my 8 month infant's head to pulp on the parking lot tarmak, at the same time she severed my spine with the same golf club; both on November 14, 2013; the FBI investigation into my son's murder and my being crippled has gone on now for 13 years, a few weeks away from 14 years now, and the FBI has still not identified the killer or her motive). Contrary to popular misconception, quadriplegic does NOT mean ZERO movement, it means means limited movement, specifically in means unable to lift arms over head, unable to grip fingers around objects to pick them up, and unable to stand for more then 5 minutes to a time. Because there are so many thousands of nerves in each limb it is actually very rare for there to be 100% no movement, but how much, and to what extent varies by patent depending upon the specific point of injury to the spinal column.
Meaning typing is still possible for over 60% of all quadriplegics.
In my case, it was the lower spine that was severed, cutting off completly my ability to move my right leg, leaving limited feeling in my left leg, and an ability to stand but not walk, with crutches, for the first 9 years. I regained enough nerve growth in my legs by the 9th year to be able to take ten or twelve steps allowing me to get out of bed for the first time since the golf club attack; This in turn lead to me being able to start using a wheelchair, as I was able to sit upright for the first time as well.
Because the shattered vertebrae bone fragments are broken off completly and embedded into the nerve bundle just above my tailbone, doctors were saying I would never walk again, but now at 13 years, I am able to push mu wheelchair like a walker, a distance of almost a thousand steps a day. Though doctors are still doubtful I will ever walk "normally" again, I have proven them wrong, when their said 13 years ago, that I would never walk again at all.
But because of the placement of the damage to my spine, regaining hand use, was always thought possible, it was just a matter of waiting long enough for nerve regrowth, along side daily finger exercises. I was able to continue writing, after becoming quadriplegic, because I still have use of my right thumb, and 2 fore figures of my right hand. And can type 90 words per minute with those 3 fingers.
I however have no wrist strength, elbow strength, or shoulder strength, so I am not able to form a fist, or lift objects, or brush my hair, or my teeth, all thing I have to have my caretaker do. But, those things are not needed for typing. Unfortunately, my pinky and ring fingers are "nerve dead" and drag over the keyboard, and cause horrific spelling errors and typos, which are incredibly frustrating to deal with.
Unfortunately trying to edit errors myself, just makes the errors worse, because those same two fingers drag over the keyboard yet again. Prior to the golf club attack, I rarely had spelling errors; now I got more spelling errors then someone is learning English as second language. Editing is a challenge, that I've had to accept, I simply can not do myself, and I have to hire several editors to help with that.
Low verbal means sounds can still be made, sounds that software programs like Dragon can be trained to recognize and translate, and type into full words. More then half my novels were typed with this method.
I still have a long ways to go before I am anything close to being able to do the things I could do before the golf club woman beat my baby's brains out and shattered my spine. And you know what's more frustrating then how slow mu medical progression has been? The fact that it's been 13 years and the police and FBI are still coming up at dead ends as to who the woman who murdered my baby was, or why she even did it.
My son's 14th birthday is only a few weeks away, but he didn't even get to live long enough to celebrate his 1st birthday, I don't even know why. And I can't wait to regain my ability to walk again, because regaining my ability to walk, means gaining the ability to go outside and start looking for my son's murderer myself instead of sitting at home trapped in a wheelchair waiting for the police and FBI to to find her. So, writing isn't a big priority for me anymore. I only write now, as a way to exercise my hands, in between relearning to walk.
Never let a disability stop you. Plenty of writers, artists, athletes, do not let either blindness, speech impediments, or limited mobility hold then back from perusing their careers.
Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.
Important:
Fraudulent sites are impersonating Wendy Christine Allen.
- The ONLY official website for Wendy Christine Allen is www.eelkat.com
Fraudulent social media accounts, particularly on Reddit and FaceBook are impersonating Wendy Christine Allen.
- The ONLY official social media accounts for Wendy Christine Allen are listed in the footer here at www.eelkat.com
Find Me on Social Media:
Any websites and accounts you find online that are NOT on this list are NOT Wendy Christine Allen
There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website.
If you encounter a page which asks for a password, no, you can not request access. There are over 2k pages of this website set to password access, due to the ongoing FBI investigation into my son's murder. If you are a police officer authorized access these pages but do not have the passwords, let me know, I will deliver the passwords to the specific pages you are allowed to access, to you via the Portland FBI office and you can pick them up from the FBI agent in charge of the murder investigation.
Pages where you can find out more information on that:
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What's New (Newly Published or Recently Updated or Edited)
IMPORTANT NOTE: There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website.
If you are one of (as of December 2025, the now more than ten thousand) daily visitors, who arrive here daily in search of SEO advice, I made this page for you:
The Park Bench Method of Writing
Crazy Woman Just Attacked - No Clue Why or Who She Is
Articles For Writers on How To Write & Publish A Rapid Release Series
For Anyone Looking for:My response to MUFON's Amphibious Aliens? My response to Coast to Coast AMs Arrival in my yard?
Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer Counting Down to the 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978) Yes, I am aware there are a lot of spelling errors on this site. No, I likely will not be fixing most of them. I have been quadriplegia/paralyzed arms and legs since November 14, 2013; As of 2026, I have regained use of two fully functional fingers on my right hand, and only stiff limited movement of all remained eight fingers. This causes most of the typos and spelling errors as my near-dead pinky and ring fingers tend to drag over the other letters on the keyboard. Attempts to correct errors, often causes more errors for the same reason. Much of my writing is also speech to text, but I have "profound low functioning, non-verbal kanner's syndrome aka autism aka the rainman type" (that is what the medical diagnosis called it), I have the medically diagnosed retarded type of autism, that medical doctors mean when they say "real and actual autism", I do not have the cool trend self diagnoses tiktok type of "autism". What this means is, in spite of five decades of trying, I have very limited vocal speaking abilities and a lower then average vocabulary, that leaves my speaking ability around the level of a 4 or 5 year old child; I do not know math or money or clocks and. I also, was raised by a Shetland Scottish Grandmother (Helen Ricker Allen) until her death when I was 8 years old, and she did not speak American, she spoke Shetland/Scottish, Shetlandic, which is a Nordic language, different from Scotts Language, not related to Gaelic which is what many Scottish speak, and while classified as a type of Scottish English is is considered "Olde medieval Norse" dialect of Scottish English and spoken by fewer then two thousand people as of 2026. It is the language of Scottish Travelling Gypsies, which is what we racial are. I was 31 years old first time I ever heard American English, and only started to learn American English at 42 years old. Right now in 2026 at 51 years old, I am able to speak American English on around the level of an 8 year old child, and greatly do not understand over 90% of American words, American slang, and American media references. What this means is, OFTEN words you think are spellt wrong (like color vs colour, or traveling vs travelling, are in fact NOT spelt wrong, because I use Scottish spellings) and often when I hear an American word, I spell it phonetically because I do not know the correct American spelling. Likewise we Scottish do not have words like my or your, and so say me and you, in places where Americans would say my and your. I also use Scottish word meanings, not American word meanings, for example Unicorn means a blood thirsty flesheating shapeshifting sea creature that comes on land and pretends to be a wounded horse to lure in humans to eat, it can only be captured by a virgin. But when I say Unicorn, a word I frequently use, because I write Unicorn folkloric short stories... I find that most Americans connect Unicorns to children's cartoons, gay pride, or swinging sex lives... I struggle to understand who in their right mind thought the most bloodthirsty monster of Scotland folklore was good fodder for children's cartoons or "sex positive" mascots, me thinks Americans need to brush up on the lore of Unicorns using their horns as sword to stabbed people's eyes out, while gallopping through swamps with rows of bloody Human heads hanging from their backs via braids made of Human entrails... really, why did Americans thinks a monster like a Unicorn was fit for children's cartoons or sex positivity? Americans is weird. All this to say... speech to text software, struggles badly with my thick Shetland accent, my slurred Autism speech impediment, and causes additional misspellings and typos because it can not figure out what words I am trying to say. And while I could take the time time to run all of it through a spell checker, that does require better hand mobility then I have, to copy the text from one program to the next and manually click each word, with finger mobility that I simply do not have, but also, most of my time is spent in trying to relearn to walk, and if you are local, you've probably seen this as I'm a stubborn bitch who refused to accept the doctor disnosis that I will never walk again, so, I walk around the block every day pushing my wheelchair, refusing to sit in my wheelchair, and... ...it's taking me 13 years to do it, but, I'm not actually able to stand up and make it all the way around the block now, and my focus on trying to relearn to walk is far more important to me, then catering to your pampered arse by fixing spelling errors, when there are far bigger problems to worry about in life, the spelling errors made by a quadriplegic who is typing this with her only two functioning fingers. Also, in recent years, I've watched the internet devolve into a mindless clusterfuck of ChatGPT written everything. Everyone sounds the same online these days, because no writes their own work anymore. Every website out there has become a carbon copy of each other, because they are all be written by ChatGPT now. I think ChatGPT makes a funny thing to chat with in your spare time, so you can laugh at the hilarity of how inaccurate it's responses are... but I am horrified that people are using AI for serious writing, writing they publish and try to pass off as their own. We live in a society where people people are forgetting how write. Heck I can read and write cursive, calligraphy, italic, short hand, and editor's marks, also edit my books by hand diagraming every sentence, and that... start walking around your neighbourhood and ask anyone under 30 if they sentence diagraming IS, let alone how to do it. So yes, I CAN spell check, and no I don't, for anything but my novels and short story collections, I spell check when it matters... and this is a website, not a printed book... but also, I am just getting so damn fucking fed up with endless AI writing online, so, no, I'm not going to fix errors and typos on my website, and you can bitch about that all you want (yes, I do get your messages, I just don't answer anyone in private) but, honey, maybe instead of bitching over my spelling errors, be thankful is still at least one website on the internet that still being written by a Human now in 2026 when ChatGPT writes over 70% of all posts online. |
Looking for my annual NaNoWriMo Prompts and Dares? I've been publishing these every year since 2004!
 The Park Bench Method of Writing The Adventures of Quaraun The Insane: Paperpacks & Hardcover Editions on Amazon:
Not sure what the series is about? Check out and Faeries vs Elves (In The Quaraun Series) A Pink Necromancer World Lore Post and Worldbuilding MoonQuakes and Disabled Characters for Fantasy Writers and How well do I know Quaraun? - Let's find out! to find out more about the plot and lore of the series. Not sure which story to start with? These here are good places to start, to get a good introduction to the three main characters:
Or if after reading those, you still are looking for more free to read stories, there are over three thousand of them on this site, too many to list here, but here a few dozen to get you started... ...you can just jump in and try reading some of the free to read online stories first before committing to buying the books:
Hmmm... soooo... I was making the above list to ALL the links to EVERY Quaraun story published on my website here, and adding it into the footer of my site, here as you can see, which loads on every page, and then I realized... wait... there are over two thousand Pink Necromancer stories up free to read on my website, I can't put two thousand links on every single page! Whoops! LOL! So, now I'm putting list to ALL the links to EVERY Quaraun story published on my website here on this page instead and just link that page to the footer instead. But also I'll just leave some of the links in the footer, as you can see above.
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This page was written by Wendy Christine Allen of 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
All Rights Reserved.
The Space Dock 13 WebRing
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Yes, this website (founded in 1996) is old enough to have WebRings on it, and they are still in use.
Don't know what a WebRing is?
They were how we webmasters used to get traffic to our websites before the invention of search engines (aka before Jeeves, DogPile, Yahoo. Google, Bing, or the rest existed). In their simplest form a WebRing is an html code that rotates link displays. In their more advanced form they are java scripts that give random results. Each ring had three active links titled "Previous", "Random", and "Next", clicking any of the 3 links would take you to the next website in the ring.
Web Rings are the REASON the internet was called "the world wide web". To use them, each webmaster submitted their site to the ring, a single code held 100 websites, and codes could be stacked to hold 100 code sets (or 10,000 links to 10,000 websites), each web master in the list, would then place the code in the footer of their website.
This created the SPIDER WEB that was the literal WEB OF LINKS that gave the internet it's name "World Wide Web" and is WHY websites are CALLED "web sites". And technically, your site is not a WEB site unless it is connected to a WEBRing, likewise you technically are not a WEBMaster if you do not build WEBrings links for you WEBsite to connect to the WEB.
Unfortunately, most knowledge of WebRings, and whi sites were called WEBsites and sites on the WEB were called the World Wide Web, vanished from the internet in 2014 when the official WebRing.org company who managed 90%+ of the internet's WebRings went out of business after the infamous Google Panda 2013 bot attack that delisted ALL websites from the Google Index if they contained a WebRing of links to other websites in it's footer.
And while most sites abandoned the use of WebRing Codes on their sites, Space Dock 13 did not. The Space Dock 13 WebRing remains active, now 28 years after it's creation. Over the decades however, one by one all the other websites in the ring have gone off line, and as they did, I replaced the url with a link to a page of my own website (as this is a java code - it updated on every website without the others needing to change anything). Today in 2026, eelkat.com is the last remaining website in the ring, and now all 10k links go only to pages on eelkat.com, no longer sending you to other websites.
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The Park Bench Method of Writing
IMPORTANT NOTE:
There are no ebook editions as they are already available digitally here on my website.
Want even more writing prompts?
Do you have information about my son's murder and need the FBI contact information:
If you have any information about my son’s murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322
If anyone contacts you saying 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, is for sale, know that they are lying to you... it is my land, and it has been in my family since 1531... and the ONLY person whom has EVER gone around saying it is for sale, is a woman who the FBI believes to be the same woman who murdered my son.
My son is buried here, and the FBI believes she is trying to buy my land in order to destroy his grave and destroy evidence of his murder.
Since my son's murder November 14, 2013, every year dozens of real estate agent show up all with a story of a female developer who is offering them MILLIONS of dollars for my lot of land that is only 1/4 of an acre and is not big enough to develop.
When shown police sketches of my son's murderer, the real estate agents say "Yes, that's the woman who hired me to buy 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine", but then the woman disappears and the real estate agents never hear from her again... all contact information she gave them turns out to be fake.
The woman who murdered my son, is DESPERATELY trying to buy 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine... this is the woman to watch out for... and this is what she did:
Looking to find out more about my son's murder, that information is on these pages:
Answering the questions:
Can you give me links to the news reports of your son's murder?
and
Why can't I find any news reports about this?
Maine has well over a thousand murder cases that have never been in the news.
I found this out after my son was murdered November 2013, and a year later I found out it had never been in the news, even though I was hounded for weeks by news people. I went to each of the over a dozen TV stations and newspapers whom had showed up at the hospital and asked why they had never published any report after all the trouble they had gone through to (in some cases illegally) het into the hospital to interview me.
in every case they said some version of "well, it just wasn't news worthy, there was nothing we could use to get views". Really? These were big news stations, channel 13, 6, 8, Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily...
What exactly was it they claimed was "not news worthy"?
I'll tell you.
On November 14, 2013, my son was murdered. At Southern Maine Community College in the parking lot of The Buglight Art Studio beside the Spring Point Lighthouse.
I was 8 months pregnant, leaving my college classroom, and just getting into my car, when 3 strangers, a man and two women, armed with golf clubs leapt out from behind my car screaming "kill or be killed, kill the transvestite freaks, kill them all before they kill us! look at that thing! That is Ken's son, look at how it's dressed! kill the transvestite freaks! kill or be killed"... while the bald man and the red haired woman chanted this over and over, the blonde woman, lunged with the golf club.
She severed my spine, I am now a quadriplegic, and been paralyzed arms and legs, and in a wheelchair for 13 years now. She broke my hips, my knees, my legs, ruptured most of my discs, and shattered three of my vertebrae so bad that the shards of bone acted like glass and embedded themselves into my spinal column nerve bundle.
The attack also triggered labour.
My son was born in that parking lot, and he lived only a couple of minutes, before the deranged blonde woman, beat his head in and smashed his brains out, with the same golfclub she had just used to sever my spine and leave me crippled for the rest of my life.
Realizing that I was not transgender, and they'd just murdered a baby, the man grabbed the 2 women and forcibly dragged them away to a 4 door white pickup truck, and they left me there to die.
The FBI told me later, that a few weeks before this attack, and transwoman, had murdered a cis woman, in a parking lot, abou 20 miles away from where I was attacked. The FBI, believes that my attackers, had somehow found out I wrote transgender fiction, connecting my real name to my penname, (my father's name is in fact "Ken", and I do have a brother) and believed that I wrote transgender fiction, because I was myself transgender, even though I'm not transgender. The FBI, believes the attackers, thought I was my brother, pretending to be a woman.
The FBI investigation, into my son's murder, has dragged on for 13 years, and still now in 2026, continues on, with the FBI, still not having yet identified my attackers, and only guessing at what their motive was.
Oh yeah, and I've been quadriplegic for 13 years.
oh yeah one more thing, same trio, they also found out where i lived in Old Orchard Beach and drove a backhoe over my house as well.
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146 Portland Ave Old Orchard Beach, Maine... July 4, 2013 vs August 8, 2013 |
I have been homeless and quadriplegic for 13 years, and right now it's just a few weeks away from both my son's 14th birthday and the 14th anniversary of the day he was murdered, both of which happened the same day.
Explain to me what about any of that is "not newsworthy"?
I did find out WHY it was deemed not newsworthy. "it would negatively impact tourism" was their reason. The College at Fort Prebble is a tourist destination. The lighthouse at the college is a tourist destination. My house on Portland ave is situated on the primary road to the beach that is a tourist destination.
The news reporters explained to me that, they risked losing their jobs if they publicised "negative news" occurring in these sorts of tourist destination spots.
My son's murder wasn't in the news, because it might cause tourists to stop visiting that lighthouse. That was the reason the reporters gave me.
How often are there things not being reported on just so businesses don't lose tourist money?
How often does this happen? A lot, I've since found out. In trying to find other mothers of murdered children to interact with... I found five others JUST in Old Orchard Beach, whom the murders were not in the news, and all of them happened after my son's murder. I found 2 such mothers in Scarbourogh, their children's murders not in the news. I found over a dozen more in the Bar Harbore area, also all not in the news.
It's a very disturbing trend here in Maine, one that I never would have found out about had my own son not been murdered.
One thing's very clear: in Maine you can get away with murdering a child, if you do it in a big tourist location, because news stations REFUSE to report any crime occurring in tourist locations.
Fuck torists.
I don't give a shit about your precious tourist money.
My son was murdered and I want his killer found... and I am VERY displeased with the deplorable way news stations try to bury child murders in Maine, just to appease tourist funded businesses.
And if you're one of those lunatic jackass bullshitting alien abduction UFO freaks, looking for haunted cars, Stephen King, cryptids, or EBEs, first off, you can go fuck yourselves. I am so damned sick of you conspiracy brained motherfuckers harassing my family and turning my son's murder case into a circus of you psycho deranged bullshit. Here's some pages for you:
Copyright © – oldest articles written 1978, website founded - 1996
This website is a safe zone for LGBTQAI+, pagans, and BIOPIC communities.
This website is a safe zone for LGBTQAI+, pagans, polys, trans, neurodivergent, disabled, mobile aid user, minority, cosplayers, otherkin, furries, & BIOPIC communities.