The Mascherari - A Novel of Venice

A ravishing cover for a story that is very dear to me. I really hope you like it. 

The elements you see - from the intricate medieval border, to the tower, the dark moon, and the lady with the mysterious light - all hold a meaning that is essential to my upcoming novel, The Mascherari.

For this historical mystery set in 15th century Venice, I was wary of infusing the cover with symbols that have become synonymous with romantic tourism and post-Napoleonic Venice. 

And so I shunned - the canals, the cliche gondolas, the masked carnival revelers, the Piazza, the Basilica of San Marco - all that was readily associated with what we know of Venetian tourism today. While these do feature in my story and were certainly present in the 15th century, I preferred to delve deeper.  So I sought new symbols from those that have been lost to history or have been absent from modern media images of Venice.

With the medieval-inspired imagery, I hoped to conjure a period of Venice that preceded the times of Casanova. 

A mask is portrayed, but it is not prominent. It is a traditional bauta, one of the most common masks from the period. As for the city's lagoon, it is hinted to with just a blue patch of water beneath the cover title.

It will be difficult to expand on the historical meaning of each symbol without revealing too much of the story...so I will look at color only.

Why the gold? 

The original image (not shown), with its pale parchment and light coloring is even more suited to 15th century Venice, but it does not lend itself well to ebook covers. In print, it would look fabulous, so I will preserve it for the Paperback version of the novel. 

I reviewed three versions of the ebook cover before settling on the gold. I loved the green version, which is shown below. 

To me, this dark green held a nauseating and malevolent quality, reminiscent of the evil in the narrative. I also thought it evoked what some authors have described as the Venetian 'miasma' - this fetid air that remains suspended over the lagoon on humid days and from which even Lord Byron was thought to have suffered. 

But the best part of the green, if you do read the story, is that it evokes the emotions of envy and jealousy. How very apt, I thought. 

For now though, I decided on the gold. While also being relevant to aspects of the novel, the gold is vivid, eye-catching and therefore more likely to attract attention in the online sphere. This is an important consideration for a self-publishing author especially when there are so many gorgeous outstanding covers out there.

One last detail...

Engraved on the tower and the hovering moon, are two letters. Shall I tell you what they stand for? Or perhaps you already know. 

What I Learned From Publishing My First Novel

Readers are your best friends 

Yes, they are. Think about it, you are an unknown writer. It takes either love, a keen interest in the author, a commitment to helping other authors, openness, or else a genuine attraction to a book's premise and setting to dare read a novel from an unknown writer.

In the last eighteen months, I have been blessed with friends, some strangers, who have supported me in this, the beginning of a long journey, by simply daring to pick up my novel and enter an unknown world.

The number one factor in influencing book purchases is what psychologists call normative influence: a recommendation by a friend. This is why, having someone read your novel and enjoy it can be a catalyst for a chain reaction of events that defeats any form of marketing. Its value is priceless. Without the support of a massive marketing campaign to increase the author's visibility, or impress value in a potential audience's mind, the only real promotion a new author is left with is the reader.

So thank you to my readers. You rock!

Your cover needs to attract the right audience

Would-be readers who discover they chose the wrong book based on personal taste can be your worse enemy. I have received reviews that made me wonder, "well, what did you expect?" and again, some have made me think, "isn't it obvious that it would be THAT kind of book?"

Well no. Perhaps it was not that obvious.

As a self-published author, I take on the responsibility to properly promote the book so as to target the right audience.

How do you ensure you are attracting the correct audience?

The Ming Storytellers has an undoubtedly beautiful cover. Last November, it won a eBook cover design award and designer, Caryn Gillespie, will soon produce the cover for my second novel.
According to studies, aside from a friend recommendation, the cover is one of the most important factors in luring a reader to purchase a book.

So what went wrong?

I think the nature of The Ming Storytellers, with its multiple character points of view, its multiple narrative threads and its balanced set of male and female characters, would definitely seem 'boring' or 'too long' or 'confusing' for those readers who were inticed by the splendid Chinese female on the cover, and who imagined the novel might be set exclusively in the feminine sphere with a single point of view.

It could be argued- and I am doing so intuitively without any quantitative evidence- that the plurality of The Ming Storytellers may have been more strongly conveyed if the focus of the cover had not been on just one character. Truer still,  the 'epic' nature of the novel (to repeat the term used by many readers) would have been emphasized if the cover emulated the imagery in traditional epic novel covers...which ultimately are sort of boring anyway. Or less sexy!

I would not change this cover for the world. But I think in this case, the blurb of the book may require rethinking. It might be rewritten to better convey the important facets of this novel to a reader who may otherwise be misled by the imagery.  

Giving away your book for free is not always a good idea

I think giving away your book for free has advantages, the main one being to increase an author's visibility over a couple of days. However the volume of downloads does not convert as expected.

Sure, you'll generate thousands of downloads in a few days, but how many of those ebook hoarders are genuinely interested in immersing themselves in a 600-page novel set in the Ming Dynasty? With eunuch male characters? And with foreign names? Very few.

They will like the cover (and who doesn't), add the ebook to their shelves, increment the number of books in their social reading platform and, ta da - end of story.  I've had a sinking feeling whenever I have seen my book tagged in Goodreads as "freebie" or "free ebook". It likens my 'omnibus' (as described by a wonderful reader from India) to the worse junk that exists in the digital self-publishing world.

At worse, the impulsive hoarder's tastes will turn out to be horribly mismatched to your book.
And they will leave a review.
Just because they can.

And let's not mention the trolls - individuals who have produced nothing literary in their entire lives and whose sole sense of worth is derived from destroying an author's reputation by happily downgrading the said author's book ratings - at No cost! Do not indulge them.

Trolls exist. I thought they did not, but they do. I was naive.


Negative reviewers are poor psychologists

In life, you can choose to be happy and you will be... Or, you can choose to be miserable and that too, will be your lot. Your preconceived attitude will cloud your perceptions of others, your interpretations of events and, if that is not enough, it will horribly skew your sense of measures.

There are negative reviews that are genuine and humbling just as there are those that reveal deep seated issues in the reviewer. What remains perplexing about the latter is how they can feel so comfortable making certain judgments in public when the attitude behind their words is rendered so evident. I worry sometimes.

Nevertheless, considering the democratic nature of digital publishing's rating system, an author will always have to deal with the masses. And one does not need to be a psychologist or a historical novelist, to understand that the masses, often, are led by idiots.

If you publish to US audiences, don't be a freaking snob, use US English

I made the mistake of employing UK English for a full year with Amazon.com as my main distribution point, only to have a couple of reviewers rant about the spelling mistakes that were rampant. (This was simply not true.) Considering that the US is my primary market at the moment, I should have known better.

Living in Australia, where both spelling forms are known (or more or less known and accepted), I could not imagine how intolerant the majority of US readers are. The more educated would not complain but this was not the case for the majority.

In the end, I resolved the 'rampant spelling' problem. To be fair, I did identify 10 spelling errors that were genuine, but in a book of 600+ pages, I felt that the judgment made upon The Ming Storytellers as being 'obviously self-published' was grossly disproportional. My fellow indie authors will agree.

Again, reviewers are not the best psychologists. And they are not good at maths.

Your Best Reviewers are people who understand what you were setting out to do.

This encapsulates what I seek from reader feedback: to be understood. Not on the surface, not at the narrative level, but deeply and completely. When a reader has understood my meaning - not my words, but my intentions - I feel at home.

It gives such joy to strike a chord with a reader. It's like tapping into this collective essence that is humanity. When a reader shares their reaction and I deem it the 'correct' one based on what I sought out to do, there is this symbiosis, as though both our mirror neurons were activated in tandem.

Crazy analogy...
You must forgive the social psychologist in me. The writer in me would just say "fuck yeah".

For those moments, I am grateful.

I made mistakes

I take objective feedback seriously.

Some of this feedback related to the editing of The Ming Storytellers which might be slightly improved.
Yet further feedback related to the multiple voices within the narrative which jarred certain readers or rendered the novel more difficult to read for some. Then again, there were readers who enjoyed the novel's complexity and saw it as a challenge and a reward to complete.

All this, I take seriously.

According to the more objective feedback, The Ming Storytellers could have been slightly better edited...even though I spent a total of 6 years on it. It was not an easy task. Sure, I could do it again - revise the flow and complexity in certain passages, strip a couple of sentences, use alternative words... But I shall keep that lesson for the second novel which I can promise, as a self-improving author, will be of higher standard from an editing perspective. It will also be shorter.

As for plurality of voices- well, judging from George R.R. Martin's success, and his books' multiple points of view, I may not want to change my approach. I believe there are readers who enjoy multiple voices. I know I do. In fact it is what I most enjoyed in Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Perhaps I might best apply this feedback to attracting suitable audiences by injecting more thought into my future covers.

Self-doubt is here to stay

No matter how pompous or joyful my Tweets, no matter if I rave about a five-star review, no matter the thought that I'm now published, still, the self-doubt is here to stay.

My partner, who has been a writer for over twenty years, and is a respected screenwriter in Australia and abroad, has many a times advised me that self-doubt is the lot of writers. But not just all writers: those who care about growing and those who are not complacent about their art.

Based on this, I am grateful for self-doubt and the motivation that it imparts to me. I also know, through the enormous talent I see whenever I pick up a book by my favorite authors- some of who are my friends-, that I still have much to learn.

A Historical Novel of Ming China

Publishing Perspectives presented an interesting article about the complexity of translating Chinese books into English, together with the cultural nuances that were lost on, or almost impossible to convey to English readers.

With the rise of China as the world's second largest economy and the growing exposure to Chinese film and Chinese-related media, there has also been an increasing interest in Chinese books.

The world is watching this Red Dragon unfurl; some with sinister apprehension, others with misinformed prejudice and still there are some, these ever avid sinophiles and sinologists, who embrace whatever they can learn about China's fascinating growth, its culture, its history and its people, and who march in the footsteps of pioneers like Marco Polo, Matteo Ricci, Sommerset Maugham and even our own Kevin Rudd.

Unfortunately for the non-Chinese speaking world where literary content is produced about China it has, according to the aforementioned article, often fallen into two camps. I quote from Publishing Perspectives:

“The two hoary old themes are the Cultural Revolution, and ‘sexy China.’  For a while it seemed like everything fell into those two camps, and then all at once publishers got tired of them.

Coincidentally (or perhaps since I flatter myself to be visionary) I voiced my contempt for the overdone Cultural Revolution and communist themes about six years ago when I began researching my historical novel, The Ming Storytellers. They say you should write what you want to read. I did just that.

What I sought to do then was write a book about China that combined all the genre elements I had personally loved in Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. At the non-narrative level, this novel, if I ever got around to finishing it, would speak of a different China, one that reflected its broad history, its global role several centuries ago, its complex multi-ethnic population and more importantly, a psyche predating the Colonial and Communist eras. Because my narrative was dark and contained many Gothic elements, I created the Ming Gothic genre.

Not surprisingly, I have been told by agents and publishers alike that my novel would be 'difficult to place'.
Hence the risk involved in endorsing this, a first time author's work.

Yet I stand fast by The Ming Storytellers and feel greatly satisfied with its to-date unique approach to writing about China. I am planning to translate it in French so that the many French sinophiles I know are out there can also enjoy it.

In the meantime, at least an English version of The Ming Storytellers will be released in August this year.

Follow The Ming Storytellers on Facebook

On Failure and Social Support

There is a fear of failure in most individuals that belies one of the greatest truths in human social interactions. It is simply, that misery loves company and people are more likely to warm up to others who they think embody some weakness of some sort.

This is the product of social comparison, the tendency of individuals to compare themselves to others to assess their own standing and maintain self-esteem. It is easier and less painful for individuals' self-esteem to provide social support for those against whom they believe, they compare favourably.

To illustrate this phenomenon, I would like to give an example using two women. Everyone knows these two women. The scenario I am using is familiar and has been played in the social sphere countless of times.

Woman One has been overweight for most of her life. In terms of fitness, she is equated with a level of failure.
Woman Two is a splendid model of health, who for years, perhaps over twenty years, has followed a fitness and diet regimen without fail.

This is where it gets interesting.

In some circles, I must try not to generalise but that is the norm, the continually slim, healthy woman is dismissed as vain and 'not-knowing-what-it's-like' to struggle with weight issues. If she were to post a photo of herself on a social media platform, perhaps feeling proud of all her efforts in maintaining a toned figure and her persistence in taking care of herself after all these years, the general consensus is that she must 'really love herself'. It does not matter that following a regular exercise and health routine involves determination, discipline and self-sacrifice. The fact that she generally succeeds in this quest and has succeeded in this quest for years often bears negative consequences. Her 'success' is perceived as having come easily for her. There is also the perception that her 'overblown' efforts to maintain her appearance are only the result of her self-centredness and vanity.

Now let us examine what it means to be seen as 'once having failed'.
Please note, that personally, I think, failure only becomes failure if one is dissatisfied with one's state but chooses to do nothing to overcome this state. The example I give with Woman Two, that of being overweight, is only a problem if Woman Two is dissatisfied with her health and unhappy with her abundant curves. My measure of failure, here, is relative and depends on the individual's own values.

So returning to our example, let us assume that this overweight woman decides to lose weight and increase her fitness level because she wants to and over the next six months or maybe a year, she does indeed succeed at her enterprise.
Let us also assume that she begins to post photos of her efforts on a social media platform partly to motivate herself in her ongoing quest but also to celebrate her results so far.
Now comes the difference...

Her friends will naturally be encouraging of what is perceived as her commendable efforts in exercising regularly and eating well. They will perceive her long struggle. They will empathise with the feelings of dissatisfaction that have given rise to her desire to better herself. In short, she can expect more support than Woman One.

This is not just for women by the way,  I have witnessed abundant outpourings of support, praise and encouragement on Facebook when one man admitted to having lost 10kg in his last regimen. Kind words like "That is an amazing effort!" or "Well done on your determination" rarely shower down for those who are 'effortlessly' slim.

This is an example of how being perceived to have failed and to then succeed is often more socially welcomed than being perceived to have done nothing but succeed. Unless an individual is already a celebrity and has over 10 million fans, people have a need to know that the individual is not superhuman. Many people in fact need to see others as struggling with some sort of setback before they will allow them to shine.

Another example. When a new author comes onto the scene with a published book, recall how fascinated we are to know that they were once rejected by fifteen different publishers. All of a sudden, when we learn of this, there is a glow around their newly published manuscript. It's a manuscript seared with battlefield scars. It acquires an aura of injustice that has been finally overcome. Its potency somehow increases just as does our support for the author. It does not matter that most publishing stories are in fact riddled with rejections and the writer's journey is by its very nature likely to be fraught with setbacks and rejections. It is as though having identified that an author has been rejected before, we think they must 'know-what-it's-like' to struggle and we rally in favour of this underdog. Take the growing pains of J.K. Rowling in placing Harry Potter on the market and how this has been perceived. J.K. Rowling is seen as fully 'deserving' of her books' successes as a result.

Conversely, think to some of the feedback that writers like Elizabeth Kostova have received for being known to not-have-struggled in their publishing quest. Not content with being likened to the next Dan Brown, Kostova dared to attract a $2-million dollar advance for her fabulous debut novel, The Historian. If this was not enough, Sony was known to have immediately signed up for the movie rights. Here is a brief example of the against-the-grain responses (with the star rating in brackets) that have been made of The Historian:

"I honestly don’t understand the high reviews that had been given to this book" (1/5)

"This proved to be a big disappointment. It's been a huge bestseller, & reviews always mention the huge advance it got & often say it's brilliantly structured. But I found everything about it implausible..." (1/5)

"I found The Historian to be rich and luxurious - kind of like a mink coat, unfortunately the pacing and unrelenting narrative make it about as useful as a mink coat in Florida. Still, I wouldn’t mind reading the next novel Ms. Kostova writes, maybe a biography of one of the historical characters in this book because she has a wonderful ability to bring her characters to life. My only hope is that Ms. Kostova spent her two million dollar advance wisely, hopefully not on a mink coat." (2/5) - Ha!

"This is definitive proof that Dracula is NOT still alive/undead because if he was, he'd've killed this author. And then her editor." (1/5) - And they say only indies have editing problems. :)

"Considering the fact that the author had a 2 Milion Dollar advance to write this book over 10 years, it was a very bad read. I kept hoping the story would unfold, but no." (1/5)

Negative reviewers of this instant-success novel tended to make relative judgments based on the publicity that the book and its author had garnered. For example, they alluded to the critical acclaim and hefty advance and balked at how misled everyone else who raved about it was.

It would be interesting to discover if the lowest ratings given for The Historian would have been statistically higher, if Kostova's book and her generous debut novelist advance had not received so much publicity.

Indeed, people are relatively more supportive of those who struggle with some perceived failure and who eventually overcome this to 'succeed'. It is as though they are deemed to 'have suffered long enough' to be allowed to succeed. There is a sense that due to all their sufferings they now deserve their silver medal. As a result, it becomes perfectly alright to praise them and shower them with support since we have now established that they have been to hell and have suffered 'just like the rest of us'.

Human nature is indeed fascinating.

Beautiful actresses who uglify themselves onscreen deserve an Oscar

So in summary we can formulate the above discussion into two equations:

1. Effort + Success => Low Level Social Support or in extreme cases, No support

2. Perceived Failure/Struggle + Effort + Success => High Level of Social Support

What to take home from this?

Ultimately the social support one will obtain from others is related to the ability to market one's failures and let others know that one has flaws. Failure is not such a bad thing after all.

In fact many women do bond by speaking about the difficulties in one or more aspects of their lives. Woe to the woman who has everything going for her and is perceived as a model of perfection.

In some cases, people make a point of revealing their problems because they know perfectly well that this will arouse sympathy and can be used to rally others to their cause. It is a form of social manipulation.
Based on this, is it socially manipulative to advertise your failures?

I have no answer. With anything, it depends on the individual and the situation. In fact, never believe any advice that is too deterministic in nature: human psychology is riddled with 'it depends'. Don't even believe what I've written here. I should know better. I should know that successful people are praised every five minutes and live a joyful life due to all those who bask in their glory and hope to gain favours from them. I should also know that people who lose weight after years of struggle are met with apathy and jealous silences and that since they've dared to come out of their box and reinvent themselves they can expect nothing except resentment... Yeah, you see? It depends!

Fascinating, those humans...

But returning to the topic... While I would not go out of my way to hide my failures, I personally would not follow the conscious, 'everyone-look-at-how-much-I'm-struggling' approach.

I like to be perceived as superhuman you see...Why not!  And by the same token, the prospect of seeing my friends kick ass at whatever they do, can only bring a smile to my face.

Agatha Christie - The Autobiography, The Woman

Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976) is the best-selling novelist of all time. She became a writing success during her lifetime and beyond.

It was a standard beginning progressing to a global phenomenon. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published two years after it was submitted as manuscript in her late teens. Her first contract stipulated that she write five more novels. Over the years, Christie actually wrote 82 detective novels and a total of 91 books. Her most successful novel, Ten Little Indians (And Then There were None) has had 100 million sales to date and Publications International lists it as the 7th best-selling novel of all time.

Having been a fan of this grand lady for years, I was delighted to discover that Agatha Christie had written an autobiography. She began writing it in 1950, making notes for fifteen years until it was complete in 1965.

Anyone hoping that this book unveils Agatha Christie's personal writing tips might be disappointed. Christie's biographical focus includes her childhood, her interests, her romantic life and some of her writing beginnings but apart from Christie's firm belief in the ideal detective story length (50000 words) there is little in the way of writing advice or methodology. One exception is that Christie indicates a preference for inventing her characters from pure imagination rather than consciously deriving them from her real life encounters. But overall, the lady has no advice to dispense.
Perhaps this may be in part because she believed every writer has their own way of expressing themselves. And that any opinion she gave regarding how a piece of writing had been executed would only be an indication of the way she would have done it.  In her view, we all had our own way of doing it. She was therefore reluctant to read manuscripts and offer advice or criticism, believing that it had the potential to discourage otherwise budding writers who may have reached audiences despite her opinion.

Those things Christie does spell out wonderfully include her childhood, her courtships as a young adult, the books she read, her travel experiences and the idiosyncrasies she observed in others. Her life narration is also taken up with financial concerns, her enduring work as a nurse, her married years, her divorce and her journey into first becoming published. 

Some interesting facts about Agatha Christie: 

• She did not attend school and was only provided tutoring well after 9 years of age
• She loved dancing in her teens and as a young adult
• She was an introvert
• She spoke French and English fluently since childhood
• She lived in France during part of her childhood
• She kept a lot to herself. As a young girl, her family would reproach her of never 'noticing' anything but Agatha did in fact notice and know much but did not like discussing her insights or observations. One day, when her mother reproached her with not sharing something, Agatha replied, "I don't care for parting with information." As a result, her family often joked that, "Agatha doesn't like parting with information."
• Agatha was a nurse by profession and learnt much taking care of soldiers during the First World War
• She studied a branch of pharmacy and most of us would see this reflected in her detective novels
• She stopped working as a nurse around the time she married Archie Christie
• She thought New Zealand was one of the most beautiful countries she had ever seen
• She learned to surf and spent days surfing in Honolulu during a world tour
• She loved her food and had a grand appetite unburdened by diets
• She loved travelling which is no surprise considering some of her novel's international settings - Agatha indicates that "going around the world was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me"
• She enjoyed long train journeys and yes, she did travel several times on the Orient Express which is after all the set of her novel, Murder on the Orient Express
• During her late teens, her mother took her to Cairo for three months where Agatha enjoyed a 'coming out' period which saw her through between fifty to sixty parties held at reputed hotels
• Her first detective novel was the result of a dare with her sister. Agatha had always admired her older sister, Madge, who was an excellent writer but not by profession. Madge was talented in many ways in Agatha's eyes.  Having read a popular detective novel, Agatha declared that she might like to try her hand at writing one. Her sister replied that it would be difficult and that Agatha would not be able to. The bet was on. And we know the rest...
• Her first husband, Archie Christie cheated on her soon after her mother died, it was a dark time for Agatha and she was then on the verge of a nervous breakdown
• She remarried years later with a man several years younger than her, who she met during a trip to Baghdad
• Due to her travels in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, Agatha seemed to have had a good nuanced insight into Arab culture which was a joy for me to read
• Other places she visited include France, England, Greece, Spain, Australia, Canada (she loved Lake Louise), New York, South Africa, Croatia, Italy, Scotland, Iran (then called Persia) and others...

I found Agatha very humble in her expression. There was nothing in her autobiography that seemed to indicate that it had been written by a woman of prodigious success. In fact she never saw her writing as her career until she was much older, always seeing her status as "married woman" (which is probably also due to the times). Her tone remains modest and factual. She does not glamorise anything with the exception of- and this may surprise people -her attentive clothing descriptions. I think Agatha liked clothes immensely. I think this is interesting considering she went through adolescence at the time when her family fell into financial misfortune, meaning that she owned less pretty clothes than other girls. Earlier, she also recalls a time in her childhood when she developed a set of imaginary school girls. She admits that she enjoyed dressing them up according to their personality. There are many moments in her autobiography where she describes clothing with much detail, notably a green dress she bought and wore in Honolulu and which she loved.

I genuinely liked Agatha as a person, partly because we share a similar introverted temperament and also because I admire her writing drive, but mostly because she was so very fond of travelling, a great passion of mine. Agatha admits that her travelling experiences were one of the highlights of her life, and that she really felt herself come alive while she travelled. She describes travelling as living in a dream. In terms of personality traits, I would say that overall, Agatha had a strong need for new experiences.

One of the fun parts of her biography is her list of likes and dislikes which were strikingly similar to mine although I think they would resonate with many sensitive introverts. I have underlined our similarities in the following quote. 

"I don't like crowds, being jammed against people, loud voices, noise, protracted talking, parties, and especially cocktail parties, cigarette smoke and smoking generally, any kind of drink except in cooking, marmalade, oysters, lukewarm food, grey skies, the feet of birds..."

Notice that Christie does not really describe her personality in much detail, opting instead for superficial likes and dislikes. Perhaps she knew well that self-report is not a valid indicator of what one truly feels nor of one's temperament. Maybe she understood what many social psychologists believe, that human behavior depends on the situation and can not always be pinned to a set of fixed traits. It would not surprise me if Agatha believed this. After all, in her novels she displays great insight into human psychology and it would be reasonable to assume that she understood herself well enough so as to not to completely define herself.

I am sure there are other secrets to Agatha's personality. Maybe the humility that transpires in her biography is none other than secrecy. She describes herself as exuberant and yet with the exception of a detailed narration of surfing activities, I did not see this exuberance leap out from the pages of her biography. Was it an internal exuberance perhaps, the likes we find in many introverts? I believe so. Yet again, what if she did not say everything in her biography. I'd naturally assume that too. Come to think of it, she reminded me a little of Miss Marple herself.

And what if, too, her biography is laden with clues that I've yet to decipher, perhaps there are details I have missed. Perhaps you could read it too and let me know what you think.