No statistics tell us what percentage of adults would choose to live an unlived life. But stats do suggest how many that might be:

• A study conducted for the UK non-profit "Remember a Charity" found that 40% wished they had done everything in their lives differently.
• A January 2024 Gallup poll found that only 47% of U.S. adults reported being "very satisfied" with their personal lives, one point shy of the record low.

Some of the reasons for choosing an alternative life include:

• Inaction/missed opportunities: More people regret what they didn't do than mistakes they've made in the past.
• Making poor social and relationship choices: Picking the wrong friends, staying too long in dead-end relationships, and jobs.
• Not living authentically: Living as you think others expect you to live rather than how you want to live. 

Speculative question for today

Given the choice, would you choose to live your life differently?

This is a link to an AI answer to the question, 'How many new books are published each year?' 

This is either good news or bad news, depending on whether you are a reader, a writer, or both.

Good news for readers, bad news for the overwhelming number of self-publishing authors struggling to get our books recognized.

But maybe not good news for readers either.

This all began when Amazon started selling books online in July 1995, thirty years ago! You may have forgotten, or never knew, books were the first product Amazon offered for sale.

How do you find what you want to read?

I want to know because one, I read and struggle to find books I will pay to read, and (hopefully) enjoy. 

And because two, I write books, I hope you will pay to read and (hopefully) enjoy.

Four million new books a year is a lot to sort through. 

Speculative question for today.

Is any number of new books a year too many?

I've been commended and criticized for leading readers to one conclusion they found to be a dead end.

In The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett, Shelly decides to be with Lionel in Israel. The story places them there and describes their jobs, relationships, and lives in some detail.

Soon, Shelly is off to a different, unlived life.

There are three reactions to this and similar plot twists:
   - You got me, I like plot twists.
   - A bit complicated, but okay.
   - Reading this gives me whiplash.

Shelly's story, Raymond's before her, and those in Reckoning (spring 2026) are about lives those characters could have lived had they made different choices. An infinite number of unlived lives.

Shouldn't readers reading about lives never lived expect things not to be as they assumed they would be?

Speculative question for today.

Is a predictable life more preferable to one less predictable?

Đoàn ăn Giáp, also known as Don Van, and Asian, is arguably the most essential character in the Unlived trilogy. He doesn't have a book named after him, as do Raymond and Shelly, but he is, in various forms, at the center of their stories, and will be as well in Reckoning.

Before publication, a younger beta reader, who identified herself as being Asian, politely suggested that Raymond should not refer to Asian as 'Asian'. She said this, having read some but not all of Raymond's story.

"If you don't change that, you will sound racist to some readers."

I thanked her and said I looked forward to all she would have to say once she had finished the entire story.

A week or so later, she sent me her full review, including three full pages of suggestions. Her first comment was that she now understood why I identified Asian as I did throughout most of the story.

I won't disclose my reasons for doing that in this post. Doing so would compromise an essential part of the ending for those of you yet to finish The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn. And for the same reason, I ask those of you who have read it not to do so either.

Speculative question for today.

Writers create characters. Do you ascribe what characters say and do to the author, or do you separate characters from the authors who created them?