My daughter-in-law was walking her dog this past weekend when she noticed an Asian man approaching. She said his walk and mine were so similar that she had to turn and stare at him after he had passed. That gave me an idea for a possible plot vehicle for a future Unlived Life story. 

A Caucasian character encounters his Asian doppelganger (or the reverse), the result of his parents having married someone else. Had one of my parents married an Asian person, my daughter-in-law (who happens to be one-quarter Japanese) might have encountered half-Asian me in an unlived life. 

Shelly's and Raymond's stories are essentially two-dimensional. The choices those characters made created their unlived lives. The idea that choices made by others before they are born is to the Unlived stories what three-dimensional chess is to the game of chess.

A whole new dimension.

Speculative question for today.

How different would you be had your parents married someone else?  

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 soon 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, describing 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?

Character evolution is as important in fiction as it is in life. If the time, place, and/or situation change but the character/person doesn't, something's wrong.

Everything in life progresses or regresses, sometimes both, depending on circumstances. The only constant is constant change.

The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn has been out for just over a year. Over 1,500 sales to date. The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett has been available for a month. Some of you have now read both, and I would like to hear your thoughts on the evolution of Raymond, Shelly, and Asian.

You can answer here in a comment, or privately using the 'Contact' option under 'More' next to 'The Obligatory Blog' tab, or in a private Facebook message. There are no right or wrong answers.

Speculative question for today.

Have Raymond, Shelly, and Asian changed appreciably in the two books? If so, in what ways are they now different? Did their storylines happen as you assumed they would?

Facebook provides detailed information about those who react to the ads I run in support of the Unlived book series—more data than any other social media platform. The results are important to me; they tell me who my audience is and is not.

Who do you think would be most interested in reading about lives that could have been, but were not lived? Before I began advertising, I assumed men more than women, both genders aged 35 to 55.

Wrong.

The primary audience is women 50 and older, with the largest group being 65+. Men respond too, just not as many or as often as women.

Women 55+ buy and read more of my books than any other group. They are more likely than men to share their 'unlived lives' stories with me in their reviews, comments, and private messages.

They are more than just a customer; they are engaged with me and the concept.

Thank you, ladies.

Regardless of your gender or age, speculative question for today.

We can only imagine what our unlived lives would have been like. If it were possible, would you trade the life you lead for one of the lives you would have lived had you made different choices in the past?

Soon after announcing a sequel to The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, readers began asking questions.

Would Shelly and Raymond be together? Where would their unlived lives take place? Would there be resolution to them being 'stuck' in a parallel universe?

I didn't answer any question directly. What fun would that be if I had?

The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett has now been out for a month. A third volume, The Unlived Lives Reckoning will follow this coming spring. "Reckoning" should give you some idea what to expect.

As before, I won't directly answer specific questions, doing so would give away story plots. But please do ask whatever you like, along with how you'd like to see Unlived story lines evolve. That helps me decide where to take things in the future.

To get things started, this and future posts will ask speculative questions for you to consider, starting with this one.

What would happen if someone who was never born were to meet someone who was, in the multiverse?

Texting, emailing, or worst of all, calling someone at 2 A.M. to let them know what you are thinking at that very moment, is almost never a good idea. Often not the thought, certainly not the time you decided to share it.

Waiting until morning—ideally after a good night's sleep—you might decide to say things differently. You might choose to say nothing.

Our lives, along with our unlived lives, are the collective result of our choices and decisions, some good, some bad. If you regret where you are, it was your choices, your decisions that put you there. 

You can change that now. Identify what you wish you hadn't done or said, and choose to say and do things differently in the future. If you don't or won't... 

However, nobody's perfect, and as Sheryl Crow sang, sometimes our favorite mistakes are just too good not to make again. 😉

Last week's post cited long-ago references to what we now call the 'multiverse.' But you don't have to go back to the birth of the 20th century, 1935, or even 1957 to find more connections.

"​While they wait, Millicent, now coming to, insists the strange events are caused by an evil double from a parallel world – a nearby, yet distant alternative plane of existence that comes into convergence with this world as a result of powerful forces, or unnatural, unknown events." Mirror Image (The Twilight Zone) February 26, 1960.

One form of creativity inspires another. Case in point, the 2019 horror picture, "Us," written and directed by Jordan Peele. I find no mention of parallel universes or the multiverse in anything relating to the film. But Jordan did; a direct connection to the Twilight Zone 'Mirror Image' episode he saw as a kid.

Will my Unlived Lives books ever inspire anyone to create anything? I'd be happy just hearing from someone named Raymond Quinn or Shelly Bennett.

The concept of 'Unlived Lives' is neither mine nor new. Google it; you'll find tens of thousands of references related to those two words. And when I say not new, I mean not new.

David Barron's book, The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America, references Nicolas Camille Flammarion, a late 18th century French astronomer and author. In his 1889 novel Urania, Flammarion explored the idea that after mortal death, human souls can travel through space in a way the living body cannot. He cites a dream he had about George Spero, a friend, and Spero's fiancée, Icléa, who were killed in a balloon flight accident, their souls reincarnated on Mars.

Flammarion did not specifically mention 'Unlived Lives'. According to Gemini AI, Carl Jung is most likely the first to have used that term.

"Jung first explored this idea in his 1932 essay The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious, later expanded upon in his 1957 book The Undiscovered Self. He famously wrote, "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents".

(Side note: That would be Eden, daughter of Raymond and Shelly, had they not died. She, along with others, is featured in the third book, The Unlived Lives Reckoning, due out in early spring 2026.) 

You won't find any of this in my Unlived Lives books; they are simple fiction meant to entertain. However, don't be surprised if you become more interested in the concept after reading them, as I did writing them.