Carol M. Booton

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  • Experience does not make me an expert in anything

    Experience does not make me an expert in anything

    People who believe they have gained some expertise in a subject, whether through knowledge, experience, or intuition, often feel compelled to write about their expertise. The goal is sometimes to earn money, sometimes to helpfully inform others on the subject, sometimes both.

    I fell into the trap of believing my so-called expertise in two subjects qualified me to write and publish books about them. First, I assumed having written a dissertation, earned a PhD, and edited academic papers for a decade magically made me an expert on conducting academic research. I wrote some books, thinking my paltry experience conferred upon me the authority to claim my suggestions were worth following. Naturally, I tried to build a business around my claims. Writing and publishing was fun, but the upshot of my effort was to display my ignorance for the world to see, if the world had cared to look.

    I will say all that experience led me to my current part-time, sadly underpaid job as an expendable adjunct faculty member at an online for-profit college. So maybe it wasn’t a total waste.

    My second attempt to leverage my knowledge and experience happened recently, when I decided I was more of an artist than an academic. I figured my art background and my thin PhD in marketing gave me the authority to tell artists how to market and sell their art. I served as a mentor for a nonprofit organization whose mission was to help small businesses. I was the artist whisperer. After five years, I hit my limit on cajoling artists into believing they could actually make money selling their art. Futile endeavor.

    However, it seemed to me the right next thing to do was to leverage my art background, education, and years of mentoring by writing a book about it–hence the book I published in 2024 with the shameless title Make Money Selling Your Art. I thought because I was an artist who had spent lots of money on books like that over the years, hoping someone would inspire me to take the terrifying actions the authors suggested, that similarly, artists struggling in the current art market would be willing to buy my book to help them sell their art.

    I was wrong.

    First off, artists don’t want to do what it takes to sell their work. See my rant about that topic here.

    Second, a lot of the information in the book was obsolete the moment I wrote it. I tried to explain that conundrum in the book, but knowing artists (a) they didn’t read the book, and (b) they would never have applied my tips anyway.

    Third, and this has nothing to do with artists, in the current political and economic climate, I prefer not to support Amazon through the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. KDP has made it easy for authors to be their own publishers, which is wonderful. Unfortunately, in recent years, I have come to learn that Amazon treats its vendor like trash. It treats its employees even worse. The books I published on KDP are still out there in the world, but now they are “out of print,” a status I can invoke by clicking a button.

    I moved my books to a less-reprehensible platform called Draft2Digital, formerly Smashwords. Publishing ebooks there is as easy as it was to publish Kindle books on KDP. Publishing print books is not as easy, but eventually I figured out how to comply with D2D’s requirements for my fiction. However, when I tried to publish the book for artists, the platform rejected the book, saying its print partners (the other channels that might sell the print book) would not accept content that wasn’t unique. In other words, the market for marketing books is so saturated, there was no point in printing another one, even if it was aimed specifically at artists.

    The bar for ebooks is a lot lower than the bar for print books. That is why there is an ebook version but not a print version for sale on this website.

    So now you know the story.

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  • The (creative) journey continues

    The (creative) journey continues

    Now that I have traded the nomadic lifestyle for apartment living, I find myself with a lot more time on my hands. I realize now I spent most of my time taking care of the basics of daily living: restocking food and water; replenishing essentials like plastic bags, baby wipes, and rubbing alcohol; dumping trash; finding safe places to sleep at night; searching for safe places to park during the day. My life was filled with the endless chores of surviving while living in a car.

    Things are a lot different now. I have modern conveniences I used to take for granted: a kitchen, a bathroom, a proper bed, space to move around. A patio! After four months, I’m still amazed when I can walk across a room.

    Besides all the wonderful amenities I now enjoy, I also have a lot of free time, which means I now have time to start my next novel.

    When I was writing my first book, Parched, I challenged myself to write 50,000 words in 30 days, in my own personal NanNoWriMo. I wasn’t sure I could do it. To my surprise, I exceeded my goal.

    I started my second book, The Oracle, in Portland and finished it in Tucson. Oddly, my residence when I arrived was a mobile home park on a street called Oracle. Is that bizarre?

    The trilogy, the Seamier Side of Magic, began in Tucson and ended during a dog-sitting gig in Scottsdale, progressing in fits and starts while I roamed the country in my Dodge Caravan. It wasn’t easy writing on the road, given my lack of consistent electricity and internet access. Not only that, my characters kept defying my directions. Plus, I fell into a frustrating quagmire writing Book 3 when I discovered I had to wrap up all the loose ends from the first two books. Hence my vow never to write another trilogy.

    Now, four months into my new housing miracle, I have time to begin the next project. I can’t tell you what it is yet, because that would attract the creative energy vampires, but I’ll give you a hint. Think deluded artist meets intractable reality and you’ll pretty much have it. If you are curious about my inspiration, read this blogpost.

    The creative journey continues.

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  • My characters are napping! Those slackers.

    My characters are napping! Those slackers.

    How can they all go take a nap at the same time? It’s so unfair. I’m alone now. I know they will wake up eventually. Probably they are waiting until they have my undivided attention.

    It’s true I’ve been distracted for the past few weeks. Traveling gets in the way of writing. I wonder from time to time if dictating into a device while I’m driving would be an option. I can just imagine. “Now we’re all going off this cliff together. Ahhhhhh!”

    The final few chapters of this final book in the trilogy have turned into a pointless mush. I need to bring this story to a close. I’d like to put a big red bow on it, but at this point, I’d settle for packing tape. This project has dragged on way too long.

    Some authors crank out several books per year!

    Then I am reminded of other authors who take years to write one book. Of course, their books are literary masterpieces, destined to be on the bestseller lists for the next fifty years.

    That isn’t me. That won’t be me. Cozy fantasies don’t tend to be literary masterpieces. I’m not saying they couldn’t be, but I am sure mine won’t be. Ninety-nine percent certain. I confess, I hold out hope. It’s hard to exorcise magical thinking from my fizzling brain, especially when one of my recurring characters is magic itself. But, even on a good day, I lean toward self-delusion.

    When I began this trilogy, I had no idea how magic would manifest. Before I knew what was happening, a character got poked with a pin during a fitting and turned into a bat. That was a surprise to me. Why did she turn into a bat? I mean, I poked many clients with pins during my heyday as a fashion designer-slash-seamstress. As far as I can recall, no one turned into a bat, or anything else, other than a cranky person who would have given me a 2-star rating if Yelp had existed in the 1980s.

    I don’t underestimate the power of magic.

    How do I wake up these slackers, that’s what I want to know. I blame all the distractions in my life, but who doesn’t have distractions? Other writers keep on writing. I bet even the ones who are homeless somehow find a way to work daily at their craft. I could do that, too, if I stopped blaming my characters for not showing up for the job.

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  • What happened to Art Dialog with Christy and Carol?

    What happened to Art Dialog with Christy and Carol?

    Art Dialog with Christy and Carol was a short-lived YouTube podcast presented by my friend Christy Strauch and me. We offered pithy marketing tips and deep insights from our own experiences to help artists sell their art. Our mission was to help artists get their work into the world and help them get paid for it.

    Commendable goal, right? The world needs more art, and artists need more money. Slam dunk.

    Turns out it was a lofty but foolish endeavor. Why?

    We had two guesses.

    Reason 1: Most people do not care about art

    Buying art is like promising to exercise. We think it’s a worthy objective, but when the realities of life get in the way (e.g., taking care of our activities of daily living), we always find a reason to buy gas for our fossil-fuel burning automobile, buy Hamburger Helper to feed our hungry kids, fire up the lawn mower if we are lucky enough to have a lawn . . . you get the picture. Life is expensive, busy, and constantly in need of upkeep. For most of us, art hangs on the fridge with magnets.

    Buying “real” art, on the other hand, is a luxury best left to people who can afford it. You know who I mean, the fictitious people who have electric cars, solar houses, immigrants who deliver food to their doorsteps, oodles of wall space, and investments that move in only one direction—up, thanks to fiscal policies that give them big bootstraps while the rest of us are wearing hand-me-down Crocs.

    So, yes, a few people buy “real” art. Yay.

    But for an artist with a tedious day job, living paycheck to paycheck and paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing, finding those art buyers is difficult if not almost impossible. Why?

    One reason is because poor artists don’t hang out where the rich people are.

    Christy and I talked ad nauseum about “finding our tribe.” We knew it was hard, but as hopelessly naive optimistics, we thought if artists just did their footwork (according to our suggestions), everything would work out hunky dory. Art buyers would fill their palaces with art, and artists would receive fair compensation.

    Unfortunately, not only are art buyers elusive creatures who don’t tend to coalesce in one place, artists find it difficult to muster the willingness to market and sell their work. Which brings me to Reason 2.

    Reason 2: Artists are both fearful and arrogant

    Fearful? Yes. Fearful of failure, fearful of success. All kinds of fear, which can lead to paralysis. For some artists, fear means creativity evaporates. For many, it means the thought of marketing their work to potential buyers is utterly terrifying.

    All kinds of thoughts go through our minds:

    My work is no good. It’s not worth the price. Nobody will want it. My work is too commercial. If I don’t sell anything, I’m a failure. If I sell everything, I’m a sellout.

    You can probably relate to the fear. But wait, you say. What about arrogance? How can artists be fearful and arrogant at the same time?

    Artists tend to believe they are special, which means they believe they should get what they want without working too hard for it. Many artists believe their work is so fabulous that buyers will simply knock on their door and say, “That’s the most amazing art I’ve ever seen! I must have it now. I’ll give you $50,000, plus I will pay to have it shipped to my Italian villa. Where do I sign?”

    In other words, money should fall down from the sky on our heads.

    I will say on our behalf, it’s not that artists don’t see the value in marketing and selling. If it has to be done, though, we want someone else to do it for us.

    Back to Art Dialog with Christy and Carol.

    We kept finding reasons to postpone our next video. Christy left the country. I went on an extended road trip. Finally, we had to face the truth. Art Dialog with Christy and Carol was not working.

    It took us a while, but we figured out what was wrong.

    We were frauds

    Before we pulled the plug on Art Dialog with Christy and Carol, we had planned to present a video announcing our new direction. The script started something like this:

    CHRISTY: In the beginning our aim was to make videos about marketing topics, like how to figure out what to sell, how to price your work, and so on. We produced a dozen or so videos that we thought would help artists market and sell their art. Then something strange happened. We started to feel like frauds.

    CAROL: You mean like we weren’t being totally honest about how hard it was going to be to sell art? 

    CHRISTY: Yes. We sometimes alluded to the possibility that artists might encounter some resistance to using the marketing tactics we talked about, but we didn’t give them any way to understand and address the resistance. We talked about the obstacles that can get in the way of marketing. We sometimes mentioned the frustration of getting stuck, not being able to take action. But we didn’t talk about what artists could do to move past the obstacles and start selling their work.

    CAROL: I think I fell into the trap of believing that if I just used certain tools in a certain way and focused on a particular group of people with just the right message and the perfect website and relentless social media that there was no way I could fail. 

    Christy: The sad secret is that even if you do this whole thing right, you still may not sell much art. We typed this question into AI: What percentage of artists support themselves and make a decent living selling art, and the answer is only one in 10 artists earn over $100K/year, and 85% make less than $25K per year. Daunting statistics.

    Yada yada. Then we were going to talk about a marketing tool (bwahaha), describe what happens to an artist’s brain when they try to use it (massive explosion), and explain the culprit: your problem stems from past trauma (said two artists with way too much education masquerading as therapists). Finally, we had a really bold idea: We were going to demonstrate how to talk to the part of the artist brain that was carrying the past trauma so the artist could overcome the blocks that kept them from marketing their work. In other words, role play!

    No wonder we left town.

    Looking back now, with the wisdom of someone two months older, I can see how deluded we were. Somehow we drank the New Age Kool-aid that so many so-called gurus before us have recommended: Hey Artist, it’s your brain! Your brain is causing you to balk at marketing your work. All you have to do is think and get over it.

    It’s kind of like telling a person to think and grow rich. Think and cure your bunions. Think and do situps. Think and erase heartburn. Think and people will buy your art.

    If only.

    I may be late to the party, but my current philosphy is that it doesn’t matter what we think. Or what we feel, to be honest. The universe only responds to what we do.

    But doing is not the same as receiving. Just because we market our art does not mean anyone will buy it. In fact, if past performance is an indication of future results, it’s quite likely we will earn next to nothing for our work, no matter how great it might be.

    That was a long way of saying, Art Dialog with Christy and Carol met its match when it came up against two irrefutable realities: most people don’t care enough about art to buy it, and artists, for many reasons, do not want to do the work to market it.

    Hence, the demise of Art Dialog. RIP.

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  • Confessions of a pantser

    Confessions of a pantser

    If you don’t know what a pantser is, you probably aren’t a storyteller. Here’s a hint: You can be a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between.

    I start out as a plotter and ended up a hopeless pantser. I outline, plan, and plot, positive I know where this story is going, certain I understand the characters, and fervently dedicated to crafting an irresistible opening, an exciting middle full of cliffs and ledges, and a satisfying ending that leaves my reader saying “That was a fun romp, glad I took a chance.”

    Not long into book 1, I turned into a spineless pantser.

    I blame my characters.

    I had no idea they would rebel and demand autonomy. I feel like a shaken rat. Apparently, I wrote them too flat or something. They wanted more. They wanted glittery shoes and wild hair. Only shoulder pads as big as turkeys would suffice. They wanted to make magic, control magic, paddle around in magic until they got all pruney.

    Frak, the fashion designer and hero of the story, turned out to be a good-hearted but clumsy detective wannabe with a magical persona she didn’t know she had when I met her in book 1. I learned she was a Phoenix at the same time she did.

    I couldn’t figure out who the villains were or why they were wreaking havoc. From book to book, the villains revealed themselves to me. Turns out nobody is really a villain. Like so much in life, turns out it was all about friends and family.

    Total pantser. When a character jumps off the page, who am I to say, no, please stay within the lines? I’m as delighted as the characters are when they discover they have secret powers.

    I started writing this trilogy in 2022. I cranked out the first book while I was living in Tucson, Arizona. I’d been in the desert for a year and still hadn’t admitted to myself that Tucson was not the right place for me. Wherever I went, the Saguaros gave me the middle finger, but I ignored them. In fact, cacti in general are just disgruntled sentinels standing along the bike paths, waiting to poke you as you walk by.

    A year later, I published the second book, still in Tucson, still laboring under the illusion that my move from Oregon to Arizona had been a wise, thoughtful decision and that I just needed the right housing situation, and then I’d make friends with the pricklies and come to call the place home.

    Then I realized besides being a blazing inferno in the summer, Tucson was too expensive for an aging person living on a fixed income. Big decisions had to be made. No time to lollygag. My prudent reserve dwindled daily. My teeth and my car took big gulps out of my checkbook. I could see my future, and it wasn’t looking financially stable.

    So, given I’m not roommate material, I made the only decision I could make: I moved out of the roommate situation into my Dodge Grand Caravan.

    Fast forward, what year is it? 2025, and I’m still not done with the third book. In my defense, I can say I’ve been busy learning how to be a nomad-slash-vanlifer-slash-homeless person. However, the truth is, my pantsering caught up with me.

    As I said, I was certain I knew where this story was going, but now I know I was clueless. I’ve been one of those especially annoying ignoramuses who is positive they are right and can’t conceive of the possibility they could be wrong. I hate people like that.

    Dang it. I’m one of those people.

    In the first book, I established a magical world without knowing the rules. As I went along, the characters schooled me but good. But I still didn’t know what I was in for. In the second book, I wrote myself off cliffs and down manholes. I planted Easter eggs without a thought to what they meant or how I would resolve them. I wrote goofy jokes and silly dialog because I thought they were funny.

    Now, here I am, trying to wrap up a gazillion loose ends. It’s been a humbling process. Probably if I were a better writer, this would not have happened. If I were a plotter, I would not have written myself into every corner conceivable. But I’m a diehard pantser. I know this now. Chagrined, perhaps, but not apologetic.

    I’ve been reading the first two books to make a list of all the loose ends that need tying up in book 3. They are legion. I’ve become reacquainted with characters, motivations, and places I’d forgotten. I shake my head at the Ideas I’d included in book 1 that went nowhere in book 2. Now what do I do with them? Pretend like they never happened? La la la.

    Rereading my work from three years ago has shown me a few things. One good thing: I still laugh at some of the funny situations, possibly because they more or less really happened to me in my past life as a fashion designer. Few things are funnier than bridesmaids who hate their dresses enough to write you a bad check.

    On the other hand, I’m finding all the typos, misspellings, grammar errors, continuity blunders, and brainless mistakes I failed to see before I published. This is what happens when you are broke and can’t hire an editor. Not that I would anyway. Still, I’m sure a little polishing would have gone a long way toward making the first two books more readable. Fair warning, don’t be surprised at the typos, errors, and mistakes you will find in book 3 when it finally hits my Amazon page.

    Any day now. Seriously. I’m almost done. Said the pantser.

    Gratitude to the few fans who forged through the mistakes to find the humor and adventure of Frak’s magical fashion world. I hope the third book resolves enough of the loose ends to leave you smiling.

    For me, no more trilogies.

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  • The endless challenge of finding our tribe

    The endless challenge of finding our tribe

    Being an unknown writer has advantages, one of which for me is creative freedom. If you are an emerging artist or writer, maybe you know what I mean. Being unknown means our art is free to burble up or geyser forth as it will. We can gleefully pursue detours and plunge down rabbit holes without fear of judgment or pressure. We bestow our creativity upon the world with a naive joy, with no expectation that we will ever find an audience for our work.

    Most of us would like to find an audience, don’t get me wrong. Recognition for our contribution is a human need. However, many of us will have to settle for the adulation of our friends and family. That’s been the case for me, more or less. Not all my friends and family have praised me without feeling compelled to fix my grammar. Still, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Imagine how difficult it must be for the author or artist who has one successful book or one well-attended show. What then? Is this the beginning of a career? Or the end of something that never actually began?

    I have lots of ideas. Ideas has never been the problem for me. As a child, I spattered reams of notebook paper with cheap Bic pens. I was a writing maniac. Who cares about plot or character development! The goal was to bring forth the stories in my head, like sewing the parachute as I’m jumping out of the plane. It was a compulsion.

    Now, I’m old. I realize that if I want recognition for my work, I need to join the grown-up world of marketing and promotion. I’m embarrassed to admit, I hate marketing. I hate promotion. The idea of posting regularly to social media makes me want to live under a rock in the desert. The day my cell phone died was one of the happiest days in recent memory. It’s ironic that I got a graduate degree in marketing, as if more knowledge was the answer.

    Knowledge is useful, but not sufficient. The compulsion to write is necessary, but not sufficient. The essential ingredient is a willingness to become visible. From there, willingness leads to action. When we take action, the universe has something to respond to. In other words, when we take action, consequences can occur.

    I talked to an artist recently about a children’s book series she wanted to self-publish. She described her project and her goals. I thought it sounded great. Then she said, “I want to publish anonymously.”

    We talked about writing under a pseudonym. Lots of writers choose pennames, it’s nothing new, we agreed. They publish through a traditional publisher and manage to keep their real names hidden, sometimes for years.

    “How would it work if you are your own publisher?” I asked. “How would you maintain the separation between your publisher self and your anonymous writer self?”

    We tried to imagine how it would work. “It might be hard to go on book tours or do bookstore signings,” I said.

    “I could wear a wig and sunglasses,” she said.

    “You could wear a paper bag over your head, like the unknown comic,” I laughed, getting a blank stare in return.

    Even though I knew it would be virtually impossible to promote a book series anonymously without the support and deep pockets of a traditional publisher, I encouraged her to give it a try. We brainstormed for a while longer. When we hung up the video call, I don’t think either one of us was feeling optimistic.

    As a marketer, I know selling anything—books, art, ideas, causes—is all about finding the right target audience and communicating to them a message that says I understand your problem and I have the solution. However, as an author, I hope she figures out a way that works. If I could earn money from selling my books without having to do the actual chore of marketing, I would.

    Who is my tribe? People like me. Demographically, we are older, female, probably White, and middle income. Psychographically, we are looking for an escape into some happier, funnier, more colorful world where blood and guts and sex are left on the doorstep. A community of quirky characters, none of whom is truly a villain, all of whom are endearingly human. A land of low dread.

    Where do we hang out, these older gals bent on escape from reality? In our caves, if I’m any example. We don’t tend to coalesce in groups much, at least not groups centered on cozy fantasy magical mystery novels. We might be serving in the PTA or in a Twelve Step program or as a union steward at our job. We probably don’t know each other. You might pass me in the grocery store, and I would not know you are a member of my tribe. You might have written a cozy fantasy novel too, and I would never know! Oh, the humanity.

    How do I find you? How do you find me? Maybe I’ll see you perusing the sci-fi fantasy section at our local library or independent bookstore. Hey, it could happen. You could hand me your book (assuming it is there on the shelf). I could hand you mine (assuming the same thing). We would smile that special smile to say I see you. And then, having taken a quick reluctant breath of reality, we would dive back into our fantasy worlds.

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  • You fail at (the writing) life

    You fail at (the writing) life

    A month or so ago I had the bright idea to write and publish something every day on this website. You could consider them blogposts. WordPress does. I called them “stories,” although they are more like scenes. Musings. Upchuckings. Call them what you want, I don’t care. The point is, what I’ve learned (and what you probably already know) is that showing up to write daily is damn difficult. Even the unpolished drivel I’m posting. I can only guess how hard would be if I actually cared about plot, character, punctuation, and typos.

    What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind. I blithely made a commitment to publish something daily without really imagining what it was going to feel like to follow through. In fact, I thought I could keep it up for an entire year. My friend Christy used the term “ass in seat,” and I thought, I can do that. I have an ass. I have a seat, more or less, not a chair by most definitions, but definitely a place to put my ass. How hard can it be?

    I am embarrassed.

    I pride myself on not being a quitter. I’ve worked hard in the past twenty years to do what I say I’m going to do. It’s a matter of personal integrity. When I enrolled in graduate school, I wasn’t sure I could finish, but once I was committed (eight years of sunk costs scraping my brain daily), I knew failure was not an option. I put my head down and white-knuckled my way through to the phinish line. I wish now I hadn’t done it, but it’s done, and even though the university I attended no longer exists, I still earned that stupid degree.

    It’s silly to be so self-obsessed. I know nobody else is keeping track. They are much too busy with their own lives to pay attention to my failures. I think if I were to break into two for a moment and pretend like I’m having a dissociative identity crisis, I would pat myself on the back and say “Well done, Carol, for showing up for the work.”

    And I would say, “Well, thanks, Carol. I wish I’d done better.”

    And then I would tell myself, “You can, and you will, if you keep practicing. Don’t forget your writer friends who keep their stories locked inside them because they are too afraid of making a fool of themselves by publishing something that isn’t ready.”

    At that point, I would look askance at myself (is my hair really that gray?) and wonder if that was a passive aggressive way of telling me I’m making a fool of myself by publishing things that aren’t ready.

    And my alter ego would hasten to reassure me: “No, no, it’s all about practice! You are practicing the writing life, every day. It’s not about quality, it’s about quantity.”

    “Thanks, I think,” I would say and mope around for a bit.

    It’s been an experience. No, let’s call it an experiment. I’m glad I tried it. I learned a few things about myself, mainly that writing is a one-day-at-a-time endeavor and tomorrow is out of my hands, no matter how minutely I plan my day. It’s okay to have goals but managing outcomes is beyond me.

    All that aside, the truth is, I need to get back to my writing projects. I have the first draft of a book almost ready (my shameless attempt at earning money by telling other people how to earn money—hey, other people do it, why can’t I?) It’s a slogfest of all I’ve learned as a mentor. I hope this book will help many more artists figure out how to sell their art. As a somewhat unique weirdo squatting at the uncomfortable intersection of art and business, I think I can help. Coming soon to KDP in 2024, which is actually two days from now. Hoo boy.

    The book that is burning a hole in my brain is the third book of my Seamier Side of Magic trilogy. I hope I can get it onto paper before I die. Frak needs to find her path, and Stan needs rescuing! I can’t write all that in one blogpost.

    The writing life continues. What else is there?

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  • Digger on the railroad

    Somebody said there’s no other way to create except to work like a digger on a railroad, one bucket of contaminated dirt, microplastic gravel, aluminum fliptops, used condoms, and marrowless mouse bones at at time. I don’t know who said it, but I’m sure someone did, because in this modern age, there is nothing new under the relentless desert sun. What’s more, I don’t if that is true, that working like a digger on a railroad will produce anything useful (or anything at all, really), which in my case looks like what? Considering my bones are disintegrating as I age out of existence, I’m not sure what railroad digging would look like, but I think it looks like butt in seat, fingers on keyboard, brain stuttering to conjure words out of thin air. Is that my version of a railroad?

    I could complain about the service on this railroad, but that would be premature, seeing as how I haven’t built it yet.

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