Well, darn it, I didn't get back to this before the election. I hope you all voted the intelligent choices. I saw a funny picture on Twitter. It was a photo of Trump and his daughter. The double- caption is: "Daddy, are we going to jail?" "No. You and your brothers are. I'm going to Russia." I suppose your judgment as to the humor in that might depend on your political preferences.
I just saw something regarding the President's desperate attempt to stay in office by challenging the legitimacy of the election. He's filing suits in several states, claiming ballot should not be counted, and Republican office holders are generally backing him. This gentleman from Harvard pointed out that many of those same ballots voted for Republican Senators or Congressmen. So if Trump somehow wins and gets those votes for Biden thrown out, then those votes for those Republicans will also be thrown out.
My three 400-word shorts to Fractured Lit got the thumbs down. Rats. If you read my FB page regularly, you know that my short story "The Weatherman" was accepted by Page and Spine Fiction Showcase. I was surprised; the story is about 1300 words longer than their normal limit, though on occasion they'll accept longer and split it into two parts. "The Weatherman" did not lend itself to that treatment. However, sadly, Saving Atlantis garnered another rejection. Darn.
I submitted a previously published very short story (506 words) to Sequestrum's reprint anthology. Sequestrum does that once a year or so. The entry fee is less than $7.00, which is pretty good.
I pay any writing contest fees through PayPal. I also get paid for any submissions the same way. And if you want, PayPal credit has certain advantages. The interest rate is high (at least for me—about 23%) but each purchase is interest-free for six months. And then if you carry a balance it tells you how much to pay to avoid the interest charge.
I finished the Black Veins horror anthology. I pulled out an Isaac Asimov anthology I hadn't read in decades--The Bicentennial Man and other stories, which features that short story and some others. If you haven't seen the movie, The Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams, I recommend it. The movie follows the story very well, and Williams does his usual very good job. I hadn't got to that story yet when we happened to go to LaCrosse and I stopped in the Goodwill Store. I bought another James Patterson book--Kill Alex Cross—and another Dean Koontz novel--Velocity. I'm reading those two before I get back to the Asimov anthology.
The Patterson novel, like the previous one, is a fast read. It's easy to see why he sells so many. A real fan reads one, and is ready for another after just a few days. If the reader is voracious and has plenty of time, a Patterson novel can be polished off in one day, a day and a half, maybe.
The Koontz novel has not yet earned my praises. It does have one really good feature: he gives his protagonist choices to make, the man makes the choice, and that leads him to being required to make another, tougher choice. And then another, still tougher choice. And I keep thinking that his first choice was wrong, his second choice might never have been been necessary if he'd chose better, and the last choice (so far) was easy, but he missed it. The protagonist, Billy, is not a particularly bright guy. He believes he analyzes his choices, but in fact he lets his emotions (and not even strong ones) make his decisions. So, yeah, the book is keeping me involved, but I don't like the story. And his writing is not quite as colorful as the other books of his I've read so far.
No writer hits a homer every time (unless he's writing about The Simpsons). Steven King has had a few that are generally regarded as inferior to other works of his. But again, this is very subjective. I found Dolores Claiborne and Dreamcatcher to be mediocre (for King) but they both became movies. On the other hand, many readers felt Rose Madder wasn't very good. King himself has said that with that one, he was "trying too hard." I thought it was pretty good. I stole one little feature from it and put into my horror story "Switch."
I think that's it for now. I'm hoping that I will soon be able announce that Just Lucky, Book 1: Friends and Enemies has been successfully self-published and is available, at least for Kindle. I think the paperback version will go quicker once I have the process down better. Hope so! I could probably have it done by now but my writing drive is to continue with Lying Swords. I'm beginning to appreciate the advantage of writing a series. I had just wrapped up a long sub-story and was ready to get on to one of the other things going, and I got this idea for a nifty (like that word? First known use: 1865) continuation. If I was writing a novel I'd have to skip it, but now I have plenty of room for a little more controlled violence. I just haven't decided which one of two ways to introduce it. The joys of writing—of creating.
Everybody! Read! Read a dozen or so comic strips in the morning on line. Read the newspapers, or the sports pages, again, on line if a paper edition isn't available.
And maybe read the obituaries to make sure you're still alive. Here's a link to some hilarity involving death (I posted this on my FB page, too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83yyMAdbrpE&fbclid=IwAR3W4Q1ktn1K3kAKXW1niughPDkmSLr9e6rVlJsqgVGEkuJul6LOxzTfmUc
And live the best you can, treat others like you'd want them to treat you, and pet a dog or a cat to make you both happy.
I just saw something regarding the President's desperate attempt to stay in office by challenging the legitimacy of the election. He's filing suits in several states, claiming ballot should not be counted, and Republican office holders are generally backing him. This gentleman from Harvard pointed out that many of those same ballots voted for Republican Senators or Congressmen. So if Trump somehow wins and gets those votes for Biden thrown out, then those votes for those Republicans will also be thrown out.
My three 400-word shorts to Fractured Lit got the thumbs down. Rats. If you read my FB page regularly, you know that my short story "The Weatherman" was accepted by Page and Spine Fiction Showcase. I was surprised; the story is about 1300 words longer than their normal limit, though on occasion they'll accept longer and split it into two parts. "The Weatherman" did not lend itself to that treatment. However, sadly, Saving Atlantis garnered another rejection. Darn.
I submitted a previously published very short story (506 words) to Sequestrum's reprint anthology. Sequestrum does that once a year or so. The entry fee is less than $7.00, which is pretty good.
I pay any writing contest fees through PayPal. I also get paid for any submissions the same way. And if you want, PayPal credit has certain advantages. The interest rate is high (at least for me—about 23%) but each purchase is interest-free for six months. And then if you carry a balance it tells you how much to pay to avoid the interest charge.
I finished the Black Veins horror anthology. I pulled out an Isaac Asimov anthology I hadn't read in decades--The Bicentennial Man and other stories, which features that short story and some others. If you haven't seen the movie, The Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams, I recommend it. The movie follows the story very well, and Williams does his usual very good job. I hadn't got to that story yet when we happened to go to LaCrosse and I stopped in the Goodwill Store. I bought another James Patterson book--Kill Alex Cross—and another Dean Koontz novel--Velocity. I'm reading those two before I get back to the Asimov anthology.
The Patterson novel, like the previous one, is a fast read. It's easy to see why he sells so many. A real fan reads one, and is ready for another after just a few days. If the reader is voracious and has plenty of time, a Patterson novel can be polished off in one day, a day and a half, maybe.
The Koontz novel has not yet earned my praises. It does have one really good feature: he gives his protagonist choices to make, the man makes the choice, and that leads him to being required to make another, tougher choice. And then another, still tougher choice. And I keep thinking that his first choice was wrong, his second choice might never have been been necessary if he'd chose better, and the last choice (so far) was easy, but he missed it. The protagonist, Billy, is not a particularly bright guy. He believes he analyzes his choices, but in fact he lets his emotions (and not even strong ones) make his decisions. So, yeah, the book is keeping me involved, but I don't like the story. And his writing is not quite as colorful as the other books of his I've read so far.
No writer hits a homer every time (unless he's writing about The Simpsons). Steven King has had a few that are generally regarded as inferior to other works of his. But again, this is very subjective. I found Dolores Claiborne and Dreamcatcher to be mediocre (for King) but they both became movies. On the other hand, many readers felt Rose Madder wasn't very good. King himself has said that with that one, he was "trying too hard." I thought it was pretty good. I stole one little feature from it and put into my horror story "Switch."
I think that's it for now. I'm hoping that I will soon be able announce that Just Lucky, Book 1: Friends and Enemies has been successfully self-published and is available, at least for Kindle. I think the paperback version will go quicker once I have the process down better. Hope so! I could probably have it done by now but my writing drive is to continue with Lying Swords. I'm beginning to appreciate the advantage of writing a series. I had just wrapped up a long sub-story and was ready to get on to one of the other things going, and I got this idea for a nifty (like that word? First known use: 1865) continuation. If I was writing a novel I'd have to skip it, but now I have plenty of room for a little more controlled violence. I just haven't decided which one of two ways to introduce it. The joys of writing—of creating.
Everybody! Read! Read a dozen or so comic strips in the morning on line. Read the newspapers, or the sports pages, again, on line if a paper edition isn't available.
And maybe read the obituaries to make sure you're still alive. Here's a link to some hilarity involving death (I posted this on my FB page, too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83yyMAdbrpE&fbclid=IwAR3W4Q1ktn1K3kAKXW1niughPDkmSLr9e6rVlJsqgVGEkuJul6LOxzTfmUc
And live the best you can, treat others like you'd want them to treat you, and pet a dog or a cat to make you both happy.
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