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Publishing First For Me Just got word from an editor accepting one of my stories for publication. Attached the story with markups in their email. First time for me for a UK publisher. Feels a bit strange with some of the edits, mom to mum, and other peculiar spellings.  A science fiction story, I really believed in. Rejected previously five times. I made some adjustments and edits each time. So, never give up on a story you believe in and keep improving it. Should be out in December, will give an update then. |
Military Control Ordered in Western United States The President of the United States signed an executive order authorizing the US military to take action in several western states. Targeted families will have their assets seized and then moved to local collection centers. Then each family will then be transported to one of ten detention camps and held without trial for an indeterminate period. Crazy right? Could not happen here. Some dystopian plot for a novel. It did happen, by order of one of America’s most liberal and respected presidents. President Roosevelt (FDR) signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 and forced approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans, most legal citizens, into ten internment camps. Men, women, and children held in prisons because of their national origin. Could it ever happen again? Maybe to people wrongly accused of eating peoples pets? |
Down a Rabbit Hole A few weeks ago, I came across a reference to The Father of Modern Conspiracy Theories (Milton William Cooper) and his book (Behold a Pale Horse). I had heard of neither one and found a free PDF version of the book and scanned through it for a while. It’s a peculiar mish-mash of various conspiracies in wildly different formats. The foreword and introduction invite the reader to read and decide for themselves. So I chose one and took a look. I picked a Chapter about the Secret Treaty of Verona, something I had never heard of, and dove down the rabbit hole. The Chapter has a copy of the treaty from something titled the American Diplomatic Code (which is just a book from 1834) and a section of Senator Robert Owen reading it into the congressional record in 1916. That is Cooper’s offer of proof of the treaty's veracity. When you read it, you can see the dangerous implications. The results are peculiar if you Google it. You will get lots of results that seem to point toward this document from 1822 as evidence supporting multiple New World Order conspiracies. You might think there is something sinister about this treaty. It has been bouncing around for nearly two hundred years as documentary evidence supporting these various conspiracies. If you look carefully, you will note that the results are not academic citations or historical societies. It took a while to find something that seemed to dispute the document. I did eventually find an academic database with a journal article that traces the treaty to originating in a London newspaper in 1823 under suspicious circumstances. It then made its way into other newspapers and books. A few questioned its authenticity and eventually, one of the diplomats who supposedly signed the document eventually wrote a letter to a paper in Paris saying he had never seen much less signed such a document. The Senator had political motivations for reading the document into the record. (See The Secret Treaty of Verona A Newspaper Forgery, T.R. Schellenberg, Journal of Modern History 1935) What is most fascinating from this experience is the continuing repeated citations to this forged document for nearly two hundred years as evidence by various conspiracy-minded individuals. It takes time to unwind a twisted tale. |
| Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect… -Jonathan Swift One current version of this observation is: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." But I'd argue that with lightspeed communication, the lie's already circled the globe (or, for conspiracy "theorists," made its way all over the disk of the flat Earth) a million times before the truth even gets out of bed. |
A Real S.O.B. (PG-13) Save, Organize, and Backup One thing a writer quickly learns, in the modern age of computers. A short story can be revised dozens and dozens of times. A novel, hundreds and hundreds . . and lots and lots of gigabytes on your harddrive. This also leads to many, many Saved versions; full and partial. If you don’t save them, you will regret it when you are looking for a piece that you cut at some point and you want to put it back in; or at least a piece of it. All of these versions require Organized structure, e.g. file naming, and folder structures. If you plan on finding something when you need it. Sometimes, after a complete draft, I create a whole new version with a different tone, pace, or length. Subfolders off of the base story help keep me organized, so I believe. Lastly, Backup. Probably should be daily, at least weekly, but I end up doing it about once a month on two external drives. I have been lucky so far. Knock on wood! Any comments or stories on this dull but important writing topic? |
| I have stories labelled A, B, C, etc. I have a story at the moment called (working title) "S Adelaide demon story". The files are called SAdelDemon.doc, SAdelDemonB.doc, SAdelDemonC.doc, SAdelDemonC2.doc, SAdelDemonD.doc, and my current SAdelDemonE.doc. Why the C2? Because I added a prologue to that story, and that was all... and then subsequently got rid of it. I back up once a month to an external hard drive and a USB stick. Yes, for writers backing up and file names are an often overlooked part of the process. |
| I don't write anything long enough to require off-PC backup. Google Docs autosaves constantly and lets you revisit previous versions. I have rarely needed this feature. If I ever decide to write something of substance, such as a book, I will definitely keep these ideas in mind. I am far too lazy to implement them, but I will keep them in mind so I can later castigate myself for ignoring good advice. |
A Tribute or Macabre I first noticed this several years ago, probably around 2015. I thought there was a Tom Clancy book I had never known about and Clancy had passed away in 2013. Tom Clancy on the book cover in big type then I noticed in smaller font by someone I never heard of. Then a few years after that, I read a book by an author I had heard of but never read. Vince Flynn. I started looking for his books and found a list and I came across the Vince Flynn in big letters by someone I never heard of in small front. I checked and realized Mr. Flynn had passed at a young age from cancer, the same year as Clancy it turns out. I recently came across books coming out this year still with Clancy and Flynn’s names. I’m guessing there are other authors like this as well. It seems a bit strange; I’m guessing their estates get the money and that is fine, but something feels a bit off about it. What do you think; a literary tribute or macabre money-grabbing? |
| Why not both? Robert Jordan died without finishing his fantasy series, and his estate chose Brandon Sanderson to write more of them. In that case, though, Sanderson was hardly an unknown. The meat of the matter, as far as I'm concerned, is that this makes it obvious that it's not good writing that sells books, but author name recognition. |
| Shades of Jason Bourne. Ludlum wrote only three Bourne novels - the other fourteen were written (badly) by a couple of nobodies. It's understandable that there should be reason to continue the series but it's the manner in which it was done that I find questionable. It should be made clear on the cover that these are not products of the original author but, all too often, this info is hidden in tiny print or within the covers. I am sure the originators of well loved books would rather the series die with them than be continued by hacks. |
| I’ve been unhappy for years about the ways in which authors’ ideas and characters are modified by money-hungry film studios and migrated from their original worlds into some apologetic retro-fitted social conscience that ruins the storyline and makes it all look darn silly to boot Once, I dreamed of writing a book that would gain me fabulous fame and an invite from Oprah for a free celebrity makeover, but now I realize that I would rather die unknown and my words remain my own than have someone attach my name to whatever silliness is popular in the future. Also, not wanting to be published makes me seem more successful in my life goals |
A Privileged Existence I grew up in middle-class, middle America. We weren’t poor but we sure as heck weren’t rich. We had suffered some hardship with the loss of a sibling at a young age, but in general, I knew it wasn’t a difficult life. I was on a business trip about ten years ago when I learned a lesson about my privileged existence. I was traveling with two colleagues and we were pretty close together in age. We were drinking beer in a restaurant in Seoul Korea. We had been working together for about five years by that time. They had both come from South Africa but one was born in the Czech Republic and the other in Yugoslavia. We were talking about childhood memories and my Czech colleague talked about his mother waking him up early one morning when he was about ten years old. She said they need to rush to the market which was a bit strange. He was surprised by how fast his mother was walking along the sidewalk. As they got to the main street, he saw tanks and other military vehicles in the roadway and he started to wave at the soldiers. His mother shouted at him not to wave; they were Russian invaders. More striking was my colleague's story of how he came to live in South Africa. In the early 1990s, he would have been about thirty at the time and was working as a mechanical engineer. His father called him one morning before work. He warned him that rogue Yugoslav soldiers (Bosnian Serbs) were looking for him, to enroll him into the army. In less than twenty-four hours, he scraped together whatever money he could get his hands on, told his long-time girlfriend of his plans, and they escaped in the back of a truck to Austria. In Austria, some ex-pats told him there were opportunities in South Africa. Weeks later, the two of them arrived at the airport in South Africa. They didn’t speak English and they didn’t know anyone. He went to the phone book and searched for a surname he recognized and found another Yugoslav migrant. A man and woman that took them in for a few months while they got on their feet. I felt differently that night about what it was like to grow up in middle-class middle America. Ever have an experience that transformed your personal world view? |
| I don’t believe my worldview has ever changed much and I don’t think much of my chances for changing the world. But, individually, we can change individual lives and affect the level of happiness of those around us (perhaps, even actually effecting happiness) in smaller and more personal ways, yet we often don’t even see those that need us or take the time to give what we can. When I was in my twenties, I worked in a nursing home. What I learned there I have carried through my life and I see it coming true in my own life. As children, we see the elderly as having been elderly always, we don’t think of them as ever having been anything else. But as we ourselves age, we know that this is not true. Care homes are full of young, strong workers and care-givers who don’t imagine themselves ever being old. But, the trick is to see the older residents as being young. “You are the child you were”. Nothing truer has ever been said. These people are the same people they’ve always been - they haven’t changed, just their bodies and circumstances changed. Talk to the young person inside the old body. One day that will be you and you will want to be known just as much as they do. I don’t put much faith in the people who want to save the world, they pat themselves on the back and crusade a lot but probably wouldn’t cross the street to keep you from getting hit by a bus. They love the world but hate people. Save each other and let the world take care of itself. |
You Made it to Number Two: Keep Trying I was doing some research for a story set in Victorian Wales and stumbled across several news stories from March 2024. Reports on a survey and research project from Sapien Labs and the Global Mind Project. According to the reports, the UK had the 70th worst rating for mental well-being of 71 surveyed countries. Just edging out Uzbekistan by one point to be at the top if you want to put a positive spin on it. I was quite surprised. Any thoughts from our WDC Brits? |
| I am not from neighboring UK, but from The Netherlands looking over the pond to the English people. I found this article. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-british-women-are-so-unhappy/. And ofcourse, in general, Brexit might have something to do with it. |
| We live in a world where the ill effects of greed are everywhere manifest. We pay more and more, and get less and less - services are cut, products are shrunk - yet cost the same. The 'news' seems to be always about another stabbing, another drug habit ridden criminal getting a tap on the wrist for their umteenth crime to fund their habit; our streets are filled with more homeless people than I can ever remember. Racial tensions and religious tensions are being stirred constantly. We have a change of government - but many can see that it will be more of the same. And there doesn't seem to be anything that anyone can do about it. Depressed? It's a wonder we care to get up in a morning. |
Good Stories and Poems Today and Ghost Hunting Next Week Caught s   on the radio today, several readings including a modern retelling of magical wishes by rubbing a lamp. Next week he'g going to be hunting for ghosts, or stories of them. Keep it up. |
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And UK publisher; they can be real fussy, so you must have impressed.
Well done.