Marcher Lord Select

This is an interesting new thrust in the publishing world. Marcher Lord Select by Jeff Gerke, the creator of Marcher Lord Press, is a contest to let readers judge and select a book to be published. It's interesting because I think it just might work. When Amazon.com tried something like this I was stunned by the horrid offerings of dreck and drudgery. Reading some of those submissions was just painful. Gerke knows his way around an editor's desk so I'm thinking that the final entrants will be genuinely worth reading.

Here's a bit from the news release:

"Marcher Lord Select is American Idol meets book acquisitions," says publisher Jeff Gerke. "We're presenting upwards of 40 completed manuscripts and letting 'the people' decide which one should be published."

Of course, I have nothing ready to submit even though "The Granite Strand" is over 16,000 words for a total of 47.7K in the saga so far. Right now I'm still content to keep them as individual short stories but I'm seeing possibilities to keep on going. Maybe next year there'll be an MLS II.

New Yahoo! Still Sucks

And I can't say that it's growing on me. In fact, the more I try to use it the more I find ways for it to suck worse than it already does. Does anything on the new interface actually work twice in a row or does everyone else get the error message so often that it burns a pattern in your CRT? They must be trying to get into Guinness's for colossal suckism.

I Aim To Misbehave

Recently I watched the movie Serenity for the first time. Then a couple of weeks later I watched it for a second time. Now, thanks to hulu.com, I'm watching the series Firefly. It's something that I'd heard of and knew there was a rabid fanbase for but knew little more than that.

It's frakkin' awesome.

Just about everything in Serenity was perfect. Spaceships, blazin' bullets, swords, humor, darkness and light... it had everything you need. The libertarian in me loved Captain Mal and his instinctive refusal of government control and 'meddling'. The whole story arc of little guys bringing down the system with the truth was fantastic. Characters were real and flawed and heroic. Summer Glau kicked more butt in this movie than she did in the whole series of Terminator.

Me, as a guy who's not crazy about big government (Remember: A government that is big enough to do anything for you, is powerful enough to do anything to you), who bristles at the sight of red light cameras, who shakes his head at the never ending parade of seat belt laws and helmet laws and cell phone laws and smoking laws, and who cries at the sight of people floating down to their local welfare office instead of evacuating the city like they should have loves Malcom's line that is the title of this post. There may very well be a huge and growing government that thinks it has the right and the obligation to control everything I do in the name of what's 'good for me' but my general response to that is...

I aim to misbehave.

Triond: The Cash Flow Juggernaut

Once again Triond has sent me oodles and oodles of residual income. Destined to sustain me for the rest of my life, this month's payment of eighty two pennies is one of the biggest, most rewarding paydays I've yet to pull down with them. You too can be bringing in the copper! Just come up with some clever articles like my Life Lessons From the Marines and let the glorious round metallic windfall shower you with goodness. (I feel like mixing up some fruity drinks with umbrellas in them even though it's 53 and cloudy here.)

The Sequel of Life

After church yesterday I attended the memorial services of a friend's wife, who had been struggling against a degenerative disease for some time. The service was intimate and brief and moving, especially when my friend's daughter stood and told us what a great mom she'd had over the years. It's times like these that make you think about the mortality of your own loved ones. I sit and look around the downstairs play room and wonder what the future holds for everyone that I hold dear.

My friend said something interesting, both sad in a good way and sad in a sad way. He said that life is like reading a book. You're just reading along and turning the pages, enjoying what you have in front of you, and then all of a sudden you turn the page and there's no more writing. You stop and you think, 'Oh. That was it. That was the last page.' In his wife's case he now thinks back, 'Wow, what a good book that was.'

I'm not sure of his or her religious views but I know that, as for me and my house, when the last page is turned and we're all left staring at a blank piece of paper, there's another book sitting on the shelf. Beloved, the sequel of my life has already been written. It just hasn't been released yet. It is rich and full and it's a whole lot longer than volume one. And so I look around the downstairs play room and I'm comforted that God has a plan in place. He has the next book of my life tucked under his arm and He is waiting for just the right time to hand it over. That's a good feeling to have. I pray that all of you feel the same way.

It Ain't Shakespeare

Bang! Zoom! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly does it again with three powerful stories that lovers of powerful stories will love. The Hand of Afaz is a tale of delivering justice no matter where it takes you, easily one of the best stories I've read in years. Monster in the Mountains, whose title is also its plot, is tough and gritty and would have been a great addition to Rage of the Behemoth. The Waking of Angantyr has a plot of revenge and ghosts and blood magic and hot chicks with magic swords; all the things that make for a rousing tale that not even the Bard could have come up with.

The editors of HFQ have not missed their stride at all with this sophomore edition and I think we have nothing but good things to see from them in the future.

Rekindling Old Flames

Years ago I ran the sound board for my church at the time, Pacific Church of Irvine. It was a time of rapid set up and tear down, sound checks while tuning up, and Lance Brown having more hair. Then we left active duty Marine Corps life, moved a few times, and ended up back in Washington. We've been going to our current church, Calvary Fellowship, for about 9 years and I've finally decided to volunteer for the sound board again. My, how technology has changed.

They have a completely digital board with switches, buttons, and doo-dads that have a different function depending on what mode the little touch screen has up. They have wireless whatchamathingies and matrices and mixes and on and on and on. While I love the art of sound mixing and the curious route of troubleshooting that are staples in the field, I'm a little overwhelmed by the knobology. I suppose gone are the days of on and off; gain and volume; low, mid and high. Still, I get to listen to the worship sets twice and that's a good thing. Plus, it's just fun. And if you're not having fun, you're missing the stinkin' boat.

The Vanishing Sculptor

On the bookshelf for the CSFF this month is The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul. It belongs to the same world as her DragonKeepers series but is not truly connected so it is a great place for new readers to start. If you're able to dive into a fantasy story and pick up the background story as you move along, you should have no problems with this book. Mrs. Paul has been publishing for a while now and knows how to tell a good tale so those reading in the Christian fantasy genre will enjoy this.

Has Beens and the Haze of History

I was driving past the Emerald Queen Casino yesterday and saw the marquee trying to distract me from the importance of driving at a high rate of speed. Let it be known to all the land that Billy Squier is headlining soon and all are invited to attend. I had to think for a moment. Billy Squier? Didn't he have like one hit song back in the mid 80's? What the heck is he still doing around and why on Earth should he rate such advertising glory? Then, of course, I realized that with so many entertainment outlets sprouting up all over the country, they need entertainers to fill them with. This is an odd phenomenon. I seem to remember not liking the one song that he had on the radio but now I'm to believe that he was some kind of 80's rock god. It's very interesting to see what a few years and a few cloudy memories will produce.

The Granite Strand Report

"The Granite Strand" has recrossed the 10,000 word mark (again) as I re-craft the ending to be moodier and more dramatic. What better way to do this than turn an otherwise sunny day for the characters into a dark and stormy night. Lightning! Explosions! Squished peripheral characters! It's turning out to be a much better tale this way.

Good Review for Thunder Canyon

Yay! Rage of the Behemoth got a good review from The Cimmerian and Thunder Canyon was mentioned positively which would make me do a happy dance if I was the type that did happy dances. Since I'm not, I'll just have to type 'yay!' again. I loved the complaint about the name of my bad guy, Skurge. In truth, I couldn't think of a name while I was typing so I went with an old place holder that I've used before. Then I kind of liked it so I let it stay. Oh well.

Offworld by Robin Parrish

This month the CSFF is highlighting Offworld by Robin Parrish. Parrish is a solid and dependable writer who once again delivers up an intriguing tale. In the near future a group of astronauts return to earth to find everyone gone. Completely. This is the sort of bizarre, Twilight Zone twist that I love. Fascinating and well reviewed, if you're a sci-fi mystery type of reader this is a book you should read.

Facebook: The Un-Great Equalizer

I figured out what my problem is with Facebook. (Other than that most of it is just inane.) In Facebookland everyone is a 'friend' and we're all very friendly doing friendly things. My problem is that I don't have or want that same relationship with everyone in my life. I move through different worlds. There is the work world, the Marine Corps world, the church world, the writing world, and the friends & family world. They all require different sides of me and they are not interchangeable. Shoot, even my friends and family have different relationships with me; my children are different in status than my parents, etc. There are things that I do and ways that I act that my boss and my commanding officer do not need to see. There are exchanges between friends that my Marines and my employees do not need to see. We are not all equal.

Of course, you say, just limit the friends you have on Facebook. What's the problem? OK, you turn down your boss's friend request three times and see what happens next evaluation season. Teh internets are changing our society in ways that aren't fully understood yet and I'm not so sure I like the change.

The Granite Strand Undergoes Massive Rewrite

"The Granite Strand", story four in the ongoing saga of Rath and Cairrg, had been developing weakly and had sputtered to a stop. Now, with the help of my critique group's comments on story number three in the series, I've gotten the ideas and impetus to make major changes. Characters are coming together, the scene list for the remainder of the story is firming up, and I'm going back over the whole thing to give it a darker feel. Of course, this necessitated the chopping of a thousand words or so but they will be replaced with better words so all is well.