Author: photog

Now Where is That Hammock

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , ,

It’s ten a.m. on Sunday morning and the much-vaunted snow-pocalypse has begun its reign of terror. A steady fall of small snow flakes are descending out of a gray sky.  The temperature has soared from a low last night of two degrees Fahrenheit to a current balmy twenty degrees.  I’ve announced to Camera Girl that I intend to skip snow removal altogether today and save my efforts for Monday when the lion’s share of the snow will be on the ground.  The current predicted accumulation for Sunday through Monday is ten to fifteen inches of the white stuff.  All in all, that’s not horrible.  The snow blower is 24 inches high.  Now, even fifteen inches will slow the work way down but you have to look at these things in the right way.  I’ll abandon the bottom driveway for the next few days and start off with a path for my car to get out on the top.  Then I’ll clear the entire top driveway and adjacencies and slowly work on the bottom driveway in a strategic fashion.  And the wind will play an important part in that operation.  Fifteen inches of snow isn’t a monstrous height but if wind forces me to dump off the snow right next to the row I’m clearing, it will quickly end up as three feet before very long.

And this is the sad reality of life in New England.  Aspects of snow removal become the focus of your every waking hour.  Equipment maintenance and repair, severity of the weather, work and chore scheduling, current health and injuries.  It’s all very, very tedious and boring.  But completely unavoidable.  That is unless there is some plan for escape!  But I know that will never be.  I’m bound by the heavy chains of family responsibility.  They’ve got me.

And that’s why Jake Barter is such a comfort to me in these times of tribulation.  Jake resides on an island paradise somewhere in the South Pacific.  Lying in a hammock beneath coconut palms he sips a cool drink while balmy zephyrs maintain a perfect seventy-eight degrees.  And if by some miracle the temperature reaches eighty-two, he need only spring from his berth and swim about in the warm clear ocean for a few minutes before returning to his rest where he awaits the mellow sound of a dinner gong announcing the beginning of a feast concocted of pork, coconut, honey and spices, fit for the king that he is.

Oh, well.  Maybe in my next life.  But for now, I’ll count my blessings.  The roof hasn’t collapsed under the weight of the snow.  The propane tanks are full enough for even a two-week power outage.  I have plenty of DVDs to keep me amused during the “weather crisis” and Camera Girl assures me we have enough food for the next few days at least.  And tomorrow, my marketer has informed me begins the efforts to advertise “The Sniper.”  I had assumed it would happen when the publication occurred on Wednesday.  But you know what they say about assuming.

Well, we shall see.  Today Amazon has it listed as:

Best Sellers Rank: #144,617 in Books

#599 in Technothrillers (Books)

#14,261 in Science Fiction (Books)

It would be nice if each of those numbers was shortened by a zero or two.

 

Now where is that hammock?

Greg Bovino Press Conference in MN

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Bovino is one of the head honchos with Border Patrol and together with his associate from ICE they gave an update on the MN operation and also addressed the protester with the gun who got himself shot.

I’ll say I like his style and the way he addresses the press.  He lays the whole situation out as basically the choice of the protesters that have bought into Frey’s and Walz’s framing that obstructing law enforcement is a reasonable activity instead of a crime.

Bovino said that these people have made poor choices and these have terrible consequences.  So Frey and Walz are trying to repeat the playbook from the Summer of Floyd and Trump and ICE won’t have it.

 

Theories of Story Structure

photog Book Reviews, Literature, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews ,

I was watching a video about the correct way to structure a story.  And the guy had eight or ten different versions that people have formulated over the years.  And they go from a three-act model to a (I kid you not) twenty-seven stage version.  The latter is based on the hero’s quest model that Joseph Campbell formulated based on what he observed in various western myths and legends.

From what I could tell, more is better.  He had the three-act version down as the worst version.  Now he did qualify that it was probably a good model for a movie or a short story but for a novel it was too slight.  For the most part they all seemed to be variations on a theme.  Basically, you have a series of setbacks and victories leading up to a climax and then a conclusion.

I guess that’s probably more or less what a story is.  And there were some good ideas for what some of these setbacks should look like.  In particular, the hero’s quest had a bunch of stages that seemed to echo many of the incidents in such classic adventure stories as “The Lord of the Rings.”  There’s the initial refusal to accept the quest, there’s a temptation at a low point to renounce the struggle.  We have a scene where a minor character saves the day.  We might have a mentor helping the hero mature into his role.  Maybe there’s a betrayal.  Etcetera, etcetera.

In his defense the video guy did say that a good writer wouldn’t have to follow any of these models slavishly.  Like a good cook he can use his own judgement and add and subtract things from this recipe according to personal taste.  And I think that’s the point.  Really there is no perfect recipe.  Every story should be different.  If it’s not, why would anyone want to read the second one?  Why would someone want to write a second story that’s exactly the same as the first one?  That’s a rhetorical question.  The obvious answer is that if people liked it the first time, many of them will want more of the same.  So, the answer is money.  But I hope that anyone who is writing a series can plot out the events for the saga with enough intelligence to make the story varied and interesting and not repeat all the same events with only small variations.

I will confess that when I was getting close to the end of my book, I was tempted to make the story quite a bit longer.  I thought the ending was a bit abrupt and there wasn’t a more gradual slope to the end of the story.  But the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea of dragging it out.  My character had gone to war for revenge.  When that was done his part of the history was effectively over.  What came afterward would be another story and I still haven’t decided what the next thread I want to pull on in my make-believe world should be.  So hopefully I’ll have the sense to read Joseph Campbell’s book and then do the opposite!

The Mysterious Twenty Percent

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Today, Minneapolis was revolting.  I mean there was a general strike by all the communists up there who are angry because the federal government is enforcing immigration law against illegal aliens living in Minneapolis.  I saw some sound bites of scruffy looking individuals screeching about the children of illegal aliens being incarcerated with their illegal parents.  Of course, they’d be screeching even more if the children were separated from their parents as they were deported.  So damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

The “reporters” stressed the fact that these crowds were protesting despite the ongoing cold-pocalypse that threatens to make really, really cold Minneapolis really, really, really cold.  I saw a video clip of some Karen go into a Target store and fill two shopping carts with merchandise and then bring them to a check out counter and then inform the cashier that she wasn’t buying any of it but just did it to make more work for the Target employees.  Then she said that everyone; shoppers and employees should follow her out of Target and join the “general strike” to protest the ICE activities in Minneapolis.  Well, no one else seemed excited so she abandoned her carts and marched out of Target.

I’ve read that ICE has arrested 3,000 illegal aliens in Minneapolis during this recent operation.  That doesn’t sound like all that much.  But I’m sure it’s a very good start under the circumstances they’re dealing with there.  But I think this effort being expended by the Trump administration is an excellent tactic.  It is exposing just how radical the Minneapolitans are.  It is applying pressure on the city and state officials who are supporting the sanctuary efforts and it is allowing radical individuals to open themselves up to arrest and incarceration.

A perfect example of this is the group of radicals who invaded the church service this week.  Along with Don Lemon, other idiots went into a church during Sunday service and spewed hate and filth.  As they found out there are federal statutes that make this action felonious.  And several of them have already been arrested and if things go the right way Don Lemon may join them.  The most hilarious aspect of this is that Don Lemon may be charged under a law that was initially created to attack the Ku Klux Klan.  Only a heart of stone could keep from laughing at that.

I read that murder in the United States was down 20% in 2025.  This is the largest drop since they started keeping this statistic.  The article claimed they couldn’t figure out why this had happened.  I think I know why.

Donald Trump.

Trump has closed the borders.  Therefore, gang members from Mexico and Latin America can’t travel back and forth with impunity.  These gang members commit an enormous amount of violent crime.  Also, Trump has deported and jailed thousands and thousands of illegal aliens.  Many, many of these are criminals.  The fact that the author of this article claimed he couldn’t figure out why murders had dropped twenty percent between 2024 and 2025 is pretty funny.  But I’m not laughing.  I’m smiling.  Keep it up Donald.