Tag: My Fiction

The Road Less Travelled – Part 3

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Roger stood there staring at the door for about thirty seconds.  Everything about this talk had been confusing and troubling.  The man’s appearance and speech seemed like something from a century before.  And the claim that there were no roads anywhere near seemed outlandish.  And claiming never to have heard of Route 20 was ridiculous.  “Could he have been putting me on for spite?  But what sense did that make?  He’s never met me before.  Was it just because I trespassed on his property and bothered him?”  These were the thoughts that raced through Roger’s mind standing in front of the closed door.  Then walking back to his car, he decided the only sane thing to do was to ride back down the path till he got to Becket.  So, he turned around and headed back.  And he saw how the road narrowed again and sank below the level of the surrounding land.  But after less than twenty minutes he could see the sky ahead darken and eventually the path reached the promised mountain and ended in a boggy stream bed.

“Should I go back to the farmhouse?  Should I leave the car and walk till I find a house here?”  Looking at his gas gage he saw that the answer had already been made for him.  So, he got out of the car and decided to head up the incline toward where he thought the summit was.  It was somewhat steep but even in the dark he could see the path by the light of the rising moon.  And as he hiked, about every few minutes he thought he could hear stray noises like footfalls somewhere behind him.  But when he looked around, he could never see anyone there.  An hour later he reached the summit.  But the environs didn’t look like where he thought he was.  There were low hills and fields and forested land but no major roads or the lights of suburban or even rural New England.  The darkness was profound.  As if electricity and automobiles didn’t even exist here.  And this realization cracked something in him.  It wasn’t exactly panic.  It was an icy hopelessness in the pit of his stomach.  He knew he was impossibly far from home.  And by home he meant a universe where everything he knew about the world existed.  That world had disappeared without a trace.

And now he could hear the footsteps behind him clearly and looking down the path he could clearly see the man from the farmhouse walking toward him.  He was walking with a very stout walking stick, really a cudgel.  And he was heading directly toward Roger.  Roger braced himself and faced his pursuer.  He looked around for a weapon and found nothing.

“Well, stranger, do you believe me now?  Where’s your “route twenty” now?  It looks like you aren’t going nowhere.  You’re here and you’ll stay here with the rest of us.”  Then he tapped his stick on the ground and said, “Or maybe you won’t be nowhere at all.”

The Road Less Travelled – Part 2

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“Dunwich?”  And then he remembered Lovecraft had that story, “The Dunwich Horror.”  “Are the locals cosplaying cosmic horror in the woods of New England?”  Suddenly he felt a lot less afraid of what he had seen in that few seconds of flash lit forest.

Suddenly he saw a light in the distance and he drove on.  Presently he could see it was a light in a building possibly a farmhouse and now he was starting to feel a little silly about the fear he had surrendered to back in the woods.  Pretty soon the path began to resemble a road again and Roger began to think that he was literally “out of the woods” and back on track.  When he was within a hundred yards of the house, he noticed that the road seemed to become a private driveway and ended at the front of the house.  Roger wondered if there was a real road around the back of the house and he decided to park and ask for directions to his destination.  When he got out of his car, he walked the last fifty feet to the door and not seeing any bell he knocked.

After a few minutes of nothing, he knocked again only louder and four or five times.  This produced results.  He could distinctly hear heavy footsteps on a staircase inside the house. And then the door opened slowly.  There was very little light inside the house but Roger could make out the general appearance of the man who opened the door.  He was quite tall, about six foot three, he had shoulder length hair and his clothing was either a costume or vintage clothing from the early 1900s.  His expression was very odd.  Not exactly threatening but scowling and suspicious, “What ya want heah?  This is private property.  How did you get on my road?”

Roger tried to explain, “Sorry to bother you but I got turned around getting off Route 20 near Becket in the Berkshires and I somehow ended up on a trail that led me to your house.  If you could direct me to the main highway I’ll get out of your hair right now.”  The man’s demeanor seemed to change.  A guarded smile appeared on his face and he looked at Roger and Roger’s car very intently.  He said, “Mistah you’re a lot more lost than you think.  That path you came down doesn’t lead anywhere at all.  It runs smack into the base of Round Mountain.  And there ain’t no automobile road other than my driveway.  There was a plan which it was the beginning of but it was abandoned years ago.  The only way out of here is on foot.”

Now it was Roger’s turn to scowl, “What do you mean that path dead ends at a mountain?  I just got here on it coming from Route 20.”  The man smirked at Roger and said, “What is this “Route 20” you keep goin’ on about.  I never heard of it.  If yer sah sure that path will get you out then turn round and head off my property right now.”  And with that the man slammed the door and Roger could hear his retreating tread.

The Road Less Travelled – Part 1

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When Roger had gotten off Route 20 somewhere in the Berkshires his headlights had quickly disappeared into the road fog.  Even his brights didn’t help.  He headed south (as far as he could tell) but the rural roads kept getting less like paved roads and more like cow paths the farther he went.  And the surrounding landscape became an impenetrable forest of old growth trees.  Finally, the path narrowed down to where he couldn’t have turned around on it to go back without performing some kind of K-turn but the path had already sunk below the level of the surrounding landscape and the whole thing looked less and less like something he wanted to back his car into.  About an hour into this no-man’s-land, he shut off the engine and considered his options.

Roger wasn’t a complete city boy and dark country roads weren’t something he normally feared.  But getting out of his car and looking around, he was shocked by just how dark and secluded his present location was.  It was almost the end of August and the noise of the frogs and night insects was almost deafening.  And he began imagining he was hearing other noises that couldn’t be made by smaller critters.  The sound of larger branches being pushed against the underbrush and the cracking of smaller branches under heavy feet seemed to be all around him.  He began to think that driving his car backward down the road for an hour or two might be his smartest option but then he remembered that his headlights weren’t mounted on the rear of his car.

But Roger did decide to get his flashlight out of the glove compartment and for the first time in his life he regretted being the last man in North America without a cell phone or a GPS device.  He sighed with relief when the beam of his light was just as powerful as he remembered it when he used it last and he quickly directed the beam in a circle around his car.

What he saw didn’t comfort him.  In almost every direction he could see creatures running away from his light.  Some were the size of large dogs and on four legs but there were also some larger animals maybe the size of bears shuffling away on two legs.  And they were giving off various howls, grunts and growls.  All this unnerved Roger so much that he got back in the car and began driving forward on the path.

Eventually after another half hour the road opened up a bit and the trees thinned out to a landscape of fields, ponds and swamps.  And then Roger saw the first road sign since he had goten off the beaten path.  On an enormously wide white pine a rough plank of wood was nailed in with the single word “Dunwich” painted in red letters.  Roger was at a loss.  He had lived in the northeast his whole life but he had never heard of a place called Dunwich.  Or had he?  Some memory from his childhood seemed sparked by the name.

Parties and Stories

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Tomorrow Camera Girl and I are double booked for parties.  We have a graduation party and a friend’s family party.  And they’re both at about the same time.  So, I suggested that we go to the graduation party for an hour or so and then head to the second one.  Camera Girl spent a couple of days telling me why that was a stupid idea.  And then she told me that we would split up and each go to only one party.

So, then I suggested we start off going to separate parties but then I would come back and pick her up and both of us would go to the friend’s party.  I think she wanted to hit me.  She shook her head and walked away.  I don’t think she understands optimization.

You see if I show up at a party by myself everyone is going to want to know where she is and why I showed up without her.  I’m not the draw.  She’s much more interesting because she’s telling stories about all the stupid things I do.  And when she tells them they’re funny.  Now I can’t tell stories about myself.  It would sound stupid.  I need a straight man to tell the story and then let me weave my defense.  It would be like Costello asking “who’s on first” without Abbott.  It’s just not the same without the cross-talking.

So today I checked my stats on Amazon.  So far, “The Sniper” has sold a total of 303 books (65 paperback copies and 238 e-books) and 3,657 pages on Kindle Unlimited.  On Kindle Unlimited my book is about 210 pages long so 3,657 pages is about 17 copies.  Not bad for about a month on Kindle Unlimited.  But I may have to cancel the yacht.

But the lack of fabulous wealth from my book sales has not dampened my enthusiasm for writing.  In fact, I’ve become much more excited about the sequel.  And what has me most intrigued is not so much the plot or even the new and old characters.  What I’m interested in is injecting more dialog.  Specifically, I want to get some of the characters to tell their stories.  And I know that this is backward.  The author is supposed to show the reader the story and not tell it. But storytelling within a story is an interesting technique that I’d like to try.  And I’d like to introduce dialog between characters about politics, economic policy, religion, traditional family, artificial intelligence, the war between the sexes, energy policy, the future of the human race, space exploration and a million other things.

Of course, I’ll have to be careful I don’t drown out the action under such a heavy soaking of blather but I think it’s time for my world to start exhibiting brains and not just marksmanship.  One thing I haven’t worked out yet is whether I get Connors and Grace to go out on a date.  I’ve been bouncing some stuff off of Camera Girl but I still don’t know whether any of it makes sense.  Oh well, the only way to find out is to start writing and see where it goes.

Antifa and the Hidden Hand

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So, I saw this article:

Bessent says IRS and FBI investigation into antifa has made ‘substantial progress’

“What to know

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed progress in the IRS-FBI antifa investigation.
  • New IRS guidance will hold grant-making organizations responsible for violent recipients.
  • Antifa is labeled a militant anarchist organization by the Trump administration.
  • The executive order cites antifa’s violent activities and attempts to overthrow the government.

The memo and the antifa executive order targeted the tax-exempt status of foundations funding civil society groups. The memo instructed the IRS commissioner to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism.”

So, the gist of this investigation is identifying NGOs that are providing funds and other aid to antifa and use it as a reason to strip them of their tax-exempt status and then prosecute them for the aid they’re providing antifa in its illegal activities.

It sounds like a good strategy.  Of course, the various antifa legal fronts will challenge all this in every commie-sympathizing jurisdiction (NY, CA, D.C., OR, etc.) but the Supreme Court has been very supportive of the administration’s attempts to go after rogue elements of the Left so there’s a good chance all this will move forward.

Based on the assassination attempts against Trump, Charlie Kirk and that healthcare CEO, these antifa psychos are extremely dangerous and need to be defunded, rounded up and put away for a very long time.

On an unrelated and much more positive development my Kindle Unlimited page views have continued to increase:

Tonight, has been the highest page count to date (407 pages) and that curve looks pretty encouraging (so far).  I won’t try to make too much soup with such a little bit of meat but we authors have to take our solace where we find it.  Now, I’d prefer that it was 407 million pages but we all have to start somewhere.

Now based on my years of experience extrapolating curves based on limited data it’s obvious to me that the next data point will be 800 pages followed shortly by 1,600 pages and by obvious curve fitting this will turn into an asymptote by June 7th at which point the number of pages will reach infinity and Amazon will have to proclaim me the new James Patterson.  Of course I shouldn’t say this quite yet.  You never know.  I could be wrong.  It might take all the way until June 15th for all of this to reach its crescendo.  So, I’ll just bide my time and maintain a humble façade.  I’ll practice my gracious acceptance speech, “Oh no, I’m not worthy!  I’m not worthy!  I’d like to thank all the little people.  If I’ve seen farther, it’s not because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants but rather, because I am a super-giant.  And I want to cast aspersions on those who tried to hold back my reputation.  All those who claimed I wasn’t greater than their favorites; all those fanboys of Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Tolkien or whomever!  Bah!  Tired hacks and amateurs.  Their memories will be swept away like chaff from the wheat in the glorious sunshine of my new day.”

Or something like that.

Relevant Science Fiction – Part 1

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In the 1960’s and ‘70’s the science fiction that seemed to be the most interesting was as much about inner space as outer space.  And even space stories like “Dune” were as much about human social interaction as they were about technology.  Altered consciousness and new social norms in stories like “Stranger in a Strange Land” were what was in the air.  As a kid and young man, I was more interested in science (meaning star ships and time travel!) but now that I’m old and disillusioned by how messed up our government has become, I think the kind of speculative fiction I’m interested in now is social science.

I’ve always made fun of Plato’s Republic because listening to him construct straw men and then knock them over with arguments that don’t hold water seemed beyond ludicrous.  But I think we’re somewhat back to where the Greeks were sometime around the time of the Peloponnesian War.  We’ve managed to lose social cohesion and the institutions and methods we use for choosing leaders and making laws have completely failed us.  It’s not hard to see that we’re not far away from a crack-up that could do horrendous damage to our economy and the lives of everyday people.

I think it’s probably time for speculative fiction writers to start taking a few swipes at either predicting the future or at least providing cautionary tales about it.  And that’s what I’m thinking of concentrating on in some of the stories I’m outlining right now.  I’m interested in imagining what kinds of new arrangements people can organize to make their lives better.  For instance, when local, state or federal governments start failing to secure the basic requirements of safety from theft and bodily injury for the citizens they supposedly serve, private entities could step in to secure these services.  And once these non-governmental corporations start branching out the current arrangements we’re used to could cease to exist in ad hoc areas of the country without any formal acknowledgement of the change.  This is not that different from what happened in the later Roman Empire.  When Gaul started slipping away to the Franks the authority of the “Caesar” over the “Legions” who were mostly Franks became almost farcical.

So, I need to think a little bit about what kinds of new social and economic arrangements might be interesting and novel in the “world” I’m imagining.  I’ve poked some holes in the American Empire and now I want to see what kinds of new things might grow up inside these holes.  So, I have a locus of power (Connors’ network of enterprises and human assets) and someone running it who thinks on a larger basis than just building up tech monopolies to monetize what’s left of the American people’s legacy capital.  What I want to see is if I can come up with some believable innovations that would lead people to rearrange their allegiances and social and commercial actions in ways that build something new and better than what we’ve been stuck with for the last fifty years.

What I’m trying to decide is whether Connors will try to control several states under his umbrella without outwardly absorbing these political jurisdictions.  After all, voting for the interests of the company you work for is nothing new.  Remember “What’s good for GM is good for America.”  So that’s what I’m working on.  The problem is I’m making it up as I go along.

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall from Here – Practice, Practice.

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Dystopias seem to be the dominant science fiction type in the last decade or two.  And the dopiness of the ones ending up on the large and small screens doesn’t encourage much hope in the genera.  We have the ever popular “Handmaid’s Tale” that bangs away at the female victim of the evil patriarchy trope.  And then there’s the “Hunger Games” which I suppose reflects the idea that somehow resources on Earth are about to collapse and a zero-sum game will emerge where we all will be fighting for our lives to get a loaf of bread.  Wow!  Who knew science fiction could be so much fun?

I’ve recently heard that horror is becoming a big genre with young men (apparently written stories and video and also video games).  But that doesn’t alarm me.  I think this is wrapped up with the popularity of video games and I think that is more a matter of the desire to work through puzzles and shoot monsters with guns (which is always a good thing!).

I have a theory that the current science fiction publishing model will not endure much longer.  I don’t think they can make enough money from selling romantasy porn and feminist dystopia much longer.  Of course, it’s possible that AI writing will completely destabilize all fiction writing.  In that case the whole thing becomes academic.  That would leave us just downloading AI slop at virtually no cost.  But either way the world will be changing to resemble nothing like what we old-timers remember from the before time when books were an industry and grammatical sentences actually existed.

Of course, this is a hell of a time for me to become an author.  But in a sense, it may be the best time for me to write.  The barrier to getting published doesn’t exist.  The only barrier is figuring out a way to let the reading public know my book exists and what it’s about.  But that’s far from a trivial problem.  Key words and algorithmic search engines and Amazon ad management are complicated and confusing topics and I’ll confess that I know next to nothing about any of that.  But I’m slowly picking up some practical and painful experience.

For instance, so far today my Amazon ads have 23,417 impressions.  I believe that means, that number of people had the chance to see my ad on the search pages they viewed on Amazon.  Out of those thousands, only 16 people clicked on my ad.  Out of those 16 people only two bought my book (e-book version).  And that was with the e-book discounted to $0.99.  So, there was $1.98 worth of sales.  Of which I only get 30% (~$0.59).  Now currently the cost per click is $1.71.  Which means so far today I’ve been charged 16 X $1.71 = $27.36!

Obviously, this isn’t the way to become rich through writing.  But it is a very educational exercise to understand how the current self-publishing model leaves quite a bit to be desired.  But I still have few more ideas to try before giving up on my dream of becoming the next great science fiction author.  Excelsior!

A Good Day to be a Writer

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Today I went to my tax accountant to discuss my “royalties.”  I waited until now because tax season is much too hectic to talk about 2026 issues to people in that profession.  I have had a few unhappy incidents with the tax man and I go way out of my way to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Now this is my new accountant.  In fact, he’s the grandson of my old accountant.  His grandfather is retiring soon so I’m sort of an inheritance.  When I arrived, I saw a kid walking in the front door and after waiting in the waiting room for a few minutes that same kid turned out to be my accountant.  But despite his youthful appearance he proved up to the job of assuaging my fears about ending up in an IRS gulag for high crimes and misdemeanors against the tax code.  Specifically, I was worried that maybe there was some kind of monthly reporting and payment I needed to perform for both the state and federal systems.  I remember when I was dealing with a state agency that required businesses to collect and pay sales tax monthly.

He explained to me that unless I was profiting to the tune of several thousand dollars a month, I wouldn’t need to send any money to the feds but even if I did, I’d be getting it back if I had enough “expenses” (like Amazon Ads and marketing fees) to cover the royalties I received.

At the mention of expenses, I barked a bitter laugh.  I told him the idea that I was profiting from my sales was laughable in the extreme.  Basically, a first book (barring some miraculous viral publicity) was a loss leader for the rest of the sequels.  He agreed that his other author clients had told him about what it took to grow a book business but he also warned me that the feds only give you three years to turn a profit before they stop considering it a business and declare it a hobby for which expenses are not credited.  Well, we’ll have to see about that.

So, we agreed I’d check back with him in June to see if I was any closer to needing to send some cash to the feds.  And he didn’t want to take a fee for his services today but I insisted.  The information I got had so eased my mind that I felt I would be robbing him of a well-earned reward if I didn’t give him fifty bucks.  I mean people who go to therapy to ease their minds pay their psychiatrists many hundreds of dollars and get less peace of mind than I did today.  I would have felt like a thief if I walked out for nothing.

And looking at my book’s Amazon page, I had two new very complimentary reviews.  One was from a friend of mine.  He disclosed our relationship but it was still a very good review.  And another one was from someone who was an Iraq War vet who enjoyed the scenes in the desert.  That kind of made my day.  So today is a good day to be a writer.

Book Writing and Blogging

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Writing “The Sniper” was a massive learning experience for me.  Not only does it take up a lot of time but it also makes it much harder to do other things at the same time.  And vice versa!  Working, blogging and taking care of my other responsibilities really slowed down my book writing performance drastically.  And the time has come to begin writing the sequel.

So, something is going to have to give.  My decision is to cut back on the blogging.  Believe it or not even knocking out five hundred words has been taking a couple of hours.  And when I’m doing it at ten or eleven at night the quality has been way down.  The old brain just doesn’t click like it used to at that hour.

So, what I see happening is the posts will be hit and miss.  I’ll be able to keep the photos and quotes going without much strain.  But if I find myself scrambling for a theme, I’ll let it slide until I’ve got one that makes sense.  Quality over quantity.  It makes sense.

So, my apologies for my laziness but I am a man with definite limits.