{"id":35535,"date":"2025-12-22T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=35535"},"modified":"2025-12-21T23:03:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:03:35","slug":"maybe-ill-swing-down-to-mar-a-lago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/22\/maybe-ill-swing-down-to-mar-a-lago\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe I\u2019ll Swing Down to Mar-a-Lago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today was an interesting day.\u00a0 The younger grandkids came over with their mothers to make Christmas cookies with Camera Girl.\u00a0 In addition to the real cookies, they also got to make \u201csugar cookies.\u201d\u00a0 This is some kind of sweeter cookie dough that they then adorn with multi-colored granulated sugar and other impossibly sweet ingredients like chocolate sprinkles.\u00a0 And they didn\u2019t just sprinkle it on.\u00a0 They poured it on like cement coming out of a truck.\u00a0 It was horrifying.\u00a0 No one but a child could stand the saccharine sucrosity of that unholy concoction.\u00a0 But of course, no one would force me to ingest that mess so I smiled indulgently and feasted on a few of the legitimate confections that were created in the kitchen.\u00a0 And they were very, very good.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019re not good for me but it\u2019s Christmas and this is the time to overindulge.<\/p>\n<p>And later on, my proof copies of \u201cThe Sniper\u201d were delivered by the Amazon truck.\u00a0 He brought them to the bottom driveway and then had to skate across the ice that had melted from the snow and then refrozen over-night.\u00a0 I apologized to him for the hazard but he laughed it off and said he\u2019d seen much worse today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35537\" src=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-1024x572.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-768x429.jpg 768w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-1536x858.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DSC00084-not-for-resale-2048x1144.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now these \u201cproof\u201d copies have a watermark across the cover that says \u201cnot for resale\u201d or something like that.\u00a0 But seeing my work (or Jake Barter\u2019s anyway) in the flesh, as it were, was kind of fun.\u00a0 After all, what could be more official than finding your product inside of an Amazon box?\u00a0 Why, that\u2019s the very definition of American commerce in the twenty first century.\u00a0 Thank you, Jeff Bezos!<\/p>\n<p>And after a cursory inspection it looks pretty good.\u00a0 The cover art is clear, the text lines up well on the pages and the paper feels right.\u00a0 I\u2019ll page through it and make sure nothing is missing or marred.\u00a0 But I think everything looks like it\u2019s a go for next month.\u00a0 I\u2019ve applied for Author status on Goodreads and I\u2019ve authorized my marketer to set up my ad campaign and choose the keywords or whatever they call the bait that\u2019s meant to entice the algorithm to catapult me to viral ubiquity.\u00a0 I wonder if this magic requires the sacrifice of a hecatomb or at least a black lamb.\u00a0 All of it seems like black magic to me.\u00a0 But I figure it\u2019s definitely worth my while to give the whole thing the old college try.\u00a0 After all. What has Brandon Sanderson got that I ain\u2019t got?\u00a0 I mean other than $41.7 million dollars of Kickstarter funding, that is.\u00a0 By February I may be waist deep in royalty checks.\u00a0 Movie studios may be fighting each other to get me to sell them the movie rights.\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably get a call from the White House begging me to use my vast clout and get involved in the negotiations to end the Ukraine War.\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably spend a few hours in Oval Office advising Donald about domestic and foreign affairs and signing autographs for Marco and J.D.\u00a0 Who knows, maybe I\u2019ll swing down to Mar-a-Lago and advise the President on how to lower his golf handicap.<\/p>\n<p>Well, we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today was an interesting day.\u00a0 The younger grandkids came over with their mothers to make Christmas cookies with Camera Girl.\u00a0 In addition to the real<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1289,1263,2860,4],"tags":[94,4484,16],"class_list":["post-35535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reclaiming-the-family","category-sff","tag-christmas","tag-the-american-archipelago-book-1-the-sniper","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - 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