I'm a big proponent of free speech, which I think means you can't start listing qualifiers and limitations to what is or isn't allowed. What I will say is that I need this place to be helpful to my creative process, so while a hearty debate is welcome, persistent antagonism of myself or the rest of the community won't be tolerated indefinitely.
It's a long story with far too many uninteresting turns, but I will say that I can remember having a love of storytelling since I was eight or nine. Most of that love was channeled into enjoying other peoples' works, particularly the bevy of Saturday Morning Cartoons which kids my generation grew up with.
From there I started playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons (well, technically Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Ed.) with my brother and uncle, and this was when I really started to understand how to create characters, stories, worlds, and even how to weave thematic arcs in amongst all the hack-and-slash dice-rolling that comprises paper & pencil RPG sessions. I added strategy and role-playing video games to my arsenal of creative educational materials, and spent about two decades soaking in everything I could from the positions of play and game master.
Eventually, my brother decided it was time to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming an author by starting his hit Spineward Sectors series with the first title, Admiral Who?
We both knew that a lot of work went into producing a novel, let alone a series with twenty-five titles in the universe, so I decided to be the post-production manager while he wrote the raw material. During that process I learned editing, cover design, formatting and all the other nitty gritty that goes into turning a rough draft into something worth reading--and I learned that no matter how hard you polish a written work, you'll never get it perfect, which is a lesson I think eludes most aspiring authors early in their careers.
So we launched Admiral Who? and at first not much happened. We went back to other projects and watched as a few online friends got around to reading and reviewing the book. Then it happened. Not all that suddenly, but instead of selling one or two books a week, we went to selling one or two books a day, then four or five a day, then reviews came in from people we'd never met, and it was off to the races. We've notched well over a thousand reviews in the Spineward Sectors series' alone (it might be closer to two thousand, actually) and neither of us has ever looked back.
I've written thirty novels of my own since helping my brother launch his first book, most of which are under my name and available on Amazon (there are a few hidden under various pen names which I can't reveal for contractual reasons...). I've collaborated with some big names in the indie scene, and have learned a lot about storytelling during my career as an author.
The marketing landscape has changed dramatically for ebooks since I started writing, and I truly think that places like Locals.com will form the backbone for aspiring and up-and-coming writers of all genres in the next decade. My objective is to post a few chapters or short stories here each week for the foreseeable future, with the goal of providing enough value for interested readers to pull up a chair and, hopefully, a good book 😉Once I figure out how to upload book files on this platform, I'll start posting them in this feed.
It's been almost two years since I posted anything on social media, and frankly the absence has been due to the lack of a platform I thought made sense to use. That all changed when Dave Rubin mentioned Locals.com.
This seems like the perfect platform to combine so many different things into one interface, so I intend to make this my new headquarters for all of my online activity. I'm not exactly riding the razor's edge technologically, but neither am I a cave-dweller, so while it might take me awhile to figure out all the bells and whistles available here, I'll get them eventually.
So to anyone interested in connecting with me or participating in my creative process, welcome aboard! I think it's going to be a grand voyage.
My six-year-old daughter is quite the physical powerhouse, and this isn't mere pride of fatherhood speaking. At the age of five, and without warning or training, she did ten chin-ups on a local playground when I became curious just how strong she really was. She was all smiles as she came off the bar, rubbing her arms and remarking in fascinated bewilderment, 'That HURT!'
A few months later, I showed her the proper techniques for a situp. You know, the kind athletes do for their coaches with hands crossed over the chest or over their ears like earmuffs. My personal best for situps when I was sixteen ended up at 450, and it took me about four years to build up to that.
It took her about a week to do fifty in under two minutes. A year later, her personal best with the earmuffs is 212 (and that's on a 15 degree declined wooden plank, which is even HARDER than on a flat, carpeted floor). She just glares at me in contempt when I tell her to try the hands-over-the-chest technique. 'C'mon, Dad, that's WAY too ...
Anyone with half a brain on (and even those with the other half already in the frying pan) would believe that the statement declared in this post's headline was true. But now, we don't need to believe anything since we've got evidence to support the thesis.
A recent Axios report confirmed as much, finding that 56% of the people in the USA agree with the statement "Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations." Just 18% of self-described Republicans and 57% of Democrats trust the media.
Naturally, the media monolith has a plan to correct these figures, and just as naturally that plan has little or nothing to do with presenting the facts in a complete and unbiased fashion. The great John Nolte over at Breitbart did a better job eviscerating the author's ludicrous prescription than I could, so instead I'll focus on a few keywords which each look like the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
First off, the author uses the word 'trust' in ...
As one of my earlier collaborative efforts, I wrote Ure Infectus (Burn the Corrupt) as part of a shared universe started by indie sci-fi star Chris Nuttall. It's one of my earliest works, so my style has gotten tighter and crisper since then, but I stand by this grim ode to liberty as my personal favorite of all the novels I've written.
