Is it already mid-May? Wow.

So an update of sorts.

On the writing front – Things are great. I’ve edited the entire novel once more, and I’m back to the FGB. (Final Great Battle.) I suppose you could finish a book without a big fight at the end, but that seems sort of anti-climatic to me. And certainly not the sort of book I’d write.

Anyways, that’s the most exhausting thing about this book and the last part to be finished. The culmination of a dozen characters journeys into a bloodbath of violence and mayhem is always a draining affair.

But hey, JRR Tolkein did it several times. Of course his battles were more like, “And so-and so got knocked on the head. Then woke up after the battle was over.”

But the movies, they got it right. Lots of action!

On the publishing front – I dunno. It’s moving along at a snails pace. But having a sequel finished and polished is a big deal for any publisher. It shows that:

A. I can write.

B. That I will continue writing.

C. That I am getting better the more I write.

D. I want to make both the publisher and myself, very, very, very rich.

All of this makes me a better risk for any publisher. But dang, I’m tired of waiting. It’s been almost a year since I finished West of Prehistoric, and it’s been difficult reading such great reviews of the book from Beta Readers, only to wait to publish it as I finish the sequel. But the good news is that I expect to be done in a couple weeks and sending the sequel out to the Beta Readers.

On the personal front – COVID-19 sucks. Luckily, I am still working fulltime, but I miss my friends, miss my gym, and miss the booming economy we had. (But I’ve great faith in Trump’s ability to get us back to boomin’ again.) We’ve settled nicely into our house, we even bought a bunch of canvas prints for the walls and got them hung. So it feels like our house now. Oh, and we got a new grill for it. Heck yeah, tasty meat.

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

Wash your filthy hands and keep the cooties at bay!

Coronavirus – Unpopular Observations

  • The virus only affects males and females – thus the other 67 nonexistent genders are safe.
  • People whining about ‘Toxic Masculinity’ have shut up once those same men are delivering essential goods.
  • Men aren’t important unless society is facing a threat. Then, suddenly, they are heroes.
  • 100 years ago alcohol sales were prohibited, now they are considered ‘essential’.
  • Bernie Sanders has no purpose in running for President anymore now that the unemployment rate has skyrocketed, stores are empty, and people are being jailed for simply being in public at the wrong time.
  • The same people who said Trump was Hitler/Dictator/Tyranny incarnate are now saying that he should have a nationwide lockdown.
  • Stimulus money is simply the return of income tax, which is theft.
  • We now know how useless Hollywood celebrities are once the theaters are closed.
  • More people are killed by abortion per day than the coronoavirus.
  • Politicians fighting over how much of my own money I should receive, is proof that politicians can’t be trusted with money.
  • There have been NO mass shootings with gun and ammo sales at historic highs.
  • The only reason China has 0 new coronoavirus cases is because Communists don’t believe in human rights.
  • Homeschooling, saving money, and having an adequate amount of food on hand are all good ideas.
  • $1,200 in red states will get you a lot further than blue cities.
  • It won’t be goverment that saves us, but American ingenuity and the benefits of capitalism.

Whew…. Snakes, Writing, Coronavirus, and More!

Snakes – Yesterday, my kids discovered a snake at our new house. I don’t know squat about snakes except that I strongly dislike them to the point of having the super heebie-geebies around ’em. So I did what anyone does when confronted with something so vile, evil, and slithery… I chopped it’s head off with a hoe.

My daughter on the other hand, is totally fearless. And she was insistent that it was not dead until the body stopped twitching when poked with a stick…

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Yeah, she’s far braver than her dad.

Coronoavirus – Not much to say even though it’s the topic of the year. Stay safe, wash your filthy hands often, and know that God is in control of all of this. (And gun sales were up 85% in March!)

Writing – Semi-final draft is completed.

I have an odd method of writing, I’ll start from the beginning, write until I get bogged down or stuck, then go back to the beginning and re-write/polish. This gives my brain time to percolate how the book will continue and then when I get back to where I quit – I write on. This leads my writing to have a more polished beginning and rougher ending. Maybe it’s weird, I haven’t heard of anyone else doing it – but it certainly works for me.

But, I just completed the FGB (Final Great Battle) and the end scenes. So back to the beginning to polish more.

And the word count came in at a touch over 88,000. Which is far short of the original 118,000 of West of Prehistoric. But I tend to go light on details as I write, so I’ll add a few thousand more words in filling out descriptions and such, and I suspect the FGB will require another couple thousand words… so I’ll get to my goal of 100k soon enough.

Then it will be time to send out to anyone and everyone who is willing to give it a read for feedback.

Personally, I like it.

It covers a lot of ground, adds some new characters, kills some old characters, the love story grows, and there’s lots of awesome dinosaur/ape violence and gun play. All while keeping it’s original concept of being a science-fiction adventure prehistoric western.

So yeeehaw!

Old House – We sold our old house Tuesday. Thank heavens. Two mortgages is the suck. But being able to move at our leisure was pretty nice. It was a great starter home, even though we out grew it within 9 months of moving in by getting an English Mastiff and Pregnant almost immediately! But I’ll have fond memories of it just the same and I hope the new owners make plenty more.

Blogging – When I started this blog, so long ago, the intent was to talk conservative politics. But honestly, since Trump has been elected, I’ve grown weary of arguing about politics for the most part. I guess it’s like he said about us getting tired of winning. 🙂 OR the left’s incessant whining…. Anyways, blog content has gone down but this place will stay up forever. Because I intend on becoming an award winning writer one day and making lots of monies and entertaining you folks for hours upon hours with my ability to weave words into stories. In the meantime, I need a platform. So here we are.

Wrapping up – The writing continues. Stay safe out there. And God Bless the USA.

 

 

P.S.

I lied.

I’d like to say one quick political thing. If you haven’t heard, the founder of MyPillow(Mike Lindell) gave a quick statement with Trump during a presser on the Coronavirus.

“We’ve dedicated 75% of MyPillow manufacturing to produce cotton face masks. It was up to 10,000 a day. By Friday, I want to be up to 50,000 a day…. Now I wrote something off the cuff if I can read this. God gave us grace on November 8th, 2016 to change the course we were on. God had been taken out of our schools and lives and a nation has turned it’s back on God. I encourage you to use this time at home to get back into the Word. Read our bibles and spend time with our families. Our President gave us so much hope where just a few short months ago we had the best economy, the lowest unemployment, and wages going up. It was amazing. With our great President, Vice President, and this administration, and the great people of this country praying daily, we will get through this and get back to a place that is safer than ever.”

That is awesome.

And to all those people who are whining about Lindell mentioning reading the bible, praying daily, and spending time with our family – I wish you’d enjoy your ramen noodles, mounds of toilet paper, and involuntary isolation away from social media. Bernie will be along to save you later. /sarcasm.

If he’d stepped onto stage with Obama and shouted, “We’re going to convert our manufacturing building into a Planned Parenthood clinic, where we can process 1,000 abortions a day!”

You’d all be calling him stunning and brave and clamoring for him to get a medal.

Okay. Rant over.

Everyone, enjoy your weekend – Praise Jesus and Pew Pew.

 

‘The Hunt’ is a superb film. 10/10

Crystal Mae Jenkin could give Sarah Connor a run for her money.

I was going to type up a review, but found this one does it much better:

‘The Hunt’: Why Every Conservative Must Go And See This Movie [Review]

The movie “The Hunt” was cancelled late last year in a wave of allegations and bad publicity. The majority of the negative publicity around the film came from the Right and conservative commentators.

It’s easy to see why a superficial look at the premise of the movie got so many people excited and angry. From the trailer, the plot of “The Hunt” was clearly about a bunch of ultra-wealthy liberals who arrange the kidnapping of “deplorables” (yes they actually use that term) and then hunt them to death in a vast rural enclosure.

That is indeed the plot of the movie, but the film is also so much more. No conservative (or liberal) should miss seeing this new film.

In fact, “The Hunt” unexpectedly turns the tables as the elite make the fatal mistake of underestimating the “rednecks.”  Doesn’t that sound familiar? Eventually, the movie becomes a battle of intelligence, resourcefulness and stamina between those who believe they are superior and those who have to fight for survival every day.

If “The Hunt” were only about this it would be worth the visit to the theater, but the movie is about so much more. It manages to bring home the devastating consequences of having your career and future cancelled over a single, poorly worded private joke. It also looks at how social media mobs can compound the damage.

“The Hunt” explores these issues and then allows the victims to indulge in a fantasy revenge which is wildly disproportionate to what the people wrote about them. But then isn’t most reaction on social media wildly disproportionate to reality?

Writers Nick Cuse (“The Leftovers,” “Lost”) and Damon Lindelof (“The Leftovers,” “The Lost,” “Watchmen”) and director Craig Zobel (“Compliance”) throw lots of mud at both sides, the elites and the deplorables, but “The Hunt” seems to take particular pleasure in poking fun at the political correctness and hypocrisies of the elites.

Don’t believe the reviews that tell you that this is an “equal opportunity attack on both sides of America’s political divide.” It’s not. “The Hunt” is a movie for those who feel Hollywood hates them. It is the perfect revenge fantasy for MAGA supporters who feel they have been attacked, abused and sometimes “hunted” by the elites since before the last election.

One memorable scene features an elite couple murdering deplorables without a care but then criticizing each other about using politically incorrect terminology in their conversation. The deplorables — as in all horror movies — die in increasingly inventive and sometimes gory ways but then, as the tables are turned, so do the elites. But no one is allowed to die without a joke or sometimes a political point being made. Sometimes both. There is a lot in the movie for those who love politics, horror and humor.

And, of course, there is the perfect climax with representatives of both sides fighting it out to the death.  The standout star is Crystal (Betty Gilpin of “GLOW”) who is cynical, intelligent and resourceful and who uses all her backstory to maximum use to survive, literally turning the tables on her hunters. For one elite to be outsmarted by her is fatal, but the ultimate humiliation is to realize that Crystal actually reads books and can argue intelligently about what they mean.

Conservatives are so used to being abused and attacked by Hollywood that their initial reaction to “The Hunt” is probably understandable, but it would be a pity if this kept them from seeing the movie.

In the end, very few of the characters escape criticism or death, but “The Hunt” is a movie that predominantly humanizes the deplorables and satirizes the elites. This is a movie for those who have spent decades condemning Hollywood for attacking their values. “The Hunt” doesn’t and, in a sly way, it almost celebrates them. For this, the movie deserves conservatives’ support.

“The Hunt” (rated R) opens Friday, March 13th.