Gunpowder and Ink!

California and the irrational fear of cosmetically dangerous weapons!

Ironically, this felony arrest for having an evil pistol grip and an even ‘eviler’ flash hider took place on the eve of Memorial Day. The very holiday where we take time to celebrate and reflect on the sacrifices of over 1.5 million Americans who died defending the rights and freedoms that you can be arrested for enjoying in California.

StocktonPD2ndamendment

Bravo coppers…

Your citizens will now sleep safe, knowing that while you’re confiscating scary weapons with non-lethal features, their children only have to worry about wading through ankle deep mounds of human feces, lines of homeless tent cities, and discarded needles to get to their plastic straw free school zones in your fine, upstanding state.

By the way, I got curious as to what CA’s Law Enforcement Code of Ethics is. It seems pretty standard, but obviously meaningless for those who are sworn to uphold it. .

Code of Ethics

AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality and justice.

Well….

You’re doing a terrible job at fulfilling your oath, but a terrific job at supporting the tyranny of your elected officials.

Congratulations, you fearsome law dogs.

***

On the subject of my book. I’ve been contacted by a small publisher. It was rather ego-flattering, except after digging in a bit more into the books they’d published I was pretty let down.

The reviews for their books appeared good, at first. Then I noticed they were 5 star reviews from the exact same four people, and the other reviews were either sketchy, or brutal in bashing the story and editing.

So, on we go down the long path to publishing.

My current plans are to give traditional publishing a solid year in hopes of getting on somewhere good. (Looking at YOU Baen!) In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing the sequel, and outlining the next few books… as well as passing my current novel around to anyone interested. The more feedback the merrier, and I didn’t write this just to keep it all to myself.

(If you’re interested, here’s the link to the first four ‘chunks’: RAWR! Pew! Pew! Pew!)

Anyways.

Freedom ain’t free. And California will probably never be.

It’s Memorial Day, drink a beer, eat a burger… enjoy your freedoms!

Personally, I get tired of hearing people poo-pah about how Memorial Day isn’t about having a three day weekend or a BBQ, and about how it’s supposed to be in solemn remembrance of those that died for our freedoms.

As a Marine Grunt who spent six years wanted nothing more than to go kill people for my country, I can tell you exactly what -I- would want on Memorial Day if I got waxed overseas.

I’d want my wife in a skimpy bikini, sipping a drink by a pool, with our kids laughing and splashing each other while hot dogs and burgers sizzle on the grill.

Because that’s America in a nutshell. It’s hot women, cold pool water, kids having fun, and processed meat pressed into sausage shapes being stuffed down the gullet with a beer.

That’s happiness!

That’s the freedoms I’d fight, die, and certainly kill thousands of totalitarian government employees for.

And anyone who would deny that, and force my family to go be miserable standing around my grave… Well, you suck. Stop guilt tripping people into having a bad time. Memorial Day doesn’t have to be a somber, miserable affair of sadness.

Because, personally, I ain’t getting waxed defending the rights of up-tight Americans to bash others for enjoying the freedoms our dead wish they could enjoy. If you could snap your fingers and bring back all the dead veterans, I bet you money they’ve no interest in standing around mourning for each other. They’d be pounding beers, smoking cigars, and oogling hot American womens. (Cause we’re all a bunch of knuckle draggers.)

I’m not knocking those who go to the places like Arlington to see the hundreds of thousands of waving flags and rows of headstones laid out in perfect military precision. That’s awesome. I want to do it one day. The only thing cooler than the picture I described earlier would be to visit Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day.

But people can remember and honor the sacrifices of our glorious dead by celebrating the life and freedoms that they died protecting.

Now put a bikini on and have a good time.

Except you dudes. No one wants to see that.

If I’d written GOT Season 8..

It wouldn’t have been so terrible…

Because this is pretty much how it went:

Game-Of-Thrones-season-8-episode-5-memes

What would I have done differently?

GLAD YOU ASKED!

First, attack Kings Landing, defeat Cersei as Dany’s goes Mad Queen.

Everyone is forced to stay with her because they need the Dragons while the Night King marches south.

Rush north to reinforce the Stark who are preparing for the final stand of mankind.

Final episode is two hours of Battle of Winterfell (where they use actual medieval tactics and still face destruction). Grey Worm dies lighting the trenches filled with wild fire. Jorah dies protecting Dany’s after Drogon is overwhelmed with the dead.

Dany’s kills the Night King, as she was the real target, not Bran. (Song of Fire and Ice. Not Song of Ice and Bran.) But Bran actually wargs into something and does something. That’d be a nice change.

Drogon flies back to the battlefield, his wings are tattered, he looks weak and near to death. Sadly, he scoops up Dany’s remains and flies away. But first he blows fire at Jon Snow, revealing him to be unburned, and melting the throne behind him.

Then Jon Snow reluctantly becomes King (Because he’s reluctant about EVERYTHING.)
Bronn kills Bran because Bran is worthless. Bronn says something catchy along the lines of ‘didn’t see this coming, didja?’ Then he heads happily to the brothels with Tyrion and large flasks of wine.

Brienne is pregnant with Jamie’s baby… who will be RAISED BY TORMUND with GIANTS MILK! Bwhahahahaha. This makes me so very happy.

Ghost runs off, finds Nymeria and makes more Dire Wolf puppies.

Drogon lands in Valyria, where he reverently lays Dany’s body at the top of the remains of the ancestral Targaryean homeland , then goes below and several dragon eggs are revealed beginning to hatch.

Jon Snow sits on the throne. Looks sullen and miserable.
This needs some work, but in three minutes I came up with a vastly better season than what I just watched last night.

Deep breath… and…. -submit for publishing-

I think I’ve gotten enough feedback to take the leap for rejection or publication.

There are still a lot of copies floating around out there, and I just sent another one out this morning. I’ll keep updating my manuscript as I get feedback, but at some point you’ve got to poop or get off the pot.

I finished the novel almost six weeks ago, and the feedback I’ve gotten since has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m confident enough that I’ve created something great and entertaining, and now I want to get it into print. Besides, I’m currently deep into writing the sequel, and I’ve at least three more books planned for the series. (Including a couple spin-off characters/series.)

But this is going to be a long wait.

Submitting an unrequested/unagented manuscript means I go into the publishers Slush Pile. Which means they will give it a glance when they get a chance. (Expect 9-12 months!)

THEN, if it passes their muster, it goes into editing/rewriting. After that, it goes into rotation for printing. Which could be another year before seeing the light of a bookstore/amazon shelf.

So all that kind of stinks. But it is what it is. I’ve a lot of writing planned in the meantime. Including a story about Marines in WWII stranded on a pacific island with some hostile Japanese POW’s and Sea Monsters. (I just want to write about using a flame thrower on a sea monster… and since 95% of the ocean is unexplored, I can make a LOT of stuff up!)

For those of you who’ve read this book, you’re more than welcome to read the sequel once it’s completed. 🙂

Honestly, I’m extremely confident this book will see print. It’s good. Real good. I’ve enough strangers telling me that now to not have any doubts. And seriously, who doesn’t love cowboys, apes, and dinosaurs?

But I’m also a bit egotistical. So we’ll see how it all pans out.

As for my first choice to submit to?

Baen.

They’ve a great reputation for helping new authors build a reader base. And they don’t particularly care what your personal religious/political opinions are. And since I’m the sort who won’t stop saying what I believe, I think I’d do well with them.

Besides, they’re located in Wake Forest, NC. Just a few hours down the road. 🙂

So…

Baensubmit

Here we go….

Happy Mother’s Day

Personally, my wife is my favorite mother figure.

Followed closely by my mother and mother-in-law, with my mother winning with the slight thickness of an umbilical cord.

Then there’s a bunch of fantastic women in my life who are also fantastic mothers, and a bunch of others who will make awesome mothers when they stop dating trolls and find a Prince Charming like me. (Good luck, they broke the mold after me.)

Towering above all of these… are the mothers who never had the opportunity to hold their babies and anxiously await their reunion in heaven. Ya’ll the real MVP’s. The pain, the suffering, the misery, torment, and questioning of God’s plan for your life… you have a strength that few of us will ever know. But one day, you’ll meet for the very first time in the most glorious of places, and what a magnificent day that will be. And your baby will never know the hardships and miseries of living in a fallen world. They await your arrival in their perfected bodies, knowing only happiness and the endless Glory of God.

(Which, BTW – women who have had an abortion are mother’s also. And I promise you, your baby is in heaven and they are rooting for you to find salvation and join them.)

Last year I put this picture up of my lovely wife with our wild-child daughter with this caption on FB:

I’ve written a dozen comments throughout today, and I keep deleting them because they don’t seem fitting enough. I love my wife, she’s an amazing mother. I don’t know how she does it. I would be doomed to a padded room and a straight jacket without her and banging my head against the wall screaming NO MORE DIAPERS! MORE SLEEP! But she just keeps chugging along. Often disheveled and delirious at times, but her sacrifice for our family has no limits. My wife rocks. Please don’t leave me. Unless you take the kids. And the dogs…. just kidding. But seriously, please don’t leave me. I can’t do what you do.