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.

MereLilyBirth

It’s still true.

Thanks for making babies with me.

🙂

Bullet Proof Hoodies

I love hoodies. Especially ones that can stop up to a .44 magnum.

There is also this:

LIFETIME WARRANTY: If you get shot (God forbid) with our hoodies on, we’ll send you a replacement hoodie FREE of charge. Just include the police report

That’s pretty nice.

They also make them for kids. So, if you live in the battlefields of Chicago – you may want a couple for your loved ones waiting at the school bus stops.

The website: Wonder Hoodie

Glock 18 – The most deadly gun on Planet EARFFFF!

This article is a national treasure…. nay… an earthly treasure…

Why the Glock 18 Might Be the Most Deadly Gun on Planet Earth

***

“In December 2003, soldiers of the U.S. Special Operations Command captured the Ace of Spades himself, Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi president, on the run since the capture of Baghdad, had appeared in a deck of playing cards with the profiles of other fugitive war criminals and naturally was the top card. Hussein, bedraggled and bereft, was armed with one of the rarest of handguns: the Glock 18, the full auto Glock.”

Not even remotely true. But this is a good place to put a picture of the prettiest and rarest pair of pistols on the planet. The Big Bang Pistol Set. Made out of a freaking meteor! (Anyone wanna loan me $4.5 million?)

BigBangPistolSet

***

“Turning the selector switch counterclockwise down, on the other hand, turns the Glock 18 into a fully automatic weapon with a rate of fire nearing Germany’s fearsome MG42 machine gun. In fully automatic mode the Glock 18 has a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute.”

MG42:

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Glock 18 (actual picture from the article):

MarineCorpsGlock18.jpg

Yup – Good comparison. -eyeroll-

***

“Early Glock 18s had ported barrels that vented gunpowder gases in a direction to counteract barrel climb. However, this increased overall pistol length and created a situation where the gas ports could catch on clothing while being drawn—not a great feature for undercover work.”

Glock18port

If your more concerned about your recessed barrel’s gas ports catching on clothing, but not your front sight – you’re doing something weird. And you should try using a holster or not shoving it into a coat pocket.

***

“The fully automatic pistol is available for police and government purchase in the United States but without the benefit of frequent, expensive training it’s difficult for even the largest police departments to justify the cost. This specialized weapon may be fun to shoot, but it has little practical value outside of units such as EKO Cobra. For the foreseeable future, the Glock 18 will remain a rarity that roars at 1,200 rounds a minute.”

Well… then there’s this:

***

“Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009, he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch.”

Annnnnddddd….. That explains why this article is so full of wrong.

Painted Desert Ram mount is back.

Since I beat all the dead deer from rifle season to the Taxidermist last year, it only took six months to have the mount finished.  It’s beautiful. The man is exceptionally talented and did such a gorgeous animal justice. I’m very, very pleased.

Best of all, there was enough hide left over that I’m going to make a loin cloth for when we host garden parties. Yipeee!

Also my son named it Boris. I don’t know why, but the name has stuck. (I miss being a kid, nothing had to make sense back then.)

20190313_170049

20190313_170017

If you haven’t read my write-up about hunting on an exotic game ranch, it’s worthwhile. When our Pronghorn trip was canceled last minute due to… well… Wyoming being Wyoming and having a massive ice storm hit it in October… (which sucks when your insanely expensive out of state tags are non-refundable.) I tried to find reviews of exotic game ranches and couldn’t locate any. So, I wrote my own afterwards.

A review of Caryonah Game Ranch

It was a great experience, and thankfully nothing like I’d envisioned. I’m sure there are game ranches that are terrible, I’ve seen YouTube videos of some, but this one was fantastic. I’d certainly go back again with the lovely wife, as she wants to kill a boar.

As for writing… 

The sequel to West of Prehistoric is well under way. Initial rough draft is almost finished, I’m 22,000 words into it. So far, it’s much, much easier to write a sequel after the ‘hard work’ of creating the world, characters, critters in the first one. I’m just building off something that already exists now.

Since I managed to work in a lot of small and large over-reaching story/character arches into the first book, I’ve a ton of material to play with, tease, and reveal.