Laugh At Me, but Pray For My Brother

I wrote this a few days ago, about how this is the time of year when people with Seasonal Affected Disorder start having trouble with the shorter, colder days ... people like me. I usually shorten the whole description down to "winter sucks" even though it's not even meteorological winter for another month.

Then I was going to add that a sure way to cheer me up was to get new sales of our books. Like many authors, I get so relatively few sales of my older books that just one jump in my Amazon rankings can cheer me up all day.

In other words, I'm not above taking advantage of my own medical problems to sell books. You regular readers, you already knew that. And heck, I could use the emotional boost, considering next week's upcoming colonoscopy. (I'm stocking the bathroom with extra reading material.)

But never mind that for now. (I'll hit you all up again later.) On to a much more important medical issue that happened after I wrote the above: 

Please send your prayers and/or healing thoughts toward my brother Jeff, who suffered a collapsed lung while doctors were doing a biopsy on him yesterday. He's been fighting cancer for years now, and so far winning, but this is the second time he's had this problem during a biopsy, and it's really wearing on him.

It wasn't as bad as last time, thank goodness, but it's still bad. They think he may be able to go home today, and fingers crossed.

That's Jeff on the left, and his wife Cathy on the right.

I wouldn't take advantage of someone else's misfortune to sell books, although come to think of it, maybe I should ask him. But me? Yeah, I'll take advantage of myself all day long.

Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

 

50 Authors from 50 States: Sherri Fulmer Moore Shares South Carolina

South Carolina on 50 Authors from 50 States:



50 Authors from 50 States: Sherri Fulmer Moore Shares South Carolina: The first question I usually get when I tell people that I’m from South Carolina is “I’ll bet you go to Charleston all the time!” While I h...

Hopefully the final draft's not too far Off the Mark

I finally finished the Still Slightly Off the Mark manuscript!

By which I mean it's ready for Emily to review, find all the mistakes, and send it back to me for rewrites.

But that's the way we do things in the Hunter household. With these other writing projects we're working on, my final polishing of this was when I could get to it, usually during breaks. That's why there would be food on the pages, if there were pages. (Not to worry, I covered the keyboard.)

It clocks in at just under 60,000 words in nineteen chapters, and has about twenty illustrations, which is a fancy word meaning "pictures". An illustrated manuscript--it's like I dragged myself into the 21st Century, or something.

It looks like we'll be able to get it out before Christmas, despite the previously mentioned other projects we're working on. Until then the working full title is either:

Still Slightly Off the Mark

A Celebration of Silliness

or more likely

Still Slightly Off the Mark:

Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies

What do you think? If neither of those work I was thinking of titling it Harry Potter and the Star Wars Avengers, but Emily thinks that might be just a wee bit misleading.

Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

movie review: Zombieland: Double Tap

Has it really been ten years since Zombieland came out?

Wow. That explains why Little Rock doesn't look little anymore.

When we last saw our four friends, they'd just escaped certain death at an amusement park on the West Coast. Well, the great thing about the zombie apocalypse is that zombies don't drive, so a cross-county road trip would have way less traffic.

Our friends Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, also our narrator), Whichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) have taken advantage of that, and ended up in a new, secure home across the country: The White House.

But all is not well with our little family. Little Rock was eleven when the apocalypse hit, and is frustrated at still being treated like a kid, and by the lack of people her own age. Tallahassee is aching to be on the road again. And while Columbus and Wichita seem a happy couple, she freaks out when he presents her with an engagement ring: specifically, the Hope Diamond. (Half the fun of the early scenes involve the gang hanging out in Washington, mostly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)

Soon the group is split up and on the road again, avoiding new and more dangerous zombies and headed (by way of Graceland) toward a hippie paradise called Babylon. There anyone who enters is made to melt down their weapons, before they enter "paradise". You know that won't end well, and sure enough, they soon have to defend their domain from an army of the undead.

Zombieland: Double Tap is exactly what we need from a comedy these days: Humor, unencumbered by political correctness. We're treated with new characters along the way, including laid back stoner pacifist Berkeley (Avan Jogia), and ditzy Madison (Zoey Deutch, who I nominate for funniest dumb blonde ever). They're both people who by rights shouldn't have survived this long, but we get to be treated to our main characters' reaction to them.

We also get Rosario Dawson as the kick-ass proprietor of an Elvis Presley themed motel, and a strangely familiar duo (Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch), as well as a few unexpected appearances that are loads of fun.

In fact, maybe that's what Zombieland: Double Tap should be compared to: Buckets of bloody fun. And guts. There's a lot of shooting and zombie killing, plenty of action, and most of it is oh, so funny, in a gross sort of way. You can skip the end credits scene if you want to, but please, please stay for the mid-credits scene.

My Score:

Entertainment Value:  4 out of 4 M&Ms. The good brown ones.

Oscar Potential:  1 out of 4 M&Ms. Three Oscar nominees and one Oscar winner, and--no, wait. Four Oscar nominees and one winner, but they're having way too much fun. ood production work, too, but hey--zombie movie.

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies

Or, for you Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, maybe midgets.

Do you ever get the feeling that some animals have a death wish? Me, too. Deer running in front of you, birds playing tag with your car--on the interstate.

Then there are the more gentle daredevils.

A family of bunnies has been living in my back yard. I don't have a problem with that, but in both the previous photos the little youth rabbits were hanging out only a few feet from our back door. This would be the same back door our dog comes out of when he has to do his business. There's a cat that's been prowling around that same area.

Have you seen my dog?

He's not small. And I've learned he likes little animals ... for dinner.

And get this: I'm finding the little piles of bunny pellets inside the range of Beowulf's line. (By the way, they're not chocolate candy. Remember that.) It's like they're pooping on his turf just to antagonize them. I'm living on the same property as Bugs Bunny.



My only conclusion is that they're teenage bunnies. You know how teenagers are: always taking chances, thinking they're indestructible. That has to be it.

This one's probably mom, hanging out safely at the end of the driveway. Doesn't she look worried? Yes, she does. If I could speak rabbit, I'd probably hear: "You bunnies get out of that dog's range! You're going to fall down and break your leg and put your eye out, and if you do, don't come running to me!"

book review: Code Of Honor, by Kathryn Shay

I wasn't certain there was any point in reviewing Code of Honor, considering it was published eighteen years ago. (!) But hey, I did read it this year, and later learned it's still available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Honor-Americas-Harlequin-Superromance/dp/0373708823

It's also up on Kindle, but I had the paperback edition sitting around. I first read romances around 1990, a few years before I started writing them, but all my life I've been picking up any book I could find about firefighters; this qualified both ways.

The paperback version.

Code of Honor is one of Harlequin's Superromances: Extra long stories with a bit more depth and more subplots to them. Fire Lieutenant Jake Scarlatta was stabbed in the back by his best friend, a fellow firefighter, and now has trust issues. Firefighter Chelsea Whitmore has been assigned to Jake's station, but she's now a pariah on the fire department after an affair with another firefighter led to disaster. Oh, and she now has trust issues.

Trust issues are a big deal in romances, especially when there's no other logical way to keep a couple apart. In this case Jake and Chelsea have something else: He's her supervisor. But even while fighting off their growing attraction Jake is a fair guy, and fights to give Chelsea every chance. The only problem is, she keeps making rookie mistakes ... mistakes she insists she isn't making. Sabotage? It appears someone at the station is less open minded than Jake is.

Female firefighters aren't as big a deal these days, but this was written about twenty years ago. To put it into perspective, the book came out less than twenty years after a lawsuit forced the hiring of the first female New York City firefighters; in the words of the old ad, you've come a long way, baby.

Overall Code of Honor is well done. Getting the casual reader up to speed on the fire service leads to some clunky writing here and there, especially early on, but the plotting and description is strong, as is the characterization. I had two major problems, the first of which was my own fault for not noticing: Code of Honor is part of a series, and not the first book in that series. As such, I had some confusion as characters dropped in who'd already been established in earlier works. The lesson? Always read them in order, kids.

And, Kindle.

The second problem will go unnoticed to most readers. Shay clearly did her research on the fire service, and she got a lot of stuff right. But sometimes, for the sake of plot, stuff happens that just wouldn't happen. In one example, a crew arriving on the third alarm--in other words, after several other crews are already at the scene--advance a hose from their truck toward a large building fire, then run out of water when the truck's tank runs dry. A dramatic problem, except it wouldn't happen: Assigned to the third alarm, they probably would have taken a hoseline from one of the already-arrived units. If not, they'd have established a water supply from a hydrant or water tanker before making an attack on a fire that big.

Realism in entertainment is a problem with every profession: It's why I don't watch most firefighting shows, and I'd bet most lawyers don't watch lawyer shows, either. But overall if you like romances, you'll like this one. (Romances have also come a long way, baby, but we all have our preferred genres.)

50 Authors from 50 States: Two Great Rhode Island Treasures Right Here

Why live in Rhode Island? These authors love it.



50 Authors from 50 States: Two Great Rhode Island Treasures Right Here: Julien Ayotte Asks: Why Do People Live In Rhode Island? I’ve been asked that question for over 60 years, and for the life of me, I can’t...

My Times, They Are A-Changing

There are two things you need to know about writers:

1. They're excellent at organizing their time and their lives.

2. They lie. Often to themselves.

Well, not me so much, as I generally admit to being unorganized. Still, I'm working on it. Some stuff is going on in my life that might bring big changes. They might also bring more expenses; I didn't say they were all good changes. So I'm working on ways to, as they say, "monetize" my writing. One of the best ways to do this is to spend more time actually doing that writing (and that selling, and promoting, and so forth).

(Am I one of those people who'd write even if it didn't pay? Well, yeah--I've done that on and off for years. But I'd rather it paid.)

Now, over the years I've joined numerous social media sites, both to spread the word about the writing and to, well, socialize. Some don't seem to be working out too well. For instance, I went to Insanejournal when Livejournal started having problems, but seem to be the only person on Insanejournal. Anywhere.

When I first started getting published, Emily set up Facebook pages for each of my new books. Because, hey, when you've only got one or two books out ...

But now we have ten books out, and an eleventh on the way. I kept all the old pages, but just copied and pasted the same thing to those, for the most part. Copying and pasting doesn't take long once I get a post organized, but what's the point in places where no one is there, or only people who also are friends with me in other places?

So I'm deleting the Insanejournal page. I'm keeping Livejournal--I'm not insane.

And I'm deleting my Storm Chaser and Storm Chaser Shorts FB pages. For now I'll keep the Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights page and my main Facebook page, but for those of you who follow me for my writing, I ask you to join my FB author's page, at https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter/ 

 ... As I understand it, that's the best place on FB to be able to keep track of our writing news.

Later I'll decide other things. For instance ... MySpace? I still have a few friends on there, but haven't had any actual interactions for years.

There's also MeWe, which I went to because Facebook seems to hate its customers, and wish them all the failure in the world. But very few other people are going to MeWe, so is there a point?

Stuff like that. Come to think of it, I'm on too many Facebook groups, too.

Oddly enough, I'm not that much of a joiner in real life. But online I'm on Deviantart, Goodreads, Tumblr ... it gets to be too much. A writer should, I think, concentrate on a few places, rather than spreading themselves all over the internet.

We'll see.

How do you all feel on the issue? If you're selling something, do you have an honest to goodness online strategy? Or is it more like me, throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks?

(That's just figurative, by the way -- I don't throw crap at walls. Ick.)

Of course, you'll always be able to find me on:

Blogger:  https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Our website:  http://markrhunter.com/
Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/ozma914
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

And there's especially our newsletter ... you can access past issues and the signup page by going here:
https://us10.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=02054e9863d409b2281390e3b&id=f39dd965f0

I think you can. Because it's only been twenty years or so, and I'm not sure I have this internet thing down, yet.

Fire Prevention: A Light Look at a Serious Subject

This article first appeared in the Albion New Era during 2009’s Fire Prevention Week.

Fire Prevention Week is here, a time in which we try to – wait for it – prevent fires. Of course, Fire Prevention Week should go on year round, but if it did we’d have to change the name. So, to give you something you can take with you all year, here’s a quick quiz to see if you know … oh, just relax, nobody’s grading you.

1. Fire Prevention Week was begun after a huge fire burned:
a. The City of Chicago.
b. The entire town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin.
c. A huge swath of Wisconsin and an even larger area of Michigan, all the way from one Great Lake to another.
d. Donald Trump’s hair.

The answer: All of the above. The most devastating forest fires in American history roared through Northeast Wisconsin and lower Michigan on October 8, 1871, leveling at least 16 communities, killing 1,152 people, and blackening 1.2 million acres of land – those are the conservative estimates. The disaster didn’t make much impact on the national news because of that little dust-up going on in Chicago at the same time. I was just kidding about the Trump hair..

2. President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation in:
a. 1492.
b. 1920.
c. 1980
d. OMG! Nobody told me I’d have to memorize dates!

The answer: d. Meanwhile, since the early 20’s Fire Prevention Week has come during the same week as the anniversary of the Chicago and Peshtigo fires.

3. On the spot where the Great Chicago Fire began now stands:
a. The Chicago Fire Department Fire Academy
b. A shrine to Oprah.
c. Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
d. The burial spot of Donald Trump’s hair.

The answer: a. Can you sense the irony?

4. Okay, here’s an easy true of false question:
The Great Chicago Fire first burned down the O’Leary home.

The answer: False. Although the fire started in the O’Leary barn, a lucky breeze spared their house. However, rumors that Mrs. O’Leary’s firebug cow kicked over a lamp made them a pariah at the Homeowner’s Association meetings for the next 130 years. Later research revealed there’s no proof the O’Leary’s – or their cow – had anything to do with the fire’s origin. In fact, there’s some speculation that a fiery meteorite broke apart as it fell to Earth, explaining how several fires over three states all started at once.

(Experts now believe meteorites would not have started the fires, so we're back to blaming humans.)


5. Most fires are started by:
a. Mice with matches.
b. Men, women, and children.
c. Zeus.
d. A small, square animal called the Woozy that shoots sparks from its eyes.

The answer: b. Zeus is a myth, people – and the mouse was acquitted. Bonus points if you can tell me where I got that Woozy thing from.
Cooking, electrical problems, smoking, and children playing with fire-starting materials are the main causes of fires. Kids with matches or lighters cause hundreds of deaths every year, and that ain’t funny.

6. If a fire sets off a sprinkler system:
a. All the sprinkler heads go off, allowing our hero to escape in the confusion.
b. All the sprinkler heads go off, allowing the villain to escape in the confusion.
c. All the sprinkler heads go off, allowing the hero to electrocute the villain.
d. Only the sprinkler heads directly above the fire go off, saving untold lives and property every year.

The answer: d. You might want to consider getting a guard dog, because sprinklers are designed to control fires while doing only minimal water damage.

7. Your smoke detector batteries should be changed:
a. So you have fresh ones available for the TV remote.
b. Every spring and fall, when the clocks change.
c. Because otherwise they could develop serious diaper rash.
d. Because their behavior is just unacceptable.

The answer: b, no matter what time zone you’re in.

8. E.D.I.T.H. is important because:
a. She’s the only woman James T. Kirk ever really loved.
b. I said so.
c. Exit Drills In The Home help families escape from home fires.
d. How would Archie get along without her?

The answer: c (and b. Come to think of it, all of the above). Smoke and toxic gases from a fire can fill a home within minutes, so practicing how to safely escape from a fire, and meet up in a safe spot afterward, saves lives. Firefighters are great, if I do say so myself, but most fire victims are dead from smoke inhalation before fire trucks can reach the scene.

9. Firefighters die:
a. Because that gray is unacceptable.
b. hard.
c. in the wool.
d. At the rate of almost a hundred every year.

The answer – is pretty obvious, and not very funny. Not only is the easiest fire to fight the one that never starts, but the least dangerous fire is the one that never starts.

10: Fire is:
a. Fast, sometimes engulfing a home in just a few minutes.
b. Dark, producing dense smoke and toxic gases.
c. Hot, over 1,000 degrees in a typical structure fire and searing lungs even at a distance from the flames.
d. Deadly, killing 2,900 people in 2008, injuring 14,960 others, and causing over twelve billion dollars in damage.

The answer: All of the above, and that’s no joke. So the next time you see or hear something serious about fire prevention – pay attention. When the real test comes, it’s life or death.

Find all of our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

Juggling Book Projects Can Give You a Headache

After hitting 28,000 words on the first draft of my new novel, We Love Trouble, I'm calling a halt to it.

Temporarily! Come on, I'm not going to give up on a story that I've described as The Thin Man meets Scooby-Doo. I'm having way too much fun.

But Emily and I wanted to get our new humor book, Still Slightly Off the Mark, out before the Christmas season. It's been so long since I last went over the final draft that I assumed--correctly--that I'd find more mistakes. So, while Emily works on the cover, I've started a line edit.

Emily's trying for a cover that's similar to the one for the original Slightly Off the Mark, seen here. But not so similar people think it's the same book. A lot of juggling goes on in the writing business.

Then I'm going to finish the rough draft of We Love Trouble, and while that cools and awaits a second draft, I'll finally go back to pulling photos together for our Albion Fire Department photo book.

It's like cooking a meal with multiple dishes at the same time. You have to add the various ingredients at the right moment, have them cooking at the right temperature, and keep anything from burning. I've always been exceptionally bad at cooking multiple-dish meals, which is why I make sure my smoke detector batteries are good.

Hopefully I'll be better with the multiple book projects. Although, come to think of it, if I should hear back from an agent or publisher things will get even more complicated.

Remember, if you don't get it all done, tomorrow is another day. Assuming those are early morning clouds, and not a UFO approaching.

 

 

Don't forget to find us on social media, including:

Blogger: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

50 Authors from 50 States: Change is Inevitable with J.L. Lindermuth of Penns...

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