Celebrating Word Counts

 There's a lot more to writing than just putting words on a page, although you might not know it by the way some writers talk. Me, for instance.

I hit 34,000 words on my rough draft of Hoosier Hysterical 2: Subtitle Goes Here. (Still working on that subtitle.) Well worth celebrating, but there's a problem: It's just not funny enough. Oh, it has humor, but the original Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving at All had a lot of humor. Some people might not recognize it, but that subtitle was supposed to be humorous.

We did stumble across amusing places, now and then.

 

But last time I covered the history of Indiana, and this time I decided to dive into the people who've come and gone, and left their mark on the Hoosier state. Some of those stories are amazing, inspiring, and too often, sad. Once I started following them, I dove down that author's rabbit whole and ended up with whole chapters about one person.

 There's James Dean's breakneck career--okay, bad way to put it, considering how he died. There were black people and women who made it big one way or another, even though at the time their "kind" weren't expected to make anything at all. There were inventors and entertainers who came to a sad end.

It was fascinating stuff, but in some cases the best I could do, for instance, was make fun of Sarah Breedlove's name. It's a cheap shot, but I'm a cheap writer. However, Sarah Breedlove was the first person in her family not to be born into slavery, then had a hard early life, then her hair started falling out. As *ahem* I say, "It's just like a country song, except her dog didn't die and there's no pickup truck".

Although ... how do I know she didn't have a dog that died?

A stop on the Underground Railroad. Cool, not funny.

 

Anyway, C.J. Walker of Indianapolis ended up employing thousands of people to make and sell her hair care products, became the wealthiest black woman in America, and had a freaking Barbie doll modeled after her.

That's not funny. That's awesome.

So, I'm going to work on that. I have a feeling a lot of the already-written words will have to go away, or maybe I'll use them in blogs. Or maybe I'll write a companion book: "Hoosier Not-Hysterical: Really Cool People, and How They Got There".

At least I have my subtitle. 

 

We passed through Rural, Indiana in rural Indiana. That's good for a smile.

 

You can count the words in our books by following these links; but why bother counting?

 

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

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

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

·        Audible:  https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

 

Remember: It’s not the words so much as how they’re arranged.

 

A Writer's Search History

With the dog and I both sick and the weather a study in hell, I haven't felt like going outside. The last time this happened, I spent a few days doing internet searches for:

Antique fire trucks, natural cliff climbing spots near Chicago, Harlequin Great Dane dogs, climbing and rappelling gear, highway cuts, dog lift harnesses, the most common Louisiana surnames, antique car restoration, and first names for men and women.

I do my research with dogged determination.

Either the infection reached my brain, or it was time for another novel research session.

Not that I don't have plenty of other work to do, in submitting, editing, and promoting other book projects. Oh, and my day job, which is at night. But when it comes to submitting, there's a certain amount of waiting involved, anyway. So I came up with an idea for a new story, and sometimes a writer just wants to kick back and do the fun stuff, which for me is researching, creating characters, and writing that first draft. I mean, fun when it's not frustrating.

At least I won't get as much Federal attention as when I started work on The Source Emerald, and researched such things as the FBI, jewel smuggling, cross country travel routes, and types of handguns.

So ... what kind of story should I research for next?

When I started writing the Storm Chaser books, I did so much weather research I should have earned a meteorology degree.

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

A Writer's Search History Can Be Puzzling

I spent some time on the internet last month researching the parts of a saddle and bridle, types of horses, trailer hitches, dog behavior, cowboy hats, head injuries, patient assessment, and the topography of Brown County, Indiana. All for one story.

Later I spent more time researching the horse racing industry, handguns, mushrooms, John Wayne, skin glue, and Japanese names.

Yeah, I'm back in that fiction writing game. At least until I get done with the first draft of We Love Trouble, and go back to researching for nonfiction.

I love this job.

Ah--so that's a horse. Thanks, Pokagon Saddle Barn!

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

(Remember, every book that doesn't sell by January 1st has to go to the Island of Mistfit Books.)

Seven Lines From My Work In Progress

I was tagged by writer Samantha Branham for the 7x7x7 challenge: seven lines from the 7th page of my work in project. I’m not tagging anyone, ‘cause I don’t do that, but if you’re a writer and it strikes your fancy give it a try! I suppose this serves as the official announcement of my next book project, in honor of Indiana’s bicentennial: A humorous look at Hoosier history. Don’t look at me like that, I promise you’ll like it.

(You won’t be hearing much from me for the next couple of weeks, due to research involving this very project.)

“Champlain made the first accurate coastal map of Canada, and also had a drink named after him. Unfortunately, he’d had several of those drinks first, and ended up misspelling his own name. As a result, he never got the credit he deserved for champagne. Upset by that, and also freezing, he headed south and became the first European to explore the Great Lakes area. So much for booze never being good for anything; thanks to Champlain Indiana became part of New France, with the promise that the French Empire in North America would go on for a long, long time.

And we all know how well that worked out.

However, the first white man to actually set foot in Indiana is believed to be Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle, whose name I’ll shorten to La Salle for obvious reasons.”

It's historical. No, it is. Well, maybe not by European standards.

A Simple Look At Passwords

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            I have a bad habit of being optimistic about humanity.

            Oh, in theory that’s a good thing. Let’s all think the best of people! Shouldn’t it be that way? Sure it should. Chamberlain thought the best of Hitler. So did Stalin, who was certain Hitler wouldn’t be dumb enough to invade Russia and stick around through winter. Come to think of it, just the word “Hitler” is a good hint that thinking the best of people might be a mistake.

            But this isn’t about mass-killing despots. This is about passwords.

            Hitler would have had a very secure password. He didn’t think the best of people.

            According to researchers, in 2013 internet users finally got smart, and stopped using “password” as their #1 password when dealing with computers and internet sites. Finally, some sanity!

            It dropped to number two.

            Number one is now “123456”. Yeah.

            It would be 12345, but so many sites require six digits.

            Another team of security researchers uncovered a cache of two million login credentials, and according to their research, “password” was far down in fourth position, after, “123456”, “123456789”, and “1234”.

            Next came “12345” and, yes, “12345678”.

            After that, in a sudden desire to be different, came: “admin”.

            And so my optimism is defeated.

            Yahoo Tech … excuse me, Yahoo! Tech points out that you can’t get much worse than “password”. It has no numbers, no capital letters, and no unusual symbols, and can be guessed pretty easily. It reminds me a lot of my first computer password, which if I recall correctly was “Mark”. No, worse: It was “mark”.

            Other popular passwords: “111111”; “abc123”; and “qwerty”, which if you learned touch typing—or just glance at a keyboard—is pretty easy to figure. Also popular: “letmein”, again self-explanatory.

            I apologize if I just gave out your password. However, if your password is any of the above for any gadget or site the general internet could get a crack at, you’re a moron. Perhaps your password should be “moron”. Perhaps it is.

            Here are other common passwords identified by Yahoo! (doesn’t that make you think you’re one of the Howling Commandoes? Say it out loud): “princess”, “Monkey”, “Sunshine”, “Shadow”, and “iloveyou”, the latter of which is possibly involved in a gifted device, or someone who really, really can’t live without electronics.

            All you hear about these days is this bad guy cracking a password, that bad guy stealing data, some other bad guy putting malware on your computer …  Malware is another word for software that sneaks into your computer and kicks your own software into a corner of the hard drive. Do hard drives have corners? But if you haven’t educated yourself enough to know what malware is, the case could be made that you shouldn’t be in the position of passwording anything.

            Is passwording a word? It is now.

            For the record, the best passwords are 10 characters long, use uncommon letter/number combinations, and employ punctuation or odd symbols, so someone can’t just guess it and hacking programs can’t easily figure it out. For instance, my password is My9@s3W0Rp.

            Or, um, … it was. Yeah, it was.

            However, I used that password for everything. The experts say you should have a different password for each online service; that way if a bad guy gets one, he won’t get all of them.

            And you should never write them down. Nope.

            Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Are you nuts?!”

            Well, I still think more people are good than bad, so … yeah, I’m probably nuts. But if you’re talking about passwords, then I’ll give you an idea that, I assume, the experts will wildly disagree with:

            Write ‘em down.

            I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can barely remember … well, there was something, I don’t recall what it was, but I can barely remember it. How can I be guaranteed to remember even one password, let alone several? I can’t, that’s how.

            I’m talking about home use. I’m not suggesting you tape it to your iPad, or have it tattooed to your forehead. (Although if you do that, remember to have it tattooed backward.) But yeah, if you have a password so convoluted that the Navajo Code Breakers couldn’t figure it out, you’re going to be in trouble if you keep forgetting it. Put it in invisible ink, on a piece of paper at the back of a desk drawer. Train the dog to dig it up from the back yard. Put one number or digit in the corner of each room of the house.

            Sure, you could lose it if your house burns down, but won’t you have bigger problems then? And if the place gets burglarized, just change your password. That’s assuming the burglar is no longer there—first thing’s first.

            The average hacker is not going to physically walk into your house, unless you’re talking about a relative with bronchitis. That’s not the kind of virus we’re dealing with, here.

            Then you can put in nice, complicated passwords that aren’t likely to be stolen, such as 3vcl943(#^&%/2id[aude8/1, which is what I typed when I hacked just now.

            Here’s another idea, which I got from a website where someone suggested typing your name one handed, without looking at the keyboard. No, I don’t know why. Still, it’s an interesting idea for generating a password. Let’s try it:

            Mdtjhubngtg

            Not bad. Needs some numbers and symbols. Maybe I’ll try again when I feel a sneeze coming on.