Prisoners of the Olympics

Patty and I were stuck all day in the doctor’s office yesterday. A giant TV screen dominated the waiting room, like the guy with the whip who walks up and down between the rowing-benches to clout any slave who rests his oars.

Of course the Olympics was on. Hours and hours of it. Sports that nobody watches except during the Olympics. Sports that nobody even heard of. I mean, really–women’s four-man kayak racing? I guess we missed the bottle-cap swallowing, the men’s typewriter-throwing, and mixed doubles beach cockroach racing.

In one of the horsey things, the obstacles the horses had to jump over were very nicely decorated with castles and palaces and… well, a great  big head of Charles Darwin. What’s that about? It seems sinister.

But, hey–I guess if they tell millions of people they’re passionately interested in women’s four-man kayak races, then millions of people are passionately interested in women’s four-man kayak races. Every four years.

Fantasy You Can Believe In?

I’ve been trying to find more fantasy to read. I enjoy fantasy, I’m always looking to learn from other writers, and I want to review more fantasy on this site.

So I went up and down the shelves in the library and the supermarket, and came up empty. Sure, I saw a passel of fantasy titles–but not one that I wanted to bring home and read.

As odd as this might sound, I was looking for a fantasy I could believe in.

There’s plenty of stuff I don’t want to believe in–stories about teenage girls acquiring these fantastic boyfriends who are immortal, or vampires, or from another planet, whatever. I like teenagers. That’s why I detest those books.

And there’s a lot of fantasy I can’t believe in, the books with cover copy that buries you under an avalanche of silly names: “In the heart of the Zoob Empire, Bloggo Fimbo-face rebels against Count Dribble-Bibble and the evil House of Slawkenburg. But time is running out for Princess Laloola of the White Pillock,” and so on–complete with lusty wenches, noble thieves, all-powerful mages, street-smart nuns… It’s Punch & Judy without the punch.

So, readers… Know of any nice fantasy novels you think I might like?

 

 

Do It Today: Defy a Gay!

Believe it or not, I really don’t like to do politics on this blog. But in light of the tremendous outpouring of public support on “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” this week, I’ve decided something must be said.

Certain dark forces in our society, led (naturally!) by the Democrat Party, are trying to make it a crime not to support same-sex pseudomarriage. You don’t even have to mention it. Just say you believe in the ages-old, God-ordained model of marriage as consisting of a man and a woman, and you instantly become an enemy of the people, to be punished by intimidation, public mockery and execration, and destruction of your livelihood. In other words, you do not have a right to hold that opinion, and certainly no right to express it.

But there is safety in numbers: they can’t silence millions of us. And more valuable than safety, even more valuable than peace, is to be faithful to God and His plan for sane and righteous living. It is not God’s plan to make us the punching-bags of hate-filled homosexuals.

So do it today! Defy a gay!

Book Four: The Last Banquet Cover!

Check out the front and back cover of The Last Banquet!

Coming Soon: ‘The Last Banquet’

Everything is pretty much ready to go with book #4 of my Bell Mountain series, The Last Banquet. Cover art and copy, editing, typesetting–it’s all there, so the book should be out pretty soon. I can’t say exactly when. I’m just the author, and the author is always the last to know.

No. 5, The Fugitive Prince, has been written, and the first round of editing is finished. But we still have a ways to go on that one.

Now the publicity for these books is–well, you’re looking at it. My gifts as a publicist remain a secret between me and my Maker. But if you liked the first three books in the series, I’m sure you’ll like The Last Banquet, too.

If you have read and enjoyed my books, please compel your friends to buy them and read them. Be forceful! Be persuasive! Be bold!

If you haven’t yet read them… Well, come on!

 

The Shooting

Why does someone break into a movie theater and shoot 70 people? Everybody’s asking that question.

I don’t know why that particular individual committed that particular atrocity. But here are a few things I do know.

In spite of the many good things to be found in it, much of our culture has become a running sewer: and from time to time, it casts up monsters. What else can be expected? All the smartest people in our country–educators (ha!), politicians, the people who make our movies and TV shows, judges, our so-called news media–have been busy, for decades, telling us that good is evil and evil is good. Then they act all shocked and surprised when some nut takes them at their word and starts killing people.

Jerry Sandusky could’ve gotten off scot-free if he hadn’t bothered trying to convince the court he didn’t do it, but instead had pleaded that, in molesting little boys, he was only doing what innumerable smart academics say is good and wise to do. As evidence, he could have produced books and peer-reviewed “scientific” papers by dozens of Ph.D.’s touting the benefits of “intergenerational sex” or whatever else they’re calling pedophilia these days.

I haven’t seen any of those Batman movies, and I don’t plan to. I’m not here to judge any one movie.

But I am here to tell you that a Christian country that abandons Christ can only expect the worst.

 

How Dare You Not Like This Movie!

Some years ago, on his Sunday night radio show, Matt Drudge discussed the Planet of the Apes remake and inadvertently let slip a spoiler–as if you could spoil a story that had already been around for 30 years. Someone immediately called in to complain. He complained bitterly, winding up with the declaration, “You’ve spoiled my whole summer!”

Eh? Well, if your “whole summer” depends on a movie, maybe you need to get a life.

This week the movie site “Rotten Tomatoes” had to close down its comments page because hordes of loony leftists went berserk over negative reviews of Batman III: Dark Knight Rising. It’s a movie about a comic book character! It’s pitched to 12-year-olds! But never mind–somehow all these kooks got it into their heads that any criticism of this movie deserved the most violent response possible on the Internet. And so Rotten Tomatoes was swamped with profane, inarticulate, frothing-at-the-mouth comments by the usual idiots who believe The Rich are responsible for their lives being so futile and pathetic. For the first time ever, they had to close their comments page.

I haven’t seen this movie, and don’t plan to. I have outgrown comic books, and I don’t watch movies based on comic books. From what I’ve heard,Dark Knight has mutated into a political statement. Lefty losers are for it, and anyone who is against it must be an Enemy of the People. After all, you’re not a loser because you’ve attached yourself to ridiculous ideas, mal-educated, close-minded (not that there’s all that much to close), too full of rage to think straight, and never learned how to achieve anything. You’re only a loser because The Rich made you a loser while you weren’t looking!

Meanwhile, I guess we can’t even have fun with comic books anymore.

 

Better Living Through Wickedness

The other night in my neighborhood, a 20-year-old unwed mother tried to murder her grandmother.  I’m going to be vague about details, because I don’t want to hurt, inadvertently, someone who has already suffered quite enough. And besides, the details aren’t the point.

This crime arose out of at least four generations of fatherless chaos, with each new generation a bit more depraved than the preceding one. No husbands, no fathers–but a fair amount of government subsidy to keep the wheel turning.

Now, let’s see… what else should we expect in a world where all the smartest people insist that the traditional family is an obsolete relic of male oppression, fathers are unnecessary, and the only thing sacred is unrestricted fornication? These loons have managed to get many of their grotesque ideas translated into public policy. They promote them via public education, movies, TV, and peer-reviewed academic papers. As a result, our whole civilization is rotting from the inside out.

It is not pleasant to sit and listen to a woman describe a savage attack on her person by someone of her own flesh and blood. All I could do for her was to repair her glasses. It would have been cruel to say to her, “Such are the consequences of your lifestyle choices,” so I didn’t say it. No one deserves what was done to her.

But, hey, what do I know? Listen instead to all those smart people who keep warning us about the big, bad “Christian theocracy” that’s just waiting to poop our party for us. As long as we pay no attention whatsoever to God’s laws and Christ’s teachings, everything is bound to turn out just peachy.

Not.

More on My Writing Methods

No, I’m not ignoring Independence Day. But in light of what the Supreme Court did to us last week, it seems idle to talk about independence in America.

I’m moving right along with the writing of Bell Mountain #6, The Palace. I presume many of the readers of this blog are interested in writing, and the nuts-and-bolts of it: so I thought I’d open my toolbox today and show you something useful, albeit unusual.

As I work on my current fantasy novel, I’ve been using Agatha Christie as my muse. Is that baloney, or does it have a meaning? Well, yes, it does mean something. It means I’m plowing into her books as a way of helping along with my own work–sort of employing her as a Sherpa to guide me up the mountain.

Not that I try on purpose to imitate another writer. But as I unroll my own story of The Palace, I listen intently to Agatha Christie’s literary voice–the flow and tempo of her narrative, her tricks of dialogue (especially to reveal the speaker’s character), her decisions as to how much or how little description to provide at this or that point in the story, and so on.

Obviously I’m not trying to learn how to write a detective story. No: I’m listening. I know that my own writing will be influenced in subtle ways (and sometimes not so subtle) by whatever I happen to be reading at the time. Under no circumstances must I dip into Shakespeare while I’m writing a book! It’d be a disaster. But there is something in Agatha Christie’s tone that I want to capture in my own writing.

Later, when I get into writing my climax, I’ll probably switch over to Edgar Rice Burroughs.

No, I don’t believe in channeling or any other such heathen rubbish. But if you don’t think one author can speak to another through her published work, then you have not yet learned anything about writing.

Some Funny Ideas About Writing

When it’s not raining, or cold, I like to write outdoors. All I need is my pen and my legal pad, a chair, some shade, and my pipe–and I’m off to Obann.

This is when my neighbors like to play the game, “Talk to the Writer.” If I were just sitting there doing nothing, I could have beanstalks growing out of my head and no one would notice. But as soon as they see I’m working, everybody wants to come over for a chat. On occasion, I have been visited by three or four neighbors simultaneously, while trying to write.

They’ll talk about anything under the sun, but fairly often someone will want to talk about writing.

The question most often–indeed, always–asked is, “How long did it take you to write that book?” For the life of me, I never can see what that has to do with anything. But everyone wants to know. I have no idea why.

And the most common comment is, “I think I’ll write a book someday, if I can ever find the time.” Like it’s something everyone can do! Rocky Bridges once said, “There are three things which everybody in the world thinks he can do–run a hotel, manage a baseball team, and write a book.” He was right.

Many people seem to believe that books and articles write themselves, and I don’t even really have to be there. So the writer is bombarded with invitations to stop writing and come over and see if he can find out why the air conditioner is making strange noises, or what-not. Well, of course, if it’s so easy that literally anyone can do it, I really shouldn’t have to spend that much time on it, should I?

I am convinced they know not what they do.