New Handgun!

I bought a new handgun today and although I probably shouldn't have, I blew right at $600 bucks for it. It's a Beretta Cougar 8000F Inox. That means it's a 9mm, semi-automatic, double action/single action handgun in stainless steel finish. Sweet! They were removed from Beretta's 2005 catalogue and by this time next year they will be VERY hard to come by. I've heard it reported that Beretta only imported 1000 to 1200 of them. I got a really good deal on it but to expedite the shipping and everything, I used a bank card rather than a cashier's check which added 3% to the price of the gun plus another $20 in shipping and then I'll have to pay $15.00 when I pick it up from the gun dealer I'm having it shipped to.

The best part is, I already have a Cougar L, which is basically the same gun with a shortened grip and lightened slide. The Cougar Ls only come in matte bruniton finish and the 8000F Inox is stainless, which hopefully should be more durable. With the wood grips, the 8000F Inox is gorgeous. Now I have a pair of Cougars, both of which are rare and will become more so with time (unless Beretta actually has one of their other sub-companies put them out in the future).

I had kind of kicked around getting a new Cougar L or full-sized Cougar and when I found an Inox, I thought "What the hell?"...and then started seeing footage of the Hurrican. THEN I realized I should have put that money toward my credit card debt but when the Cougars are gone, they're gone. There won't be anymore. And in a few years, when the Inox Cougars are even more rare than they are now, I'll be the only kid on my block with one. Realistically, if there were 1000 imported, and an equal number went to each state, I would be one of only 20 in my state with one. That's pretty sweet! Now--an equal number wouldn't have gone to each state owing mainly to the fact that some states are more restrictive on the types of firearms allowed and stuff. I'd probably be one of less than 50 in Arkansas that has one.

The Cougars have a rotating barrel design which lowers the felt recoil, allowing you to get your sights back on target and fire follow up shots in quick succession. Meaning? You can easily triple-tap your target. The best part is, I won't worry so much about a failure of my Cougar L because I'll have the Cougar 8000F Inox to use also. Although I have several handguns, the Cougar is my favorite and most used, aside from my .22 caliber target pistol but that goes without saying.

On a related front, I finally bought a Don Hume PCCH inside-the-waistband holster for my Cougar (s) although I was really impressed with the price and quality of a Desantis Cozy Partner IWB. They were about five bucks different in price and the main reason I went with the Hume, which has a rougher look, was because I've had good luck with Hume holsters.

Now, the only problem is, how do I get back and forth to work for two weeks without gas money and while I'm there, how do I eat? Because see, I used my two week allowance to be able to afford the gun...and still paid $200 more than I wanted to. But the gun is BEAUTIFUL and accurate as fuck with small size and low felt recoil. And did I mention there weren't that many imported?

Anyway, I thought I would share all this information with everyone and it's possible that I may have the gun by Monday and may be able to take it to the range then...And I'd get to see how it shoots compared to my Cougar L, which is smaller and lighter but still handles really well.

Fuck the Po-Lice!

Horrorfind Weekend's Over and I didn't Go.

Well, it's over and I wanted to go and thought about going and didn't go. Why in the hell do they have all these things, these conventions, in places that are so fucking unfriendly to gun-toting folks? I mean, if I go to San Francisco for World Horror Con, I can't take my gun and why is that? They have guns in California, don't they?

So, Horrorfind Weekend is over and I'll try to plan for one that's held in a cool place like Missouri...yeah, right. Or Texas. I have really been thinking about FenCon in Dallas. It's more fantasy and sci-fi than horror but really, I prefer dark fantasy and sci-fi and I'm not as much into hard sci-fi. So I may go. I may not. I can't decide.

I'll just have to think about it. Am I cutting my nose off to spite my face? Not going to Horrorfind because it's in Baltimore? Maybe. But it's still my choice and I'm not spending money anywhere that I'm welcome but not welcome to defend myself.
Jb

Range Time.

I went to the gun range today. You have to go early in the morning or you'll sweat to death out there. They've made some changes that include moving some of the ranges down the hill. That's all well and good but I don't think I like the plinking range--the one I use the most--as much as I used to. For starters, the covered firing area is uphill from the target and if you want to walk out closer to the berm and do some moving while firing, you end up backing uphill. It's just not as conducive to move-draw-move-fire type practice.

I blew through a couple of hundred 9mm rounds, probably seventy-five .380 rounds and...hell, I don't know, maybe two or three hundred .22lr in my target pistol. After shooting at targets for a while, I switched over to aluminum cans. Why? It's more fun to see a can go flying through the air than see a hole appear in a target. And the thing is, I shoot more accurately when i'm shooting at cans. Go figure. But I blew them away. I'll tell you this, if I'm ever attacked by an errant coke can, I'll be prepared.

My little Bersa was kicking my ass. I don't know if it was because I was shooting my self-defense ammo or what but it actually hurt the webbing between my thumb and pointer finger. It shouldn't have hurt that much but it was really pounding me. I've been thinking about getting one of the little Kahr PM9s but hell, I don't want to pay >$600 for a gun. I just don't want to do that, especially since my most expensive gun was $439 AFTER taxes and that was for my Beretta 8000F/Cougar L. That gun is BAD ASS. And besides my Ruge target pistol, the Beretta is the one I shoot the best. If I had an inside-the-waistband holster, I'd probably carry it more. As is it, I usually stick with my Browning BDA or my Bersa, both in .380ACP. Yeah, I know. Some folks consider them marginal for self-defense. You know what? If I punch someone in the neck/upper chest or the groin/pelvic girdle, even if it's with a .380, they'll either go down or at least lose the will to fight. That's what I hope anyway. If I decided against the Kahr, which I really want, I could go with perhaps a Keltec P11 in 9mm. I just don't know about the Kel-Tecs. They're just kind of cheap.

Hmmm, I also think maybe I should get a high velocity rifle that can be shoulder fired and yet is short enough for use in my home. Kel-Tec makes a nice .223. Ruger has their Mini-14 but then, I'd have to buy Ruger. Since I don't want to put $800 into a rifle, I'd probably have to keep looking around for a good, affordable rifle.

Then again, I probably don't need another gun right now. I've got plenty and really, getting out of debt should be my primary goal because there is just no way that I can write more and work less when I owe the amount of money that I do.

Jb

Two new stories sent off...

I sent off two stories this morning, one to Wicked Hollow and one to The Book of Dark Wisdom and once again, I'm hopeful. That fucking sucks, getting your hopes all together and then waiting. And waiting. The responses I've been getting are taking more than three months on average and since I try to only send exclusive submissions, it can take more than half a year to send a story to more than one market. I know, I know. Get back to writing and send out THAT story to a separate market. But the thing is, I think my stories are good and I want to get them published somewhere so that others can read them and marvel at my genius.

Genius might be a strong word, now that I pause to think about it. But I want them read anyway and most of my always-readers have read everything I've got.

Horrorfind Weekend is going on right now. I could have gone but it's in Maryland and I refuse to bow to their anti-gun laws. If I'm out on the town, most especially in Baltimore, I want to be able to defend myself and my family. Let's face it, no matter how tough I am, in the face of armed or multiple assailants, I'll lose. So fuck Maryland and maybe some day they'll have HorrorFind Weekend in a city that appreciates--or at least tolerates--the second amendment.

Gotta run and do some stuff. Maybe even write.

Jb

Whatever happened to Jane?

She cut her hair and died, I guess. As did a way of life. My way of life.

Poison. Ratt. Dokken. Bon Jovi. Queensryche. Megadeth. Metallica. Twisted Sister. Cinderella. The Cult. Wasp. Guns ‘n Roses. L.A. Guns. Bang Tango. Tesla. Motley Crue. Van Halen. Ozzie Osbourne.

Where did all the good music go? I mean, I like new music but I’m not finding a lot of feel good music. I remember when Warrant and Skid Row were Gods. I mean, really Gods. And I wanted to be just like them.

I remember when women swooned because of fucking CC Deville and Brett Micheals. I remember when Def Leppard fucking ROCKED THE HOUSE! I remember when Suicidal Tendencies were cool as hell. I remember Sebastian Bach spitting on the crowd and telling us we were fucking nuts. And we were.

What happened to the hair bands? Did the grunge-come-alternative movement kill them forever? I mean, spandex and Aquanet faded away to body odor and camouflage pants hacked off at the knees. Not that I have anything against the alternative boom because I love some motherfucking Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana although I never was as much of a Nirvana fan as a lot of my buddies.

Now, Alice in Chains, they fucking rocked. But my point is this: Where can I get all the music I used to love? Whitesnake anyone? What’s become of the music I grew up on? I read a while back on Keene’s blog that he has signed up for Sirius Satellite radio. Good move. You can get all the music that used to be played on Headbanger’s Ball. Fuck Adam Curry, by the way. I’m with Riki Rachtman.

I guess it was when short hair became cool outside of punk and soft rock circles that the hair bands became passé. I remember when Jon Bon Jovi cut his hair and did the Young Gun’s soundtrack. And when Kirk Hammett cut off his hair. Yep, I really think that when short hair became cool it was the beginning of the end. You can’t have a hair band without long hair. Long, wild, slinging everywhere. It just doesn’t work that way. So I guess it was when short hair came back into fashion that the hair bands died and I grieve for them still. But you know what?

Every rose has its thorn. And you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. But in the still of the night, when I wanna rock, and I'm sitting around remembering breaking the chains, I can still join BMG and order greatest hits CDs of my favorite ‘80’s bands online and get overnight delivery.

Jb

These are my comparison shots...

This is me about 10 months ago after not being able to lift weights for two years, give or take. The brace on my right wrist is something that I used to wear while lifting to brace my wrist. It didn'twork that well but what the hell...it made me feel more secure. The goatee is here to stay. It makes me look older I think, and more menacing. I need that since my physique is now pussified.




Now, view this second picture. This one was taken immediately after working out. Notice the swimming trunks. I would work out in them because I would get so sweaty and hot. It may seem vain to take pictures of yourself but when you're working out with a goal of 5% body fat, a picture is worth a thousand words.




This is a picture of me in August or so of 2003. Maybe September. I'd just left my girlfriend and moved closer to my home town, bought a new Mustang, and was macking on this chick at work and working out three to four days a week and swimming at the lake three days a week, doing laps of the buoys for cardio. Oh, and working overtime and blowing money like it was going out of style.

I just get so fucking depressed. I've paid between two and three thousand dollars for my surgery and it hasn't helped a fucking bit. That was with insurance paying 80% of some things and 100% of other things related to the surgery and corticosteroid injections into the joint.

Jb

Weak man, weak.

So I've been reading Mike Oliveri's blog and he's working out and man, it makes me miss it so much. For anyone who's ever been good at something, I mean really, good, and then you're unable to do that thing you're so good at due to injury...I feel your pain. Because I'm not the biggest, strongest, or best shaped lifter but damnit, I was good at lifting, at getting in the groove, at letting my body work and get bigger, get stronger, get leaner and meaner.

Last year, after a lot of pain, I had surgery on my right wrist because my Ulna was too long, (who knows why? Genetics?) and it had ruptured my TFCC (triangular fibrocartilage complex) and so they had to shorten my ulna and fix the cartilage...but it didn't fix the pain and the inablity to lift anything heavy or open a jar of pickles.

I used to do dips. That was my favorite exercise. You have to parallel bars and you hop on them with your wrists supporting your entire body and then you lower yourself until your triceps are parrallel to the floor. When I would do dips, I would strap fifty pounds to my waist with my lifting belt.

I'm 5'7 and at the time, I weighed 160lbs. Some day, maybe today, I'll post a picture. I was motherfucking ripped. Now? Fuck. The worst part is, when I was strong, and looked great, I had the best confidence and was ALWAYS in a good mood. Now, I tend to get moody and shit.

I still look okay although I'm soft around the middle now since I haven't lifted consistently in 2 years. But here's the thing. I just went into my field and cut some small trees with my chainsaw. Now, the thickest tree was about 5 inches thick, maybe less. Well, granted it's Arkansas and it was hot as hell out there, and granted my chainsaw is a small 16 inch, 32cc pussy. But after cutting about ten or fifteen small trees that I'm sick of mowing around, I was fucking beat. I could barely carry both myself and the chainsaw up the hill to the house. I'm weak man, weak. I guess that's one reason I carry a handgun when I'm away from the house. I've lost the confidence I used to have and even now, my wrist is creaking and popping.

If I dwell on it, I just get sick. In this day and age, they should be able to fix my wrist but fuck, they just can't seem to do it. I guess I have to wait until they can do complete cartilage replacement for wrists. I think that would probably be the only thing that would help my situation...

And yeah, I know they can inject liquid cartilage but my doc just laughed when I asked. He said that's only for knees but has been tried--without success--in shoulders. A wrist? Like I said, he laughed. There's nothing like a doc with a sense of humor.

I guess I should have bought a bigger chainsaw because you can't have a pussy saw AND a pussy operator. I have a story called Gainer about a weight lifter but I can't work on it because it depresses me when I think about lifting weights.

With those cheery thoughts, I bid you adieu.
Jb

Futility

So, our hospital took over management of the psychiatric unit that is inside the hospital. I'm an RN, I work lots of areas but I've been at my psych job for almost 12 years while working other jobs (at one time, I held four concurrent jobs).

In psych, I've worked with acute adults, adolescent sex offenders, acute geriatric, outpatient adult psych, residential psych, and forensic psych. I'm not saying I'm an expert but I'm good at what I do. I also work general med-surg and intensive care when I feel the need but that's at another hospital and outside the scope of this essay.

Well, as I said, the hospital decided it could manage the psych unit here better than the management company (I believe the 2nd or 3rd largest in the country) and booted them out. They then took the marketing director (approximately 26, female, BS in Business/Marketing) and made her the program director.

This person has no experience in psychiatry, psychology, counseling, medicine, nursing, social work, recreation or therapy of any kind related to any discipline. Yet this is the person pegged to run, coordinate, regulate, and oversee a psychiatric unit. Then, since the old social workers went with the management company, they have hired a new social worker, fresh out of school or nearly so with no psych social work experience. Oh, and the rec therapist is new to psych. And the intake coordinator is new to psych.

Now, as I said, I've been at this facility for almost 12 years and it was ran by one of the biggest management companies in psychiatric care in the country and they had very high standards. Our unit, once an award-winning program, has become a relative joke. There is no "program". We used to be what is considered a therapeutic milieu and now, I'm not sure anyone in a management position can spell milieu, much less articulate what such a program is. We're adrift in a sea of change and headed for the great barrier reef.

It is futile. Tonight, our esteemed program director basically admitted a patient. Now, never mind that only a physician can do that, or a nurse or PA with an order from a physician. With the other management company, the unit charge nurse ran the unit. The charge nurse makes assignments, directs care, and oversees the medication nurses and mental health techs, among other things. With our new program director and other neo-psych administration, we're floundering. I don't want to jump ship when things are bad. I've been here most of my real adult life. I want to go out on top.

But it's beginning to look more and more like it's not going to happen. It looks like in the end, I'll just have to switch over to my other job full time and leave this one behind. And it leaves me with such a feeling of futility and loss and frustration. The only saving grace is that others in the hospital see what's happening. The ER staff--oh, excuse me, they're called the ED staff now--have even said that our new program director (remember, she's a NON-clinician of any kind) has NO BUSINESS in their department talking with patients. That's kind of like having the hospital CEO involved in the medical management of a patient. He ain't qualified and neither is our program director.

Well you know what? FUCK THEM! I will work here for a while longer, mainly because I'm typing this entry on their dime. If they fire me, I'll get fired because Arkansas is an at-will employment state. As an RN, I have a license to protect. That's my livelihood. My career. I have a regulating body AND a little something called the Nurse Practice Act that I have to live by. I don't want to get fired but neither do I want to just give up and quit. I know if I stay long enough, our new management folks will self-destruct. My fear is, in their uninformed, unknowing stupor, they will involve the rest of the staff in their death spiral and take us with them.

Fuck the Po-lice!

Jb

Mosquito Country

Anyone here ever been to Blytheville Arkansas? I'm telling you, it's the mosquito capitol of the world. Not that that's a bad thing, just that you can't go outside or open your door to your house or hotel room. It's so bad that they have these little trucks that drive around and spray and they do this I believe 24 hours a day for all of mosquito season. They also use crop dusters for spraying for mosquitos. Why is there a problem? I'm going to guess it's because of all the farmland and standing water from rice fields and stuff. Walnut Ridge has some bad ass mosquitos but it's been quite a while since I've been there--since I was a kid really--and so I can't remember what the little biting motherfuckers were like.

Now, my mom lived in Blytheville when she was growing up and I believe my dad might have lived here for a while. My grandmother on my mom's side died here of cirrhosis of the liver when I was 8...actually, right down the road in Osceola but still...

I should go to the cemetery and find her marker. We went, once, in about 1988 or 89, but I don't think we ever found it. She doesn't have a stone or anything just a little metal platform. One of these days maybe...surely they have a map there that shows where everyone is buried.

So we're up here for Gaye Anne's mom's birthday. We're more or less hanging out, eating, drinking, and being merry. They cook the best damned food I've ever had. I love some good food and this is food I would never attempt to cook. Like chicken alfredo. I'd never cook it but I'll eat the hell out of it. It was so damned good and the salad dressing...wow! It was some great stuff.

Anyway, we're here in Blytheville, hanging out and stuff and I just wanted to do some blogging.

Jb

Veronica Mars....

I just watched my first ever episode of Veronica Mars. It was good. Can you believe that? I'd have never figured it would be good but I was sitting around bored and it was either that or porn and so I figured, come on, how many times can I watch the same video...well, actually, I can't count the times I've watched THAT video but still...

So, Veronica Mars reminded me of Twin Peaks with the story line about Lily and her mysterious death and stuff. I liked it and hey, Veronica Mars was fucking HOT! I mean, she's smart AND hot.

Regina, this nurse who works in the hospital where I work, had a brother. Had. He was murdered last night, in the town I live in. The town my brother and sister and their children live in. My oldest younger sister lives in a rough ass town called Hot Springs but Benton isn't rough, it's just not. And yet he was stabbed to death here. I don't have all the details and don't think I want them but it does bring me to something else I've learned from studying self-defense.

If someone threatens you with a knife, run. Don't walk, don't try to take it away, run. Period. If he looks like he--or she--does NOT know how to use it, and they are more than 21 feet away, and you have a gun in your hand, shoot them. Because chances are, if they get to you--and according to the Tueler Drill, it will take an average person 1.5 seconds to cover 21 feet from a dead stop--they will kill you with a knife before you can pull the trigger. True story. Check it out, look up Tueler Drill although you make have to check the spelling to get the correct hit. And if the person holding the knife looks like they might know how to use, or just looks violent and aggressive, shoot them. While walking backwards and laterally. Shoot them until they are not a threat.

Knives are scary, much scarier than guns, to me. The wound channel is different, it's more deadly. Often, the helicopter will fly an emergency patient from our hosptial, sometimes gunshots and sometimes knife wounds. If it's a penetration or cutting wound from a knife, they don't survive. They just don't. GSW's survive more frequently. Just food for thought.

So, now I'm off to either do some rewriting or some new writing, can't decide which. And as always, FUCK THE PO-LICE!

Jb

The Last Rung on the Ladder

I just read--or rather reread--the Stephen King story "The Last Rung On The Ladder" from his Night Shift collection.

Wow.

For anyone who has ever been estranged from a sibling, this story is tough to take. Now, with me and my sisters, we were never close. We never had the trust that exists in this story. One thing we do have is the estrangement, partly because when I was putting myself through nursing school I just didn't have the time to devote to family functions like meeting at one of their houses for spaghetti.

It's weird. My family all act like I have more money than God, which is not necessarily true. I make a good living but since I stopped working seventy hours a week and more, I don't make that much dough. Oh, I double and triple what they make but I went to college and they chose not to. But it's like, I don' t know, maybe they think that I think I'm too good to come over for spaghetti on a Thursday night.

I don't know. I know "Last Rung" is a terribly sad story about regret and should have/would have and I know I'm tired.

I want them to do well but there is nothing I can do to help them. They have chosen to live the lives they live. Abusive or drug-addicted men, no jobs, living the lives of substance abusers.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've partied with the best of them. I've smoked weed, done a lot of drinking and driving, commited crimes while under the influence. But I grew up. I like living a settled life, or rather, having the ability to lead a settled life. They live an almost subsistence life, waiting on the utility companies to shut of lights, gas, water, phones...and I have nothing against government aid but how hard can it be to afford your electricity if the state pays your rent and buys your food?

I just don't understand it. And so you trade a man who works hard to provide for your kids to one who takes from your kids to support his own alcoholism and drug use? I just don't understand it.

The hardest part is knowing that if I loan my oldest sister money, whether it's $50 or $100 or even $25, that I'm throwing that money in the toilet and flushing it. Until she makes the decision to improve her life, all the money I can loan her, and all the government can give her, will not change her life. The worst part is, I hate giving money to her knowing it will be used to support the drugs and alcohol of the useless motherfucker she's living with.

Fuck.

Jb

Novel Recommendation!!!

Ok, I've been burned lately on novels. I'll admit it and that's probably one reason I'm so picky with novels, because if I invest a lot of time, I want it to be good. Well, last night at work, I started a novel that's been sitting in my backpack forever. (See a backpack entry later in the blog)

It's called Through Violet Eyes, by Stephen Woodworth. Apparently he won the Writer's of the Future Contest--first place, I believe, (I was a non-winning quarter finalist once, Yay!) and also is a graduate of the Clarion West Writer's Workshop. I've never heard of him except for his two "violet" books and I've never read one. Until last night.

Man, what a ride. Part supernatural thriller and part police who-done-it and although I had inklings about the end, I didn't see it coming for a while and I would have to reread parts of the book to see if what I thought was going on was really going on. I started the book about one am I think--at work, where I had distractions and a job to do--and finshed the last 30 pages when I got home this morning. At eight am.

It's a hell of a book and it's what Doug Clegg's Afterlife should have been. Afterlife had the best start but the ending let me down. Through Violet Eyes did not let me down. I'm going to stop at Wal-Mart on my way to work and see if I can pick up the second one in the series With Red Hands.

We don't have a good bookstore in the town where I work, just some crappo books-videos-music store that sucks ass and has outrageous prices so the best I can hope for is that WallyWorld carries the book still although it came out in December of '04.

Anyway, without giving away any spoilers, the book was a quick read with only subtle emotional manipulation. For the most part, the author earned the emotions he earnestly elicited...say that three times real fast.

Just thought I would throw the recommendation out there. I was thinking a few days back and you know, I haven't found a counter on my blog yet and so really, I have no idea if anyone sees this. I sure haven't told anyone about it.

By reading Through Violet Eyes last night, I didn't get any writing done. It doesn't matter. Reading that book to completion made me a stronger writer and that's enough for me for last night. Tonight, maybe something different. Assuming I don't find the sequel...

Wagons HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Jb

Exclusive submissions.

Don't you just fucking HATE exclusive submissions? I do. The problem is, most of the places I want to submit require them. Why? Is their time so much more fucking important than mine?

Here's the problem. I write a story, edit it, then send it to a single market. Because I'm sending it to a very popular, professional market, the average turn around is two months minimum to six months maximum. While that story languishes, I could be submitting it elsewhere.

Paying markets have writers over a barrell and we all know it. But, and this is a big but, some folks are better at playing the game than others, some folks are busy networking, some folks just write a story faster than I do and send out to more markets. And they probably subscribe to HellNotes (I don't) and have more access to new or hidden markets.

What am I bitching about? I don't know really except I have four stories out to professional markets with another one getting ready to go. It's been two and a half months on those four that are out and I haven't heard a word. They are all exclusive.

When I reach a point in my career--and I will--that people are coming after me for stories, I would like to say that I'll never send a damned thing to exclusive markets. But I'd be lying because to reach that point, I'll have to sell to those markets. Like it or not, they make the rules and when they publish stories, they make the authors.

Next time, multiple submissions. Maybe.

Jb

Writing again.

I'm writing again and that's a wonderful thing but at the same time, I find myself doing the same old thing. Start a new story, get 1000 to 3000 words down, then stop. The story just sits around and never gets touched again. Except when I open the file every few months and toy with a paragraph or two. I have a story called Skin that's almost ten thousand words and hell, I've never even tried to rewrite it, about the most I've done is spellcheck it. It's a good story, too. I think so anyway. It's finished as far as content goes but not finished as far as rewriting and actually finishing a product to submit is my problem.

That's what separates me from published authors and what separates me from people more successful but less talented. I'm not that prolific. I want to be, and if starting a story made one prolific, I'd be prolific, but it doesn't and I'm not.

What I would like to do is finish some of what I've started writing and do more editing on stuff that I've finished but have abandoned. There's nothing quite as exciting as moving something from my generic "stories" folder to the "finished" folder. I've got several things I'm working on and just can't going on them. I want to, and with more time I could, but then I already work only three days a week and most of that time at work could be spend editing. I mean, I've probably spent a couple of hundred hours--yes, you read that correctly, a couple of hundred hours--online reading about guns and gun-related issues. While I think it's important to educate yourself, it has also been a great waste of time. I could have been writing. At work, if my bosses ever found out how much time I've spent online, I'd get fired. There have been days--none recently but back two years ago--when I would finish my work by 11pm and then sit online until 6am...that's seven hours, folks. That's a lot of time that I could have been writing or editing.

Granted, it's hard to originate text with people next to you, moving around and occassionally making mundane comments and it's even a lot harder when they are saying things you're interested in. But there were nights when I would put four to six thousand words in my journal and although a story would have been harder to write and only given me a third that much output, it would have been work. Instead, I have mindless journaling, a broad knowledge-base on all things related to concealed-carry and the Second Amendment.

In fact, if you look at this blog entry, you have to ask yourself what I'm saying here that I haven't said before, either in the blog or in my journal. Very little, except that I'm happy to be writing again and feel good about what I've written, especially this new story that's ready to go out. I have four out right now, making the rounds, and this will be #5. Now, I also have one that I don't know where to send it because it's erotic but not erotica and it's horror but not blood and guts or even psychological...it's about losing everything in your life because of addiction and that's horrible but it's also not enough horror to get it in any horror magazines. Oh, well, I guess I can always hope someone will eventually buy it.

Gotta go because I'm tired and have bills to pay.
Jb

Spillage Prequel, Rain, Links...

Last summer I sent a story to Darrell Schweitzer at Weird Tales and he responded that I had created a very original mythos and besides a few stylistic dislikes, he thought it was a good story with one small problem: I didn't do enough to explain what was going on, how my universe worked.

He said it was as if I'd written the first vampire story and no one knew what a vampire was. I just had my character acting like a vampire without explaining the hows and whys. So, I thought about this and about the story and planned a revision and then BAM! I was off writing for three months because of wrist surgery and now a year has passed and I'm just getting back to where I was then. Now, I have an idea. A Prequel. I came up with the ultimate backstory to explain the first story, perhaps a better story than the first one, too. So I'm going to work on that, maybe today or tonight and if I'm lucky, I will finish it soon. I've found that when I have an idea that's totally put together in my head, a plot and character that speak to me, I write faster and tend to finish stories in a single sitting. These complete stories also tend to have better cohesion than when I base something on vaguery. Sometimes I'll have a vague idea about something, just more a mental image, and sometimes it's harder to get that image to come alive. The image is powerful but without allowing access to my entire unconscious mind, it's hard to get that power to come out on the written page.

So last night, I dreamed that it rained--I mean it fucking poured gallons out of the sky--and because of the fact that there are 7000 wood ducks in Arkansas and only 3000 ponds, you will have a bunch of wood ducks in your pond after such a monsoon. And what do wood ducks do? In my dream, they eat wood.

It was freaky as fuck, especially when the big ass snake-looking, skeleton thing with a human skull as a head shot up out of my pond after me. I had a little Bersa .380 with me and in my dream, I had the deluxe 10 round magazine and after emptying the mag at this monstrosity, I began to club at the thing with the empty pistol. In my dream, I could still see the slide locked back. And as the skeleton snake descended on me, this black, blood stuff erupted from it's mouth coating me in slime...freaky shit. And my fuzzy house slippers were fucking SOAKED! For some reason, I'd worn them to the pond.

So, I've got a good plot hook for Gainer--a story about weight lifting--and a prequel to Spillage and of course, the rewrite for Spillage itself. If I can fix Cheaper By The Pound and get it out, I will be doing well. That's four good stories in addition to the new one, tentatively called Troll Bridge or Goat's Gruff. Can't decide yet.

So, that's pretty much it for my writing. If you get time, view some webpages.

http://www.mikeoliveri.com/

This guy is fucking funny as hell as well as being smart. He's also a writer. And has the coolest webpage name I've ever seen. The Malice Engine. How can you not like that?


http://hailsaten.blogspot.com/

Brian Keene's Blog. Enough said.

http://p082.ezboard.com/bshocklinesforum

Shocklines forum. If the link doesn't work, you'll have to go to ezboard and look it up in the search feature. Great place to hang out and read, very loose.

A lot of the time, I read on firearms related websites and post there as well. Packing.org and GlockTalk among others and the thing is, they believe in the Second Amendment very strongly but you can't use profanity or argue or anything like that, or go off topic, and I've always kind of thought that was not quite in line with the First Amendment but hey, it has taught me to type without using words like fuck.

Anyway, I'll leave you with these words of wisdom:

"Fuck the police. Fuck the police. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck the police."

Jb