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Down a Rabbit Hole A few weeks ago, I came across a reference to The Father of Modern Conspiracy Theories (Milton William Cooper) and his book (Behold a Pale Horse). I had heard of neither one and found a free PDF version of the book and scanned through it for a while. It’s a peculiar mish-mash of various conspiracies in wildly different formats. The foreword and introduction invite the reader to read and decide for themselves. So I chose one and took a look. I picked a Chapter about the Secret Treaty of Verona, something I had never heard of, and dove down the rabbit hole. The Chapter has a copy of the treaty from something titled the American Diplomatic Code (which is just a book from 1834) and a section of Senator Robert Owen reading it into the congressional record in 1916. That is Cooper’s offer of proof of the treaty's veracity. When you read it, you can see the dangerous implications. The results are peculiar if you Google it. You will get lots of results that seem to point toward this document from 1822 as evidence supporting multiple New World Order conspiracies. You might think there is something sinister about this treaty. It has been bouncing around for nearly two hundred years as documentary evidence supporting these various conspiracies. If you look carefully, you will note that the results are not academic citations or historical societies. It took a while to find something that seemed to dispute the document. I did eventually find an academic database with a journal article that traces the treaty to originating in a London newspaper in 1823 under suspicious circumstances. It then made its way into other newspapers and books. A few questioned its authenticity and eventually, one of the diplomats who supposedly signed the document eventually wrote a letter to a paper in Paris saying he had never seen much less signed such a document. The Senator had political motivations for reading the document into the record. (See The Secret Treaty of Verona A Newspaper Forgery, T.R. Schellenberg, Journal of Modern History 1935) What is most fascinating from this experience is the continuing repeated citations to this forged document for nearly two hundred years as evidence by various conspiracy-minded individuals. It takes time to unwind a twisted tale. |
A Real S.O.B. (PG-13) Save, Organize, and Backup One thing a writer quickly learns, in the modern age of computers. A short story can be revised dozens and dozens of times. A novel, hundreds and hundreds . . and lots and lots of gigabytes on your harddrive. This also leads to many, many Saved versions; full and partial. If you don’t save them, you will regret it when you are looking for a piece that you cut at some point and you want to put it back in; or at least a piece of it. All of these versions require Organized structure, e.g. file naming, and folder structures. If you plan on finding something when you need it. Sometimes, after a complete draft, I create a whole new version with a different tone, pace, or length. Subfolders off of the base story help keep me organized, so I believe. Lastly, Backup. Probably should be daily, at least weekly, but I end up doing it about once a month on two external drives. I have been lucky so far. Knock on wood! Any comments or stories on this dull but important writing topic? |
| I have stories labelled A, B, C, etc. I have a story at the moment called (working title) "S Adelaide demon story". The files are called SAdelDemon.doc, SAdelDemonB.doc, SAdelDemonC.doc, SAdelDemonC2.doc, SAdelDemonD.doc, and my current SAdelDemonE.doc. Why the C2? Because I added a prologue to that story, and that was all... and then subsequently got rid of it. I back up once a month to an external hard drive and a USB stick. Yes, for writers backing up and file names are an often overlooked part of the process. |
| I don't write anything long enough to require off-PC backup. Google Docs autosaves constantly and lets you revisit previous versions. I have rarely needed this feature. If I ever decide to write something of substance, such as a book, I will definitely keep these ideas in mind. I am far too lazy to implement them, but I will keep them in mind so I can later castigate myself for ignoring good advice. |
A Tribute or Macabre I first noticed this several years ago, probably around 2015. I thought there was a Tom Clancy book I had never known about and Clancy had passed away in 2013. Tom Clancy on the book cover in big type then I noticed in smaller font by someone I never heard of. Then a few years after that, I read a book by an author I had heard of but never read. Vince Flynn. I started looking for his books and found a list and I came across the Vince Flynn in big letters by someone I never heard of in small front. I checked and realized Mr. Flynn had passed at a young age from cancer, the same year as Clancy it turns out. I recently came across books coming out this year still with Clancy and Flynn’s names. I’m guessing there are other authors like this as well. It seems a bit strange; I’m guessing their estates get the money and that is fine, but something feels a bit off about it. What do you think; a literary tribute or macabre money-grabbing? |
| Why not both? Robert Jordan died without finishing his fantasy series, and his estate chose Brandon Sanderson to write more of them. In that case, though, Sanderson was hardly an unknown. The meat of the matter, as far as I'm concerned, is that this makes it obvious that it's not good writing that sells books, but author name recognition. |
| Shades of Jason Bourne. Ludlum wrote only three Bourne novels - the other fourteen were written (badly) by a couple of nobodies. It's understandable that there should be reason to continue the series but it's the manner in which it was done that I find questionable. It should be made clear on the cover that these are not products of the original author but, all too often, this info is hidden in tiny print or within the covers. I am sure the originators of well loved books would rather the series die with them than be continued by hacks. |
| I’ve been unhappy for years about the ways in which authors’ ideas and characters are modified by money-hungry film studios and migrated from their original worlds into some apologetic retro-fitted social conscience that ruins the storyline and makes it all look darn silly to boot Once, I dreamed of writing a book that would gain me fabulous fame and an invite from Oprah for a free celebrity makeover, but now I realize that I would rather die unknown and my words remain my own than have someone attach my name to whatever silliness is popular in the future. Also, not wanting to be published makes me seem more successful in my life goals |
A Privileged Existence I grew up in middle-class, middle America. We weren’t poor but we sure as heck weren’t rich. We had suffered some hardship with the loss of a sibling at a young age, but in general, I knew it wasn’t a difficult life. I was on a business trip about ten years ago when I learned a lesson about my privileged existence. I was traveling with two colleagues and we were pretty close together in age. We were drinking beer in a restaurant in Seoul Korea. We had been working together for about five years by that time. They had both come from South Africa but one was born in the Czech Republic and the other in Yugoslavia. We were talking about childhood memories and my Czech colleague talked about his mother waking him up early one morning when he was about ten years old. She said they need to rush to the market which was a bit strange. He was surprised by how fast his mother was walking along the sidewalk. As they got to the main street, he saw tanks and other military vehicles in the roadway and he started to wave at the soldiers. His mother shouted at him not to wave; they were Russian invaders. More striking was my colleague's story of how he came to live in South Africa. In the early 1990s, he would have been about thirty at the time and was working as a mechanical engineer. His father called him one morning before work. He warned him that rogue Yugoslav soldiers (Bosnian Serbs) were looking for him, to enroll him into the army. In less than twenty-four hours, he scraped together whatever money he could get his hands on, told his long-time girlfriend of his plans, and they escaped in the back of a truck to Austria. In Austria, some ex-pats told him there were opportunities in South Africa. Weeks later, the two of them arrived at the airport in South Africa. They didn’t speak English and they didn’t know anyone. He went to the phone book and searched for a surname he recognized and found another Yugoslav migrant. A man and woman that took them in for a few months while they got on their feet. I felt differently that night about what it was like to grow up in middle-class middle America. Ever have an experience that transformed your personal world view? |
| I don’t believe my worldview has ever changed much and I don’t think much of my chances for changing the world. But, individually, we can change individual lives and affect the level of happiness of those around us (perhaps, even actually effecting happiness) in smaller and more personal ways, yet we often don’t even see those that need us or take the time to give what we can. When I was in my twenties, I worked in a nursing home. What I learned there I have carried through my life and I see it coming true in my own life. As children, we see the elderly as having been elderly always, we don’t think of them as ever having been anything else. But as we ourselves age, we know that this is not true. Care homes are full of young, strong workers and care-givers who don’t imagine themselves ever being old. But, the trick is to see the older residents as being young. “You are the child you were”. Nothing truer has ever been said. These people are the same people they’ve always been - they haven’t changed, just their bodies and circumstances changed. Talk to the young person inside the old body. One day that will be you and you will want to be known just as much as they do. I don’t put much faith in the people who want to save the world, they pat themselves on the back and crusade a lot but probably wouldn’t cross the street to keep you from getting hit by a bus. They love the world but hate people. Save each other and let the world take care of itself. |
You Made it to Number Two: Keep Trying I was doing some research for a story set in Victorian Wales and stumbled across several news stories from March 2024. Reports on a survey and research project from Sapien Labs and the Global Mind Project. According to the reports, the UK had the 70th worst rating for mental well-being of 71 surveyed countries. Just edging out Uzbekistan by one point to be at the top if you want to put a positive spin on it. I was quite surprised. Any thoughts from our WDC Brits? |
| I am not from neighboring UK, but from The Netherlands looking over the pond to the English people. I found this article. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-british-women-are-so-unhappy/. And ofcourse, in general, Brexit might have something to do with it. |
| We live in a world where the ill effects of greed are everywhere manifest. We pay more and more, and get less and less - services are cut, products are shrunk - yet cost the same. The 'news' seems to be always about another stabbing, another drug habit ridden criminal getting a tap on the wrist for their umteenth crime to fund their habit; our streets are filled with more homeless people than I can ever remember. Racial tensions and religious tensions are being stirred constantly. We have a change of government - but many can see that it will be more of the same. And there doesn't seem to be anything that anyone can do about it. Depressed? It's a wonder we care to get up in a morning. |
Good Stories and Poems Today and Ghost Hunting Next Week Caught s   on the radio today, several readings including a modern retelling of magical wishes by rubbing a lamp. Next week he'g going to be hunting for ghosts, or stories of them. Keep it up. |
Clean-up After You Clean-up I seem to always keep learning some of the same lessons, over and over. For example, believing I am done after making a small number of edits in a draft that is at the polishing stage. Quite sure that the story is ready for submission. A last quick check the next day before pulling the trigger . . . wait that’s not what I meant to do . . . or that. It’s amazing how my fingers, eyes, and mind can convince me that I did exactly what I intended when I did not! Not amazing in a good way. It’s never ready until doing at least one read without touching the text. I have to repeat that mantra over and over. I’ve even gone so far as to save the file in PDF and read it. So, I can’t touch it. Break away from the birthday celebration for a moment and let's talk about writing. Any similar experiences? |
| This is really common. Stephen King even mentioned it in On Writing - you have to stop at some point. For me, as soon as the story has been beta-read and those changes have been made, that's it. Stop fiddling with it, tweaking it, "just..."ing it. But there are some stories where I have overdone the extras. I submitted one a few years back and it was rejected; I gave it to a friend to read. But they'd read an older version already and told me the older version was better. I submitted that to a different market... and it sold. That taught me that learning to stop is vital. It's not anything "wrong" with a writer, it's just that there does come a point where we need to, you know, stop and go on to something else. |
| s - "One hallmark of a great artist is knowing when to stop trying to improve upon perfection." That's paraphrased from something I read long ago, I know not where. |
Birthday coming up in a few hours? Someone or something important?  How about next year, 25 right? That will be a big one. I guess they are all big. Quite an accomplishment by the creators of this cyber world. |
Jokes on Me I have chuckled sometimes when I have read some of my fellow writers talk about how their characters write the story for them. My words, not theirs. I have come a long way in how I treat characters in my writing. In the beginning, my characters were randomly named puppets who danced to my plot. I’ve posted about this before, so I won't repeat my development along these lines. I had an experience recently that was funny, in a laugh-at-myself kind of way. I was about three-quarters of the way or so through the first draft of a novel. Something was nagging at me. After a couple of days, I realized that the main character wasn’t who I thought it was when I plotted it out. It was another major character that had, well sort of taken over. Not really but it felt like that for a moment. I realized this character was more interesting, had a more developed character arc, and really was the hub ot story. I resequenced things a bit and added a bit toward the beginning involving the real main character. When the first draft was done, the story felt much better than where it was heading. Ever had the experience where the main character of your story wasn’t really who you thought it was when you started? |
buddhangela's brave & crazy  - No. The narrator tells the story, but Anthea is the one with the knowledge and ends up killing the big bad, so she is the hero. The narrator is the sidekick, telling her story from proximity. |
| buddhangela's brave & crazy - In the first draft, the narrator killed all the big bads. But it felt wrong, because Anthea kept telling me she knew what to do and what was going on, so the narrator stepped aside and let her take over. He's a nice guy that way. |
s - Excellent, thanks for explaining. That must be why I loved these two characters and the chemistry they develop in the story.  |
Point of View I have been binge-watching some TS series recently, mostly science fiction. For entertainment but also to focus on dialog and point of view. A while back I read through some of my first stories. It was not a very pleasant experience. In a lot of ways, but in particular my lack of awareness of point of view. I think one of the reasons for this may have been television. I think almost all movies and television series are from a third–person objective perspective. Observing the events from an outside perspective for a broader point of view. When I started writing, that is how I approached writing my stories. It still has an appeal to me. But the written word alone cannot accomplish what the visual arts can. One of the things I have found interesting in learning from other writers here on WDC is about POV. I was quite surprised, at first, to hear people say they didn’t want any information that the storyteller (POV) did not have. For shorter stories with a few characters a tight POV first-person or third-person limited works well. As the length of a story grows as well as the breadth of settings and characters, I tend more to third-person objective. I continue to work hard to improve POV. Any lessons you want to share on POV from your writing? |
| I've written two articles on POV "Just One Point of View"  "Really Just One Point of View" Not sure how helpful they might be. |
Damon Nomad v. Story Wars et. al. You might recall that I posted the idea for a competition based on the Voice Blind Auditions adapted for writers. As a reminder, the basic concept is that you read a story you have written and see if one of the judges selects you. Evidence of this brilliant idea can be found in "Note: The Voice Blind Auditions For Writers ..." Now I find out that some outfit is selling my idea. They call it Story Wars, it’s not exactly the same but close enough to reveal their thievery. My post is from July of this year and they claim they have been doing this for a year, but I’m skeptical. An acquaintance of mine, Cosmo Kramer, knows a great lawyer who I’m sure will take my case. He’s pretty famous, you might recognize him from the picture below. I’m sure Jackie Chiles will get me what I’m owed just like he did for Kramer. Here is a link to Story Wars website, let me know if you think I got a case. STORY WARS |
Vote for VIC If Mr. Miller gets his way, the next Mayor of Cheyenne Wyoming will be VIC (Virtual Integrated Citizen). Yes, AI for Mayor! According to an article on CNN, Mr. Miller said that AI helped him in his life, like helping him with his resume. He promised to facilitate using VIC to make all decisions as mayor and has a speaker hanging around his neck so it can talk to potential voters. A professor at George Washington University is quoted in the article saying that chatbots are not qualified to run government. Did they really need to quote that source? Are qualifications still a requirement for elected office? There's a nice picture of VIC, sort of, hanging around Mr. Miller's neck in the article. CNN LINK How might VIC do in the upcoming presidential race? |
Damon Nomad  - Yesssss ... make it sssshort... and spicy.  I do applaud him for bringing up the issue. If we are comfortable with self-driving cars perhaps we can let AI govern. Of course, I dissent. |
| Holy crap, I thought that was an Onion headline! But I guess I should no longer be surprised. Everything since 2016 seems to be an Onion headline lately. Can we have reality back please? Sure seems like lately the matrix is running on buggy code. Grin. |
A Surprising Success? I don’t think anyone, including Gene Roddenberry, would believe that new Star Trek spin-offs would still be on the air nearly sixty years after Captain Kirk and his crew first left space dock. I grew up in a family that pretty much hated science fiction, except for me. I was in elementary school when the original started and rarely got to see it, until reruns a few years later. As an adult, I was excited when Star Trek the Next Generation hit the air in 1987. According to some quick research, there have been 862 episodes, covering 43 seasons and 12 series that are part of the Star Trek Franchise. Tracing back to a show that Roddenberry pitched to TV executives as a sci-fi version of a western because he knew they would be sold on that idea. That’s not quite what they got. This longevity is an indication of something that resonates with enough of a fan base to keep it alive for so long. What has been the key? Characters, plots, acting, writers, luck? Some say it’s a certain ethos that underpins the shows since the beginning. A last frontier, where optimism, freedom, equality, and scientific curiosity are championed. It has to have entertainment value, but I tend to believe that longevity is due to this sort of worldview. I’m not a die-hard Trekkie, but I do still enjoy watching most of the new ones that have come along. Thoughts? |
Aiva Raine  - I acually wrote an essay as a college Freshman that Star Wars was just cowboys in Space. |
The Amazing Mouse In early 1980, an entrepreneur has a vision of the future but he desperately needs more money. His partner thinks they are already in way over their head and doesn't believe in his friend's grandiose vision. He isn’t about to bet the company’s future on a mouse. A different sort of story for me. I would be happy to hear any feedback if you would like to give it a read. WC 1960
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| Actually, Jobs did not invent the mouse. It was invented and demonstrated, together with the GUI, by Douglas Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute in the late 60s. Xerox developed it further during the 70s and that is where Jobs saw it and "borrowed" the idea. His genius was that he could see its importance to the computer in its struggle to be useful to ordinary people. Your story works well but I must admit I saw it coming from way out. It might be possible to delay realisation in the reader by calling it a rodent, rather than a mouse. |
Damon Nomad - Beholden  Mr. Walt Disney also bet his future on a mouse. (And if memory serves, he, too, snagged the idea from someone else.) That is the direction I anticipated. Interesting reads, you two historians! |
DO NOT BLOCK YOURSELF ON WDC OR SUFFER THIS NIGHTMARE Nearly two weeks ago there was a flurry on the newsfeed about blocking users; people were even doing experiments. There was something no one had tried, I resisted the urge for a few days. I had to see what would happen, so I blocked myself. The consequences of those few clicks will horrify you, or maybe not when you hear what I really discovered. Stay with me for this short tale. At first, it didn’t seem like anything had happened. I was on the newsfeed; it was still there with the same cast of characters. I typed up a post, something a little provocative, and hit enter. Seemed to work fine. I clicked on community feed, it wasn’t there, I clicked on personal feed it wasn’t there. I clicked on my portfolio: Portfolio unavailable. Then notebook unavailable . . .etc. etc. Since that day, I have been trying to be seen on WDC three or four times a day. But I can’t see any responses to anything. I can't even reach tech support. Or if I am reaching anyone, I can’t see their replies. After days of soul-searching, I started to question my sanity. Was I ever really on this website or was it just some elaborate delusion? I need to end the nightmare, and disengage. There might be one function that might work that I haven’t tried, gift points. If a group gets together and sends me ten or twenty million GPs, maybe they will make it to me. I might be able to battle through this. Like I say, don’t block yourself. This is my scam.  |
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-Jonathan Swift
One current version of this observation is: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." But I'd argue that with lightspeed communication, the lie's already circled the globe (or, for conspiracy "theorists," made its way all over the disk of the flat Earth) a million times before the truth even gets out of bed.