Jack Pierce's Blog

#WritingTips – The Difference Between Inspiration & Plagiarism

Have you ever felt like you were ripping off another story? You are. Even if you don’t know you’re ripping something off you are still “ripping it off” but that’s okay. Everyone is ripping off everyone.

Mark Twain said it best…

We all are influenced by our favorite works. Whether it be in fiction, non-fiction, music, or elsewhere. You can break the mold–write your original story inspired by other books–and it still is yours.

My influences come from a lot of different places. I love video games, movies, books, and music. I play guitar and sometimes I have this phenomenon happen to me. I’ll have a guitar piece I think is 100% original inspired by God himself. Then I listen to some old track from an artist I like that I never heard before… and it sounds like it.

I had this phenomenon happen quite a few times with Black Sabbath, Stone Sour, and Michael Schenker Group. That’s fine because I love those bands and their influence rubbed off on me. It wasn’t ripping them off or plagiarizing them. It was the fact that subconsciously I came up with something similar to my influences.

When it comes to writing I draw a lot of inspiration from the music I’m listening to. I always have music playing in the background when I write. I don’t think any of my influences ever really came from books themselves. It was always from outside material. Video games, music, or movies I love.

Whenever I write something that sounds like something I know is already written I try to avoid it at all costs. Sometimes you can’t help but have bits and pieces similar to other fiction. For example in the video game thing. Hideo Kojima, the maker of Metal Gear Solid games, writes really complicated plots.

He based one of his main villains, Liquid Snake, on Alec Trevelyan from the James Bond movie Goldeneye. They are completely different characters, but Liquid is INSPIRED by a bond movie. Not a rip-off or plagiarism.

Liquid Snake is vastly different from Alec Trevelyan. Play the game and go watch Goldeneye. Unless you really nitpick you won’t see the similarities but they are very subtle. Most villains are alike.

There’s a difference between inspiration and plagiarism. Plagiarism is if I took one of my favorite books, Jurassic Park, copied the entire book, and added a few things to it. That’s theft, not inspiration.

Plagiarism is not to be confused with Fan Fiction. That is taking someone else’s work and making your own story based on that work. You can’t sell it, because of copyright issues, but it’s not plagiarism.

If plagiarism was “ripping off” anything that’s ever been written… then anything with a dragon in it is written by a dirty thief. Stories have common elements and plot structures along with a lot of books having archetypes with characters that are similar to each other.

Really think about anything in fantasy. There’s always the knight, the maiden in distress, his followers, and a big evil somewhere he has to go kill. That’s the formula for 99% of fantasy. It’s all inspired from other fantasy stories. That’s a genre, not plagiarism.

When you are writing Sci-Fi it’s not plagiarism to have space, aliens, laser guns, and all the other stuff that Star Wars has. As long as one of your character’s doesn’t say “Luke I am your father” and cuts his son’s hand off you should be fine. If that were the case then Star Wars was a rip off of Flash Gordon. Truth hurts wear a cup.

My overall point is to stop worrying about being a “rip off.” I try to be original as possible but I’m pretty sure there is a character out there named Rick Levin. There is probably even a dozen stories like The Decay, but I don’t know about them. How am I supposed to know when there are over a million books on Amazon alone.

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#WritersLife – Is KDP Select Worth It?

Is KDP Select worth it to authors?

I used KDP Select when I first released Second Sight: The Decay thinking that would help me grow my audience with all these neat things Amazon will give me to push it.

Will it push my book higher in the algorithm? Nope!

Will Kindle Unlimited help me get more readers? Nope!

Will being part of KDP Select help me get more reviews? Nope!

Will it help me do anything worthwhile? Maybe… nevermind. Nope!

Going wide is not difficult, it’s not scary, it’s literally 20 minutes of your time to be in front of every single e-book format. Why would you sign your book away for 90-days to maybe get a few pennies, if anything at all?

Kindle Unlimited works with this magical system that is a great allegory for socialism. They take the amount of money people throw at them every month to read “free” books and you get a cut of it. The cut is based on how many page turns you get. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Socialism and Kindle Unlimited sound great in theory. Everyone gets a slice of the big pie. Problem is… if you don’t have a big audience then your slice will be a single penny if that.

Kindle Unlimited is so saturated with people just like you who are scared to go wide that even if you did get a ton of page turns, you still would never make the money you would have on a sale.

From my research, if you took a 300-page book, had one person read it all with Kindle Unlimited, and you got paid. You’d maybe get $1. That’s right. One Dollar. Unless your book is already 0.99-1.99 right now (which it never should be unless you are doing a promotional blitz via bookbub or others) you won’t return on investment.

Let’s face facts. Free stuff sounds great. It is great. I love getting things for free but do you really appreciate those things you got for free? People will get 100s of free books at a time then read none of them. The same thing goes for 99c or lower price points. You will get volume but very little otherwise. Free and 99c are only good for one thing. Promotional runs with bookbub, freebooksy, or ENT. Your book should never be free or 99c unless it’s something that warrants that. Like a 50 page short story. Then it makes sense.

As they say “you get what you pay for” and if a book is free people aren’t expecting much and probably aren’t going to read it anyway.

We like to hoard free stuff. If you go somewhere that has for example free DVD’s you would take a bunch of them. Why? BECAUSE IT’S FREE! Then you put those DVD’s in a box and take them home maybe watch one or two of them and forget they are there.

So in summary Kindle Unlimited is pointless, because if you already have a big audience why aren’t you selling the book instead of giving it away for literally nothing. You could make the book 100% free if you wanted after you went wide and price matched it to another retailer. There is no reason to buy into the Kindle Unlimited hype.

Now, what else do you get? Countdown deals. It means you can run promotions that take your book from 99c to full price over the matter of days offering an incentive for people to buy it while it’s “on sale.”

What’s stopping you from dropping it to 99c, sharing it on social media–which you would have to do anyway as Amazon isn’t going to push your countdown deal–and letting it go 99c for a week, then the next week push it up yourself. You could still reap rewards from it being full price everywhere else but it’ll be an Amazon exclusive sale. You don’t need KDP select to run discount periods. So that’s useless.

The last thing they give you is “Free days.” That means you can run a promo of the book for 100% free for 5 days out of the 90 you are under contract with them in the hopes someone will get it. Look… I already told you why FREE is a bad idea. If you are dead set on making it free do a price match you can leave it up there for free as long as you want.

What should you be doing then? That’s up to you but here’s what I think would be a lot more beneficial. Instead of working on making that book popular and worrying about all that nonsense on trying to get 1 sale, write your next book. Keep writing you will have more books out there then one day save up some money and run some book promotions with bookbub, bargain booksy, and all the others. That way you can build a fanbase and see real returns on investment instead of toiling away with “strategies” that don’t work.

I know it’s harsh. I love Amazon. I use it to buy so much stuff, including books and I am happy to give them the $119 a year for Prime. I really hate to shit on them for anything but KDP Select is just one of those things I find completely useless.

Then why does it exist? Because it gives some people who are scared of going wide an extra reason to not go wide with their book.

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#WritersLife – Failure Is Not An Option

Failure is not an option, because in writing failure doesn’t exist.

After writing 3 novels, published one last year and two coming out this year.

If you think you have a novel in you, then start writing it. If you want to write short stories and build up to that point, that’s fine too. The point is to have fun while doing it. If you are here for the money, you’re going to get burned. I know I have on all the promotion costs and other costs. We will probably never see a profit unless I sold a million copies. I’m not holding my breath and neither should you.

Some people say you should start off writing short stories or flash fiction. It’s fine if you want to do that, I remember when I was in middle school writing a lot of stories by hand with a BIC pen, and then passing it around to classmates. They always loved the stories, but I’ll be honest they were nothing more than fanfictions of horror movies I loved back then. What can I say? I was in 7th or 8th grade then.

You may be asking. “How did you have time to write so much during class?” Well, I was in detention a lot. I have to thank my middle school detention teacher for making me an author.

In there you only had two options. You had to look busy, or you grabbed a dictionary and started copying it verbatim. Either way, you had to stay busy, so I wrote my stories. I remember thinking 20 pages were a lot back then, and it is when you write it by hand.

I did write before that and was encouraged by an English teacher in 6th grade to write my short stories. They were usually just little horror/action things about me and my friend fighting monsters and what not. Once again, I was in 6th grade so what do you expect out of an 11-year-old?

The point of saying all that above is to tell you that there is no right way to write. See what I did there? There is no correct way to write something. There are rules in grammar, spelling, punctuation but not in writing “prose.” Your distinct voice is your prose. I tell stories like I would tell you them in person. I try to keep my language and prose the way I talk but I modify it enough to make sense in a novel format. Here I am more candid about it, not so worried about sounding perfect like I try to with commercial projects.

Now, something I will tell you up front is writing is all about learning. When you write that first novel it may be garbage. I wrote an entire novel last year called Black Sun which is still being worked on after Dreamer comes out, and it was “good.” Not great like I feel about The Decay and Dreamer, but it was just “good.” It had what it needed, but it just wasn’t up to my standards for a novel-length commercial project. It will come out one day, probably for 99 cents, but it was another learning experience.

I feel like I hit one out of the park with The Decay. It’s an amazing book that I think everyone should read, but part of being a writer is being honest with yourself. Really look at your work and if you think it’s utter crap then it probably is. That doesn’t mean toss out the entire attempt. For those, you can toss them out for free or use parts of it that were good and put them in your better works.

You will have books that are crap even if you wrote others that were masterpieces. You can’t win them all. Stop trying. Take the hit and learn from those mistakes. It costs you nothing but time to write the first draft, learn as you go along so you know what works and what doesn’t.

I’m sure if I released Black Sun right now people would love it or be meh about it. I doubt anyone would outright hate the book, but for me, after writing and learning so much from writing The Decay I feel like it would be a step back. I don’t want my next book to be a “step back” after the great reception The Decay received. It would make people think me and Lotus are a one-hit wonder and we really aren’t.

That’s part of the writing process. Admitting that you aren’t going to hit a home run every time. Sometimes you are going to strike out even if you wrote 70k words it can still be a complete miss. Trust me. I’ve read a lot of hot garbage people threw out there who probably applied the sunk cost fallacy and said: “screw it, someone might buy it.”

Don’t be that guy. If the work isn’t good enough right now, revise it, then release it when it is. You may think your book is a turd right now but a year from now you may come back and say “this wasn’t that bad I can fix it.” Writing a novel isn’t a race to the finish line, it’s a work of art you tailor until it’s finished.

Writing is not about success or fame or money. It is about learning, growing, and getting better. It is a thing that you can only get better at by doing it more. The more you write, the more you learn, the better you will become. In writing, failure is not an option, because it doesn’t exist. If you put words on paper, it is a success because you started it.

Your first success is completing that first sentence that didn’t exist before. It isn’t a failure until you throw it away. That single sentence, paragraph, page, or full novel can be revised, rewritten, and redone entirely. Without the original script coming those revised words would not exist. Failure in writing does not exist. It is all in your mind. Stop putting yourself down. You can’t edit a blank page, and the only failure in writing is failing to write anything.

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#WritingTips – Failure Is Not An Option

Failure is not an option, because in writing failure doesn’t exist.

After writing 3 novels, published one last year and two coming out this year, I think I can offer some advice to new writers. Some people say you should start off writing short stories or flash fiction. It’s fine if you want to do that, I remember when I was in middle school writing a lot of stories by hand with a BIC pen, and then passing it around to classmates. They always loved the stories, but I’ll be honest they were nothing more than fanfictions of horror movies I loved back then. What can I say? I was in 7th or 8th grade then.

You may be asking. “How did you have time to write so much during class?” Well, I was in detention a lot. In there you only had two options. You had to look busy, or you grabbed a dictionary and started copying it verbatim. Either way, you had to stay busy, so I wrote my stories. I remember thinking 20 pages were a lot back then, and it is when you write it by hand.

I have to thank my middle school detention teacher for making me a writer. I did write before that and was encouraged by an English teacher in 6th grade to write my short stories. They were usually just little horror/action things about me and my friend fighting monsters and what not. Once again, I was in 6th grade so what do you expect out of an 11-year-old?

The point of saying all that above is to tell you that there is no right way to write. See what I did there? There is no correct way to write something. There are rules in grammar, spelling, punctuation but not in writing “prose.” Your distinct voice is your prose. I tell stories like I would tell you them in person. I try to keep my language and prose the way I talk but I modify it enough to make sense in a novel format. Here I am more candid about it, not so worried about sounding perfect like I try to with commercial projects.

If you think you have a novel in you, then start writing it. If you want to write short stories and build up to that point, that’s fine too. The point is to have fun while doing it. If you are here for the money, you’re going to get burned. I know I have on all the promotion costs and other costs. We will probably never see a profit unless I sold a million copies. I’m not holding my breath and neither should you.

Now, something I will tell you up front is writing is all about learning. When you write that first novel it may be garbage. I wrote an entire novel last year called Black Sun which is still being worked on after Dreamer comes out, and it was “good.” Not great like I feel about The Decay and Dreamer, but it was just “good.” It had what it needed, but it just wasn’t up to my standards for a novel-length commercial project. It will come out one day, probably for 99 cents, but it was another learning experience.

I feel like I hit one out of the park with The Decay. It’s an amazing book that I think everyone should read, but part of being a writer is being honest with yourself. Really look at your work and if you think it’s utter crap then it probably is. That doesn’t mean toss out the entire attempt. For those, you can toss them out for free or use parts of it that were good and put them in your better works.

You will have books that are crap even if you wrote others that were masterpieces. You can’t win them all. Stop trying. Take the hit and learn from those mistakes. It costs you nothing but time to write the first draft, learn as you go along so you know what works and what doesn’t.

I’m sure if I released Black Sun right now people would love it or be meh about it. I doubt anyone would outright hate the book, but for me, after writing and learning so much from writing The Decay I feel like it would be a step back. I don’t want my next book to be a “step back” after the great reception The Decay received. It would make people think me and Lotus are a one-hit wonder and we really aren’t.

That’s part of the writing process. Admitting that you aren’t going to hit a home run every time. Sometimes you are going to strike out even if you wrote 70k words it can still be a complete miss. Trust me. I’ve read a lot of hot garbage people threw out there who probably applied the sunk cost fallacy and said: “screw it, someone might buy it.”

Don’t be that guy. If the work isn’t good enough right now, revise it, then release it when it is. You may think your book is a turd right now but a year from now you may come back and say “this wasn’t that bad I can fix it.” Writing a novel isn’t a race to the finish line, it’s a work of art you tailor until it’s finished.

Writing is not about success or fame or money. It is about learning, growing, and getting better. It is a thing that you can only get better at by doing it more. The more you write, the more you learn, the better you will become. In writing, failure is not an option, because it doesn’t exist. If you put words on paper, it is a success because you started it.

Your first success is completing that first sentence that didn’t exist before. It isn’t a failure until you throw it away. That single sentence, paragraph, page, or full novel can be revised, rewritten, and redone entirely. Without the original script coming those revised words would not exist. Failure in writing does not exist. It is all in your mind. Stop putting yourself down. You can’t edit a blank page, and the only failure in writing is failing to write anything.

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#WritingTips: Is it better to be a pantser or plotter?

When you are writing a novel you are one of two types of writers. A pantser or a plotter. If you don’t know the difference it’s very simple.

A pantser is an improviser. They play the song by ear. They just roll with it and whatever comes out is what comes out. If it sounds good it’s good.

A plotter is someone who makes an outline of the story at the beginning. They have it all lined up then they fill in the spaces.

The key thing to take away from this is both are improvisers. They both improvise the book, story, song during creation but it’s a different approach.

Lotus and I are a mixture of the two. Sometimes we will discuss future plot points in the book or bounce ideas off each other. There is no outline or any real plan for the entire book but we work together to make the story happen. I’ll be writing a chapter and get writer’s block then he will take over and write something to pull me out. If we both get stuck then we will go to discord and discuss what happens next. Sometimes you just can’t pants a novel 100% of the time. That’s okay. 

So we will generally come together and debate what happens next. A lot of times we see eye to eye on what should happen next, other times we don’t. We had a lot more debates happening when we wrote The Decay because honestly… neither of us ever wrote a novel before that. We wrote short stories, and creepypasta but never a full 300+ page novel. 

That was the beauty of writing The Decay though. I did more research during the writing of that book and after than I ever did back in college. I read every article, blog post, read other books, went to thrift stores to get a ton of novels in my genre, and I learned A LOT.

The entire book was improvised though, 100% done as a pantser. Some people can do that for every book but when our work-in-progress “Dreamer” came along… that’s when we had to do both. Dreamer is a prequel to Second Sight: The Decay. It was thought of like a spin-off or companion piece to explore the world of The Decay more… but it became its own book entirely. It’s still a 100% prequel but we have to plan more this time so it fits with the original book.

We also have to make sure it’s a standalone novel. That’s an entirely new undertaking because I am a pragmatist. I know that not every book store, thrift store, or library is going to get the entire series as a whole. You may walk into a bookstore and see one of our books and think… I love the concept but I don’t have book 1 so I can’t read this.

So we made them standalones that are all connected directly, but not so much that you’d have to start at the very beginning to understand the story. We do it via callbacks, small little winks, and nods, and locations visited in previous novels. It’s not required reading, but if you read them all in order it helps open up a whole new level to each book.

You can read The Decay before Dreamer. Or skip Dreamer entirely if the concept bores you. You can read Black Sun (a spin-off novel of The Decay) without reading all the others. It helps a lot to read them but there is no hard line of “I have to read Dreamer to understand The Decay“. We made sure that wasn’t the case from the very beginning. 

I am a pantser…. but I’m also a plotter. It’s okay to be both as long as the story you put out makes you happy.

Click here to buy Second Sight: The Decay

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Sponsored Scams – BetterHelp

BetterHelp – The scam that scammed the people trying to scam you.

“Two-minute tangents about Virtual Shield? Step aside, kids. I’m going to make a big video series about mental health full of junk science and then recommend BetterHelp after I made my audience go nuts.” Philly D, 2018… not a direct quote. Please don’t sue me.

Thanks, BetterHelp! Now I can get counseling from a camgirl from a porn site!

First, we had Candid. An “Anonymous” “Free speech” app that was none of those things and that’s a drama I can’t itemize in one post.

Then you had Edusson. A scam that wrote your term paper for you and got you kicked out of college. No refunds!

Now we have BetterHelp. A site that gives you the drive-thru version of therapy. I have experimented with different sites that are free and useful in their own way but are not a replacement for therapy. I would laugh my ass off at this stupid concept if it wasn’t so sad and dangerous.  It’s the McDonald’s approach to psychology. You order, drive through, pay too much and get lousy food.

Some hospitals—for example, VCU in Virginia—have apps that let you talk to their REAL DOCTORS 24/7. Those doctors will tell you that you should follow up with your family doctor. A physical exam cannot be done over the phone/video call. They can give you a temporary remedy or an off-hand diagnosis to help you until you can see your real doctor. THAT’S IT! They are not a replacement.

Better Help is misdiagnosing people—en masse—with alphabet soup disorders then sending them up the river after they get the cash. The biggest issue in counseling is “self-diagnosis.” In the simplest terms, it means looking up stuff on WebMD and diagnosing yourself to save money.

MY HEAD HURTS MUST BE BRAIN CANCER!

Even if BetterHelp were legit, which they are not, the biggest issue is their advertising. I’d like to point you back to my previous blog about VirtualShield. The “sponsors” go out of their way to endorse a product to such a ridiculous degree that even HSN should be jealous.

Do the legwork. Don’t buy products from Youtube Personalities until you do research. They push a lot of scams. It’s not about “The company I trust” it’s canned, corporate nonsense. Also, most of them are breaking the law while doing it. Candid was a perfect example of that. Don’t take the bait.

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Sponsored Scams – Virtual Shield

Virtual Shield. The biggest lie ever told by the Youtube shills.

This blog is not about Alex Jones. Even though he is a prime example of what I’m talking about. There is a certain pocket of youtube who that love to push products–Virtual Shield, BetterHelp, Candid, Trade Genius Academy–more than content. They are salesmen masquerading as “culture warriors” or people who are “standing up to the SJWs.”

Have you ever been sitting there, watching youtube, and out of nowhere you hear this?

“But first let me tell you about your online privacy and security.”

Then it goes into a two minute tangent about how “you are unsafe without Virtual Shield, and how elite super hackers are coming for you. But you can save yourself for a dollar a week.”

Let me tell you—as someone who has worked in tech for over 10 years—this is a lie. This is the biggest lie you will ever hear.

The idea that out of six billion people the “elite hackers” would come for your PC is laughable. Whenever you hear about hacking or anything of that sort it’s always big companies. Never a single user. The only time things like this happen is when you click on one of those popups that say “Your PC is infected call this #.” A VPN won’t help you there.

In those type of scams, they get access to your PC to “fix the problem.” Which generally boils down to getting rid of the software they put on your PC. Then charging you $40 and more likely than not running off with your bank account. That’s not a hacker, that’s a scam artist.

Another common scam is you’ll get a call from “the IRS” and they will say “this is the IRS please give us 10 thousand dollars or the cops will arrest you.” This is also the biggest scam, and I think we have all gotten that call. Once again, don’t take the bait.

If the IRS wants you then they will send a letter. They never call, they always send a letter. If you don’t reply they will send another letter. Then another. Then another. Then they’ll put a lean on your property, which means pay us or you lose it. That’s how the IRS works. If you still don’t comply or don’t have enough assets then the police may get involved but it’s rare.

You also have the scam portals that will steal your credit card. You’ll accidentally type in a URL wrong. Then the scammer has a website that looks like what you typed in that you sign into and put your credit card # into. Then they steal the credit card # and drain your account. That’s another tactic they use to steal your info.

Another I’ve seen that is more deceptive than illegal is “FREE TRIAL” products. You will get this bottle of magical pills—like Garcinia Cambogia—and you’ll get a free month supply if you give us your credit card. You get the pills, then every month they send you more pills with no return address or info on who sent them.

Meanwhile, they are draining $80 a month from your account without your knowledge. You have no recourse except to dispute the charges and hope the bank/credit card company forgives the debt.

I could go on and on with a list of different scams, but I don’t have time to itemize every method scammers use. Do you see the common denominator? None of the scams can be stopped by using a VPN. They all require your input to willingly fall for their ruse.

So, will a VPN protect your online privacy? Yes and no. The internet was not created with the possibility of being fully anonymous. It was created by the military to transmit information between different locations. It was never intended to be used anonymously and it never will be.

Even sites like 4chan and 8chan are not safe. Those sites log your IP address and maybe even sell it to advertisers. I can’t confirm this but that’s how most “Free” sites make money. If the FBI were to ever raid “anonymous forums” then they’d get all the logs and see what you posted. Don’t believe me? Go open a board on 8ch.net and as the board owner, you’ll see the IP Addresses of those who post. Unless they changed it in the last 4 years.

The internet has become so advanced that places like Google have algorithms that can detect who you are by your typing patterns alone. A VPN won’t stop that. Not to mention for those who say using TOR is foolproof. Which it isn’t. That has been cracked by the FBI years ago.

The main way people get your information is through malware. Keyloggers, spyware, and other malicious software that spies on what you do. VPN’s don’t stop those.

But Jack… you said it could protect my privacy. What gives? It might protect you from the low-level script kiddies who just want to mess with you. If someone has enough time, resources, and money to find you they will. You can use TOR, multiple VPNs, Firewalls, Tails OS on a USB stick, etc it won’t matter. If someone wants to find you bad enough they will.

Will a VPN save you from your credit card info being stolen? No.

Will it save you from database leaks (ex. Yahoo hack, Ashley Madison hack, PSN hack)? No.

Will it block malware? No.

Will it protect me from being arrested for torrenting or using ThePirateBay? No.

A VPN will help you do the following things, however.

Unblock content that is blocked in your country

That’s it… that’s all it really does. It hides your IP Address from low level “hackers” and unblocks content that’s blocked in your country. If you live in the USA a VPN can be useful, but not required. It’s not a life saver. It’s not something that will protect you from everything. VPN’s are not a scam in and of themselves. The scam is when the people who are sponsored by them claim they do things that they flat out don’t do.

Back to the whole “If you don’t use this VPN you are ruined.” It’s a complete scam in and of itself to frame it that way. If someone is telling you that “Product X will stop Consequence Y” then they are a snake oil salesman.

Here’s a great video for reference…

The reason being is if the FBI, NSA, CIA, whoever alphabet soup government organization wants to find you they can just raid the VPN provider with ease. Those VPN services (like virtual shield) are required to follow federal laws in the USA. That means it’s completely useless to you.

Also the whole “It’ll block your webcam access so no one will be able to hack it. There are two options that are foolproof for that. Electrical tape, or unplugging it. But that won’t get you far.

Here’s a thing to consider. Everything you own has a microphone on it at this point. Your Amazon echo, cell phone, TV remotes, webcam, radios, anything with a mic has what’s called a “hot mic.” It can be listened to by the government or “hackers”. Your TV remote can’t use a VPN. Just saying.

In summation. Don’t believe the scare tactics from people trying to make a buck off of you. Especially not with Virtual Shield who is a domestic VPN with a shady history. If you MUST use a VPN then use something foreign. I won’t name any but do the legwork. Find someone that is not based in your home country.

Buy My Novel Today on Amazon, it really helps me a lot…

The post Sponsored Scams – Virtual Shield appeared first on Jack Pierce.

#WritersLife – Why Do People Write At Starbucks?

Starbucks is a pretentious, leftist, cesspool.

I am an author. I write novels and stories that I know people will enjoy. That doesn’t mean I’m a pretentious Starbucks swilling prick. On the whole, I prefer monster coffee or regular black coffee if I’m not in a rush. I’ve never walked into a Starbucks, and the only cafe I have ever visited was to watch my friend’s band once.

I don’t understand the appeal of cafes. So many people go there to write on their laptops. Why would you do that? That’s strike one for me.

I write my books in a recliner—in my own house with coffee I brewed that didn’t cost me 6 dollars a can, and I use a 50-inch Smart TV as a monitor. Why would I purposely get a $1200 MacBook, and take it to Starbucks to write? Is it to show people how hip and cool you are? Is it so you can fish for questions from strangers hoping they’ll ask “are you a writer?”

If you are a writer and want to reach out to readers why not visit a library? Or a bookstore? Or buy Amazon ads for less than a cup of Starbucks “Cappuccino Mocha Latte with lots of sperm foam”?!

I know this may sound like a rant because it is! I am not saying writers who happen to stop in Starbucks for a cup of coffee and write a page or two are bad. I’m talking about the campers who go in to buy $6 coffee and type all day. Why would you do that?

You are supposed to be focused when you write. At least I try to stay focused. Just explore this concept with me. You—not you, but the Starbucks writers— wake up. Get your overpriced laptop bag with your $1200 laptop. Put on some decent clothes. Drive across the city in traffic to go to an overpriced coffee shop full of noise, people screaming out names, and people talking. WHY?!

I can come to my studio and write anytime I want. I can sit in my $800 recliner—that only I sit in—and write in my boxers with my fancy Starbucks coffee I made in my brewer. That is if I drank the crap. It’s not terrible coffee. I drank it like a desert dweller would drink a gallon of water when I was working at Microsoft.

Why? Because it was FREE and UNLIMITED. Not for the soy, mocha latte, spermatized foam kind. For regular COFFEE FLAVORED COFFEE! I could get it anytime I wanted and it was cheaper than the $1 coke from the vending machines. I’ve had my fair share of Starbucks made from those fancy $5000 machines the “baristas” make it in. It’s not that good! It’s just coffee!

It seems like more complication than utility. It seems like people do that to get noticed. If you want to go somewhere to write, why not a library? They are full of books, very quiet, you can get any book you want to improve your prose!

You can even check out the books for free, or use their Wi-Fi if you have no internet at home. Guess what else? Library WiFi will be much faster than Starbucks! Why? Because there aren’t 20 other hipster leftists all hogging it to read Buzzfeed lists ripped off from another site! There’s no logical reason to go to Starbucks to write! Or any other cafe!

What is the point of a cafe anyway? It sells overpriced coffee and danishes. Things you can get for much less at any fast food place now. McDonald’s sells fancy coffee for half the price that Starbucks charges and is 100x less pretentious.

So, I ask you “Starbucks Writers” why do you write there? Why would you buy overpriced coffee from a leftist propaganda mill? Why would you patron a place that pays people minimum wage and gives them benefits to cut their dicks off?

Read that nonsense here.

The post #WritersLife – Why Do People Write At Starbucks? appeared first on Jack Pierce.

#WritingCommunity – Why Do People Write At Starbucks?

Starbucks is a pretentious, leftist, cesspool.

I am an author. I write novels and stories that I know people will enjoy. That doesn’t mean I’m a pretentious Starbucks swilling leftist. On the whole, I prefer monster coffee or regular black coffee if I’m not in a rush. I’ve never walked into a Starbucks, and the only cafe I have ever visited was to watch my friend’s band once.

I don’t understand the appeal of cafes. So many people go there to write on their laptops. Why would you do that? That’s strike one for me.

I write my books in a recliner—in my own house with coffee I brewed that didn’t cost me 6 dollars a can, and I use a 50-inch Smart TV as a monitor. Why would I purposely get a $1200 MacBook, and take it to Starbucks to write? Is it to show people how hip and cool you are? Is it so you can fish for questions from strangers hoping they’ll ask “are you a writer?”

If you are a writer and want to reach out to readers why not visit a library? Or a bookstore? Or buy Amazon ads for less than a cup of Starbucks “Cappuccino Mocha Latte with lots of sperm foam”?!

I know this may sound like a rant because it is! I am not saying writers who happen to stop in Starbucks for a cup of coffee and write a page or two are bad. I’m talking about the campers who go in to buy $6 coffee and type all day. Why would you do that?

You are supposed to be focused when you write. At least I try to stay focused. Just explore this concept with me. You—not you, but the Starbucks writers— wake up. Get your overpriced laptop bag with your $1200 laptop. Put on some decent clothes. Drive across the city in traffic to go to an overpriced coffee shop full of noise, people screaming out names, and people talking. WHY?!

I can come to my studio and write anytime I want. I can sit in my $800 recliner—that only I sit in—and write in my boxers with my fancy Starbucks coffee I made in my brewer. That is if I drank the crap. It’s not terrible coffee. I drank it like a desert dweller would drink a gallon of water when I was working at Microsoft.

Why? Because it was FREE and UNLIMITED. Not for the soy, mocha latte, spermatized foam kind. For regular COFFEE FLAVORED COFFEE! I could get it anytime I wanted and it was cheaper than the $1 coke from the vending machines. I’ve had my fair share of Starbucks made from those fancy $5000 machines the “baristas” make it in. It’s not that good! It’s just coffee!

It seems like more complication than utility. It seems like people do that to get noticed. If you want to go somewhere to write, why not a library? They are full of books, very quiet, you can get any book you want to improve your prose!

You can even check out the books for free, or use their Wi-Fi if you have no internet at home. Guess what else? Library WiFi will be much faster than Starbucks! Why? Because there aren’t 20 other hipster leftists all hogging it to read Buzzfeed lists ripped off from another site! There’s no logical reason to go to Starbucks to write! Or any other cafe!

What is the point of a cafe anyway? It sells overpriced coffee and danishes. Things you can get for much less at any fast food place now. McDonald’s sells fancy coffee for half the price that Starbucks charges and is 100x less pretentious.

So, I ask you “Starbucks Writers” why do you write there? Why would you buy overpriced coffee from a leftist propaganda mill? Why would you patron a place that pays people minimum wage and gives them benefits to cut their dicks off?

Read that nonsense here.

The post #WritingCommunity – Why Do People Write At Starbucks? appeared first on Jack Pierce.

Why Do People Write At Starbucks?

Starbucks is a pretentious, leftist, cesspool.

I am an author. I write novels and stories that I know people will enjoy. That doesn’t mean I’m a pretentious Starbucks swilling leftist. On the whole, I prefer monster coffee or regular black coffee if I’m not in a rush. I’ve never walked into a Starbucks, and the only cafe I have ever visited was to watch my friend’s band once.

I don’t understand the appeal of cafes. So many people go there to write on their laptops. Why would you do that? That’s strike one for me.

I write my books in a recliner—in my own house with coffee I brewed that didn’t cost me 6 dollars a can, and I use a 50-inch Smart TV as a monitor. Why would I purposely get a $1200 MacBook, and take it to Starbucks to write? Is it to show people how hip and cool you are? Is it so you can fish for questions from strangers hoping they’ll ask “are you a writer?”

If you are a writer and want to reach out to readers why not visit a library? Or a bookstore? Or buy Amazon ads for less than a cup of Starbucks “Cappuccino Mocha Latte with lots of sperm foam”?!

I know this may sound like a rant because it is! I am not saying writers who happen to stop in Starbucks for a cup of coffee and write a page or two are bad. I’m talking about the campers who go in to buy $6 coffee and type all day. Why would you do that?

You are supposed to be focused when you write. At least I try to stay focused. Just explore this concept with me. You—not you, but the Starbucks writers— wake up. Get your overpriced laptop bag with your $1200 laptop. Put on some decent clothes. Drive across the city in traffic to go to an overpriced coffee shop full of noise, people screaming out names, and people talking. WHY?!

I can come to my studio and write anytime I want. I can sit in my $800 recliner—that only I sit in—and write in my boxers with my fancy Starbucks coffee I made in my brewer. That is if I drank the crap. It’s not terrible coffee. I drank it like a desert dweller would drink a gallon of water when I was working at Microsoft.

Why? Because it was FREE and UNLIMITED. Not for the soy, mocha latte, spermatized foam kind. For regular COFFEE FLAVORED COFFEE! I could get it anytime I wanted and it was cheaper than the $1 coke from the vending machines. I’ve had my fair share of Starbucks made from those fancy $5000 machines the “baristas” make it in. It’s not that good! It’s just coffee!

It seems like more complication than utility. It seems like people do that to get noticed. If you want to go somewhere to write, why not a library? They are full of books, very quiet, you can get any book you want to improve your prose!

You can even check out the books for free, or use their Wi-Fi if you have no internet at home. Guess what else? Library WiFi will be much faster than Starbucks! Why? Because there aren’t 20 other hipster leftists all hogging it to read Buzzfeed lists ripped off from another site! There’s no logical reason to go to Starbucks to write! Or any other cafe!

What is the point of a cafe anyway? It sells overpriced coffee and danishes. Things you can get for much less at any fast food place now. McDonald’s sells fancy coffee for half the price that Starbucks charges and is 100x less pretentious.

So, I ask you “Starbucks Writers” why do you write there? Why would you buy overpriced coffee from a leftist propaganda mill? Why would you patron a place that pays people minimum wage and gives them benefits to cut their dicks off?

Read that nonsense here.

The post Why Do People Write At Starbucks? appeared first on Jack Pierce.