Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 16

Coming Attractions--free! And It Doesn't Cost Anything, Either

 Who wants a free e-book for Christmas? That's right: You do!

And that's some good news this month, because starting December 15th and going on until January 1st (of what I'm sure will be as better year) you can get my novel Coming Attractions on e-book for free! Zero. Zilch. No cost. And that's a 99 percent price cut!
 
I think 99%. I became a writer because I hate math.
 
The catch: It's part of the Smashwords 2022 End of Year Sale, which means, let's face it, that you have to get it on Smashwords. That would follow, wouldn't it?
 
You can find the promo here: https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos starting, as mentioned, on December 15th. This is also a great chance to get the books of other authors, for free or at a promotional discount (after you get mine).

If you want to go directly to my account, it's at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi....
 
 You can get Coming Attractions (or the two anthologies I'm in) on epub, mobi, and pdf formats, or as an original document, so it should be readable to anyone with an e-reader, cell phone, or computer. The print version, sadly, is not part of the promotion.

This is indie author paradise, and indie authors could always use the help. So please, check it out and share the promo with your friends and family, and anyone looking for their next favorite book.
 
Happy reading! 


 
As usual, all our books can be found at:

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

For Christmas: All the Books In All the Genres

 Well, here I am, making my annual appeal for shoppers to buy our books for Christmas. Once a year isn't so bad, is it? I have yet to make a promotional post in honor of Arbor Day.

But wait--there's more!

That's something sellers have to say, I'm not sure why. Our books should speak for themselves, but they aren't available as audiobooks yet. I thought this year I'd let the books figuratively speak for themselves, so here's a brief description:

 Storm Chaser, The Notorious Ian Grant:

The second is the sequel to the first, and both follow the basic romantic comedy outline: One of the couple is a homebody who loves their little town; the other comes from the big outside world and proceeds to spread trouble. One is a cop, the other kinda/sorta works in the entertainment industry. In the first, a woman chases storms, in the second, her brother is the storm. The other thing they have in common: We're preparing to reissue them after getting the rights back from the publisher, so at the moment you'd have to contact us direct for a print copy.


 

Storm Squalls: 

Short stories set in that Storm Chaser universe, formerly known as Storm Chaser Shorts--but improved with more content and a better title. I haven't been talking about it much, pending the reissue of its parent novels, but it includes a new short story I'm particularly proud of.

Coming Attractions:

 Like the Storm Chaser books, this romantic comedy is set in northeast Indiana and also involves an outsider, this one trying to get the local drive-in theater shut down. Here's a secret cameo: One of the characters from Storm Chaser makes a very brief appearance, although he's never named. Well, I guess I gave away that he's a he.

The No-Campfire Girls:

Also related to Storm Chaser, but more of a spin-off. This YA adventure stars Beth Hamlin, the irrepressible teen from the other books, who plots to defeat a burn ban at her summer camp with the help of a Native America rain dance. It doesn't end well.


Radio Red:

The first romantic comedy I wrote, and it's a little heavier on both the humor and the sex (!) I mean, the publisher is Torrid Books, so what does that tell you? It's about an irreverent Michigan radio station owner who hires a down on her luck air personality just before someone starts sabotaging the station.

What's that, you say? You want some non-fiction? Maybe even some humor? Okay:

People should be full of good humor: Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All,

proves my co-author (and wife) Emily and I are full of it. We traveled all over the state I love to find out all sorts of cool details about it, and then ... made fun of them all. But it's good natured fun, so ... there.

Slightly Off the Mark and More Slightly Off the Mark

are collections of my newspaper columns: The first are columns that never published because the paper got bought out, and the second are edited, updated columns from around the early 90s. Interestingly, while the humor/history/trivia book Hoosier Hysterical has been my best seller this year, these two books have been my worst sellers. Guess I should have added more history and trivia.

Images of America: Albion and Noble County:

This one is part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of America book, photo-heavy volumes about local history. Despite being something you wouldn't expect anyone outside of Noble County to be interested in, it sold very well--which is good, because Emily and I worked hard to produce it. It's also the only one that made it onto the shelves of a Barnes and Noble (and a local CVS pharmacy!)

 

On an even narrower area of local history, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department

covers the first century of the fire department I served on for forty years. It's got a bit more humor, but of course it's still a local history book--and it took me 25 years to research and write! (I wasn't writing daily, of course.)


Wait, that's eleven. Am I missing one? No, I think that's it as far as what's published--more to come. There are also those anthologies I have humor pieces in: My Funny Valentine, Strange Portals, and The Very True Legends of Ol' Man Wickleberry (and his demise).

Where do you find all these, you ask? 

Thank you for asking, much appreciated. They can all be found on our website and on Amazon:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

And also on my daughter's website, White Birch Lane Boutique:

https://www.whitebirchlaneboutique.co...

 

Most, but not all, can be found at other places:


https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/&quo... R Hunter"

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

 https://books.apple.com/us/author/mar...
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/comi...

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/sho...

 

You can't get all the books at all those sites for various reasons, but all in all it ain't too shabby.

 
Remember, every time you gift a book, an angel gets his swim trunks. It gets warm up there.
 

Read a Scene From My New Novel In This Month's Newsletter

 This month's newsletter is out, and with it an excerpt from my newest NaNoWriMo novel, Christmas On Mist Creek! You can find it here:

 https://mailchi.mp/44770eabb377/a-fre...

(By the way, if you sign up for the newsletter your e-mail address will NOT be sold or given to anyone else.)

I've completed the rough draft, and also won NaNoWriMo by going past the 50,000 word goal and hitting 59,296 words. The novel itself is actually about 56,500 words: The extra is the word count from other writing I did during the month, including writing a blog and the newsletter itself.

How long it will take to edit and polish the work, I don't know. I already saw some spots in the scene I posted that I'd like to change, including an opening that's a bit too stereotypical romance novel. But hey--that's what editing is for.


Remember, every time you sign up for a newsletter, Benjamin Franklin's ghost gets another beer. Ben loved beer--that's why he hung around Sam Adams.


(Also, don't forget: Buy books for Christmas!)

 Find ours:

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

NaNoWriMo Winner!

 Yes, I've won National Novel Writing Month! 50,000 words of a novel over, in my case, 25 days.

What's my reward? Well, bragging rights. Also, I get a novel out of it, and that's no small thing. 99% of all people who attempt to write a novel agree it's horribly difficult to get it finished. The other 1% are friggin' freaks of nature.

This is the fourth time I finished a novel rough draft in thirty days or fewer, so by now I'm pretty sure I can do it. This one was different in couple of ways, though:

First, it's, it's a sequel to a novel that hasn't been published yet, Fire On Mist Creek. The original one, also a romantic comedy, remains in the hands of a very big publisher of romance novels. Unfortunately, after asking for the full manuscript, the editor has had it so long the odds of them buying it are vanishingly slim.

The other unusual thing is that this story is my first novel set during a holiday, specifically Christmas, which you probably figured from the title. Christmas novels are popular among romance readers; on the other hand, I assume their popularity is limited to a certain time of the year.

 I shot for a 60,000 word manuscript, but it looks like the story will end up at barely 55,000. That's okay for some romance publishers, but by most standards falls short for a novel. That's something I'll worry about later, when I have the whole thing finished.

So, how do I celebrate? By starting the editing process, of course. One mistake NaNoWriMo participants often make is to immediately start shipping their book around to agents and editors. Unless you're a savant, 50,000 words in 30 days leaves you with a rough draft ... very rough. Mine needs editing. I'll make four or five passes at least, before it's ready. That's the job.

I'll probably polish up the first scene and put it in the newsletter, so people will have an idea of what to expect. When will the whole thing come out? Well ... some Christmas yet to come. That, also, is the job.

 

(But don't forget our other books are available as gifts THIS Christmas!)

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

The Real First Thanksgiving, More Or Less

 Thanksgiving in America continues to be one of the most traditional holidays. It still features the original four hundred year old activities of overeating, football, and complaining about Black Friday.

In the Hunter household, as in all of Indiana and much of the world that’s not outside this country, we battle the overeating. How? By serving food that the rest of the year we hate. Stuffing stuff. Cranberry things. Pumpkin anything. It was good enough for the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians, who the Pilgrims politely invited to share a meal in the new home they’d just stolen from the Wampanoag. The Indians brought a housewarming gift of deer, mostly because they didn’t want to eat cranberries or pumpkin.

But what was actually served at that original celebration? And did they really all sit down at long tables outside, in New England, in November? That’s a recipe for a nice heaping helping of frostbite.

The first Thanksgiving was a three day event, leaving one day each for the meal, football, and shopping. The Pilgrims were naturally dismayed to discover no mall or Wal-Mart in sight. Rumor had it there was a Target down the road, but both the trip and the name were a bit more dangerous at the time. They compensated by throwing another feast that third day, during which they discussed the football.

Governor William Bradford sent four men on a fowling mission beforehand. We don’t know for sure what they brought back, but it might have been turkey. It also might have been ducks, geese, or swans, which explains the song they invented about the meal and the entertainment. If it hadn’t taken so much time to memorize it, the song would have been “The Twelve Days of Thanksgiving”. That would have turned our holiday world upside down.

Why are game birds called “fowl”? Because they had no refrigeration. It was a warning: “Eat it fast, before it’s fowl!”

On a related note, this has carried over into football, which during the first Thanksgiving was so primitive it was watched on a black and white TV, with no remote control, or blimp. Whenever a player gets caught doing something that stinks, it’s called a foul. The spelling was changed during the Great Depression, when a letter shortage caused double U’s to be singled.
           
There was indeed an abundance of cranberries at the First Thanksgiving, mostly because the Natives used them as dye. (Good dye, although it tended to run in the washing machine.) By then the Pilgrims had run out of sugar, so there was no cranberry sauce or relish or anything cranberry. That’s one of the things they were thankful for.

Potatoes were … absent. The Spanish had discovered them in South America, but they weren’t popular with the English yet. Instead they probably had seafood—lobster, clams, oysters, all that stuff you find on the Thanksgiving menu today. Actually, these days the closest we get to that is either oyster dressing, or “see? Food!”

Pumpkin? Absolutely: in their pie, their coffee, donuts, milkshakes … kidding—Starbucks didn’t deliver. They did have pumpkins, but no butter or flour for any kind of crust. They may have hollowed out the pumpkins, filled the shell with milk, honey, and spices, and roasted them in hot ashes.

I’m not making this up. I get paid to do this research.

I’m sure you’re all wondering what kind of beer they washed all this down with. I mean, Sam Adams, right? That’s the state beverage of Massachusetts. But no, it turns out they hadn’t had time to make beer, and didn’t yet have apples for cider, so they drank water. This helps explain all those Pilgrim paintings with dour expressions.

Add this to native foods like plums, grapes, leeks, and squash, and you get … *gasp* … a meal that’s good for you! It turns out health food nuts aren’t a new thing; it’s just that back then it was involuntary.

Interestingly, I found no reference from historical records about stuffing being served at the first Thanksgiving. I suspect the Pilgrims planned it, until the Wampanoag heard about the idea:

“So, once we get the birds ready, we’ll mix old bread crumbs and tasteless vegetables together, throw a bunch of spices on them, and stuff them up the fowl butt. Instant side dish!”

“Um … we’ll just take our smallpox blankets and go.”

Imagine how they reacted to fruitcake.
 
*****
I would be personally grateful if you made my black Friday green. Find our books at:

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

 

It Is the Veteran

Veteran's Day



"It is the
VETERAN,
not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is
the VETERAN,
not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote."

Even Losers Can Win With NaNoWriMo

You won't hear much from me in November, although my regular blogs will continue with stuff already written and saved. Why? I've decided to once again compete in National Novel Writing Month, with the intention of losing.

It's a throwback to my high school days in Physical Education class, something I excelled in losing ... in. I did become adept at finding hiding places around the gym. Under the bleachers was always popular with us nerd types.

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo to save typing fingers, has its own official website. My account is here: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/ma.... Guess I'd better update it. The idea is to write an entire novel--or at least, 50,000 words of it--in one short month, which happens to be November. Why November?

Why not?

It's not the best month, what with American holidays and all. I would have picked January. What else is there to do in January? Go outside? Ha.

A bigger question: Why do it at all?

Some writers start that Great American Novel, but never finish. Maybe they peter out because they don't manage their time well, or get sidetracked. Maybe they're the type who edit so obsessively they never finish that first chapter, page, or, in extreme cases, sentence. They go over it again and again, and in the end ... don't end.

But the first draft is allowed to suck. Nobody else has to see it, ever. NaNoWriMo is designed to be that butt kick that forces writers to forge through and finish their first draft. They don't have time to edit: To make fifty thousand words in thirty days they have to write almost 1,700 words a day! Go to it, get that first draft done, and edit later.

My own writing habit is to sit down and go over what I wrote last time, to get me back into the groove, and I do usually edit then. Just the same, I've won NaNoWriMo three times: With Summer Jobs Are Murder (formerly Red Is For Ick, and don't I regret that), Fire On Mist Creek, and The Source Emerald. Since then all three of those novels have been edited, polished, and are trapped in submission hell.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com...

(No, I don't think my NaNo projects are cursed.)

So, I'll stick to the habits that worked with me in the past. As a result, I'll consider myself lucky to get 40,000 words done, but I know from experience that once I get that far, I'll be able to power though and finish--maybe in January. And honestly, any writer who takes their shot, works hard, and emerges with something to show for it, wins NaNoWriMo no matter how many words they get in..

What's my new book about? It's a holiday-themed romantic comedy: Christmas on Mist Creek.

Yes, that's right: I'm writing a sequel to a book that hasn't even been published yet.


Find our books at:

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


https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ECwVrhY0oW... you have to write wherever you can.

Remember, every time you pass on a book, a typesetter loses his case. Don’t cause all-caps.

Hillary's Bra, and Other Halloween Scares

Halloween is the scary holiday, timed perfectly to arrive just before the two scariest spots on the calendar: winter, and elections.

It's hardly surprising, then, that one popular Halloween mask is that of the politician. One year I dressed up as Hillary Clinton, stopped all the other trick-or-treaters, and collected 28% of their candy. The bra was kind of binding, though. The problem is, half the people don't recognize political figures, and the other half get too scared.

My main criteria for choosing a Halloween costume was always warmth. In northern Indiana, it's not unheard of for Halloween decorations to be under a layer of snow by the end of October. Any Hoosier parent will tell you the main challenge in designing a costume is incorporating a winter coat and snow boots. Dressing as an astronaut is very popular.

As for me, I stopped going out on Halloween when I got old enough to buy candy at the store, turn off the porch light, and sack out on the couch in a diabetic coma. Preferably while watching a really awful Godzilla movie.

The last time I dressed up for the holiday Emily and I went to a Zombie Walk, costumed as ... well, you know. On a whim I walked into a grocery store and asked if they had any bran. The clerk said, "Last year you were way scarier as Dick Cheney".

We always tried to do costumes on the cheap because, well--I'm cheap. So we scrounged around the house, looking for something that could be worn over insulated long underwear. For instance, my adopted brother Martin once gave me a bag of hand-me-down clothes. We don't have the same fashion sense, what with me being a white small town boy and him a black guy from Fort Wayne, which is a big city by my standards.

Most of the clothes did class me up, a little. But I also found a uniquely loud puffy shirt, and a pair of oversized parachute pants that button all the way down the side. No, I never saw him wear them in public--I suspect he was messing with me.

That gave me two choices: Go to Halloween as a stereotypical 70s disco black guy, or a clown. I'll never be politically correct, but you can guess which one I did NOT go as.

Another choice was something my mother bought for me years ago, back when she (correctly) assumed I needed to get more fit. It's this silver foil costume designed to hold in body heat, like a personal portable sauna. I used it once on the treadmill and lost twelve pounds in thirty minutes. I could have gone as a zombie without needing makeup, if I could walk in a straight line, which I couldn't. Still, a little silver makeup, an aluminum foil hat, and: tah-dah! I'm a space alien.

If I ever trick-or-treat again I'll choose that outfit. Any candy I eat will sweat out of me by the time I make it home. Besides, I'm bound to stay warm no matter how cold it gets outside. Since my one and only goal from October through March is to stay warm, I could celebrate Halloween for months to come, even as political campaigning leaves me cold.

And if that doesn't work, I still have Hillary's bra.



Remember: When you don't read our books, the Wicked Witch melts. You don't want to clean that up.

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

My Fractured History Of Firefighting

As we close out the 100th anniversary of Nation Fire Prevention Week, I thought I’d take a quick look at the history of firefighting.

You might want to brace yourself, we’ll be moving fast.

Fire was discovered by Adam, who was kicked out of the Garden of Edan because of an apple—making it the first core-pral punishment. It gets darned cold in the real world, but Adam could only find one stick, so he made a fire by rubbing it against a Cain. This led to emotional problems with Cain later on; he tried to cope, but wasn’t Abel.

Ancient Egyptians experienced fire problems when a column of fire led the Jews out of bondage. The Jews were followed by the Pharaoh and his army, who were sore about being plagued. Pharaoh then took his army to the Red Sea, figuring it would water down the flame.

The soldiers drowned, much to the sorrow of their mummies. The Pharaoh himself was unusually tall, and waded back to shore: To this day, when someone measures the intensity of fire, they speak of degrees in Pharaoh Height.

The Roman Empire invented the first fire extinguisher, which looked like a big syringe. Their first firefighters were slaves, and when the syringe wasn’t effective they were just thrown on the flames until the fire was smothered. Everyone was satisfied with this arrangement. Except the slaves.

Benjamin Franklin helped found the earliest organized fire force in the New World. He also flew kites in thunderstorms, thumbed his nose at the most powerful empire in the world, and had indiscriminate sex with dozens of women. And so, to this day, firefighters are assumed to be crazy.

(It turns out Franklin was literally a founding father.)

Fast forward (a lot) to Albion in 1887, when a major fire burned down an entire block, townspeople were disturbed to learn they couldn’t find a decent cup of coffee: All the restaurants had cooked. After a week without java the townspeople voted to fund either a fire department, or a coffee house. If the vote had gone the other way, we’d be forming coffee cup brigades.

The Albion Fire Department consisted of a chief, an assistant chief, three foremen, a designated Coffee Rescue Team (they just couldn’t get over the infamous “Week Without a Cup”)—and the entire population. It took a dozen people to pump the water by hand, and another dozen to make the coffee. In an emergency the coffee would be pumped onto the fire, if they felt they had the grounds.

When volunteers ran (literally) to their first call they found they had no hose, which watered down their effectiveness. Luckily, it was only the courthouse burning, not the coffee house. Just the same, they added a hose cart to go with the pumper. Today’s fire trucks carry pumps and hose together, along with modern marvels such as instant coffee.

The third original AFD apparatus, a hook & ladder, carried hooks .., and ladders. The hooks could be used to pull down flaming roofs, walls, and Pharaohs. The ladders were used to rescue sacks of coffee. (No Pharaoh was harmed in the writing of this article.)

The AFD became motorized in 1929, and still owns that very first truck. We’re that cheap.

On spotting a fire citizens would say something descriptive, like “fire!” and, being firefighters, the firefighters faithfully fought the fire’s fury. Rural homes were on their own, being out of shouting range. But firefighters hate to see fire without putting water on it; families have been torn apart at cookouts, after someone starts the grill, and a firefighter relative throws all the beer on it. So the AFD bought a water tanker, so they could haul their own supply. Of water, not beer.

Other changes came quickly. With four wheel drive trucks, firefighters didn’t have to wait for a wildland fire to come to them, especially since it sometimes didn’t want to. Besides, while they were waiting some other moron with a match … ahem … another wildland fire might break out.

Air packs were developed so firefighters can go into toxic atmospheres and keep their lungs healthy, so they didn’t have to give up smoking.

And then: I was born.

This is not a date ordinarily observed at our firehouse. No, I don’t know why.

Back then we didn’t wear our protective clothing much. In fact, when I responded to my first house fire I’d been issued: boots. Just boots.

Well, I wore jeans and a t-shirt, let’s not get silly.

Today we’re covered head to toe in materials developed for really dangerous professions, like astronauts and talk show hosts. The air tanks are so light, we sometimes forget to take them off. Imagine the strange looks we get in the grocery store checkout lane.

Who knows what’s in store for the future? Maybe we’ll have cameras that can see through smoke, lightweight air tanks, computers, and portable radios we can just clip on our belts. Oh, wait … we have those.

But we’ll keep the old ’29 engine. Just in case.


Find our books at:

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

And check out the Albion Fire Department's history in Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department.

Escape Plans For Fire Prevention Week

Pretty much everyone who reads my blog or other social media realizes by now that I’m a humorist. Some of you might even think I’m funny. I poke fun at serious things all the time, and I even write humor pieces about deadly serious stuff, such as Fire Prevention Week.



But that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious subject.

This year the National Fire Protection Association picked: “Fire Won’t Wait. Plan Your Escape” as the theme for the week, which runs from October 9 to 15. In my experience, when a fire starts it doesn’t want to just be there, waiting for a food delivery or an Uber ride. It likes to spread—and it spreads fast.

Thanks to modern building materials, once a building catches fire the flames spread way more quickly than they once did, and the fires burn hotter. The third best way to combat that is to be in a building that has a fire sprinkler system, an idea that has no interest to politicians or the construction industry. The second best way is to have operating smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, along with a plan for what to do if a fire breaks out.

(The first way, of course, is to use caution and prevent a fire from breaking out in the first place.)


Feel safe in your home? 74% of all fire deaths in the United States happen in those homes. People are actually more likely to die in a home fire today than they were in 1980, the year I started in the fire service. So the message is simple: Be ready to get out. The NFPA has some tips on getting out alive:

Make sure your home escape plan meets the needs of all your family members, including those with sensory or physical disabilities.

Smoke alarms should be installed inside every sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area, and on every level of your home. Smoke alarms should be interconnected so when one sounds, they all sound.

Know at least two ways out of every room, if possible. Make sure all doors and windows open easily.

Have an outside meeting place a safe distance from your home where everyone should meet.

Practice your home fire drill at least twice a year with everyone in the household, including guests. Practice at least once during the day and at night.

Fire Prevention Week is the longest running public health observance, marking its hundredth anniversary this year. Everybody involved wishes it wasn’t necessary.



Find our books at:


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

And check out the Albion Fire Department's history in Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department.