Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 83

Sleep Is For the Weak. I'm the Weak.

We’re putting in a stressful weekend, with Emily and I both working all the way through, and me putting in some overtime … there’s already sleep deprivation going on.

Maybe it’s best to keep busy, since book launching time is always stressful for me. I’m curious about how many people will take advantage of the pre-release sale on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites … it takes from my income, but at this point I’d still rather sell more books then make more money. (Although both would be nice.) I’m glad Emily noticed the price reduction; just wish I’d found out about it earlier.

I think Monday I’ll sleep for about 16 hours straight. Well, it’s a nice thought, but for now—back to caffeine.

Great pre-order deal on Images of America: Albion and Noble County

Images of America: Albion and Noble County is officially for sale—and on sale. The release date remains August 24th, but it can be ordered on your usual online suspects—and it appears those usual suspects are giving a pre-release price guarantee of close to 50%.

(I’d have announced this earlier, but I didn’t know!)

Here are ways you can order Albion and Noble County at a discount—if you act fast:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/albio...

http://www.amazon.com/Albion-Noble-Co...

I’ve ordered 50 copies from Arcadia Publishing (ahem—I get an author’s discount), which should arrive Monday … which happens to be the release date. (I also ordered 20 more copies of The No-Campfire Girls, so we should have enough of all our books on hand.)

Emily is setting up a special website for the book, where we’ll have extra photos and related historical information—more about that toward the end of the weekend. We’ll also be talking more about upcoming book signings soon … but meanwhile, take advantage of this deal!

So I Don't Forget My Own Books

I’m posting this mostly for my benefit, so you can ignore it or, preferably, embrace it and send it to your friends all over the world. I’ve had a few (rather surreal) moments this summer when I struggled to remember all the works I’ve had published. Not that there are that many, but I’m putting them up as a list here so I can refer to it in a hurry, and/or refer it to a potential reader. This has made me realize my next book after Images of America: Albion and Noble County will be the tenth publication my name has been on! That’s assuming you don’t include newspapers.





Storm Chaser (2011): A famous weather photographer runs afoul of an Indiana police officer, who suspects she may be manufacturing disasters to photograph.



My Funny Valentine (2011): I have a piece in this anthology about Valentine’s Day, and how very wrong it can go.



Storm Chaser Shorts (2012): A series of short stories featuring characters from Storm Chaser and The Notorious Ian Grant. (E-book only)



Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With The Albion Fire Department (2013): This illustrated history of my volunteer fire department was written for its 125th anniversary; proceeds go to the department.



The No-Campfire Girls (2014): When a group of teenage girls find out a drought will prevent campfires at their annual summer camp, they go to extreme lengths to bring on the rain. (Half the profits go to Girl Scout Camp Latonka in Missouri)



The Notorious Ian Grant (2014): A B-list Hollywood troublemaker tries to redeem himself by coming to Indiana to plan his sister’s wedding—whether she wants him to or not.



Strange Portals: Ink Slingers’ Fantasy/Horror Anthology (2014): Two of my characters from Storm Chaser and The Notorious Ian Grant have a Christmas encounter in this holiday themed fiction anthology.



Slightly off the Mark: The Unpublished Columns (2015): A collection of humor pieces published to “celebrate” being downsized from my weekly humor column job, and picked up again as a monthly.



Images of America: Albion and Noble County (2015): A photo-filled journey through local history, covering the settlement and early growth of this northeast Indiana county.

www.markrhunter.com

Just a Cog In the Blog

Joleene Naylor gave me this Blogger's Recognition Award, which is for recognition of bloggers, which I am one. This came as something of a surprise to me, as I never thought of myself as a blogger even though my blog is hosted by Blogger.


Joleene’s a great writer and a great person, even though there’s a spider on the front of her blog: https://ramblingsfromthedarkness.word...


As you all know unless you’ve blocked me for going on about it, I have a new book coming out this month, so I’m late getting this out. But when someone takes the time to think about you … well, you’ve got to respond. The idea is to give a brief story on how your own blog got started, along with advice for new bloggers, and to provide a link to the giver’s blog, which—see above. Also, the original post comes from here: http://eveofnight.blogspot.co.nz/2014...


My blog story is indeed a story, which started not with a blog but a column. “Column” is a newspaper term, describing what today we’d call a blog. I started out with a humor column that was carried in some local newspapers, but didn’t appear online. (Yeah, it was that long ago.) So, to get it online, I got a LiveJournal account, which I still have. (Yeah, it was that long ago.)


So the idea was to get my weekly column on the web, which I suppose is where Joleene’s spider came from. But at about the same time I started writing fanfiction, and that ended up there, too. (Look for me under the name Ozma914, although I haven’t had time to write fanfic lately.)


Later I figured out how to post photos. Before you knew it I had a blog, which still goes under the name of my humor column: “Slightly Off the Mark”.


And what advice do I have for bloggers? It’s so cute that someone might think I know what I’m doing.


One of the things I hear often is that you should have a narrow focus, so you can build an audience, or readership, or duchy, or whatever the term is. If you’re a writer writing to writers, do a writing blog. If you’re writing for readers, also do a writing blog, but showcase instead of talk about. Or talk only about Super Soldier Sailor Moon, or politics (yuck!), or the emerald ash borer.


Good advice. I don’t do this.


My advice is that whatever you’re really interested in, that’s what you write about. If you have eclectic interests, then write eclectically, and maybe message me to explain what “eclectic” means. Just as my books are of different genres, so is my blog: I write about writing, astronomy, politics (yuck!), humor, pets, family, firefighting, and whatever causes me pain, such as all that stuff.


If you don’t like blogging, people will know. So in the end, my only good advice is to have fun and, if you want to have a lot of followers, don’t be dull.


As for my nominees, usually in cases like this I simply open it to everyone; especially since in this case most of the bloggers I follow most regularly have already been nominated, and it’s important to be regular. (I’m looking at you, Roger and Donna! I mean about already being nominated, not about being regular.) So I’m only passing this on to a few, but it’s the chosen few:



Kelly Hashway: http://kellyhashway.blogspot.com/

Lena Winfrey Seder: http://pearldropsonthepage.blogspot.com/

Rosanne Dingli: http://rosannedingli.blogspot.com/

William Kendall: http://williamkendallbooks.blogspot.com/

Shelly Arkon: http://secondhandshoesnovel.blogspot....

I'll Alert the Media

I normally send out a press announcement ahead of each book release. This one might not show up in newspapers, because Arcadia Publishing has a publicist, and I haven’t heard back yet on whether it fits with what they’re doing.

(I know, right? We have a publicist!)



A husband and wife writing team have produced a book that will give Noble County area residents a photo-filled walk through local history.

Images of America: Albion and Noble County will be released on August 24th by Arcadia Publishing, a South Carolina based publishing house with a catalog of more than 9,000 local history titles. The books are heavily illustrated with historical photos, which challenged authors Mark R. Hunter and Emily Hunter.

The Hunters spent months gathering old photos from numerous sources, including historical organizations, collectors, and residents with scrapbooks or boxes of black and white pictures. But that was only the beginning of the job: They picked out and organized the photos to best represent various Noble County communities and the county seat, Albion; researched local history; then wrote chapter openings and captions for all the photos.

The result is well over 200 images of towns, locations, and people in Albion and Noble County, the latest in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America line. The book retails for $21.99, and is available for preorder on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. More information can be found on the publisher’s website at http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/9781..., or at the author’s website at www.markrhunter.com.

As part of the book launch, Mark and Emily will give a presentation at 6:30 p.m. September 9th at the Kendallville Public Library, and will also have a book signing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. September 12th at the Stone’s Trace Pioneer Festival, near Ligonier.

The Hunters previously collaborated on another history book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or so With the Albion Fire Department, along with a humor book, Slightly off the Mark, and a young adult novel, The No-Campfire Girls. Mark R. Hunter’s other books include the romantic comedies Storm Chaser and The Notorious Ian Grant, and the story collection Storm Chaser Shorts.

Mark and Emily live a few blocks from the historical Noble County Courthouse in Albion along with their loving but scary dog, Beowulf, and a cowardly ball python named Lucius.

Jumping In With Both 30.48 Centimeters

I originally wrote this in early June, long before Donald Trump raised his hair into the presidential fray, and then promptly forgot about it. If only I could forget about Trump’s hair.



You’d think America would support a Presidential candidate who chose to be honest and bold, as opposed to most candidates in living memory. Now the Democrats have a candidate who took a bold statement, who’s absolutely right about his bold statement, and who doesn’t stand a chance because of his bold statement.

Lincoln Chaffee—love that name—took aim at Hillary Clinton’s knees, which is about as high as he’s going to get to beating her. Maybe ankles. In his announcement he said America should become internationalist, which is another of those ideas that’s excellent in the perfect idealist world.

And as part of becoming internationalist, Chaffee thinks it’s high time America went metric.

He’s right, and I’m not just saying that because I’d vote for him over Clinton. I’d vote for almost anyone over Clinton.

As Chaffee pointed out, the United States is one of only three nations that don’t use the metric system. The other two are Myanmar and Liberia, and they’re not exactly movers and shakers, are they? There’s some question about whether Liberia’s even still there.

The metric system is simple and logical, easy to follow increments of tens and hundreds. They even stuck in the simplest possible way to measure temperature, with water freezing at zero and boiling at 100. Easy-peasy. Simple to use, better for business and science, and right in line with the rest of the world.

No wonder Americans hate it.

We’re a contrary people, and we don’t automatically go along, whether it makes sense or not. If the rest of the world jumped off the Empire State Building, we’d laugh and point. Also, in our divisive political system, it’s impossible for someone on one side to make a suggestion—no matter how reasonable—without the other side demonizing the idea. Here’s an example of what happens instead of a reasonable discussion:

“Maybe, since we’re at war with terrorist groups and being infiltrated by drug dealers, we should make more of an effort to secure our borders?”

“Racist!”

There’s also a not-unreasonable fear that some of the other ideas embraced by the rest of the world don’t work so well here. Maybe going metric would help more than it would hurt, but what would we be pushed to change next? After all:

Give ‘em 2.54 centimeters and they’ll take 1.6093 kilometers.

Movie Review: Credibility Is Terminated

Well, he said he’d be back.


Terminator Genisys brings back “Ahnald” Schwarzenegger as a Terminator, who is continually sent back in time to kill someone who will eventually defeat a machine revolution, or to defend that person from another Terminator who’s sent back to kill … it gets very confusing.


Even more so in this movie, in which resistance leader John Conner sends his second in command Kyle Reese to 1984 to protect Sarah Conner, John’s future mom, in the past. It’s exactly what happened in the first movie. But this time, instead of getting there just after the original Terminator does, Reese arrives to discover that Terminator has been around for many years—and instead of killing her, it’s been protecting Sarah the whole time.


Then it gets complicated.


Reese, like the audience, flails around, trying to figure out what’s going on. Why can’t he can’t just blow away this oddly aged Terminator and get it on with Sarah? Turns out he’s John Conner’s father (Reese, not the Terminator), which comes as something of a shock to him. The timeline is fractured as the movie, and sometimes the characters, jump back and forth in time, blowing things up and generally causing chaos.


Just sit back and you may find, to your surprise, that it is enjoyable. Yes, there are logic problems along the way and moments that stretch credibility, but think of it this way: You’re watching a movie about time traveling robots. How much credibility do you really have the right to demand?


(Having said that, it’s never explained just who messed with the original timeline.)


Terminator Genisys is probably the third best of the Terminator movies, which according to some isn’t saying much. The cast and effects are first rate, and as popcorn movies go it’s one of the better ones. Emilia Clarke holds her own against the strong Sarah Conner actors who came before her, and look for J.K. Simmons as an older cop still reeling from a decades old involvement in a Terminator battle.


Best of all: Matt Smith, in a small role that made me smile like a loon every time he appeared. Casting a guy who played the eleventh time-traveling Doctor Who in a time travel movie was inspired, even if he didn’t get all that much to do. It makes me want to go write a fanfiction crossover.

Going Rogue With Tom

It was movie franchise marathon night when Emily and I decided to go to the drive-in. Although it’s a little late now, I thought I’d give my thoughts on two summer flicks that might cleanse your palate if you mistakenly stumbled into a showing of Fantastic Four.


Whether a movie is good is both personal and relative, of course. I’m easily entertained and, at least when it comes to Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, had low expectations. Truth is, I considered skipping the latest Tom Cruise charm-fest, having mistakenly thought it was the second feature. It wasn’t.


I’d seen only the first Mission: Impossible movie, along with bits and pieces of the second one. Honestly, I remember it as being very loud, with more scene cuts than an MTV video directed by a coke addict. In the early James Bond movies, it took five minutes for a car to go down the road (but with that great guitar riff!) These days, in that same five minutes Tom Cruise kills off an army, takes down a third world government, gets the girl, and still has time for three breaks with his hair stylist.


None of that changes with Rogue Nation, so maybe I’m just getting used to it—because I really enjoyed this movie. It had a great cast and action sequences, and lots of humor, which can make or break a movie for me (and in this case certainly made it). The plot? Um … something to do with Ethan Hunt and his Impossible Missions Force taking on one of those evil organizations bent on controlling the world. And there’s a woman.


Many people refuse to watch a movie starring the not-always-there Cruise. Me, I despise Alec Baldwin, who plays the Director of the CIA here. But I can separate my feelings about a person from their product, and that’s good, because there are plenty of reprehensible people in Hollywood. Overall I liked this movie, and I have to add: Cruise hanging on the side of an aircraft 5,000 feet in the air, without a stunt double, may prove he’s crazy—but it was still cool.
Still, you have to wonder how Ethan Hunt’s team would handle contact with a Terminator … subject of drive-in night part 2.


http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uplo...

Loves Books, Has My Vote

Thanks to Indiana State Rep. Dave Ober​ for preordering Images of America: Albion and Noble County. I take back everything I ever said about politicians. Well, state politicians ….

That's an order

Whoa, what—my unreleased book has an Amazon ranking? That can only mean someone has pre-ordered Images of America: Albion and Noble County. Thanks for whoever did! The book comes out August 24th, and can be pre-ordered here:

http://www.amazon.com/Albion-Noble-Co...

Or you can get a publication reminder on the publisher’s website:

http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/9781...