Michael Allen's Blog: Michael Allen Online, page 4

The Awful Tragedy of the Very Rare Sinkhole

It’s hard to trust the ground we walk on these days. I have never heard about a sinkhole as much as I have in just the last couple of years.

When I was growing up, sinkholes weren’t on the news or in the newspapers. I had monsters under my bed. My house was attacked by locusts one year and I had to walk through them to get from the school bus to the front door. I also suffered a dog attack but that didn’t change the way I felt about dogs. That just changed the way I dealt with them.

If I had ever heard about a sinkhole, I would have had nightmares all my life. The first time I heard about one was possibly fifteen years ago. I remember the tragedy that day when I heard about a family who was in their house minding their own business when a sinkhole suddenly swallowed it. Everyone got out alive except for one man who went down with it. They couldn’t save him.

I was a fully grown man when I heard the news and I started having nightmares. The reason I started having nightmares was because I was even thinking about that sinkhole throughout the day. What if that happened to me? What if that happened to someone I love? Where are these damn sinkholes and how can I know when they are going to open up?

Imagine walking down the sidewalk in London and a sinkhole opens up right in front of you. It’s big enough to swallow the street and if it keeps growing, it could take a few houses down with it. That’s what happened recently and the people of this English Village are a little freaked out about it.

Is there something going on that we should know about? Are we starting to witness the wear and tear of all the digging and the infrastructure that these genius city planners have put our cities through?

The earth is massive and resilient but it might not like us too much. The animals are fine because they only take what they need and they leave very little footprint. But humans are ripping and tearing everything apart like it’s no one’s business. If that has anything to do with it, these sinkhole episodes are trying to tell us something.

I’m all for building beautiful cities and having nice places to visit around the world. What I’m not looking forward to is every square inch being paved with concrete. But that won’t happen because the earth will definitely kick us out by then.

If I’m on the wrong track, then some genius needs to step up and find out how sinkholes occur. It would be nice to know so that we can stop them from happening. At the very least, I’d like to know where I can park my car.

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Making Money On Facebook By Being Absolutely Ridiculous

There are plenty of ways of making money on Facebook that range from selling products on the platform itself to driving traffic to a site where customers can buy the products there. Sometimes, shuffling the traffic around is enough to make money in itself. But Facebook keeps developing and they’ve come up with a new way to earn an income online. All it takes is being utterly outrageous.

The thing is that this new way of making money on Facebook is an invitation-only program that literally pays members just for interactions. Getting the Likes and the Shares used to be a hobby for Facebookers that put a huge smile on their faces. But they don’t have to do it for free anymore. They can get paid for their Likes and the entire Comments section as well.

To make it legitimate, Facebook calls it the Performance bonus program and even refers to its members as “creators.” To be fair, some of them actually are. But with everything that is good, there is an element that comes in and takes advantage of a good thing.

It’s all over Facebook and it gets easy to detect when you start to see it. At first, you think the poster made a simple mistake like spelling a name wrong or getting the facts twisted. But no, they are doing it on purpose and it’s only to spark those interactions.

Imagine a post that talks about Katie Ledecky and highlights her career as an American swimmer who is doing phenomenally in the 2024 Paris Olympics. The thing is that the post is accompanied by the Danish swimmer Victoria Bierre, a student at the University of Copenhagen. Of course, there will be thousands of Likes and hundreds of Comments about how beautiful she is and how awesome she is as an athlete.

via Instagram/victoria_bierre

There might even be thousands of Shares because people aren’t paying attention to the post with the picture accompanying it. Then, there are people who will notice and they’ll comment that the picture is wrong. There might be thousands of comments about who is actually in the picture and how it’s not Katie Ledecky.

Of course, because everyone is on the internet, there will be some awesome name-calling like “moron” and “idiot.” Some people even have the special ability to throw around even more juicy words than those. But do you think the poster cares?

No. Because they’re laughing all the way to the bank after making money. Every interaction they get on that post is just more coin in their pocket. They might even comment back and say, “Thank you” with a nice smiley face to let you know they appreciate your participation in making them rich.

What really works is being obnoxious. Misspelling Michael Jordan’s name will stir the pot. Jumping into a social issue with an absolutely moronic take will set a post on fire. Make anything up and make sure it touches on the triggers that ignite people the most. That’s the formula for making money.

Recently, there was an absurd post about Oliver Anthony and a song he wrote called, “I Don’t Care About Your Pronouns.” With over 11,000 Likes, Hates, Loves, and Wows with about 1,000 comments as well as over 1,000 Shares, that poster was sitting pretty well on a nice Facebook payout. Of course, a subject like that is going to cause a ruckus.

The fact is that the song doesn’t even exist. It’s just an absurdly ridiculous post that throws Oliver Anthony under the bus, a musician on the rise. What a good way to create some haters for him! The problem is that some Facebookers are so triggered, that they’ll dive right into the comment section with their opinions before they even take a moment to look it up first.

In this incident, the information looks innocent enough. But as a fan of The Big Bang Theory, an alarm should start going off when looking at Mayim Bialik and Jim Parsons. The post says they’re dressed up like Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki’s characters. Something doesn’t add up right. They’re actually dressed up like the characters played by Melissa Rauch and Simon Helberg.

That’s no major issue. It won’t cause a war or anything. But it’s enough to get fans of The Big Bang Theory to comment all about it and thousands of them will keep making the same correction over and over. Each reaction is another coin in the cash register.

That’s how easy it is. The most absurd thing about all this is the Fact-Checking system Facebook has in place. If a poster states an opinion, Fact-Checkers are there to inform readers of the potential hazard of being exposed to it. If a Facebooker posts a joke, the Fact-Checkers come running to dispute the premise and contest the punchline. But these “Performance bonus program” posts don’t come with a warning label. They are free to spawn misinformation at will.

So, being an invitation-only program means that Facebook hand-picks these members to create a stir on the platform. What they found is that the easiest and most effective way to do it is by being absolutely ridiculous. It’s a cool gig if you can get it.

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Kanye West Jaw-dropping And Strange Grammy Humiliation Ritual

Of course, the Grammys are about entertainment and viewers should expect a high level of performance with celebrities vying for attention. Sometimes, they try to outdo each other and that means stepping on toes and throwing a few elbows to get their names in the headlines. But what Kanye West had his wife Bianca Censori do on the Red Carpet was way beyond that.

I watched the clip from Sunday night’s show and thought, that’s more evidence that this man needs medical attention. His mental faculties have been in decline for years and it’s well documented, even if you only take the clothes that he wears out in public into consideration. But Kanye West wasn’t the only one in his little show on Sunday night. He brought his wife into it and put her on full display.

To be honest, she looked like she was doing something she really wasn’t happy doing. She started out with a huge fur coat that covered her entire body. I’m sure PETA was gasping but those gasps quickly turned to gasps of an entirely different kind when she dropped the coat to the floor and revealed that she was wearing a see-through dress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

It’s the Grammys. Most celebrities are enjoying themselves in clothes that they’re proud to show off for the designer who gave it to them. But Bianca wasn’t allowed to participate in the show like that and that’s exactly how I feel about it. She did what Kanye West ordered her to do.

Then, he made a ceremony out of it. He took a stance as he stared at the cameras. That’s when Bianca was given her cue to bare herself to the world, Kaney’s trophy. When the term “Humiliation Ritual” comes up in polite society, this really does seem to be what they’re talking about.

How does Kanye go from making gospel albums praising Jesus to making his wife parade around naked? This looks like a humiliation ritual to me. They shouldn’t have let her in. https://t.co/3i0A2LbSGp

— Ginjie 𝕏 (@breauxbot) February 2, 2025

Did she get to mingle with the other celebrities? Did she enjoy her night dressed like that? It’s like Eyes Wide Shut with Bianca being shown off for all the elites to enjoy a look as they talk amongst themselves in their little cliques. She’s the side entertainment of a much bigger show.

It’s like Kanye got jealous of Diddy getting all the attention. He’s Hollyweird too. He can make people do stuff. Just watch!

But he isn’t the only one getting the whispers today…

This is when I start believing that there are 'humiliation rituals' in Hollyweird….. pic.twitter.com/EDynRkoLDN

— SickofEverything (no dms-sorry!) (@SickOfEverythi6) February 3, 2025

Some celebrities just make off the wall choices. They want attention and they know how to get it, by being as outrageous as they can. But there just might be something to these “humiliation rituals” everyone keeps talking about.

How else can you explain a fashion designer thinking its a good idea to have models carrying another model down the catwalk with her crotch in her face? Or anything that happens in those fashion shows because quite frankly, they all seem to be on drugs. It’s either drugs or humilitation rituals. There is no other way to describe it.

Here we have Jaden Smith with a house on his head. Nothing to see here, just another one of those fashion designer hats. It’s probably Versace.

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Selena Gomez Meltdown Over Colossal Border News

In a video that has since been taken down, Selena Gomez was clearly heartbroken as the deportation of illegal immigrants is in full swing. ICE has been working hard to track down and arrest criminals who have come into this country illegally and they’ve been put on planes to be sent back to their country.

The first truth to be said, America welcomes about a million immigrants every year. They go through a vetting process and then they are invited into the country to live the life they’ve fought so hard to obtain. America is not against immigration.

But the second truth is that during the Biden administration, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported nearly 10 million illegal immigrant encounters. What Joe Biden put into place was a system that allowed many of them to stay here, which resulted in a huge rush of individuals pouring in at the border and surrendering to Border Patrol in hopes that they would simply be let free in the U.S. with no vetting. Of those, the report goes on to say, some of them were on the terrorist watchlist.

Both of those facts should be in consideration when talking about what’s going on at the border and the mass deportation illegal immigrants face. They were given a promise by one administration that another administration is now reversing. That’s the awful game of politics and it cares about no one.

There is a harsh reality to the political volley Americans go through, and that’s “to the victor goes the spoils.” Biden Administration officials were out the day Trump was sworn in and he put his own people in place. That happens every time we change presidents and it’s been going on forever. Those people were made aware in November that they would be losing their jobs and it didn’t take an inner-office memo to make that point clear.

The difference between Biden and Trump should also have been abundantly clear. This day was coming and reality was going to slap everyone in the face. Preparations should have been made. It wouldn’t have made this day any less heartbreaking but it wouldn’t have come as such a shock and that makes it a little less painful.

The Selena Gomez Backlashvia Instagram/Selena Gomez

What Selena Gomez is going through is normal. Anyone with a heart would feel for the poor, desperate individuals running from violence and poverty. Their countries are war-torn and the resources they need just aren’t there. If you took a moment to put yourself in their shoes, what would you do? Would you try to go somewhere else where there are basic resources like food and shelter? Would you break the law because doing that is better than staying in the horrid conditions where everyone around you is dying?

Of course, Selena Gomez faced backlash for her video because she is highly visual with millions of followers that she can influence. Obviously, the criticism includes Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly because they’re Republican and they have to say something when someone on the left gets some attention. But the backlash also includes Sylvester Stallone who didn’t take a stance against her empathy, only against her reason.

He’s reported to have replied on a fan’s reposting of Selena’s video, “I don’t understand some of these celebrities. They have enough money to do something, things they supposedly care about, but they don’t.”

Of course, I can’t find that now because the original was taken down. And I believe that means that all the reposts of it were taken down along with it.

If Sly Stallone really did post that, I want to know what money would do. It can’t stop ICE from mass deportations. What could she do, hire lawyers? Try to slip the agents some bribe money? There’s nothing money can do in this situation but possibly make their life more comfortable in the country where they’re going.

Border Czar Tom Homan Reacts

Border czar Tom Homan was on FOX News with Sandra Smith when she asked about all the outcry, not just Selena Gomez, and it’s clear to see that this is one hardheaded man who takes his job ultra seriously, “We’ve arrested public safety threats and National security threats, bottom line. And look, President Trump won this election on this one issue, securing our border and saving lives…”

He asserted that he’s not arresting families and ripping them apart but he’s going after the criminals, the drug dealers and the sex traffickers. But he skips a few words when he’s talking fast and some of his other words, I’m not quite sure what they even are, “What happened to our Southern border last four biggest national security threat this country seen because two main known gallowees. We got 600% increase in sex trafficking. We got record number of terrorists crossing the border on terrorist watchlist. We have quarter of a million Americans dying fentanyl come across the open border…We gonna do this job. And we’re going to enforce the laws of this country. If they don’t like it, then go to Congress and change the law. We gonna do this operation and not apology.”

At least, I think that’s what he said. I have no idea what “gallowees” are. You are free to watch the video and hear it for yourself. But first, I went back a few years and compiled the words of presidents before Trump. Look at what Clinton and Obama had to say about border security, and then compare that to what Tom Homan is saying now.

The emphasis has been on criminals. What Homan is saying is that’s still the focus today. He’s going after criminals. He’s going after the drug dealers, the murderers, and the sex traffickers. I can’t say that other illegal immigrants aren’t getting caught up in all of it when ICE is making such sweeping moves. I also can’t say that it won’t come around to them after all the criminals have been sorted out and sent back to their country.

But the focus is on the criminals. Clinton said it and Obama said it. It’s an issue that has existed for many years and Trump is dealing with it now.

What Biden did was unimaginable. He basically set the illegal immigrants up for failure. Maybe he thought the Democrats were going to stay in power and that the mass importation would resume from administration to administration. But he should have known better, having spent all those years in government.

The political cycle goes around in circles. The Democrats are in charge one minute but that can all change in the blink of an eye and America has just seen how fast. During the Biden administration, the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate. But that only lasted a few years because under the Trump administration, the House and the Senate are now controlled by Republicans. It has been a complete reversal.

Anyone who thought the Democrats were going to win has now faced the reality that the balance of power has flipped. What Biden was doing was providing false hope and now, illegal immigrants have to wake up to a new reality. That’s the worst thing anyone can do, give others false hope only to be let down. Only this letdown is a shocking revelation to everyone here illegally, that they are being targeted and they will be shipped back home no matter what life they’ve built for themselves in America.

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NFL Request: Make Fair Calls in Conference Championships

To the NFL:

With the NFL Conference Championships coming up, there will be tough competition when the Commanders face off with the Eagles and the Bills meet the Chiefs. But the refs have been problematic in the past, a dilemma that has become increasingly worse this year.

The reason for this formal request now is when the Bills travel to Kansas City to go face-to-face with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, something special will happen that day. They’ll have Ty Johnson with them and for some of us, that will be a monumental moment. From the small town of Cumberland, Maryland, he joins the ranks of NFL alumni John Alderton, Bob Rowley, Jim Mertens, Mark Manges, and Steve Trimble.

But Ty Johnson’s trip to Kansas City will be a little different. It will mark the furthest any NFL player from Cumberland has ever made it in the league. Steve Trimble played against Seattle in the 1983 Wild Card playoffs when he played for Denver. But Ty is going to the Championships, the only game left standing between him and the Super Bowl.

No one is asking for special favors. In fact, that’s exactly what this request is about. Don’t do anyone any special favors. Just call the game fair and give Ty Johnson and the Bills the chance they deserve to march into the Super Bowl.

No Facemask Call

Note: In fact, the facemask against Ty Johnson earlier in the season that didn’t get a call is exactly the kind of favoritism shown to the Chiefs that we don’t want.

It has become increasingly clear that a player can’t even look at Mahomes crooked but the Chiefs can get away with murder. There is too much evidence to support this claim. Let’s go to the tape, shall we?

NFL Tape

Cities in California, Texas, and New York see their young athletes get into the NFL all the time. But Cumberland, Maryland doesn’t get to enjoy this kind of thing often. We want to watch the game on Sunday without even an inkling of favoritism shown toward the Chiefs.

Tell your refs to leave their Chiefs gear at home and show up on Sunday ready to call the game the way it should be called. Tell Las Vegas to stay out of this one. We know you want the Chiefs to win so that Taylor Swift will go to the Super Bowl and that will greatly increase viewership, but Ty Johnson and the Bills deserve a fair chance.

Remember when the game used to be that simple, back when the best team won? Let’s bring that back this year!

Sincerely,
Michael Allen
NFL Fan Since 1970

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Went Full On Food Chef On This Grilled Cheese

Making the perfect grilled cheese is illusive to the beginning food chef with absolutely no culinary training. But it was on one very special day that I, the worst food chef of food chefs, mastered the ability to create the most beautiful golden brown burn on not just one, but both sides.

It began with the choice of bread, which surprisingly was the most cost-effective brand at Aldi. In the store that makes you use a quarter to jailbreak a cart, I battled through the professional shoppers with their lists and coupons, pre-bought bags and maps of the store’s layout. It was not my first rodeo, but it might as well have been because I did not take shopping that seriously, putting me way behind the curveball.

The cheese I chose was cheddar. Say that sentence five times fast. It’s fun. Say it! I might make a song about it one day and ask Taylor Swift to put some music to it as an ode to my grilled cheese sandwich that will forever go down in history as a culinary masterpiece.

Cheese and bread were checked off of my list. I had weathered the hardest part of this mission, the trip to Aldi where people from all walks of life come together to make each other miserable with their cart crashes and bottlenecking in the narrow aisles.

The main trick to making the perfect grilled cheese is putting the butter on the bread. Some amateurs might put butter on the pan or even spray the pan with some non-stick special sauce. But I choose butter on the bread because it not only adds to the taste of the sandwich but it allows me just the right amount of lubricant to keep the bread from sticking to the pan.

Place one buttered slice of bread, butter down on the pan. Add a slice of cheese. Then, add one buttered slice of bread, butter up on the stack. Listen for the sizzle. It should only take about a minute if you have your heat a little over halfway up, a little less than halfway down. The best way to know this is to put the knob right in the middle on the five, then add just a bit more heat. Just a bit more though. Not a whole bit. Just a little bit.

When you hear the sizzle, first move the sandwich around on the pan to make sure it’s not sticking. Then, scoop it up with the spatula and flip it over. Do not do the new age way where some genius scooped up the sandwich, flipped the pan over it, flipped the sandwich and the pan back around, and then placed it back on the burner. That’s too many steps and all those steps aren’t necessary. Besides, some old-school ways are worth keeping. You can’t reinvent everything.

Wait once more until you hear the sizzle on the new side and flip again. Flipping is now up to your discretion at this point but do it often as you watch the sandwich turn from buttery yellow to golden brown. Don’t be stingy with the flips. Flip as many times as you want. Try a few flops. There is no limit to how many flips or flops you’re allowed. That’s all up to you. But if I were you, I would keep a record of the flips as well as the flops and store the file behind your clock on your nightstand where only your closest friends and family know where it is.

I suggest serving it with milk. But coffee makes another great drink. Tomato soup is also a nice accompaniment to a great grilled cheese. But don’t get me started on how to make that. We’ll have to save those steps for another day.

I mean, we’re talking about getting the right tomatoes and there’s a completely different store for that. A store that doesn’t make you use a quarter to jailbreak the carts. They even give you bags like they’re all special and everything. They live large in that store. You have to be ready for a completely different shopping experience when you go there.

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The Lame Trickery In ‘Senior Year’ Starring Rebel Wilson

Senior Year itself plays like an 80s “going back to high school” template only it finds a way to make it fresh. Rebel Wilson stars as a 37-year-old lady who wakes up from a coma to the reality that she wasn’t voted prom queen and didn’t get the life she wanted.

She missed 20 years of her life and to be honest, she has bigger fish to fry but the only thing she has on her mind is going back to high school and doing all the things she missed the first time. When you take into account that 20 years ago feels like yesterday to her and she still has the mind of a 17-year-old, we can move past the fact that she isn’t trying to put her life back together but instead, chooses to prioritize becoming prom queen. It’s a comedy after all and her friend Martha conveniently happens to be the principal now, so that makes it easy for her to slip right back into where she left off after her tragic cheerleading accident. That’s when she comes face to face with a new reality.

A lot has changed in 20 years. There is no competition for prom queen. The cheerleaders aren’t popular anymore. But the person who is popular is a social media influencer who is into building her, “Most authentic, socially conscious, body positive, environmentally aware, and economically compassionate brand that’s a home for inclusion-focused fashion, food, and fun-filled lifestyles.”

via Netflix

You know, the same thing every other teenager is into. The new school has a very lame vibe as if all the fun has been sucked out of everything. But is that the message? Or is the message that school in my day was lame?

Senior Year feels like a satire targeting 80s high school movies. Only this one begins in 1999 and wakes up in 2019. Rebel Wilson is the oldest high school student in the world and when she gets a shoutout from her nemesis on social media, her followers begin to grow. In 1999, she wanted friends. But now, it’s all about the follows. The comments are hilarious as one follower replies “I love the elderly” as the rest are your typical “I see you gurl” and “Namaste.”

vis Netflix

The movie plays out on a predictable trajectory with tension and rivalry between the same old crew. It just happens that her old nemesis is the mother of her new nemesis. She married her old boyfriend and moved into her dream house as if it was all planned. This is the world that Rebel’s character wakes up in two decades later.

It seems to me that the movie is saying school in my day was lit. School these days have been stripped of all the character that made us who we are. Of course, some people didn’t like school. They had a tough time dealing with all the social challenges and politics that every community inherently develops. But that part stays the same. Because even though there has been a genuine effort to remove that from the high school environment, it’s not possible. It still exists. It just rebrands itself. It finds its way of squirming into the culture, only in a different costume.

Even though Rebel Wilson is 37, she has some growing pains to go through. Her friends from high school are still in high school, only one is the principal and the other is a librarian. They try to help her deal but of course, she has her head in her high school friends. She is on a mission to capture everything she missed out on and it leads to bad decisions.

Of course, that means there’s going to be a lecture. The movie goes into a soft musical touch as her friends give her the 411. That’s followed by a different lecture from her dad. All of this makes her do a complete turnaround in about two minutes of film. Now, she’s a totally different person with new priorities. Even her nemesis is now her best friend because things always work out in the end.

All that doesn’t matter. I love watching Rebel Wilson and she can do magic with a script that follows the routine and doesn’t dare deviate. I mean, everyone has to join the dance in the end. Smiles and laughs for everyone. The boy gets the girl and all that jazz. This is that movie.

I’ll probably watch it again when I need my Rebel Wilson fix. Seriously! I’ll get some wings and Dr. Pepper so I can sit down and feel like a teenager myself while I watch the war of two worlds.

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A 2025 Vision Board Will Help You Thrive Brilliantly

The Old School Way was throwing up a Hail Mary called the New Year’s Resolution that died by the second week in January because of the lack of motivation. That would never have happened with commitment and planning which is exactly what your 2025 Vision Board is going to give you.

We all have different walks in life so it’s hard to be specific about what a 2025 Vision Board should look like. But I’ll give you some recommendations based on how I do things. You can take them with you or you can get some ideas and come up with your own way. That’s the way it’s supposed to work in the first place. No two vision boards are alike because we all see and think differently.

A vision board can be something you literally hang on a wall so that you have something to look at every day or it can be a document on your laptop that you work with digitally. My laptop is where I work and having a vision board on it is more practical for me. But a board that you hang on the wall is more physical and if it’s in a convenient place, then it’s there every day when you pass it by on your way to get a cup of coffee or whatever you do to get your day going.

Most of my notes are on a notepad, the software that comes with the computer. It’s very convenient for me to have a “ToDo” file and write notes to myself. But a task that I add to that actually works great at embedding the memory into my brain. A quick note with a date acts as a reminder that I have a deadline, even if it’s a self-imposed deadline. Then, that note gets pasted to my vision board. It takes extra steps which means I have a better chance of remembering it.

Creating images helps me imagine goals that I’ve set for myself. Sometimes, I look up images of people, places, or things and just use those. Sometimes, I create the images myself and post them on my vision board.

The one thing about vision boards for me is that they have to be very organized. I can’t have scattered notes and images all over the place or that becomes as scattered as my brain. So, I divide the board up in four slices, one for each quarter. The top of the first slice is what I want to achieve in January and at the bottom of the slice is what I want to have done by the end of April. Each slice works the same way. The top is the beginning of the quarter and the bottom is the end of it.

It’s not hard to create a 2025 Vision Board in a day or two if you have ideas of what you want to achieve this year so far. And think of it as a living breathing board that you’ll add to throughout the year. What begins as a goal becomes steps along the way and that’s what helps you achieve those goals you’ve set for yourself. It’s a much better method than the New Year’s Resolution ever was because you’ll be able to see your work in progress.

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The Wild And Fun Ride Of Being An Independent Book Writer

Everything about being a book writer screams, “Don’t do it!” From actually telling a story worth reading to getting readers to pick it up, the journey has challenges every step of the way when you’re independent.

Imagine standing in the middle of New York City jumping up and down while waving your hands. You’d think someone would notice you if not everyone around you. Now imagine everyone on the same sidewalk jumping up and down while waving their hands at the same time. How do you get readers to pick your book out of all the other books?

A new book writer will think that writing the last page is where the job ends. Funny notion! No, my friend. That’s where the tough part of the job begins. If you were born to be a writer, telling the story was the fun part. Now, it’s time to get out there on the sidewalk and jump up and down. Don’t forget to wave your hands while you scream as loud as you can.

There are some rewards to the next step actually. If you make it fun for yourself, you can have a good time getting ignored by all the readers who are looking in the direction of Stephen King and Margaret Atwood. In fact, YouTube is the perfect example because that’s a place where you can get creative.

If anyone who is anyone out there teaching new writers how to market their books online, they’ve mentioned the Book Trailer. That is important. For me, there was a learning curve and by that I mean, I had to learn about making a book trailer in the first place. There is no video for A River in the Ocean. I looked. It was that long ago that I had to remind myself that I didn’t know anything about doing that back then.

So, I created my first trailer when I wrote The Deeper Dark. I watched a tutorial and off I went on my own…

[image error]

Here’s a test: Was it interesting? Do you get the gist of the book? Does it make you want to buy it?

Here are the answers: Obviously not!

It didn’t go spiraling through the Inter-verse. It was only viewed 13 times. But don’t let that bother you if that happens to you. That’s just an opportunity to do better next time and with the Internet, there is always another chance. So, I tried again…

A little more exciting and faster paced, it might be too fast-paced. Keeping up with the words can be difficult and the sexy lady blowing fire…it’s a nice visual. But it really doesn’t have anything to do with the book.

It reminds me of the old perfume or clothing brand commercials that had models posing and saying words, but nothing really connected. But hey, my new video doubled in viewership. I was on a role. In other words, I still didn’t know what I was doing.

With Joker Joker Deuce, I’m trying to take those notes and do so much better. It’s like I think I’ve actually learned something. But I’ve created several shorts and a few longer videos. I may have gone overboard with the mission. This is the one I think nails what the book is about in the most interesting way, especially the music accompaniment that sets the tone…

I think I’m going to write a few more articles about the journey of an independent book writer. The next installment might be about the consequences of pulling your hair out or finding a good mental health facility near you.

The post The Wild And Fun Ride Of Being An Independent Book Writer appeared first on Michael Allen.

The Story Behind the Undeniable True Book of Horror

A few smartphone apps and knowledge of his way around the internet is all it takes for a college dropout to become the most talked about subject in town. Joker Joker Deuce is a true book of horror because it has all the elements of a psychological thriller but they come straight out of our real lives.

Years ago, I was given a few prompts from a director who knew what he wanted and just needed someone to write it. He wanted technology to be the tools a serial killer uses to fulfill his murderous needs. That was it! That’s all I had to go on to write the screenplay.

Ironically, I had just received a few emails that came perfectly together like a puzzle. The first set was from a dating site trying to tell me that there were girls interested in me. It made me laugh. In my twenties, maybe. But I was a little older than that at the time and the ladies weren’t knocking down my door to get my attention.

The next email though, that’s the one that clicked with me. It was about the latest apps coming to smartphones everywhere. One app, in particular, caught my eye because it was about a party app where a user could find out what’s happening in any city they visit. If you have a mind like mine, those emails spelled the premise of the story. A stalker-level app combined with frivolous emails from members of a dating website who have no idea their profiles are being used to drive user interest? That spells book of horror.

I wrote the story of a serial killer who uses apps to find anyone he wants at any time. It was based on the party app and it used technology I was familiar with. Have you ever gone to a store and later, Facebook is advertising products from that store to you? Have you ever met someone and later, Facebook is suggesting you know that person? Put all this together and you have some real internet stalking material.

If you add the emails from the dating site, you get the formula for a horror story that was optioned in 2019. The director made a trip to Australia and secured the funds for the movie. It was well on its way and I was on top of the world, a world that was quickly kicked out from underneath of me when 2020 came along with its murder hornets, then flooding, and then the coronavirus.

When the world was shut down, my project came to an abrupt end. They promised that it would start back up after the lockdown. But I’m thinking they had seen enough horror by then, they went a different way with their investment dollars.

In the meantime, I wrote The Deeper Dark, an entirely different kind of psychological thriller about a hero who comes home from the war to find out his whole world has moved on without him. Now, he has a new war to fight as a corrupt network is threatening the only person he has left.

When I decided to convert Joker Joker Deuce into a book, something interesting happened. That book of horror grabbed me in a new way. The only reason I can understand is when I wrote the screenplay, it didn’t have all the great detail at first. That was coached out of me by the director who asked for several different rewrites based on feedback from his colleagues and the investors.

The current form of the story was pieced together little by little with each new rewrite. The full story never got a chance to get a hold of me. That was until I wrote the book. It was a deep mind-bending roller coaster that took my emotions to the edge.

Jeph lives alone and works at a sub shop in a small college town. In the house he inherited from his mother after she was viciously murdered, he has a basement where he has a sophisticated computer system. As he regularly browses a forum dedicated to murder victims, he has accounts on Lookbook and Wink, the popular social media and dating site in this fictitious town that could easily be anywhere in America.

Tracy is attending Bridgeport University on scholarship to get away from her abusive ex-boyfriend. She is serious about school and even her party-crazy roommate can’t talk her into putting the books down, not even for a night. But there is something brewing, a budding relationship with a college professor that they have to keep on the down low for more than one reason. It’s no big deal to him that he’s married but she doesn’t know.

Jeph is practically invisible as he meanders through life delivering subs by day and returning to his dark dungeon by night to plug himself back into his isolated internet socialism, an unerring oxymoron. That is all there is to his existence except for a few college students he’s murdered, headlines that have the entire town talking.

Then, he bumps into Tracy. She sees him and she talks to him, something that has never happened before. He’s feeling things he’s never felt. He’s having thoughts he’s never had. He’s imagining an entire life he never dreamed could come true.

She has become his obsession…

A True Book of Horror

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