Bryce Moore's Blog, page 61

Book Review: The House of Salt and Sorrows

I just finished this retelling of the fairy tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” and it made me think of a number of things that I wanted to go into a longer discussion of. It was an interesting read for a number of reasons. On the one hand, I really dig creepy gothic horror, and Craig does a fantastic job of upping the creep factor throughout the book. But at the same time, I really dislike romance subplots. I know this is probably a weakness of mine, not those plots. I mean, as an author, I realize there are many many people out there who love romance, so it would probably be in my best interest to throw some more passion into my books.

But I just can’t bring myself to do it, or at least, I haven’t been able to so far. The simple truth is that almost any book with a heavy romance plot is going to fall somewhat flat for me. So the fact that I’m still giving House of Salt and Sorrows four out of five stars should tell you just how much I loved the creepy.

Writing a good creepy scene, in my opinion, takes a number of elements to pull off. First, you need to be quite present in the scene itself. You have to take the time as an author to dwell on the details, and you have to take the time to think about just why those details would be so off-putting. There’s a scene in this book where the main character confronts an animal’s corpse. She feels terrible for it, but then she notices that it’s still moving. That’s pretty terrible to imagine: something that’s so hurt it looks like it’s dead, but it hasn’t passed yet?

And then Craig shows why the critter is still moving: it’s almost bursting with maggots. When they all explode, raining down the corpse . . . that’s an image that’s going to stick with you for a while. Yes, I realize to some of you that just sounds disgusting and makes you want to never read the book, but I was seriously impressed, especially because in-scene it’s much, much better executed.

The book has so many scenes like that, and Craig deftly weaves in the other necessity to make something really creepy: give the scene time to unfold. I suppose that goes hand in hand with providing plenty of details, but I think it’s more than that. A scene can move as quickly or as slowly as an author wants. Imagine a scene where a character goes into a room for the first time. It could be fast: she goes in, glances around, and leaves. Or it could be slow: she goes in and is awed by the parquet flooring and the crystal chandeliers. She sits down at the piano in the room and plinks out a few notes, noticing it’s out of tune. She can stay in that room for hours, if the author really wanted her to. There are all sorts of actions a character can take that prolong the action of the scene.

Details don’t do that. You can inundate a reader with tons of detail, spending four pages to describe the piano and its history. While that might take a while to read, it doesn’t do much (in my opinion) to extend the scene itself. It just stops the action while you take a long digression.

So to be really creepy, a scene has to have enough action to justify its length, and enough detail to hit home. It’s a balance you need to walk, and I was seriously impressed with how well Craig did it.

In any case, if you love romance and creep, then do I have the book for you. If you just love romance and not creep, then I’d steer clear. If you just love creep and not romance, then you’ll still have a great time with this one. 8/10

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Suing Google

That’s right, people. I finally decided to take on The Man. Back in 2018, Google came under fire for having had some flaws in their Google Plus platform that allowed app developers access to personal information that they shouldn’t have had access to. A class action lawsuit was brought forward, and ultimately succeeded. When I heard about it, I realized, “Hey! I had a Google Plus account, too!” So I joined up with the suit, because justice.

In 2020, Google was found liable. Not only that, but I was awarded $7.5 million in damages! That’s a 7.5 with six zeros at the end. Think of the wonderful things I could do with all that money. First, I would build a Scrooge McDuck sized vault to keep it in. Then I’d go swimming every morning for at least ten laps. Not being one to make hasty decisions, however, I decided against quitting my day job until that juicy paycheck arrived in my bank account. True, I had to split the $7.5 million with the rest of the class action peoples, but surely that much money would still get me something good, right?

Today, I’m pleased to announce that my ship has finally come in. Google actually paid up, and I got a PayPal credit of $2.15. True, it’s a bit lower than I was initially hoping for, but at the time, my other options were to either opt out of the lawsuit, object to the settlement amount, or do nothing. Think about what would have happened if I had just done nothing! I wouldn’t be able to buy that Snickers bar I’ve had my eye on for the last couple of years. And anyway, it’s really just missing those 6 zeros, and when you think about it, zeros mean nothing, so it isn’t missing anything at all, right?

I’m still not entirely certain how I’m going to spend my windfall. I need to make sure I get the most out of it, after all. It’s not every day that a big company sends you money to apologize for their misdeeds. I’m open to suggestions. I suppose I could give it all to charity. Or I could buy chocolate pudding. Or put a downpayment on a Hotwheels.

Decisions, decisions . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review: An Inspector Calls

Last night Daniela wanted to watch a murder mystery, so we began going through the various platforms we have, looking for something that seemed good to both of us. It actually really reminded me of those halcyon days of making a trip to Blockbuster with your friends to pick something to watch that evening. Picking up various movie cases, looking at the back to see what it’s about, and then debating endlessly to try to find something just right. Except harder, because now there’s IMDB, which means I feel compelled to check the reviews on everything before I give it a shot. (If it gets below a 6 on IMDB, the odds of me watching it are very, very slim. Typically I’m looking for higher than a 6.5, and if we can get into the 7 territory and it’s a movie that sounds interesting to me at the moment, then sign me up.)

Amazon Prime has been pushing An Inspector Calls on me for the last long while. It’s always been there, popping up in the “Movies We Think You’ll Like” category again and again. And each time, I’d just skip over it without even looking to see what it’s about. (Fight the power, people! Don’t just watch whatever Amazon or Netflix tell you to.) But this time, it seemed like it would definitely qualify as “murder mystery,” so I checked out the IMDB score. 7.7? And it’s under an hour and a half long?

Sold!

I had no idea going into it (due to sheer ignorance), but it turns out it’s a made-for-TV production of a quite famous stage play of the same name by J.B. Priestly. It actually premiered in Moscow in 1945, and it’s had numerous adaptations of it over the years, on the stage, screen, and radio. More than 25 total, which is an awful lot, in terms of adaptations. A 32 year old Alec Guinness starred in the first British production. The one I watched is the most recent television version, starring David Thewlis (Lupin from Harry Potter), Ken Stott (Balin from the Hobbit franchise), and Miranda Richardson (Rita Skeeter from Harry Potter, if we want to stay in the fantasy genre, though she’s been in tons of other films and that’s far from her most significant role), as well as some lesser know actors.

I knew very little of the movie going into it, and I think it would be best if you do the same. The only thing I think it would be helpful to be aware of is that this isn’t a popcorn mystery, but rather more of an art film. Not in some sort of zany “I don’t understand what’s going on” way, but Daniela, Denisa, and I ended up talking about the movie for a while after it was over, discussing plot points and character arcs. Which makes sense now, since it’s a production of a play that’s one of the standards in British education.

Just know the basic premise: a family has gathered for a celebratory dinner. In inspector shows up just as it ends, with news that a young woman has committed suicide. He needs to ask some questions to get to the bottom of the matter.

This production is very well done. Short and snappy, with excellent performances across the board. Very well produced, and it doesn’t feel like a shoddy TV production in any sense. I gave it 8.5/10, and I highly recommend it. (So now you can watch it because I told you it was good, not just Amazon. That makes everything better.)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

On Doing Your Own Research

It seems these days more and more people are encouraging each other to “do the research” so they can be properly informed about a subject and make their own decisions. As an academic librarian, you would think I would be thrilled with this newfound desire to delve into research. Instead, I’m left scratching my head.

The problem is that what I mean by “research” seems to be quite different than what many other people think it means. Perhaps a lot of this stems from the fact that I believe different levels of research are appropriate for different projects.

For example, if you’re interested in finding out where you recognize that guy in that movie from, then doing a quick search on Wikipedia or IMDB makes perfect sense. It’s a simple question with a simple answer. The stakes are relatively low. What’s the worst thing that happens if you turn out to be wrong? You look foolish at a party? I think we can all live with that. Likewise, if you’re interested in different Big Foot sightings, you can no doubt find no end of web pages that will regale you with any number of them. Again: very low risk if those sites end up being wrong. Worst case, I suppose you head out to where some of the sites swear Big Foot visits all the time, and you waste a weekend searching for him in vain. (Hmm. Or would the worst case be that you actually find him and are torn limb from limb? Maybe this was a bad example . . .)

When the stakes get raised, the importance of the quality of the research goes up dramatically. Say you’re writing a paper for your college biology class. In this case, citing Wikipedia as your main research source isn’t nearly as appropriate. You’d want to be using academic, peer-reviewed journals to persuade your professor that you really have “done your research.”

(A quick aside, as I recognize not everyone knows what a peer-reviewed journal means. In essence, it means that for an article to be published in that journal, a scholar in that field does extensive research, writes it up, and submits it. The editor of the journal then sends that article on to other scholars in the field (anonymously, so they have no idea who wrote it). Those scholars then evaluate the research and its findings, ultimately recommending that the article be published, be rejected, or be revised. No article makes it to print without being verified by other experts in that field. Thus, this research is far more reliable than anything else you’re going to find online.)

If, when people said “do your research,” they meant, “go scour through peer-reviewed journals for a while and come back when you’re better informed,” I might feel a bit more comfortable with the suggestion. But that’s not what they mean. The research people typically end up doing consists of reading articles by reporters, watching YouTube videos, reading websites around an issue, and asking their friends. Worse yet, they’re typically doing this in an effort to prove that what they want to believe is actually the truth. (Pro tip: never start your research with your mind already made up. These days, you will almost always be able to find someone who says you’re right, and it will be that much easier for you to mentally dismiss anyone who disagrees with you.)

What’s particularly alarming in these instances is the ultimate worst case scenarios if the “research” people have done turns out to be wrong. With pandemics and climate change, that can result in millions dead and entire areas ruined for decades to come.

Let’s say for a moment that I decided to do some real research into vaccinations. As a trained reference librarian, I know how to sift through sources to find and evaluate the best research. Let’s say I spend 100 hours combing through the various studies before I come up with an opinion. Even after all of that, that “opinion” isn’t nearly worth as much as an actual expert in the field. Why? Because while I’ve spent 100 hours of my life doing this, that person has spent decades of their life becoming familiar with the field and its nuances. Knowing how to effectively discern between a good study and a bad one. I realize there is no way I can compete with that sort of background.

Ultimately, when it comes to issues like “is the vaccine safe?”, no amount of research I’m going to do is going to be able to reliably contradict the general consensus of experts in the field. And that’s if I’ve done everything right. Science is self-correcting. Researchers do studies. Those studies are evaluated and replicated. They learn from their past mistakes and findings. Through that process, better and better information rises to the surface.

The science on climate change or COVID or the vaccines might have been up for debate decades ago (in climate change’s case) or a year ago (for the others), but the more you see those expert opinions aligning, the more solid that science becomes. Yes, you still might find some studies that contradict the consensus. But those studies will in turn be evaluated. If they prove correct, then the consensus will change. If they don’t, then they’ll be dismissed. In issues like these, the currency of the study is vital to knowing how much credence to give it.

If I come down with a series of symptoms that seem alarming, I will undoubtedly do some “research” to find out just how alarmed I should be. I just can’t help myself. But I know better than to assume three hours of WebMD scanning is going to help me in any meaningful way. To do that, I need to go to an actual expert. A doctor. And even then, I might get a second opinion.

So for issues like the safety of the COVID vaccine, I wish the general public would realize that “doing the research” isn’t really going to help them at all. Or rather, it won’t help them nearly as much as simply listening to the experts in the first place. Right now, Florida is averaging 19,000 cases each day. Their earlier peak was just under 18,000. They have 13,000 people hospitalized with COVID. (Their earlier peak in the first wave was 12,000.) And still they have a governor who’s insisting masks are an option, not a necessity. People who believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease. 617,000 Americans have died of this so far. (The worst recent yearly flu death total for the US is around 61,000.) The global death total is coming up in 4.25 million. It’s almost certainly much higher than that.

Not all research has the same weight. Please get vaccinated now.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Kitchen Renovation 2021: The Saga Continues

Any keen-eyed followers of my blog would remember the plan was to start our kitchen renovation at long last at the beginning of August. And while it’s true I’ve taken some days off the blog here and there (due to camping, traveling, and work), there have been no “The renovation is starting” posts. Sadly, that’s not because I haven’t had time to write that post.

It’s because the renovation hasn’t started.

A month and a half ago, our cabinet company called to say our cabinets were going to be delayed past their August 3rd delivery date. No biggie, I thought to myself. We weren’t going to need them right away, anyway. And then I promptly stopped thinking about it, because I’ve had a million other things to think about that seemed more important than “when will the cabinets really be delivered?”

But then we were at the end of July, and I realized we really needed to have a firm date. The renovation was about to start, and they’d never called us back. When we called to inquire when the cabinets would appear, the answer was “We don’t know.” Apparently our wood had been backordered, and they just didn’t have any available. They had no clue when they would have it available, either. Our options were to pick out a new wood, or wait for who-knew-how-long.

So Denisa and I got in the car and drove back to Augusta for our fourth “Cabinet Reconnaissance” trip. (This being right after I got back from Utah, on the one free night I had before I had to leave for Machias. I was thrilled.) Four hours later, we’d picked out not just the new cabinet wood and stain, but investigated our flooring options as well. (What can I say? I lead a glamorous life.) We called our cabinet guy and made the switch. He promised the order would be rushed through.

And indeed, the next day the cabinet company called with our delivery date: October 5th. October 5th? I called back to see if their definition of “rushed through” was really as far off from mine as it seemed. Yes, October 5th. But our original wood choice was back in stock! Would we like to go with the original? We did not. The one good thing to come out of all of this is that I think we’ll be happier with our new color and wood than we would have been with our first choice.

So we called our contractor. Thankfully, he was able to shift his work schedule around to fit us in in mid-September. When the kitchen renovation will start. It better. We have about 20 cabinets coming to our house one way or the other, and we’re really going to have to put them somewhere, you know? And if we start any later, then we’re doing it when it starts to get really cold. Which we don’t want to do . . .

Here’s hoping it’s smooth sailing from here on out.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Signed Copies of THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE

I’m off to another library meeting today and tomorrow, but I wanted to pop in quickly before I leave to let people know that if they’d like to have a signed copy of THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE, I’ve arranged with my local bookstore (Devaney, Doak & Garrett) to let people order one from them and ask for a signed copy. If you’d like it addressed to someone, or to have me write a message in it as well, you can let them know that when you order it. They’ll then let me know they need my John Hancock, and I’ll head over on a lunch break to sign the book. They’ll then ship it out to you (or of course you can just pick it up at the store, if you’re local.)

You can order it at this link.

I realize this information comes a bit late for many of you, and rest assured I’m happy to sign copies when I’m out and about across the country, but I wanted the procrastinators out there to know about the option. Supporting local bookstores is really the best way to go. They have a tailored collection just for your area, the money you give them stays in your area, and that helps a community be stronger. I won’t hold it against you for buying at Walmart or Amazon (as I said yesterday: buy it where you like to buy books), but I did want to put in a special plug for those local bookstores out there.

Let me know if you have any questions!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Movie Review Roundup: Tag, Mississippi Burning, Brubaker, Changeling, No Sudden Move

I just got back from Utah last night, and you know what that means: lots of time sitting on a plane or a bus with nothing much to do other than watch movies. (Well, technically I suppose I could write, but my headspace is nowhere near capable of writing when I’m flying.) I watched five movies in total, and I’m here to tell you all about them. (More or less.)

First up, we have Tag, a movie loosely based on a real-life game of tag that went on for years and years, as the group of friends grew up and got jobs and just kept playing. It starred Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, and Jon Hamm, and it was diverting but ultimately nothing more than a bit of fluff. Fine for distracting a librarian as he trekked across the country, but not much more than that. It felt like it was trying really hard to be raunchier than it needed to be. I think there could have been something really fun there if they had leaned into being more of a family movie than an adult comedy. Instead, they threw in lots of drug references and language. 5/10.

From there, I decided to try something a little more weighty. I’d heard good things about Mississippi Burning, and I was in no way disappointed. The film (from 1988) loosely depicts the true story of three missing civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman play FBI agents assigned to investigate the case, which quickly uncovers deep-seated racism in the town. The director (Alan Parker) uses the movies as a vehicle to explore that tension. I found it compelling. It won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and it was nominated for six others, including Picture, Director, Lead Actor, and Supporting Actress. 9.5/10, though be aware that there are some very disturbing depictions of racial violence. (I was also discouraged to see how much of the language and ideologies expressed in the movie back in 1988 are still thriving 33 years later.)

Next up was Robert Redford in Brubaker. The 1980 movie is again based loosely on history, this time the career of Tom Murton, who unveiled a huge prison scandal in Arkansas in 1967. Redford plays the part of the new prison warden (based on Murton), who comes find out what’s wrong with the prison and try his best to fix it. The actual depictions of prison life were vivid, but I felt like the movie was quite heavy-handed in its Message. Characters seem to be either Good or Evil, and that fell flat for me. That said, it was still a solid movie in most other respects. 7/10

On the way home, I started with Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, because apparently after Tag, all I wanted to do was watch historical movies. This one stars Angelina Jolie as a mother whose son goes missing in Los Angeles in 1926. After weeks of searching, the police find him, but when they present him back to Jolie, she immediately sees he’s not her son. Unwilling to admit their error, the police insist she’s mistaken. It’s the sort of thing you’d think has to be made up, and it only gets away with it because we know it isn’t. I very much enjoyed it. 8/10

And finally, I watched Steven Soderbergh’s new No Sudden Move, starring Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle. This one follows the tangled mess that’s left over when an underworld robbery goes south. The movie was definitely twisty turny, actually to the point that it felt too convoluted. In an ideal world, reveals in films like this feel obvious in hindsight, but there were several steps where I was just confused by a twist, not enlightened. (Also, it has Brendan Fraser in a supporting role. It felt like forever since I’d seen him in a movie. He put on a ton of weight, whether for the part or not, I don’t know.) I thought I’d finally watched a non-historical movie, only to discover at the end of the film that actually this one had some roots in real world events as well. Go figure. 7/10

And that’s that! Movies: the one thing that get me through airplane travel.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

How to Support an Author

Folks, The Perfect Place to Die comes out TOMORROW. I am, needless to say, very excited. AndI keep having people ask me what’s the best way for them to support me. (Thanks, all!) I appreciate the question and the sentiment, though of course I also tell them to just go and buy the book (or borrow it from your library!). But beyond that, there are a few items I could highlight.

First and foremost, the best way to support an author you like (or a book you like) is to tell other people about it. Not in an annoying way, where you go around telling everyone they need to buy the book to the point that all your friends begin to avoid you. Rather, share a link to it on social media. Write a review of the book on your Facebook wall, or on your blog, or over at Amazon or Goodreads. Once you’ve written those reviews, share them online. One person buying the book is great, but for a book to really have legs, the word has to get out there about it. Reviews and word of mouth really make a difference.

As far as where to buy the book goes: it doesn’t make that much of a difference to an author. We get the same cut, no matter where you get it. I personally would recommend buying it from your local independent bookstore, simply because by supporting those stores, you support a wider variety of places to buy books. More places to buy books = more books being sold. But really, you don’t have to do anything special to support an author in terms of where you buy. (Though if you are going to buy on Amazon, if you buy at this link, then I get a cut of that sale above and beyond my royalties, because Amazon.)

One thing to note: it DOES matter when you buy the book. Books are often judged by how well they do in their first week. The more people who buy it then, the better for the book. So if you’ve already decided you want to buy the book, then buy it right away, rather than procrastinating.

With all of that out of the way, I’m really looking forward to you all having the chance to read the book this week. I hope you enjoy it. It’s been a long time in development, and I’m proud of how it turned out. Thanks for reading!

Adventures at Flagstaff

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past few days. I’m entering a busy stretch here. I’m off to Utah tomorrow, and then I’m heading to Machias a week from today, and I was up at Flagstaff Lake camping for the past three days. So the good news is that this hasn’t been a stressful busy stretch, but it’s going to busy nonetheless. (And seriously: I am so out of practice flying. The anxiety I get around it seems to have gone up a few notches over COVID.)

But camping was lovely. Flagstaff Lake is about an hour north of where I live. It’s famous for having been a site of controversy back in the 40s or 50s. There was a town by a much smaller lake at the time, and the government decided they needed to dam the lake for reasons that aren’t quite clear to me. When they dammed the lake, it submerged the town completely, so some of the time you’re boating around, you can actually see asphalt roads beneath you, as well as (potentially) buildings. That’s kind of creepy to me, and I’m sure I could have made it into a wicked scary ghost story one night, but I held myself back.

Creepy drowned city aside, the place is absolutely lovely. We saw bald eagles and loons and tons of frogs (which made Daniela very happy). We went fishing (caught yellow perch, but that was it) and canoed all over the lake, going swimming and just generally having a blast. The weather was about as ideal as you can get (unless you prefer really hot weather for swimming). Mid 70s and breezy during the day, 50s at night. It was mostly clear, though we did have a bit of intermittent very light drizzle. It cleared out enough at night for some star gazing, and that’s always fun as well.

I loved the fact that our site felt very remote, even though it was easy to get to: just a half mile canoe paddle. The site itself was huge. We had five tents scattered around the area, and it could have held many more if it needed to. Just one picnic table though. There were some boats out on the water passing by now and then, but other than that (and a random guy who walked through our site once to go swimming with his dog), the place felt empty.

Camping is definitely something I don’t do a lot, and in some ways I came back home well-rested, and in other ways I’m just plain exhausted. I know when I got back yesterday afternoon, I didn’t want to do anything other than lie there like a slug. Every time I closed my eyes, it felt like I was back on a canoe. But on the other hand, it was so different from everything else I do that it felt like I could approach what was waiting for me from a better position.

The kids all had a great time, and I’m chalking the trip up as a big success.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

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Olympics: COVID Style

I’m a self-confessed Olympics junkie. Whenever they’re on, I just can’t resist watching them. It doesn’t really matter which sport, and while I generally cheer for the USA, I also root for Germany and Slovakia, and I’m a sucker for any come-from-behind, underdog story. So you would think I’m really looking forward to tonight, when the opening ceremonies kick everything off. (Well, technically it’s already happened, but I generally go for watching the evening highlights. Why? Because I’ve watched the live feeds before, and while NBC’s coverage frustrates me from time to time (since it ignores some sports and usually focuses just on the American angle), they do a very good job of giving context to the sports. Without context, they aren’t nearly as impactful.)

But instead of being 100% hyped, I’m . . . unsure how I feel. On the one hand, Olympics! Yay! But on the other hand, this is going to be an Olympics with very few spectators, held in a country where 83% of the people said they didn’t want them to take place. And that was back in May! It feels in many ways to me like the rest of the world is just sort of forcing the Olympics down Japan’s throat. The country’s at the start of a third wave of COVID, and there have already been multiple reports of athletes coming down with the disease.

I look at rates around the world still, and right now things look like anything other than “COVID is over.” I know people don’t want to go back to masks and social distancing, and I also realize that many people in America are convinced the vaccine is part of some government ploy, but what in the world are we going to do? In the US, my best guess is “nothing.” People will refuse to go back to masks and quarantine. People will refuse to get vaccines. Unvaccinated people will begin to be hospitalized in droves and then die, and then maybe that might convince the unvaccinated that they really maybe better change their mind.

Or maybe that scenario will be totally wrong, and I’m worrying over nothing. For the moment, I’m vaccinated and almost all the people I know are, so I feel somewhat at ease, even if I’m still worried this all results in vaccine-resistant strain of the virus. (Wouldn’t that be fun?)

But I digress.

How can the Olympics do anything but hurt Japan? They get almost none of the tourism dollars. None of the spectator dollars. They’re forced to do something they don’t want to do, and they’re going to lose around $20 billion for that privilege.

So where does that put me? Probably watching to see how they go, but also hoping that things don’t get too bad? I’m going to watch them, because if everyone boycotts watching them, what does that do? It makes what Japan is going through even more terrible. To have them do it all anyway, and then have it all be for nothing? That sounds horrid. But I’m really hoping NBC or the IOC or someone is doing things to help the country out, because this feels very wrong to me, no matter how excited I may want to be to watch some good sports drama.

What do you think?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.