PayPal, Misinformation, and You

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

As an author, I stay out of political debate as often as possible. If I were to fall on one side of the fence or the other, I would risk pissing off half my audience.

The truth is most facts are not facts but opinions. Many of these are formed by the media and those who own them.

Opinions are not facts, ergo not a debatable topic. Opinions based on feelings are IEDs just waiting to go off when you tread on one of them.

The most recent post regarding fines from PayPal for those who dare to speak their mind, engaging in free speech, was an audacious attempt to test the water regarding muzzling the populations.

The USA is one of the last bastions of free speech, and it is under attack by everyone that wishes to control the masses. That is a fact, not fiction or opinion.

PayPal, as a company, ought to know better than to engage in blatant attacks on free speech.

They have backstepped their $2500 fine for those who dare to opine regarding a non-politically correct statement.

I am not one to call for boycotts. I will not do business with companies that infringe upon my ability to speak my mind.

Whoever even considered wading into the waters of fact-checkers biased by wokeness is rather foolish where stockholders are concerned.

I was rather pleased to see that the media now tells you that the clickbait you are about to check out is ‘opinion.’

There are way too many ‘opinions’ stated by racist individuals that were published as facts.

I don’t need hate in my life. Hate is like a contagion that spreads about as easily as Covid. When we disseminate such vitriol and animus toward someone we disagree with, we perpetuate the cycle of dividing the herd.

Some think you are too stupid to think for yourself. Instead of providing the facts for you to think about, they make you angry by using hyperbole as the trigger. The political ads you see on social media and TV make you mad at someone or a group.

If I offer you facts, I will engage your logical center and critical thinking skills. If, on the other hand, I piss you off, I will promote you into action without thinking it through. Think about it.

Road rage is absolute. If someone were to cut you off, do you give them the benefit of the doubt, or are you ready to cut them off in return? If the latter, you are the person the media likes to manipulate through your emotions. Those groups are a majority, which is a sad state of affairs.

The truth is that most people are good. If they cut you off, they most probably didn’t see you. Now, there are idiots out there as well. Not only do they drive, but they vote.

Love is also contagious. I manage to infect most people I run into during my daily routines with a smile, a kind word, and, yes, love of my fellow human.

Without being sappy, we need to learn from Pollyanna and look for the good in people.

-Best

My thought of the day.

How do you know what articles to dismiss as propaganda?

As writers, we know to ‘hook’ a reader by some means in the first thirteen sentences. If not, they set the book down and move on.

Journalists attempt to hook you in the title.

Both of us typically will use some emotional hook to either warm our hearts or make our heads explode.

A perfect example of articles not to read include words like falsely or buffoonery.  

Here is why you can ignore them. By the very title, you already know the writer is not objective.

Where the news is concerned, it must be objective.

If the writer injects their opinion, it is no longer news but propaganda.

I am amazed that there are no ethics in journalism today. We know that politicians lie. We know they tell us what they think we want to hear.

The line is blurred when the media becomes the spokespeople for either branch of government. Who becomes president becomes a rating game between the different media giants.

If they can keep us mad enough, we will act. It might be simply getting us to the polls or something much darker.

The murder rate we see today is undoubtedly affected by the talking heads.

If you walk into a theatre and scream ‘fire,’ you are breaking the law. The law is there because the screaming of fire will most certainly cause a stampede, much like the tragedy in Houston a few weeks ago.

The media has been screaming racism for the last several years. Those who shout that word the loudest are probably the biggest racist of them all. As a journalist, that should be illegal.

Their claims are unfounded.

If this country was as horrible as they make it out to be, why is the rest of the world trying to get here?

The media promotes the narrative. Those who only watch or read certain stations or papers parrot what those propagandists promote.

With social media in the mix, the parroting of propaganda is amplified. Since the social media giants are also part of the publishing process and have a distinct bias, the world is screwed.

No, the masses are not smart enough to look for the facts. A talking head stood in front of a town on fire and told you it was a peaceful protest. Don’t believe your lying eyes.

Many, too many to mention, agreed that the billions of dollars of damage caused and the deaths of innocent people resulted from a peaceful protest.

Finally, this is a big one, since when did vigilantism become fashionable?

Crowds used megaphones outside a courthouse threatening a jury. If you don’t convict, we will find you.

This, again, is the fault of the media. They are not reporting the facts; instead, they keep the masses divided on as many fronts as possible.

Ask yourself this, and be honest.

If George Floyd were white, and the cop was black, would that story have even been reported, much less gone viral around the globe?

Would people still burn down cities and kill innocent people because they were enraged by the unfair treatment of fellow humans?

You know the answer. That, my friends, is the problem. We have been brainwashed by the media.

My skin color or my gender does not define who I am.

My behavior defines me. My character as a fellow human is all that counts. That is the truth of it for everyone else.

I have turned the lying bastards off. I know human nature, and no, Epstein did not hang himself.

Yes, the FBI was involved in setting the stage for January 6^th.

Yes, Chris Cuomo violated ethical standards. I am confident it was not the first time.

Those who fake hate crimes should suffer the fate of someone who perpetrated a hate crime. That includes the lying ass media who constantly scream racism when it is not there.

If you really want to understand why, you need to realize that the ‘media’ is controlled by interests outside of our country. They are mega multimedia giants, and they own everything from radio to TV to magazines and newspapers. We are being played by our adversaries. The purpose is to distract us while the geopolitical stage is much darker.

There can only be one reason why a man spends millions to keep criminals on the streets, time and time again. With murders in your neighborhood, your “kitchen table talk” will not have time to include power struggles between the superpowers. If you cannot afford groceries and are forced to choose between heating your home or buying gas for the car, which will you choose?

What will you do when you are told who is to blame for it, and it involves race? Yep, you might believe it, and you might do something foolish.

It is a lie and a control mechanism. Biden will Fiddle while the USA burns, and those who control him will continue to push the buttons that distract the masses. Now they are talking war with Russia. Who the fuck thinks nukes are a good idea?  

Nobody sane would dream of it but, sanity is a questionable commodity with the God complexes around.

Ok, so I am done with my thought of the day. Maybe next time, I will take on the deaths of over 5 million at the hands of some foolish people.

My latest novel Forensic Assassin will be released soon on Amazon and KDP. I will leave it on Unlimited for three months before taking it to other outlets. Amazon has a no-compete clause when you use KDP.. Follow me here for more info. @authortwscott

Stay safe and stay tuned.

-Best TW

Nano Kaput!

Greetings, fellow writers, authors, and readers of this blog. If you took part in National Novel Writers Month, how did you do?

I managed 54K, which is not bragging; it is just the facts. Those that know me ask me how I tend to write so much in so little time.

I think the first thing I would offer as advice is this. ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff.’

The more you write and edit, the greater your propensity to catch weasel words and punctuation issues as you tell the story.

That is great if you can quickly correct them but, don’t sweat them now.

I am divorcing the word pantser and adopting the word or term discovery writer.

Writing for me is a hobby. A hobby is something that you had best enjoy. I know way too many who have spent years on one novel and then are so sure it will make it to the bestseller list they invest heavily. When I say heavily, I mean they hire expensive editors, beta readers, book cover designers, and the list goes on.

In truth, if you are going to survive financially in this writing world, you had best have a side hustle. What is that, you might ask?

Maybe you are an artist. You learn all you can about book cover design, and you try to design covers for authors that will make it.

Possibly you are a grammar Nazi, and you understand the comma… well; you might be an editor when not creating your own story.

Writers are suckers for spending money on their babies. There is one born every minute, and trust me, if you have something to offer that we believe will make the difference of published or not, we will buy it.

My second bit of advice to you is this, try to stay objective. You can spend thousands on your baby. You end with a copy on your shelf, and you get to brag to your friends.

As a discovery writer, enjoying the storytelling is the fun part.  In all likely hood, your draft will be shallow at best. By shallow, I mean lack of the attributes or layers that bring the reader into your world.

Who is your character?

What do they want?

Are they broken in some way?

Who is the antagonist, a jealous boyfriend perhaps?

We could go on forever with the details, from Save the Cat to Scene and Structure.

Vomit the story on your medium of choice before you dig into the details.

The more you write, the more you will learn. I have over thirty novels published that I will be re-working down the road. What I have learned by ‘forensic examination’ is that many of these things I do naturally.

The more you read, the more you write, the less you will worry about the muddy middle.

Very soon, I will be releasing Forensic Assassin, which I created in November. Currently, I am working on a cover design while I read and reread each chapter.

I get comments and e-mails asking me why I published before I had them polished…?

I had no tribe, no associates that were into writing so, I chose the only way I knew how. Bait the hook, cast the line, and see what happens.

On occasion, I will enter a contest just to see what fish I catch.

As far as Nano goes, I support the cause, and by support, I mean talk about it, financially support them, and of course, participate. What better use of money could there be than encouraging kids and young adults to write and become more literate?

Agents will be inundated with stuff for their slush piles from everyone that created the next Tale of Two Cities. That is the downside of Nano. It-dumps, and by dumps, I mean dumps, tons of slush for them to have their intern sort through.

With December just beginning, I wish you the best of the Holiday season. I hope that you keep your passion for writing alive.

Much Love -TW

Greetings Fellow Earthlings

I am wrapping up a companion book to How to be a Camgirl.  If you don’t know what that is, it’s ok.  We don’t judge here and I am not about to start.  This book is called Camming for Couples.

While there are a few who will look down their nose at those who model, keep in mind that we all need to eat.  With the virus morphing and changing, much like actors on a screen, they do what they do. It is my hope that this non fiction book can assist them in their vocation.

The editor has it now, and I still have to come up with a book cover. 

What’s next?

Today marks the one-year anniversary of ‘two weeks to flatten the curve.’  What have you been doing with your time?

After I sent Camming for Couples off to the editor, I started a science fiction.  The damned thing has a virus as part of the problem, which undoubtably is being done to death. So, why write it?

Unlike our predicament here on planet earth, which is ruled by imbecilic creatures that should be in those nursing homes, my virus is a bit player.  Aliens are coming to the rescue.  Providing the method to save our skins, they are only giving us a hint at how to live from here.

Two chapters in, stay tuned.

Why write it?  Firstly, it is on my heart to write it.  Secondly, it is therapy to write it.  It amazes me just how many books have been written with the virus as the main bugaboo.  When Epstein was big in the news, I wrote Schadenfreude which was a novel about sexual impropriety on an island.  

You know he didn’t hang himself… I wonder what is to become of his girlfriend?  I would love to interview her after the trial.  Twenty-one days after we had minus 18.9 C today, we had 23.89 C.  Yes, the air conditioner was switched on…

That is the way we roll here in Texas.  From snow and ice to BBQ and Sunscreen. 

Ok, back to my latest novel, I have aliens to seduce. 

Much Love -TW

Kelly is back!

I have some excellent news!

Kelly is out of retirement.

Kelly McGuire of Presidential Assassins is out of retirement and back in the forefront of my mind.

If you have not read this novel yet now is the time.  Kelly is one kick ass red head that takes names and kills.

While the good guys skate free the bad ones, are not so lucky.

Presidential Assassins is a thriller that is jammed packed full of action.

Today, she is back.  I have written the first two chapters. 

It amazes me how I can start something like this and all of the sudden the characters come to life and I just have to take notes.

Go find it, read it and wait till you see what she is up to now.

Once you meet her you will want to follow her on Twitter.  Yes of course she has her own account.

There has been much material thanks to the media so, I am full of ideas.  Let’s see what trouble she can get into.

Don’t waste a single day folks, life is short.

Much Love -TW