The Business of Writing

Oh Crap, tell me this isn’t a blog about business…please??

It’s true; we are writers, we want to write.  It is tough enough to conjugate words and have them make sense.  Writing is equivalent to weaving a ten thousand piece puzzle together when half of the pieces are blank.   The dog might have eaten some of the pieces, but yet we press on.

Do you want to make money with what you write?

If the answer is yes, then you must accept that writing is a business.  If it is, you need a business plan.

It is not enough to have ideas for stories.

From marketing to paying for your parts of the process you are not strong in, you must be willing to make sacrifices.

I am asked how much time should I spend marketing, and when should I start?

Do you know the answers?

In this very blog, I started a story about the Three Hundred.  Few of you took the time to read it, so guess what, it is a failure.  If I cannot entice someone to read a story for free, what hope do I have of getting someone to pay for it?

That is the first lesson; failure is part of the business plan.  Failure is a good thing as it gives us feedback.

I would tell you to keep tossing shit at the wall and see what sticks but, shit is probably not the best adjective I could find.

Cast your pearls out into the winds and see what seeds land on fertile ground and take root.

Either way, the lesson is, don’t stop.

If you have a passion for writing, write.  As for advice from me to you, write what you love or are passionate about.  If the Three Hundred stirs your juices (speaking to myself), write the damned story.

If this were to be a novel, when do you suppose I should begin to market it?

“The Three Hundred, a story of the last few humans to survive before mankind destroys the planet.”

Ok, I need to get this on social media and wet appetites.  Yes, when the title and the concept are in your mind, blog about it, tweet about it, and invite your readers to peek behind the scenes as the story develops.

With this action, you build a base of followers, who when the story hits the book stores will be the first to buy it.  They might also be the first to leave you reviews.  Reviews are a good thing.

Keep all your receipts because this is a business.  Trust me on this; when you make over $600 from Amazon, the government will be looking for their share.  They will know about it as you will be issued  a 1099.  Just claim it and move on. The federal prison on tax evasion is no place to write your next novel.

When the story takes form in the way of the first few pages, begin exciting your followers on Social media.

Dedicate time each day to marketing.

From Social media to web site design and content, it is all necessary.

One problem with social media is your eggs are in a basket that you don’t control.  The @twscott823 twitter account was suspended for no apparent reason.  I went to tweet about something, and it did not work.  I have many followers who were not easy to come by, and Twitter just suspended it because God only knows why.

Yes, I have appealed to the robot in charge.

Knowing that social media can be fickle and unpredictable, what can you do?

First, you must put your eggs into a basket that you control.  Web sites are a good one.

I am looking at paying for advertising on Amazon, which kills me.  I pay them to market my books that they keep a good chunk of—cost per click.  You could spend upwards of a $1 a click for a three dollar book that there is no guarantee that the “clicker” will purchase.

In business, we call this a loss.

I am currently exploring all the angles. What is the least expensive way to get my novels in the hands of those who would read them?  As I learn more, I will share it with you here.

#amwriting is not just a hashtag; it is who I am.

Much Love -TW

What day is it?

Do you find yourself asking this?

As we come up to another holiday weekend one wonders what is going to be different?

Maybe we don’t spend so much time in front of the computer?

Can we close the lid on the laptop and then what? Read another book or perhaps find some other mindless show on a streaming service?

While some find an oasis in their back yard many don.t have such a place. I cant help but wonder what the long term social effects, of this lost year will manifest as.

Employers are learning that employees can telecommute.

If employees are under house arrest ‘so to speak’ they tend to put in longer hours just because.

Now that the world is paranoid about a virus so small it takes an electron microscope to see it, how do we use that to ‘our’ advantage?

You had best know that people in power are looking into this. Every new technology is first looked at in the way of, how can I weaponize it. the same is true of events such as this pandemic.

I firmly believe that the media is using fear of the unknown to socially modify the fabric of society around the globe, but to what end?

The other day I was writing a letter to a freind and I used the term ‘China Virus.’

My grammar checker berated me for using such a hateful caustic bigoted term.

WTF?

The thing came from China. There is no argument about it. Those are the facts.

Who programmed or modified the code to look for such terminology?

I have many friends from China, I don’t hate the Chinese people.

I want to know who in their right mind thinks it wise to make a bad virus worse?

Did you know they have genetically modified mosquitoes? It is true, they have modified the mosquito to render the female sterile.

On the surface this sounds like a good idea but, what else have they done we don’t know about?

In Japan they are working with the embryo of Sheep human hybrids.

That sounds like a BAAAAAAD idea.

You know that somewhere in some back room there is a hybrid talking sheep.

What might this day with a Y at the end bring in the future?

Was this virus designed to kill off the old and sickly?

Was the HIV virus created to remove gay people from the earth in some post Hitler Genocide attempt?

Was Ebola constructed to do away with over population of people who are starving?

What else in cooking in petri dishes around the world in nondescript buildings ?

No, I don’t trust any government. Power corrupts. I am also a science fiction writer among other things, so my cynicism allows me to construct wild fantasies that today are just not that wild.

Stay Safe, Stay healthy and Enjoy the weekend!

Much Love -TW

Writing like a Boss

How are you all doing?  The business has dropped way off.  Even the spam calls are down to a minimum.

I did get some interesting emails today.  Someone in Luxemburg is attempting to extort me for 2000 American Dollars.  Of course, I have to acquire bitcoins and send them to some account that is probably a hundred characters long in hexadecimal format.  I hope they hold their breaths.

The last person that did this was in South America, and they found him with my assistance.

You see, I am one of the few who could have found those 33K emails.

If pressed, I could probably walk up to them in a crowd, social distancing, of course. My trek would most likely bring me to China.

They have infected some businesses and using their computers to send out spam emails on naked contact forms.  I will probably just remove the contact forms, and make it more difficult for robots to bother me.  Everyone is using captcha’s, and they are working hard to defeat those as well.

Those spam extortion attempts are written like a fortune cookie in that some people will see some part of it as valid.  Some will pay them and get nothing in return as what they are threatening you with is a paper tiger.

This is why my IT friends that you never depend upon free antivirus; it is not worth what you pay for it.  So many idiots in the world with egos with no skin in the game tell their boss they can save them so much money using windows defender and nothing else.

Now, this company has all of its computers infected, sending out extortion demands all over the world. 92.223.89.5   Check out the IP for yourself. I wonder if Interpol would like to go after these guys.

What is even worse than the extortion demands are intellectual property.  If I were to do some white hat hacking on this IP address, I wonder how far I could get.  I won’t as it is illegal, and I never break the law, ever.   We wonder how intellectual property is obtained, one way is to have a stupid IT guy with an ego.

Some of my novels have forensic computing peppered in them, as that is what I did for eons, well since Al Gore invented the internet.  Pfft.

Anyway, since business is in the crapper, I have been doing some volunteer work.  I realize that those kinds of organizations could benefit from my talents, so at times I offer it up to them.   Other than that, I have been writing my latest novel.

Close to 20k words into a YA novel for supernatural activities.  I will be using a literary agent for this book, so wish me luck.

If you are a writer and not working, consider spending some time with your fingers dancing on the keyboard.  The world needs some poetry and some uplifting news.

Much love -TW

Will Carnival Survive; I hope so.

Leaving winter behind, headed for Mexico.

While staring at the same four walls sitting for weeks,  stir crazy is an understatement. I have the pictures I took on my last cruise to keep me company.

In November, I sailed with Carnival to Mexio, Grand Caymen, and Jamaica.  In all sincerity, I have sailed on other cruise lines, and spent a bit more for ‘nice rooms’ and balcony’s. On one cruise, I even had a butler that came with the room.

I say that to moderate this next sentence; I wasn’t expecting much on the Caribbean cruise.  I have never heard anything good about Carnival, so I had low expectations.

It turns out that I never heard anything good because, I was not listening.

A cruise to me is a time when the cell phone does not work; you can have dinner with people who are not looking at their phones and doing things that you would typically not do.  In short, it is a reprieve from life, and allowing someone else to do the driving.

I was more than pleasantly surprised by the accommodations. That was not all that impressed me.

For those who have never traveled with Carnival, allow me to talk about the voyage.

Making my way through the embarkation process, I surrendered the luggage and was pointed in the direction of food.

First things first, we all head to the Lido deck and find that there is plenty of food of all kinds for your enjoyment.  If you follow my blog, you know I have a day job, and I write novels.  I am stressed a good bit of the time.  I sat there with my food in front of me, and I could feel the pressure leave, much like pushing that button on those Insta-Pots; the pressure was vanishing.

The time came that the cabin should be ready.

Outside the door is this little mailbox thing that held my door key and badge, that makes all things possible.

Keep in mind that I usually travel a little more upscale, so, again, I was expecting a small room with an unobstructed view.

The TV was on and in front of the bed.  I forget what was playing, but I suspect it was information from the ship’s crew, something about ‘muster.’

The bathrooms on ships amuse me as they are very efficient.  I am a little bit of a germ-a-phoebe.  This room was so clean and pristine; I quickly dismissed my trepidations regarding its cleanliness.

The Balcony was my next stop after testing the bed.

Let me advise you on that balcony door, it is heavy and makes a rather loud noise when you close it.  If you are like me and wish to dampen the sound by not allowing it to slam, be on the lookout where your fingers are.  My thumb was between the door and the frame.  Yep, that smarted, and much like someone with Turrets, I was probably less than polite.  Watch where your hands are.

The Balcony would be adequate for those of us with insomnia.  The sounds of the ocean ‘swishing’ beside the boat as it glides through the Gulf of Mexico were intoxicating.  Sunsets and Sun Rises are a treat on the sea too.  Stargazing was also great as this was during a meteor shower.  I sat out one night and counted many particles of space dust streaking through our night skies as if to punctuate the otherwise beauty of the night sky.

Never got tired of sunsets or sunrises.

On to muster.

Just do it.  When you are sailing on any cruise ship, it is required by maritime law that you are briefed on where to go, and what to do, in the case of ‘disaster.’ When I say law, I mean, they will not start until they have accounted for every guest.  That means if you try to hide in your room or hot tub, they will track you down before they begin.  We waited close to an hour before they could account for everyone.  Don’t be the ninny that causes tens of hundreds of people to sit and wait, while they hunt you down.

Once everyone is accounted for, the talk is not much longer than what you hear every time your fly.

With that over, your vacation begins.

Once on the cruise, eating, relaxing, and socializing are the main events that you need to think about.  As your eating dessert, plan your next meal.  It is great!

I was super impressed with the Horizons Restaurant.  The staff were terrific, the food was delicious, and the nightly entertainment during your dinner brings happiness to the table and the entirety of the restaurant, as a collective.

Speaking of food, I did have a reservation at Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse.  You might be thinking to yourself, Why TW…all the food is free, why pay for it?

I was with a large party, and it was my birthday.  They were so lovely that I was not going to say anything when they overcooked my steak.  The waiter saw that it was not what he wrote down, and ask me about it after I had eaten some of it.  I told him it was ok, don’t worry about it.  His response was, “It is not ok with me. That is not what you ordered; you are going to get what you asked for.”

Another at my table had the same issue.  This guy bent over backward to make it right.  Not only were they super friendly folks and made sure that my dinner was pleasant and of the quality, it should be but, the chef made an appearance at my table and apologized profusely.

If an overcooked steak is the worst thing that happens, life is grand, right?

The night was magical, and in truth, I just made myself hungry reliving that memory.

This group was awesome!

There are so many things to see and do while onboard; you will not be bored.  Seek out the smaller venues, as they change personnel from time to time.  From the piano bar to the IMAX Theater, you will notice that the time flies.

She was fun and had an excellent personality.

As a writer, I am always in need of new experiences.  I came up with an idea for a novel regarding cruise ships while on this last trip.  The idea was a little dystopian, which we are now living through.  Anyways, you will meet many different people, and if you are like me, you will get to know them, and some will remain in your life, as some have for me.

Last night I wrote about Character Arcs, guess what, you need to meet characters to write them.  On the island of Jamaica, I met two that will live with me years to come.  Miss Lola and her sidekick Dr. Lizard.

Church in Jamiaca built in the 1700’s

They showed me parts of their island and their people that amazed me.

I understand that while in Grand Cayman, there is a place called Hell, and if I had known about it, and gone there, they would have stamped my passport, showing I visited Hell.

This being holey week, one must ask, is there a town called Heaven?

Why am I sharing a small part of my vacation with you?

Folks, we are currently experiencing a speedbump on the road of life.  You can either piss and moan about it, or you can make the best of it.  As a writer, I am doing my best to keep up with you folks, and learning new techniques for the craft of writing.

As soon as they find a way to mitigate the effects of this pandemic, I will return to my life, and yes, that means Cruises.  In the meantime, I will continue to work on novels, my craft, and keeping you folks entertained and, in some cases, informed.

Ships full of oil just sitting in the Gulf. This was November.

Much Love -TW

 

What is your writing process?

I lost 60 minutes!

Many of my friends and fellow bloggers want to be traditionally published.  Many work on a novel for years.  One book, years… I am blessed in that I can write fast and make cohesive stories with my’ process.’

I did the Nanowrimo thing, got the t-shirt, but it was my least favorite way to write.  I am more about the time investment than the word count.  If you are like me and have a full-time job, you probably cannot devote five or six hours a day to your writing.

That is perfectly okay, how much time can you devote?

The problem with many, and I am no exception is, ‘interruptions.’

The phone, people, asking me things, or even my ‘mews’ the cat all interrupt me.  I have decided that I am going to build a cabin on some lake property I have.  I am considering putting a quasi-tree house, where I can escape to the confines of my mind while away from the hustle and bustle of people, and things.

No phone, probably no internet, and a do not disturb sign on the door.

My process is usually late at night when the world is quiet. That is my time to play with my characters.

If you are like me and struggle with voices and POV, you can only do it correctly if you can ‘channel’ the character.  In one of my novels, ‘The land of my people.’ I channel a five-year-old.  Now, it has been a few years since I was five.  How would a five-year-old girl talk?  Now I have to jump into two twenty-five-year-olds male and female.  What does their voice sound like?  He is a descendant of American Indians, and those were just some of the challenges.

No, I don’t worry about the page count or the number of words, I worry about the time I put in the craft.

People talk about writer’s block.  Sit at your computer and put something down to fill up the white space.  You can always delete it later.  I will put down the craziest of ideas and usually modify them or delete them as I make my way through the second or twenty-second draft.

It is funny when you write your first draft, then go back and read it.  It is much like this little dance where you add and take away until you hone the characters and plot just so.

How many of you tonight are thinking about this damned Coronavirus?

Is that sucking the life out of your writing?

Do you realize we have an outbreak of some kind often? Ebola was the last scary one.

H1N1 was where we ended up with hand sanitizer everywhere.

I see people dumping on Trump for this.  Wow. If you want to blame someone, how about the lab in China that created this thing?

Wash your hands, and don’t take any airplane rides for a while.  Airlines are like a petri dish anyway.

Speaking of airlines, let me tell you a true story.

I used to travel a lot.  In my job, I was always at the airport waiting on planes.  On one trip I was flying stand by, I needed to get to New York as someone had called in sick, so I needed to make the presentation.

I sat next to two cadaverous, like people.  It was okay, I can be kind to anyone, and generally, I learn something.  This was back when they fed you on the plane.

The guy next to me was frail in his nineties.  His wife was nice about the same age, and both were so thin you could probably hold them up to the light and not need an x-ray machine.

He had ordered Spaghetti.

You already know where this is headed, don’t you?

I was dressed for a business meeting complete with dry clean everything.  On his second attempt, the tray flipped up and landed on me.

Never mind the expensive clothing that was ruined or the fact that I had no idea how I was going to resurrect this mess, but his wife, bless her heart, takes the cloth napkin rubbing this red sauce all over me.

It was unbelievable!

Once on the ground, I headed for Macey’s buying stuff off the rack before showing up late to my meeting.

What was one of your worst travel experiences?

I have many stories; on one, I saved the plane from crashing.  True story.

I hope you enjoy your time off and take care of yourself.  Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds using soap and water.  The virus is supposed to have a skin or shell that is made up of fatty material.  Soap will break down that shell destroying the virus.

They think it can last for days on surfaces, so I would avoid touching menus, keyboards, and payphones if they still have them.

Much love -TW

Russia set to liberate the US from Bernie Sanders and his Comrades. Film at 11

This sounds like a political blog, it’s not really. I am poking fun at communism and those who think it is a good thing.

Would Russia have to stop an out of control Communist from taking the world’s economy down?

Do you realize that the world is tied together by its economy?  If ours were to fail, the worlds’ would fail.  Is that what the billionaires of the world are secretly up to?  Destroy the economics of the world as a whole to force a one-world government?  Millions would die, but they might actually pull it off.

Soros did single-handedly break the bank of England in 1992.
Perhaps that explains why Occupy and Antifa and other militant groups are funded by the likes of the boogie man. What would he gain by destroying the world’s economy?

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction.  As a science fiction writer, I think outside the box, and I must tell you that if you wanted to create a one-world government; that would be one way to do it.  A nasty man-made virus that killed off tens of thousands would be a nice distraction in the meantime, thank you China.

‘never let a crises go to waste…’

Look at the markets currently with just production in China being affected.  What would it take to change every country in the world? Only a few infected people who were on a mission from ‘God.’…Hop on a busy aircraft, and your job is done.

In this hyper-partisan rhetoric that we see on just about every news blast from CNN to MSNBC, they must think that we care.  Is she really part Indian?  Did Putin put in the fix?  Is there a difference between Socialism and communism?  Who was Lenin? What was that Marxist stuff anyway, what about more money for less work?  Why not pay everyone to just stay at home and play video games?  How much free stuff do I need to promise you to get your vote?

I am not a product of our current educational system.  Thank God!  I realize from speaking with people half my age, they were cheated in college, or they cheated their way through it.

With current examples of Socialism in the news, one would think they might know it is not a good thing.  These same people are trying to tell each other that there is a difference between Bernie’s idea of Socialism, and what is going on in Venezuela.  Yes, they are that deluded.  If you want to stock up on toilette paper, don’t worry about the coronavirus; worry about Bernie actually winning.  Worry about a bunch of entitled creatures who were taught they deserve everything, without lifting a finger to get it. Or, they deserve it if you worked for it because of some non-existent bias that you are accused of.  It is justified for them.

Worry about more paid protestors gumming up the works like they did in 2012.  Worry about people with billions of dollars to buy the white house, actually succeeding.

If Bernie wins, you will want Toilette paper, whiskey, and cigarettes because that will be what the currency will look like, until old Vladimir comes to the rescue.  Even he knows that Capitalism is the only way for a country to succeed.

Wouldn’t that be one for the history books? If the Russians have to come to save the USA from the likes of Bernie and his Antifa goons. Don’t laugh it off too quickly; there are radicals out there that think Capitalism is evil as they text each other on their thousand-dollar smartphones.

When Hitler was elected those Brown Shirt dudes were already there much like those Antifa dudes are lurking in the hallowed halls of disinformation.

I am going to assume that there are fewer of them, than those who have at least cracked open a history book, or possibly know people who have fled from countries like Venezuela. Think I am kidding, peruse Twitter.  Ignorance abounds.

So, listen up candidates, here is what we need from the government.

Firstly we need you to keep those with that virus out of the states or contained until such a time they are not a risk.

We need you to stop all the name-calling. We need you to calm down the hostility that you and your ilk have created in this country.  Go put on the gloves, hop in a ring, and the best two out of three is the Democratic candidate.  Be careful of Mike, he will hit below the belt, not that he means to, he is just vertically challenged. My money is on Tulsi, if she will stoop to your level.

Do you realize that a contest of this type would get more ratings for your propagandist networks, than all the debates to date? Hell, I would even watch. What would a boxing match between geriatrics look like?  Pink gloves and warm milk after they managed to climb into the ring?

For the real candidates, here is a punch list of what we need.

Keep the country safe from all forms of terrorists, both domestic and foreign.

Provide a fair and equitable tax code that allows anyone with the will to try, to have a reasonable chance to succeed.

Any government services that you provide, DMV for one, fix it, so it works.  I would actually make it private, so they would actually care about taking care of their clients.

I don’t think the government should be in the health care business period.

Provide infrastructure that allows products and people to get from point A to B in one piece.  Again toll roads seem to get built-in weeks and government projects take lifetimes.  Maybe you should buy the kind of cement the toll road people use or better yet, privatize the whole damned mess.  The one thing the government is efficient at is inefficiency.

Force Term limits on all politicians.  Once out of DC, they are no longer allowed to be active in politics, and that includes as a lobbyist.  Their one vote is all they get after that.

Stop talking, start doing.

You do your jobs, so we can do ours.  When the news comes on, I don’t want to hear about what politician is sleeping with whom, or how much they hate the other guy. In my book, you are all one step above pit vipers, and I am not too sure of the one-step. Stop wasting tax dollars on el toro de caca!

Guys, we work hard for that money. To watch you piss it away like it was foam on cheap beer is disgusting!

People, if you give the government more power, just think about every service they are in charge of now running like the DMV.  Spending days in line to get your damned driver’s license renewed only to finally get there and find you did not dot some I or cross some T.  Do you really want to turn that kind of inefficiency loose on health care, or Mike’s version of health care, which is ‘go home and die?’

This sounds like the stuff for a horror movie…

Yes, Bernie loves communism, and for the record, Pete’s father was a Marxist.   You would be better off with Mike than those two.  I, for one, would like to see Tulsi win.  I don’t agree with everything she says, but she is a patriot and not a Russian spy.  Pffft

A small update from Tuesday..

WTF?

Someone needs to write a blog about communism.  Nothing is free.  Someone pays for it and no, it is not the government.

-Cheers

For Mom

Three sons left home, said goodbye to their dear single mother, went out on their own and prospered. Then one day, revisiting together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly Mother on her birthday. They all loved her dearly, and each wanted more than anything to give her something she’d truly love.

The first said, “I built a mansion for our mother. 26 rooms and a huge back yard filled with trees and flowers. A house that is fit for royalty, and will give her all the space she never had.”

The second said, “Well I bought her a luxury car, and not just for her to drive, no. It comes with a private driver that’ll take her anywhere she wants to go She’ll never need to drive again, and he can help her carry heavy things back to the house.”

The third smiled and said, “I’ve got you both beat. You remember how Mom enjoyed reading the Bible? And you know she can’t see very well anymore. I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible. It took the Elders in the church 12 years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot recites it.”

The three agreed that all gifts were well thought out, and were sure their mother would be amazed and delighted.

Soon thereafter, their dear mother sent out her letters of thanks: “Milton,” she wrote the first son, “the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house.”

“Gerald,” she wrote to the second son, “I am too old to travel any more. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I stay most of the time at home, so I rarely use the car, my dear. And I must say the driver is quite rude!”

“Dearest Donald,” she wrote to her third son, “you were the only one to have the good sense to know what your Mother likes. That chicken was delicious!”

Open letter to Katie Hopkins @KTHopkins

For those of you who are not aware, the British government is considering the transgender narrative, (her words) force-feeding it down the throats of 4 and 5-year-olds in the UK.

Below you will find my response to her.  If you read my blogs or novels this should not be surprising.

Dear Katie,

I could spend an entire blog gushing about how great you are.  Truly, darling, I do think you are magnificent, and I wish you every success in the world.

I wanted to address your stance on the government-teaching children about sexual things, in specific the LGBTQ way of life.

We have a conundrum in our world, and that conundrum is the elephant in the room.  We have the internet, which is unfettered in countries, which are post 17^th century.

I was involved with technology before Bill Gates purchased DOS for $5K and then licensed it to IBM per copy.  I was also around when Steve Jobs was still a criminal, selling blue boxes from his garage.   My point to this is; back then, our lives were much simpler.  We only had Hollywood to worry about infecting the minds of our citizens.  Even journalists back in the day were still journalists.

You would never have known that Walter Cronkite was a liberal, as he just reported the facts.  What a novel concept.

Young people with smartphones have more than a window into propaganda. These devices are also a portal into the underbelly of the internet, where women who rail against objectification, pose nude on webcams for money.  I use the word pose loosely, as they are actually performing for their “tips.”

As soon as mommy or daddy give the child any sort of device connected to the internet, the infection begins. I could say indoctrination, but it is more like cancer than brainwashing.

While Stalin was correct when he said the most potent weapon in war is the written word, that lesson has been lost on society as a whole.  Tearing down statues is only one step away from book burning. History will be lost. History is now mailable, as it is now wiki something or other, and can change with a keystroke. If megalomaniacs like Stalin had the internet, what damage could they have done?

We are finding out as the social media giants are now the megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur. They know better than you or I what is relevant for the world to know and that is where the bulk of the news comes from.

Progressive networks parrot the same talking points, and the kids hear enough of it to nod, listen, and regurgitate the relative disease filled talking points as if they were indeed the gospel.  AOC is a perfect example of the brainwashed generation that will soon take the reins of society.

“God Help Us!”

If you have listened to her brainless rhetoric for more than five minutes, you realize what a sad state we are in.

Since the internet is rife with “adult” situations, what are we to do?  Children have no clue how to process this information, never mind the LGTBQ ideology.  How can they even grasp common decency with the warped world view being cast upon them?

While I agree with you that, the government is probably least qualified to address the issues of sex, one good thing is happening.  People are talking about it.

I noticed that the Church of England no longer requires Sunday service.  Is this too a sign of the times?

Is church the standard bearer for common decency or are they now irrelevant as they don’t embrace the progressive agenda being foist upon the world?

I am certain my cousin, Winston Churchill is spinning in his grave.  I too weep for the UK and worry for the US, as many feel like the UK is a model for what we should be doing.

When journalists are activist, and Actors are militant, we as a society, lose.

Keep ringing the bell my Darling.  I too feel like that lone voice in the night, but I hope the silent majority will soon be quiet no more.

Much Love -TW

 

Holiday Nightmare

If you are like me, we drag out the decorations from the basement, attic or closet and begin the task of deciding what we are going to do.

Some of us might get things from the internet thinking it is easier to buy new stuff, than store it.

A newly acquired strand of decorative fairy lights was already in place when one of the strands did not work.

Not only am I a writer, and a forensic technologist, but I am also a fair engineer. Admittedly, I can figure out why a string of lights did not work.

So boys and girls, in my humble opinion, don’t have this in your house! 

Ok, now this is not fluff, what I am going to share with you could spare you a house fire, or worse.

These things came directly from China, most probably through Amazon.

Examining the strings of lights, I found no broken wires.  That was my first suspect, as those are the things that are moved around the most.  It would be relatively easy to dislodge a connection.

Taking a look inside the control box, caused me to gasp audibly.

 

If you look at the tiny circuit, you will see that there are no fuses anywhere.

The two wires on the right are indeed the 110 volts only a slight hair away from each other.  The thin wire, if shorted would light up like a Christmas tree, as it turned white hot.

Yes, that is your 110 with no fuses anywhere.

Poorly engineered will most certainly cause a fire if it malfunctions.

I wanted to reverse engineer the rest of it to discover what the voltages were on those other strands, but since there are no fuses, I suspect any kind of short could be catastrophic.

This is all of it, three transistors, a bridge rectifier, and one lone capacitor and two resistors.  There is some kind of control circuit with a dab of epoxy on it to make things blink.

 

Take a look around your house, and see if you or your kids have such things.

If they do, make sure that the UL label is on them.

This crap from overseas is so poorly engineered; I doubt that they have them in their own houses.

Examine the pictures for your amusement, and then take action to make sure you don’t have anything like this in your house.

If you are of a mind to share this with your friends, and family, you might save a house, a Holiday or a life or two.

Much Love- TW

 

Oh, and have a Wonderful, Safe and Happy Holiday!

What if Donald Trump had been a Democrat ?

 

Tearing the fabric of our country to pieces is a process, and it starts at the top.

If you can observe without getting emotional, one can learn plenty.  When your emotions are triggered objectivity is lost, and the end result will close poorly.

History is fraught with example after example of how evil behavior leads them into war.  Today we have given the most juvenile troublemakers a megaphone, and those miscreants can hide behind a pseudonym while spewing their hate filled venom.

Some of this propaganda is coming from outside of the US.  There are reprobates in other countries who use their power of the pen (keyboard) to inject hate into an already inflamed situation.

Dialing back the rhetoric, if you talked with everyday folks who are not glued to The View or CNN or Fox News or those horrible night time activist, you would quickly learn that everyone wants the same things.

• A Safe country
• A nice place to live and raise their family.
• A job that pays a reasonable salary
• Entertainment without politics
• Good affordable healthcare
• Sensible energy and food cost
• An economy that works for the American people first.

I am confident that I am missing things in this list, but the point is we all basically want the same things.  This same list would apply to the folks in Russia, Africa, the UK and of course our good friends down under.

Now imagine if Trump were a Democrat.

Stirring up emotions is what they do. What if they tried spreading some love instead of hate? Would people watch? Do we watch them so we can feed our hate demons?

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, The View, and late night comedians (activist, including Bill Mahar) would be singing his praises.

They would all be talking about his accomplishment and how feckless the Republicans were.

Even If President Trump were a feckless moron, the MSM would be defending him and calling out the naysayers as evil pawns for the antagonist (insert Russia or pick a country.)

Trump, however, has decided to Run on the Republican side of things.  This made it easy for the MSM and their toadies to launch a full out assault on him.  Their rhetoric did not stop there, however; they took it several steps past the politicians, and they went for the supporters of Trump.  They cut off their proverbial lifeline to sanity and went after every day mom and pop and their children.

Now we have a personal attack on half the country by people whose gravy train with biscuit wheels is being threatened.

“If you become rich as a public servant you are a crook.”

Without too many exceptions that statement you can take to the bank.

 

Why is it that the wealthiest counties in the whole country are around DC?  Even the lamest most math-challenged individual out there can put this formula together.

This animus created by people who are not looking very far down the road is resonating with people.

This one wanted to blow up the white house…Nope, no problem here nothing to see. We all love one another…Pffft!

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 02: Amy Schumer attends “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology”, the 2016 Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2016 in New York, New York. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

The first people this resonates with are people who are not that well informed.  They hear snippets here and there of the propaganda, and it sinks in.  CNN pays good money to have all the airports play their propaganda 24X7 at all the airports.

Why?

This is straight out of Pravda. Control the media to control the people!

Why would you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to airports to play your news channel?  They could make the argument it is for their advertisers, but you would have to be a fool to believe that is the only reason.

98% of their coverage of this president is negative.  Even with the recent North Korean Summit and pathway towards peace in Korea, they put a negative spin on it.  Those that sit hours on end in the terminals hear this propaganda over and over.

They then go to their end destination and most probably parrot what they heard.

This is worthy of the Nobel Prize and CNN and others are calling it lame and foolish. They went so far as to say that KIM is taking our president as a fool.

 

Had Trump been a Democrat we would hear how wonderful he is, and I am sure that Fox news would be dissing him.

This my friends and fellow Americans is where we find ourselves.

Where does all the animus come from and what effect does it have on normal Americans, you know the Deplorable.

This is a sad way for his career to end. Keep in mind that their talents are to be able to read and remember a script and emote. Rocket science and common sense is not a requirement. Case in point intelligence seems vacuous in some. You’re out of the Circle …

The hostility exuded by not only the press but the elite snobs in Hollywood filters down.  Where does it filter to?

• Mass shootings?
• School Shootings?
• Shootings in general?
• Attacks on Senators playing ball?

Obviously, there was more to it than pure vile rhetoric but, did that contribute to it?

After the Florida shooting CNN hosted an event allowing emotionally fraught children to address the world.  One young lady “Selena” was given a script by CNN and Democrats who hate Trump. Her message or purpose for being there was to tell the world how this was Trump’s fault and that he is personally taking millions from the NRA.

Conveniently they did not mention this shooting.  Did Obama take millions from the NRA too?

People listened because we will focus on an emotional outburst like a moth goes to a flame.

This young lady was so disrespectful to a sitting president it floored me!  When I watched more closely and saw the senator from Houston behind her, and it became crystal clear.  From Day one this man has wanted to impeach Trump and has been slapped down even by Pelosi.  His hatred for Republicans is monumental.

“Never let a good tragedy go to waste.”

This is the mantra of the left. Instead of trying to heal a nation they, in fact, poured gasoline on the fire while exploiting children to further their “destroy this country agenda!”  Not just children mind you but truly victimized children.

It is easy to blame the NRA but here is where the failure started. Why not go after the root cause of the issue?

The debased behavior of the media and Hollywood is culpable for the volatile environment we have in this country today.  Their actions are tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded theatre!

Trump is a polarizing figure, I get it.  Look at what he has accomplished in spite of the obstruction from the left in his first 500 days!

It would seem to the people who don’t let their emotions control them that the left would be ok with Nuclear war if it destroyed Trump.  They would be ok with China taking over the world if it hurt Trump.

Is this the driving force behind what we hear and see on TV?

This is the way it seems to fair-minded people who look at both sides of the story.

The discourse in this country is in part the media and the Hollywood Elites fault.

When Icons of the Silver Screen stand in front of a crowd and yell Fuck Trump that resonates with other haters.

Their ratings are sliding into the abyss, should they think about being funny instead of attacking the president of the United States and half the citizens that voted for Trump?

If I throw a pebble into a pond, the waves will eventually have some effect on the shoreline.  If I toss in a boulder, the waves will overwhelm the shoreline.  If I have a meteorite crash into the Gulf of Mexico, we will have another ice age.

Every action has some effect on others.  that is the point of that paragraph.

Artist depiction of what killed off the dinosaurs.

The Loony behavior of some are everything from pebbles to boulders.  Hate is like a virus, it is catchy.  Love is also like a virus as it is catchy.

Which will you spread with your actions today?

Much Love -TW