Good morning, friends and fans!
Welcome to a “Peek Into My Week”! Here’s a look at some of my latest news: April 3, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week.
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
Let’s take a look at the current status quo on various ongoing issues affecting my writing or publishing:
- Writing: During the past week, the wordcount for “Underground Movement“, book 7 in Quantum, steadily crept up to over 57,000 words. In the meantime, I’ve picked up work on book 8 and 9 again as well, seeing as they generally overlap and continue the same present story arc. Book 8, “Xanadu” might get retitled before it gets published, but I’m not too sure about that just yet. “Fortitude” (former book 9) got merged with “The Last Hurrah” (former book 10, now book 9), so there are three new books on their way now, and not four anymore – although there is a planned tenth book which I’ll work on later. Also, as things stand currently, I’m working on three books simultaneously again *sigh* and while I really enjoy writing, sometimes it’s a lot of hard work! But at least I’m enjoying it as well! Relax folks, I’ve done this before – I know what I’m doing.
- Articles: Last week, I published no articles because I spent all my free time writing on the three books I just told you about!
- What Readers Say: I’m not sure, I know I can’t please everybody – so drop me a line and let me know how I’m doing?
Other Stuff:
This past week I’ve been grateful that I don’t live in the USA. Why? Because I’m safer in a third world country that is the world capital of corruption, violent crime and murder, than in the place where most people seem to believe they are in the best country on Earth. We may not have electricity or water all the time, but at least we don’t have religious terrorists running government.
Those Gods-damned Bigots
Apparently the shooter in Monday’s mass shooting in the USA (not to be confused with the dozen or so others that happened over there the past few weeks) was transgender. At least, according to some hysterical American news articles. Because it’s relevant of course, that the 28 year old that killed a bunch of kids in a school was transgender. How many of the many, many other mass shooters in American history were described as being cisgender? If your answer is “none”, then maybe you understand why this is an issue. Especially in a country where being transgender is now the latest reason for people to be legally discriminated against for existing and the topic of transgender people is pretty near incendiary.
The photo caption “The transgender shooter carried two assault rifles and a handgun.” says it all for me. Yet there is still some debate over whether or not the shooter was trans at all, but that of course doesn’t matter to the American press, just like the facts to American politicians – and especially to the right wingers edging the US closer to a transgender genocide.
Speaking of facts that clearly don’t matter, out of the last thousand mass shooters (in the last 3 years or so – which says a lot) – or ever, since the year dot – the fact that only one has been transgender, speaks volumes of the way the right wing press and nutbag bloggers and hate-podcasts are blowing up over this right now.
Those facts and statistics of course, never feature in the way this news will be portrayed. No, because the reality is far less interesting or entertaining – American news is entertainment, not informative – and “the public” needs to be afraid of the big, bad transgender monsters lurking amongst them, don’t they? After all, you never know what we could be capable of.
The truth is, you don’t – because just like any cornered animal, our teeth and claws are very sharp indeed. But, I digress.
Can you say “propaganda”? Repeat it after me.
Because out of those thousand mass shooters from the hypothetical last 3 years of mass shootings, that means 999 of them were cisgender – so who exactly is the real threat here, Karen?
NOW of course, the right wing – who are all notoriously anti-gun control laws, even though American children are dying in the hundreds every year from needless, pointless gun violence – and schools consider arming teachers and have already started installing “active shooter safe rooms” – will push for tighter gun regulations of course, to deny LGBT people, and specifically transgender people, access to guns. Watch this space. Wait for it.
We’re “too mentally unstable” they’ll say – forgetting that transgender people undergo stringent psychological evaluations to determine mental fitness to proceed with treatment. But as we all know, American right wing neo-Nazi nutters don’t care about facts – science is a “conspiracy” against their religious-fueled prejudice, remember? They only care about stuff that confirms their bias – which is why it’s called confirmation bias.
But white neo-Nazi teenagers accompanying their neo-Nazi mothers to armed clashes with police are perfectly safe bets to allow owning assault rifles (and not only get safe conduct and kid-gloves treatment from the same police force that guns down black children playing with pink pistols inside their parent’ cars parked in a parking lot, but also get bought milkshakes on the way to the station). The same right wing terrorists and their representatives in Congress who pushed for the current legal discrimination against trans teens getting proper medical care, are now openly calling for transgender people to be wiped out.
Because of this transphobic vitriol (read stochastic terrorism) transgender Americans are increasingly on the receiving end of a campaign of hate fueled by the identification (rightly or wrongly) of this shooter as transgender, even though this hasn’t even been confirmed yet.
A friend of mine was right this Monday morning when she said “America’s circus tent looks like it’s on fire and the monkeys have grown wings”. Indeed.
That F***ing Garage Door Again – For The Last Time
Not to whinge, but it’s now going to cost me a packet to completely replace the entire roll-up garage door with automation system just to sort out all the issues I’ve been having with this one.
One Possible Explanation For Why I Am So Strange
My high school biology teacher (a certain Mr. Smeda) had a reputation for being everywhere in the school at once. I remember one day I saw him in one place on one side of the school – only to meet him in another office again after just walking to another side of the school – and plenty of the students had the same sort of experience with him. He was literally everywhere, all the time. He even posed for a photo for the school newsletter inside the passages astride a mountain bike by way of apparent explanation. The caption read “Mr. Smeda’s reason for why he’s always everywhere at once!” But I think it unlikely – a bicycle was too crude… he must’ve had some sort of time dilation device!
And people wonder why I have such a warped sense of humor today! I’m seriously damaged. Damaged, I tell you.
New Garage Door Fitted = Bliss
New Anthology Mention
I’m happy to mention that I’m a contributor to this new anthology! 🙂
2023 SciFi Anthology: The Science Fiction Novelists kindle version launches today, March 31st. Paperback and Hardcovers available through Amazon. Also available for Amazon Prime accounts. This book contains two of my short stories, “I, Mac” and “The Ghost & The Machine”.
That’s all for this week!
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached 10 reviews on any platform, let alone 50! I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!
I wish you all a pleasant week until next time!