Month: July 2019

Writing Excuses prompt from Season 14 Episode 28

Posted on by @HppoTweeter in Uncategorized

 

Today I’m relativity free of thorns… At least thorns that are large enough to pluck out of my brain and seed onto a page… but if I don’t write my Wednesday article then I know I’ll have poor productivity on my writing days.

So I’ll be answering a writing prompt from the Writing Excuses podcast

Invent a powerful, NON-technological weapon for your setting

More powerful than any known system within your setting

The system people understand this is something that is completely non-understandable

(yes NON understandable, that’s what they said) Grammar Police Warrant issued

Scene: how does society adapt to this

Scene: build a battle where no one really knows what this weapon can do.

Well, this is a little difficult for my setting the fantasy world of LokPassaid. Grammar aside. There are three main regions of course to choose from.

The Kingdom: Which has large scale battles, but those are fought with base technology that is approved of by the God-king Lok. Magic is out of the question, as well as the use of a non technological weapon.

The Freelands: Large scale battles typical don’t take place since the overall environment is so harsh. Their are occasional clashes between the Freeman Corp and Baron’s trying to form rogue states.

The Queensland: Would have to be the setting… Gee I’ve spent so little time here I wonder if I’ll be able to give the chaotic structure justice. The Queensland consists of hundreds of independent nations and tribes that self organize and self govern, without direct interference from the God-Queen Passaid.

Great lets cast the Acting Armies,

Frost Giants

Vs.

Tundra Trolls

The weapon: Fire

I’ll post it after I craft It to quality,

But hey here is a peak at how I process

With Love,

hngyhngyhppo

Electric Boogaloo (a short revolution)

Posted on by @HppoTweeter in Uncategorized

Aug 20… Airlines begin to route more flights to Nevada to meet demand

Sept 15 the crowds began to amass

Sept 17 The streets are filled with crowds. Dj’s looking for exposure have began performances from
from open air trailers.

Sept 18(morning) the media sends reporters for the first time those out side of the meme cycle hear about whats going on?

Sept 18(afternoon) The mayor makes a statement from a moving vehicle, the National guard has been called in as a peaceful show of force.

The gathered crowds chant in response “We’re here for the memes.” The DJ’s record and loop the crowds chants.

Sept 18(evening) power to the town has been cut off in an attempt to disperse the crowds

Sept 19 clashes between Antifa and Nazis occur more and more… an off duty airmen got drunk and was caught raping a passed out women in an alley… the Antifa and ‘Nazi’s” spilled into the alley from the bar… they join forces and beat the airmen to death…

This the violence pours over and anyone in uniform is a target…It was reported as the 51 riots

Sept 20th the media attention sparks out rage from gathered masses. 20% of retail business had to close because of lack of employees. Everyone was turned into the news. Would the riot turn into a raid of area 51.

The explosions that brought down the NYSE server farm happened at 9:07 pm

The power transfer stations for NY city, Detroit, and LA where hit at between 9:15 and 10:00 plunging the most populated cities into electrical darkness. As a result cell receipt and the updates of 51 consist of rumors and CB radio relays.

A group calling themselves “the rope” takes responsibility for over 3,000 individual assassinations of bankers, gov’t employees, and multi-national executives.

The last thing on most peoples mind when the 21st broke out was did they raid 51 or not?

400 bank robberies

over 500,000 death from violence across America

4000 individual accounts of arson

With the destruction of the nations financial center, payment processors don’t work.. people are unable to buy food on plastic.

Electric Boogaloo Revolution 2.0 has begun over a meme like this

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This is a work of fiction….. stay safe

wishing you stay safe,

hngyhngyhppo

 

It’s ok to not finish a book, or dozens of books

Posted on by @HppoTweeter in Uncategorized

It is okay and there is nothing wrong with picking up another book only to but it down halfway through. There is nothing wrong with you. This is just as much by design as your toaster has been manufactured to fail after a few years.

So you just picked up a book because the sample was beyond amazing. Now, your nearing the halfway point and the motivations are standard. The tropes are tried. The sentences lack that luster you find in the first 20-40 pages. You want to see the characters get their happy ending. But there is so many words between here and there. And slogging through the barrens doesn’t carry the excitement of discovery or even the threat of danger that the finale has.

So you put the book down.

This is when you pick it up a few times finish a chapter. But these times get further and further apart. Till you either find something else to read OR something else to do.

You may think that ever unfinished book in your reading library is a failure.

It is not.

Remind yourself about that.

Why is this the case?

Two reasons off the top of my head

First: publishers don’t really care if you read the whole book. Why would they? Most novels on the shelves today win awards or place high on the charts do so based not on the quality of the middle section but based on how well the first few pages are. Heck some reviewers may have only listened to the audio book while drive slowly through L.A. Traffic.

Imagine you were in the theatre watching a movie and after the first ten minutes you are hooked, you love the characters, the action, the score is balanced and enhances the mood of each scene, the lighting is perfect, the little details in the scene make the world feel alive and real…

Then as the twenty minute mark approaches and the definition goes from crystal clear to Iphone quality. The score fades to silence. The actors go from polished big screen to table reading. The CGI fades out and the you’re left watching Capt and the god of thunder sitting there in jeans and a t-shirts saying.

“Then we fight”

After I deflect your hammer with my shield I say

“No, you killed my father.” <yawn turns the page> “he was struck dead by lighting…”

yeah I’d be pretty pissed too

but I’m not going to leave the theatre,

a movie is passive entertainment

a book is active. If your mind doesn’t stay focused then the movie doesn’t play. If you don’t turn the page or move your eyes across the words the movie is paused and can remain that way for months.

Second: we are pretty spoiled. Entertainment has gotten so good that we can get a dopamine fix from the palm of our hand in a matter of seconds. Whereas reading the fourteen chapters between here and the something exciting becomes a chore rather than a leisure activity.

So you put the book down and you “know” your not going to pick it back up again.

It’s okay really

There are over 500 new books every month on Amazon. You will never finish them all.

But If

If

If

you feel bad about it. Fast forward through the commercials and junk fight scenes you don’t care about.

Read the last chapter

or just the last page.

That will close the loop and you can let people know that you read the book but only the good parts.

Anecdote: When I put the Dresden files on my TBR (to be read) list, I read the last book first book 9, then book 1; 8,2,7,3,6,4,5

yes on purpose

I wanted to read the Dresden files ever since the show.

But to be honest book one wasn’t really good

had I have started with that I never would have finished book 1 and I can’t read book 2 unless I know everything about what happened in book 1.

so I started with the high quality back to low and back again.

Not only was this fun because everything post book 4 is gold

but because the world is consistent there were changes that had happened and reasons i wouldn’t know until i finish three more books. Rather than pacing through the story trying to remember everything as it happened on paper. I was weaving a complete story because before I find out why X from book 2 was dead in book 8, I’d have to bite my nails through a few close calls…

anyways pick up that garbage, read the last page, they have your money don’t let them steal your time…

with love,

hngyhngyhppo

Creating Milestones that take less than a mile…

Posted on by @HppoTweeter in Uncategorized

There are many terrible things about being a writer. My gripe today is about milestones and deadlines. While all of these are self imposed and I can change them tomorrow if i felt the need. It is important to use them.

I don’t like it but it is none the less important.

I started writing ages ago and never finished anything. Then in 2017 I was left with only one choice if I wanted to continue to be an entrepreneur and work for myself. I had to write. I don’t want to write… It is not the most enjoyable thing I spend my time doing.

But it is the only thing that I have enough resources and skill at that it was worth pursuing. Also it solved a huge problem in my life.

The lack of decent male orientated novella length pulp fiction. If penguin publishing was still commissioning new or similar series to the Trailsmen then I would never have picked up the pen and instead refined perhaps my programing and game design skills.

But they didn’t and here we are.

My first book took over a year for only about 42K words… I know that I should have been able to finish it sooner but I didn’t know how to do. My second book took six months and my third and best book so far took only four. I should be able to get a book done every three months at a pace of 8k a week and so my next book will be ready by the start of September.

What does this have to do with milestones well I found that these milestones work for me. 600 words take a break. Finish scene take a long break. Keep track of my progress towards my deadline am I behind, ahead of schedule, or right on target.

In school I’ve always been a do it at the last minute type and the fear of failure has been a good focus. But with no publisher and audience breathing down my neck for the next Song of Ice and Fire, I have to manufacture my own fear.

The first thing I do is increase the demanded production to much higher than I can handle. It’s overwhelming but I’ll try to get 8k words done today and another 8k words tomorrow and another 8k after that. I took an extra day off of my part time job that pays my full time bills so that I could have the day to write. This helps keep that pressure on… I enjoy work and the bills it pays. I now have to prove that taking that day was worth forfeiting the steady days pay in exchange for higher production on my novella.

If I’m successful at reaching my word count goals than this book 4 will be draft a month and a half before I expect to publish it. Allowing my more time to edit and apply wordcraft polish before I send her off to the editor. While at the same time will remind me of the extreme work flow that I’m capable of and draw ever closer to my goal of having four more quality novellas done before June of next year.

And gee I wish these words counted but they don’t this distraction has cost me 30 minutes I should be writing,

With love

hngyhngyhppo

Fascism is virtue according to Aristotle

Posted on by @HppoTweeter in Uncategorized

This title does not reflect the views and opinions of myself or any reasonable person.

FASCISM is bad

-HPPO

Now,

Political centrism has gotten a lot of bad press recently and its not going to get better anytime soon.

But political centrism is not the same as fascism

extreme centrism is fascism though.

Political centrism is the people stuck in the middle saying things like we should pay taxes to support roads, education, and cushion the blows of the free market/tragedy against members of our society when they fall on hard times.

Fascism is a large governing body that has extensive and unaccountable control over the nation state that it rules over. The fascists decide who gets a helping hand, where and who builds the roads, and who gets educated in what field. They do this according to their own world view without much input from those being governed.

The right of the political spectrum is not fascist. The further right you go the larger the individuals sphere of influence over the matters in governance. Your town would decide where to build the roads, if to build and maintain a school, and who qualifies for assistance from the taxes raised. You could literally walk into a town hall meeting and demand an increase to the minimum wage, if their are enough people in your community who agree with you and support your proposal. Boom new minimum wage.

The left is not fascist either. The further left you go the smaller an individuals sphere of influence but the larger the scale of policies once enacted. If it would cost your town of 100 to build a road costing $100,000 dollars that is $1,000 per resident but if your road was part of a larger network say 500,000,000 people. The cost per payer for that road is far less than the smallest unit of currency, or the entire thing is paid for by a tax levied on an excess of profits that exists somewhere as a result of the flaws in free market systems.

The far left can lead to fascism because the further left you go the more control you surrender to the whole of the governing body and therefore the more likely that a fascist style government can arise. Once a fascist government has taken control they never give that control back to the lower levels of government, free market forces, or individuals.

The far right can lead to fascism because once fewer restrictions are placed on legal organizations and greater autonomy is given to individuals, the more uncertainty you create. Uncertainty and the Unknown cause individuals, businesses, and groups to become afraid. Fear leads to individuals yielding their authority and autonomy for security. If you’re afraid you’ll starve to death if you don’t accept a job that pays you a slice of avocado toast once a day, you’d probably take that job. And they will continue to shrink the ratio of avocado toast to work preformed until your employer has reached the bare minimum to keep you productive, profitable, and alive. In an effort to create more certainty for themselves, those with the avocado toast will gather as much authority and influence as they can until they have become fascists.

What does this have to do with Aristotle and virtue?

Aristotle defines a virtue as in between two extremes in behavior.

The most common example given is in between cowardice and recklessness lies courage.

Therefore in between the left and the right is the virtue of centrism.

As explained before once a governing body has gone too far left or too far right it will self correct and that governing body will become fascist becoming neither left nor right on the political spectrum, but by strict definition a virtue.

Aristotle virtues must be practiced and are not innate.

It is a practiced virtue to eat only what you need.

To not over-consume or starve yourself.

But if you have no choice in the matter it is not a virtue.

If you never have the opportunity to over eat at a buffet or you are withheld food though famine, then your choice in the quantity consumed is not a virtue.

So if you have the opportunity to make a difference in politics but you do nothing, you are not virtuous

If you don’t have the opportunity to make a difference in politics, you are not virtuous.

If you have both the opportunity and you use it well that the virtue.

Basically stop alienating centrists because they are left or right from you on the spectrum.

How come in 2019 have we come to recognize gender as a spectrum but policy has become binary?

Go with love and grace,

hngyhngyhppo