I usually use this space to talk about my writing, or, as it’s become more relevant to my current situation, my fight with the Direction de protection de la jeunesse du quebec.
As much tea as I have to spill about the scum-fucker cunts that are a complicit cogs in that infernal machine, today I’d like to focus on something more diabolical.
And that, simply expressed, is
eight billion versus three thousand. Or
8 000 000 000 VS 3 000
These numbers are rounded down from the current estimated global population of 8 200 000 000, or eight billion two hundred million (give or take a few million souls,) and the estimated 3021 billionaires on this planet.
You know how we talk about the One Percent?
Have I got some fucking news for you.
One percent of eight billion is eighty million. Eighty million; of them, three thousand of them are billionaires. 80 000 000 VS 3 000.
Now, I’m bad at maths, so thank god for spreadsheeting software.
If you plug the numbers in, three thousand people is 0.00375% of the 1.%
The rest of the 1% have an annual median income of about $60 000 a year. Or, what used to be a middle-class household income in America.
MOST OF THE 1% EARN FAR LESS THAN SIXTY THOUSAND AMERICAN PETRODOLLARS A YEAR. The global median income is around $10 000; On disability benefits, I earn about $12 000 a year. And we ARE the One Percent. That number includes the fifty-eight million (58 000 000) people who earn One Million Dollars a year (1 000 000.) That’s right; there’s a better chance, however slim, of working and honestly earning a million dollars.
We have more in common will millionaires than billionaires, and until trickle-down economics was introduced under Reagan, it was impossible for anyone to earn a billion dollars, and economists said it would be impossible for one person to even spend a billion dollars in their lifetime.
Now, most of these billionaire motherfuckers can drop that kind of paper and make it back in a few months. They don’t hold it in currency, but in assets. Through shell corporations, asset management operations and pure market manipulation, the Billionaire Class ensures that all they’re doing is raking more money from the bottom of the ladder, and redistributing it more laterally around the top.
There’s three thousand of them.
They have engineered this society to keep us at each other’s throats, fighting over scraps. Those scraps aren’t enough for all of is to survive off, and that is by design.
While we’re fighting over resources, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, sports teams, media franchises, favorite colors and other identity politics, they are laughing and collecting more and more money by the second, by squeezing the other eight billion of us for every motherfucking thing that we are worth.
There’s three thousand (3 000) of them, distributed across seventy-eight (78) countries.
There’s eight billion (8 000 000 000) of us, in one hundred and ninety five (195) countries.
Do the fucking math; does the name Custer mean anything to anyone?
Category: Latest News You Don’t Need
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Three Point Seven Five Times Ten to the Negative Fifth Percent
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I am HAPPY AND CELEBRATING that Charlie Kirk is dead.
Do NOT tell me not to celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death.
He was an Islamophobe; how many acts of anti-Islamic violence happened because of him?
He was a rabid queerphobe – with a particular hatred of the Trans community; how many 2SLGBTQIA+ were harassed or attacked because of him?
How many Queer kids killed themselves because of him?
He hated immigrants; now ICE, Trump’s Gestapo, hunts down people of color.
He was a white supremacist; how much white on black violence did he incite?
HE SAID THAT IF HIS 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WAS RAPED HE WOULD FORCE HER TO CARRY THE CHILD TO TERM.
Do NOT tell me not to celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death. -
Youth “Protection” a racket
“Dear Mr Karmazenuk.
We have decided to ignore the fact that you have physical and behavioral issues which, despite ongoing treatment and improved capacities, affect your ability to be consistent with your children, and blame and will therefore punish you for what you can’t control.
Henceforth, you are forbidden from seeing your children, thinking about your children, talking about them in polite conversation or attempting to communicate with them in any way.
However, we still expect you to cooperate with us until such time as your abusive and vindictive ex-wife takes back full and exclusive custody of your children, cutting you out of their lives and every milestone of their youth, forever.”
Quebec’s Direction de “protection” des enfants. Except it was written in the filthy patois of “Jouale,” the pathetic excuse for a dialect of French that they speak here in Ku-Klux-Kebek.
Dear Youth “Protection:” you’ve stolen my right to be a father, you’ve stolen the last years of my children’s childhood from me, and I will never cooperate with you, or forgive you.
Sic Semper Tyrannus.
Hey, Obi-Wan, Leia and Luke: I love you for ever and ever without breaking. They’re lying to you about me. Once you’re 14, you can contact me whether they like it or not.
I know you all have questions, and I will tell you the God’s honest unvarnished truth. I’m not the only one whose failed you, -
I’m tired of being an exile; I’m tired of being shunned…
…I want my life back; it’s been a decade…the people who left when I was sick refuse to see me, refuse to forgive…how do I find peace without any mercy, without love? -
WRITING LESSON: A Starving Artist is ALWAYS Hungry
Hello, Acolytes and welcome back to another one of our irregular classes on How to Get an Indie Book Published (We’ve finally gotten a course title workshopped – goes in for market testing next week!)
This week I teach you what I learned, this week, about cover art. Without further Ado, let’s jump in:The above block was written over two weeks ago. That’s just how hungry starving artists are. Allow me now to explain:
If you are thinking about self-publishing (or Indie Publishing as it’s called now – and a better name it is,) which is probably the best way to go unless you have a nepotism entry into publishing.
If you do have a nepo entry into publishing, fuck off; this guide on How to get an Indie Book Published (It cleared market testing and drop-testing before I got back to writing this post) is for Indie Writers: the anonymous many, who don’t use a journalism major as a slow-track into ghostwriting for Simon and Schuster’s author stable.
Now, where was I? Oh yes: You know how I keep saying it’s about having a holistic presence on social media, and that it’s all who you know? Nepos already know who they need to; the rest of us have to try and get over our crippling social anxiety and go out and interact with human people.
Well a couple of weeks back, over on BlueSky, I posted to #BookSky that I was looking for a cover illustrator. I had interested parties DM me with their emails, then sent out my query: I showed them the old cover art, as well as the Generative AI “mock-up” I made to give the cover artist to give them an idea of what I wanted.
I wanted to give the artist I hired an idea of what I envisioned (An updated/alternate version of the original cover, more in line with what I’d pictured) I used the mock up concept cover art I’d made for my own motivation and told them that was what I was looking for, in terms of art.
ALERT! INCOMING TANGENTIAL TIRADE ALERT!
Wait; why didn’t I just use a Gen AI cover? Because I’m opposed to plagiarism, and the way LLMs connected to creative tools work is that it copies from other artists, specifically by reproducing images according to scores given to the words you used to describe your project. Gen AI sucks, Gen AI is painfully obvious, and Gen AI is plagiarism.
The ONLY proper use of Generative AI in the creation of a cover for your book is to use it to create a concept mock-up for an artist YOU FUCKING PAY MONEY TO CREATE. Indie Artists support Indie Artists; we’re all partners, not competitors.
Now, as to writing, the only use Generative AI has in the writing process is if everyone you know is dead and you need someone to spitball your ideas to – not to SUGGEST ideas to you, but to help you clarify your thoughts. REMEMBER: EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND LOVE MUST BE DEAD BEFORE RESORTING TO THIS OPTION.
Likewise, using LLM/GenAI to “write” your book is not only lazy, it is an irrefutable demonstration that you lack talent and imagination. All you have is an idea, and, honestly, ideas are a dime a fucking dozen. If you don’t have the talent to turn that idea into a story, either learn the fuck to write, or get the fuck outta the way of those of us who know how.
TANGENTIAL RANT ENDS! TANGENTIAL RANT ENDS!
So, what happened?
I got a shit-ton of offers. All of them were great, and a couple of them had the kind of style I wanted for the cover, and ultimately I went with the person whose art style I preferred most. But I had to reply to a fuckton of emails, look at a metric fuckton of artistic portfolios, and sift through all of it to find the artist who was right for me.
It was Administrative Hell, because it took several hours over several days to get through, and no matter how awesome pictures are, spend the day looking at them eventually you get bored. But one artist’s portfolio stuck out, and I decided to hire them.
I had a price range in mind, based on my budget. Astonishingly, what I thought would be too little money wound up being the average asking price.
So if you can only scrape together $150-$200 you can get an amazing artist to do fantastic work.
And the bigger your budget, the more Indie Artists become available to you: I had offers asking $300, $500, someone even wanted $800, and their work was great, but way outside my price range – I didn’t waste their time other than to tell them they were out of my price range and they’re best sticking with the clientele they were making bank on.
Why the cost? Because you’re paying them for all the YEARS they have invested, both learning and doing, to hone their craft to the point that they make work WORTH that money. That is not to besmirch lower-costing artists; I was fucking relieved to find such talent in my price range. Some Indie Artists are still in school, others, this IS their only gig; they charge based on their rep, so lift them up and they will lift you up in return.
Indie Artists jump at tenders; remember the title of this Blog Post/Online Class Session, dear Acolytes.
Now that you’ve scrolled up and back down, note that while I’ve touched on my plans for a fundraising campaign, I am not fundraising to pay the artist; I’m paying them out of pocket. Their work will be the first thing people see, when they see any visuals for the Author’s Edition of They Came in Peace. It’s literally the book’s ambassador. And the cover is probably the most important investment in your book you make, because people DO judge books by the cover, no matter the aphorism.
The cover will be front and center of the fundraising campaign, and, if the campaign is successful, it will be front and center of the marketing campaign, launch, etc. It’s very important to carefully pick the cover artist – and for the love of your book, DO NOT DO IT YOURSELF NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU THINK YOU ARE.
Unless you are a professional, leave it to the pros.
And having a trusting relationship, an honest relationship even if it’s only over email/text/chat/videoconference. The more you can tell your artist, the better.
Okay; keep an eye for new posts; they’re announced on my BlueSky whenever they infrequently go up, but they are here. -
Ten Chapters to Go and Thoughts on the Importance of Research, Learning, Open-Mindedness, Communication Skills, Trying New Things, and the Efficacious Talent of Using Brevity in the Titling of Internet Web-Blog Posts.
This is one of those times the little voice in the back of my head is screaming that there is going to be some kind of massive roadblock between me and getting shit done.
Yep, that’s right: I, your humble narrator, author of the much-hoopla’d forthcoming Author’s Edition of They Came in Peace, have reached the last ten chapters and am counting down (counting up?) to the end of the backwards edit. This is all happening on a much faster schedule than I anticipated; I realize I still need to take my Read Something Else brain-cleaner break before doing the final pass…but…
I had hoped to have more writing advice to give out; but the truth is, like I’ve said previously, as important as it is to be constantly honing your writing talent, a subjective journey that never really ends, it is equally important to forge connections.
No matter how good you are, it’s all who you know. And even with who you know, you better bet your fucking ass you’ve got to learn how to market your book.
The hardest part, of course, being how to market it when you have ZERO capital to invest in a marketing campaign.
…which brings us to the topic of this lesson, Acolytes: Research, knowledge, and credibility are essential to writing as they are to anything you approach:
Soon, I’ll start looking into fixing up my SEO, getting some sort of project funding – though God only knows what I could offer to people kicking money my way besides a free copy of a book I don’t know how much it will cost to print – it’s always the printing costs that kill you until you can start rolling out enough copies to negotiate a lower printing price. But if I can figure out what to award or give people when my funding goals are met, it’s going to be a real roll-out, this time.
Writing is a fucking business; and not an easy one, at that. I mean besides the solitude, crippling bouts of self-doubt, the emotional toll that is the creative constipation of writer’s block; I’m talking about the thing every entrepreneur has to face at least once in their lives: the headache of figuring out HOW to run the business.
Which brings us back around to the topic of today’s lesson, dear Acolytes: Research; from fucking book reports to any genre of writing, research is key. It’s not just about getting your facts straight, it’s about creating background information you can use for worldbuilding or character development. It’s about understanding things, like how the electromagnetic spectrum works, how “dark matter” and “dark energy” are just placeholder terms for something science can explain in mathematical theory, but not in principle, and even if it were real it doesn’t interact in any way with normal matter or energy, and so it is not an actual thing you can use as a Technical Workaround, MacGuffin or Plot Device, not using technobabble but actual technological facts and expanding on existing theorem to make your thing do the thing you want; not often do creators like those behind Star Trek’s “Warp Drive” lead to scientists reverse-engineering the fiction into science. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting on my hoverboard, lightsaber and sonic screwdriver for a while.
Okay; tangenital rant over. Back to research:
Some of the research I did for They Came in Peace was a very deep dive: I even took some questionable actions to communicate online to people that some other people would consider persons of interest, high-value targets, and terrorists…mind you, I’ve heard BLM referred to as a terrorist organization by white racist swine, so, maybe the word “terrorism” has lost its teeth. Especially when you consider how many so called terror groups are actually people fighting for their own survival (The Ukraine, Palestine,) against forces set for their complete genocide (Russia, “Israel,” the Ignited States.) I can neither condone nor condemn the actions of anyone who feels violent resistance is their last, best hope at life. I do, however, strongly condemn the truly radicalized extremist groups, like Daesh, Boko Haram, the Taliban, the Oath Keepers, Make America Great Again, and the Proud Boys.
I don’t know the origin of the aphorism that One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, but I certainly found that to be the case while I was doing research into the psyche of revolutionaries and so-called terrorist groups. The vast majority of the people I did speak to directly weren’t extremists, militants, religious fanatics, or even political idealists; they were ordinary people who were so disenfranchised by the societies they lived in that they felt there was no other option if they wanted to survive. That sounds like a lot of people I know in the 2SLGBTQIA++, working poor and subsistence-living communities. Welcome to End-Stage Capitalism. To learn how it got so bad, Sweet Acolytes O’ Mine, research Ronald Reagan, and Trickle-Down Economics. Then sedate yourself until the urge to kill dies down.
Meandering back into researching real-world rebel terrorists, finding out what made people radicalized was essential to writing They Came in Peace. I don’t think the personal journey of the central protagonist, Simon Petrovych, would have been half as believable if I hadn’t spoken to the people I did, and studied the histories of the regions that I did.
Am I an expert on Middle-East or Eastern European politics and geopolitical terrorism? I doubt it; but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a better handle on the situation than Traitor-in-Chief Agent Krasnov. Low bar, I know, but one I can confidently clear.
Research is also learning. About the world, about the sciences, the arts, history, and your fellow Human Beings. Catching the “Woke Mind Virus” requires having a mind to begin with; and being “Woke” just means giving a fuck about other people. And every time you research something, every time you learn something, it expands your mind just that much more. Only stupid people think learning is stupid; and only stupid people boast about how smart they are. The greatest weapon in the world is knowledge; which is why despots always destroy the sciences, the schools and the libraries first.
Even if you decide to study something completely unrelated to writing, it will refine your ability to write. I picked up the guitar in August of last year, and I’m starting to get not that bad. I’ve also been cosplaying since my twenties, and believe me, when you’re building entire characters, creatures or monsters from scratch, it will teach you a lot about character design; like the impracticality of a Stormtrooper helmet versus the challenges of a Mando bucket, or why building your Xenomorph out of fiberglass resin is a bad idea, but a good one if you’re making a Vorlon. And don’t get me started on figuring out how to build a Cyberman; at least a Dalek is mainly hardware and plumbing supplies. Original character creations are even more challenging.
The point is, ultimately your writing is only as good as your knowledge base. (see “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance, J.) And your knowledge base is, ultimately, what gives your writing credibility, teeth, believability.
You also shouldn’t half-ass the research; don’t stop at a few articles or a few websites; dig deeper. Talk to people involved. Plenty of places have emails and will answer any questions you have.
Also, don’t research by the seat of your pants: It’s all right in the planning stages or while writing an outline to research, but you don’t want to be researching how the magnetosphere works so you can use it as an exploit in one of your combat scenes, because you’ll be ripped right out of the moment and it’s as bad as just quitting mid-wank to go watch a documentary on ferns instead of whatever you were working out to on PornHub.
It’s always best to research everything in advance; figure out what questions you want to ask when it comes time to talk to the Actual People, because whatever you’re researching, at some point you want to talk to someone in the field; be it particle physics, medicine, forensics, music, carpentry, geologists and geophysicists…whatever you have to look up, make sure down the road you’re ready to ask someone some questions.
Huh; I guess it really is all about who you know.
So, get out there, Acolytes; get to know some people; learn some things; be smart and get clever.
Maybe you’ll have more success at this whole writing-for-a-living thing than me.
Those who can’t teach, I guess… -
Well, This is it…for now…
Okay, well, I’ve tried my best and this is as good as my author landing page is going to look, until such time as someone helps my broke-ass out.
While my current novel project, They Came in Peace is still being assembled for re-launch, I have another work available on the market; it might not be fore everyone, but I can’t seem to create a link page for it, so if you want to read about how people hooked up and partied before the Internet, love some 90’s nostalgia and drama, check out Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Grunge Rock; in the meantime, I’ll be shortly starting work on assembling the foley manuscript for They Came in Peace, so going forward, this blog should be a lot more active.
Stay tuned! -
Nope!
Not today! Nope! Not gonna even try to open up the Dashboard interface! I just wanna smoke some weed and play my guitar.
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Construction Holiday
I will be spending this season in a traditional manner: missing my kids, brooding over absent “friends” and listening to a selection of songs to make the Hungarian Song “Gloomy Sunday” seem cheerfully optimistic. Oh, at some point I’ll blog about the upcoming re-release of They Came in Peace, my novel about an alien invasion with a twist.
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Bullshit Building
So, I can’t seem to change the website background color, I can’t get my books pages to display properly, or link to the book download site on amazon, I can barely choose a font I like, and I don’t remember WordPress being so fucking User Hostile.
NOT TO MENTION THAT GIANT GRAY BOX OVER EVERY FUCKING POST!
Back to banging my head against the fucking keyboard. -
I Must Post But Have No Blog
How best to put it? I, your loyal narrator, am not currently able to properly get my website up and running because of pigheaded gits and a very user-hostile page design interface; stay tuned.
