I am a novelist with work published in science fiction, fantasy, mystery and historical "novelized biography". I've won the Prometheus award and the Dragon award. I also write under the names Elise Hyatt and Sarah D'Almeida. http://sarahahoyt.com/
Yesterday in the Huns discord, we were talking about …. um…. aging and other subjects. Honestly, I’m not as sensitive as Granny Weatherwax. You don’t need to mumble about the maiden, the mother and “the other.” I don’t feel like a crone, yet, but my medieval definitions, I definitely am. Not only because they lived much shorter lives than we do, and sixty would be “old and full of years” but because the kids have left the house and are adults, and though we don’t have biological grandchildren yet, it definitely could happen. So, crone.
That’s not the issue. I was never a beautiful woman. Wait, I was, physically. I think. But I didn’t know it, so that was not how I defined myself. I only realized men no longer turned around on the street to watch me when I gained sixty pounds over six months of bed rest with older son. And my reaction wasn’t great grief, but rather “Oh, were they doing that? I’d never noticed.” Look, half the time I forget I have a body.
And that’s the problem. Because not realizing I have a body means not treating it particularly well, and blaming all my failures on a lack of will power, or intent, not, you know… on the fact that I can’t do what I used to do.
Which, frankly mostly consisted of abusing my body and mind to achieve the impossible. Six books and fifty short stories a year, sure! I could do that. While raising the kids. With both hands tied behind my back and a sack around my legs….
And I could. For a while.
Then between hypo thyroidism and sleep apnea (both now treated) something broke, and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. The first year without being able to finish a novel scared me, but I couldn’t seem to get out of the hole.
In retrospect, the altitude was doing me no favors, either. even after I started de-satting overnight, and kept my oxygen in the upper 90s, something must have been going on, because I look at some of my work from that time and it …. it’s like I was trying to write without being able to remember page to page the name of the characters, or what I was doing.
It’s getting better. This year has mostly a lot of life/health events, which honestly, is probably the tax I pay for all the time I ignored body and life. Mostly because in the last years in Colorado there was really not much I could do.
But as I start recovering, I have become aware that it will never be the same. Call it age. Call it that some broken things will never come back fully. Or perhaps I lack enough will power. Who knows.
These days, I listen to this song (finding out it’s about Louis XVI makes me wonder if they ever actually read about him — as opposed to watching movies — because this makes no sense for that. But it’s a great song, anyway) and cry a little:
However, I think — and am experimenting with — at least some of what has been lost can be recovered.
My experiment with sleep hygiene seemed to indicate the stories can come back, full sound and technicolor. If only I hadn’t fallen off the wagon. (Yes, yes, must work on this again.)
So — because we have a fight ahead of us, and it’s hard to persist though hell should bar the way (and it will) — I must enjoin you to try for the sleep hygiene things: A set bed time, all electronics off for at least a couple of hours before, and try to stay away from blue light, try to stay in bed and not read, even if going to sleep is difficult at first, and no naps during the day, because it messes your sleep cycle. And for heaven’s sake, if your bed companion complains of your snoring, do take a sleep test. Sleep apnea causes something too akin to dementia to be comfortable.
And try to eat well. Meaning, unless you’re a full on carnivore (which works for some) try to eat at regularly spaced intervals, and have something green every once in a while. And some protein.
20 minutes of exercise a day, even if it’s just running up and down the stairs with laundry. (Guilty.)
And drink some water.
And if things are off, do try to track down why. Sometimes even seemingly small things can throw the entire complex body system off. A friend says the mystery is not that humans die, but that we somehow manage to live for years and years.
And if we’re going to do battle and push our way through — even if “just” in the culture war — we must be able to perform at our best.
So, you take care of you. It’s not “Indulgent self care.” It’s battle prep!
And then we’ll get through. Though hell should bar the way.
Yes, I really am going to combine them. You see, I just did the overdue chapters of Witch’s Daughter, and am now going to do Winter Prince.
So, first, pretty picture:
And now, due to the inordinate number of hours I expend on this blog, and the fact that the most common sentence said in exasperation by husband is “Must you do the blog right now???” I believe I should be paid.
(And I’m arranging to send out rewards for last year’s fundraiser hopefully all this week — knock on head — I think we figured out a means of doing it. Yes, I do realize they’re overdue.)
If you also believe so, you have several means of doing this:
The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.
’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.
And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.
Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold bars. Just package those really well.
304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107
NOW, ON TO THE PROMO POST
Book promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo,please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months(unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
The Vosges Mountains hold their secrets well. So do the hearts of men.
Arnauld d’Loup commands the Wolf’s Paws, a most unusual company of warriors. Comtessa Leoni d’Vosges commands magic and needs men. Powers ancient and dark move through her lands, and wise men tread warily. Especially a man who carries a curse in his blood, a curse that resonates with those powers.
When Comtessa Leoni makes a terrible choice to protect her lands, Arnauld d’Loup must make a choice of his own, one that may cost him his very soul.
Freighter captains are supposed to make the numbers, hit the routes on time, never deviate, don’t upset any passengers, and always do what the boss says. Danny Ortega and his ship, the DSRV Ghost, fail every single one of those. No one in their right mind would hire him… Which leaves the truly odd routes and cargos, and a rep as ‘hot shots’ that will carry special time sensitive loads anywhere, anytime. As long as he can keep his ship, his marriage, and his crew together, Danny never worries about a fixed schedule. Pirates, plagues, enemies of his passengers trying to take them out, too little money, too much money, and getting trapped in alien mating rituals, sure, but any semblance of a schedule is merely an unanticipated cascade of opportunities. Fortunately, his ship is full of surprises, and not all of his crew are who they appear to be…
Marines. The first into battle and the fiercest warriors, either individually or as a unit. With a long tradition of fighting aboard ships and on land, their tactics might change when those ships go to space but their fortitude will not. Join 9 authors as they imagine what Marines will look like in the future, and how they’ll take the battle to the stars.
Jake Taylor was your average broke student at the University. One day, when he had no classes, he stumbled across a booth set up for “brain scans,” Earn while you sleep. It looked like easy money, so he signed up for the full scan. It would require sleeping in a booth for two days, but he would wake up thousands of dollars richer. It should be easy money…
The next thing he knows, he is no longer human, and the new world he finds himself in is an extremely dangerous place. So dangerous that the former occupant of the body he finds himself in had just died from a venomous snakebite.
He is informed that the body he was in had been wearing a crystal resurrection necklace. He is now one of “the “resurrected.” Many of those that died while wearing the strange crystals have their bodies healed, but their memories were lost and replaced by something from the crystal. He now finds himself “Isekai’ed” (implanted into a new body) on a planet where there are no humans, in a body that looks like the former owner was a martial artist, one that used steroids and worked out… A lot of steroids!
It is a very dangerous land, but there is always work for someone who can fight and can kill monsters. Unfortunately, sometimes the real monsters are hard to tell from normal people…
This places a Hard S/F wrapper over an Isekai story with lots of humorous elements. There is fighting using medieval-level technology weapons. And some surprises later on. This has a minor harem element but contains zero explicit content.
[This was Formerly released as The Resurrection Crystal, completely updated and revised]
Stranded in Salt Lake City by bad weather, Attorney Owen Vail goes to sleep in the Airport Hilton.
He wakes up in a different room.
In a different city.
In a different body.
Swept up in the aftermath of a ruthless billionaire’s experiments, Owen and those like him—unwilling body-jumpers calling themselves “the dispossessed”—try to find a way back to their own lives, while also staying out of the hands of those who want to find out what makes them tick… from the inside.
When outlaw Jess Dreer, on the run for avenging his father’s murder, met Mary Valentine, the town flirt of Salt Springs, it changed them both. It changed others, too, and not always for the worse.
But a change in character means nothing to a clan that’s been crossed, and even less to a sheriff who has spent years in single-minded pursuit.
Regardless of character, regardless of good deeds or noble sacrifices, bullets will fly and justice will be done at the end of the long, long trail!
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the book genre and historical context.
Born to gypsies, raised by Jews, Jane Lee turns eighteen and decides to win her way into the upper classes of Victorian society. Her heritage won’t let her go, but her single-minded will and cunning are a match for any gypsy plots against her.
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving historical context to the novel.
Please consider Murphic Industries for your figurine needs!
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
Tenth day of funding. Big jump overnight. Fingers crossed, because, well, I believe I deserve to get paid for the almost full time job of running the blog.
I am however aware this is a hard year, and not just for us, but for everyone else, as well. I’m aware a lot of people can’t donate even if they’d wish to, and that a lot of people have greater needs.
Yes, I need to finish disbursing stuff for last year. It’s not been lost.
And I realize I need to put up chapters today. I tried yesterday, but– I pointed out it would slip and it has. At least WD will be up today. Winter Prince might take till tomorrow. The main culprit is not sleeping much, in this case because of Dan’s surgery and things associated.
I’m fundraising because I treat this blog like a job and an obligation, and should be adequately compensated.
Also for me to be able to subcontract some work and have time to sleep now and then:
The first option to donate is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.
But if you want to get something for your donation, and particularly if you want to incentivize (totally a word) my fiction writing: I’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Go to Chapter House, read the free portion of the books, and consider subscribing to receive the updates. You get a chance to read the novels as they unroll and perhaps to talk/argue about them. You’ll also get them at the end in ebook format. (I’ll try to have a free story once a month or so, for the free subscribers, but no promises) Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.
And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.
Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold bars. Just package those really well.
304 S. Jones Blvd, Suite 6771 Las Vegas, NV 89107
And all the pictures are free to a good home. (And fine, okay, I did a quicky fix on the leaky helmets. Mind you, for covers it would need a ton more work, but–)
So, it is the 9th day of fundraising. It’s going… slowly. But not stopped.
I’m doing chapter updates to the two novels in Chapter House after this. Today has been slow due to health follies. I did warn it would be slow to the end of the month because it’s “fund with doctors” TM. It will get done.
I continue to deal with fundraising by posting pretty pictures, which, yes, are free for the taking. (They’re midjourney with light mods. Not as much as I’d do for a cover.)
I’m fundraising because I treat this blog like a job and an obligation, and should be adequately compensated.
Also for me to be able to subcontract some work and have time to sleep now and then:
The first is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.
But if you want to get something for your donation, and particularly if you want to incentivize (totally a word) my fiction writing: I’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Go to Chapter House, read the free portion of the books, and consider subscribing to receive the updates. You get a chance to read the novels as they unroll and perhaps to talk/argue about them. You’ll also get them at the end in ebook format. (I’ll try to have a free story once a month or so, for the free subscribers, but no promises) Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.
And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.
Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and gold bars. Just package those really well.
It’s amazing how every time I post something telling people things are not quite as bad as they think, and defeat is not guaranteed, someone or other presumes to lecture me on how oh, no, it’s much much worse.
The prize this week goes to the gentleman who tried to tell me that a Romanian type of outcome was impossible because we can’t organize and march shoulder to shoulder without being arrested or something. Because, you know, the outcome in Romania was organized (it wasn’t. I have read extensively on it) and also they were much freer than we are now (I recommend said gentleman have a talk with say Monalisa Foster. Yes, yes, the iron curtain countries were falling, etc. None of this compares to as vast and untraceable as the US is, how relatively regime-uncorrupted our military is [I do say relatively] or how much dissent is still allowed. Seriously people: We’re more free than…. well, Canada, Australia, not to mention Europe, and those are beacons of freedom compared to Soviet Satellites, even as the wheels were coming off.)
Because my courage rises with every attempt to depress it — name that quote! — I decided this is the ideal time to point out that the doomers are full of sh*t. It’s not our wheels coming off.
Realizing this is such an unheard of perspective — and I can explain why, yes — I will point out that you shouldn’t from this assume that I mean everything is hunky dory, or that we’re not going to hurt at all, or even that we don’t still need to fight.
I’ve said before and I will repeat, because of how fast the institutions are collapsing, because of the terrible people the Left has in place (not just evil, but incompetent and bizarrely mentally inflexible) and how much power they have managed to amass, (before most of us were born) they are creating an amazing level of destruction which will bring a terrible amount of pain and suffering. We’re going to lose people, places and things we had no need to lose, because the left is like a bear with its paw in a steel trap, and it’s going to maul everyone it can before it goes down.
And it’s not all going to be cookies and cream on the other side, when we get there. There has been some real damage done to people and culture that will need to be repaired, and that’s never a load of fun.
BUT in the end, we really do win, and they really do lose. And the Gipper will be proved right, as will Trump, because communism and socialism, and all the top-down “Daddy government will kiss it and make it better” philosophies will at long last be confined to the dust bin of history to be things of horror unearthed by long-future archeologists digging through the fossilized midden of ideas. At which point they’ll scratch their heads and go “Uh…. how did they believe this?”
So, why do you think you’re losing?
Well, because the right always thinks its losing.
Part of it is set-in perception. If you’re the sort of kid who got beat all through elementary and middle school, even if you get a late growth spurt and become the sort of guy no one messes with, at the back of your mind, you’ll always expect to be beaten up and cringe when a guy with a sadistic smirk heads for you.
Throughout most of the twentieth century the lovers of freedom (right is a really bad word for this as in Europe it just means “blood, soil, and national religion”) lost ground incrementally until maybe the last decade.
This is because the communications technology of the 20th century was so concentrated and susceptible to gatekeeping that it was custom made for the left to get hold of and police, never letting anyone else get a look-in. So once the left captured it the right could not get a look in
And lies were told with panache and style. And “Leftism” became a positional good. Which meant people ascending the social ladder either were or pretended to be left. For one, it was the only way to get a job in the arts, communication, news, etc. etc. etc.
This in turn created a prospiracy that spewed a unified narrative, including outright lies, like FDR ending the great depression, which was taught as truth in public schools, and assumed in all news and entertainment.
This also created the feeling that communism was the future and would always win. Every time I say that some of you say “Not in the place/time I grew up.” It’s as may be. Sure, people were “anti-communist” from the lips out, but if you go and look at the books you read, including school books, they all assumed that top-down, planned economy and welfare and all the rest was the way to go. They claimed to be anti-communist, while mostly being anti-USSR, but still assuming that the socialist/communist/statist ways were the best. In fact, a lot of you who are older and haven’t really thought about it still assume a lot of this. It comes out when you say things about the good old days, which were the narrowly controlled times of FDR. When abuses were tolerated that would now have us up in arms, including intrusions at all levels of life and production, and good ol’ weapon licensing and control.
Because the left controlled the news media, too, they managed two things the right couldn’t do: When a program failed, they papered it over and invented a way that it had been meant all along, and served their purpose. This created, in the right’s minds, the idea of a never ending series of victories for the left.
Or as a friend said recently “They don’t mind waiting 100 years. It’s all a plan.” That’s arrant bullshit. The left is actually running on borrowed time, and the current generation doesn’t want to make any sacrifices, much less 100 years of sacrifice. They want their rewards, noooooowwwww. BUT in my friend’s defense, that’s the left’s propaganda and has been all our lives — we’re about of an age — and it’s impossible not to believe propaganda that has gone on that long and that pervasively your entire life. Particularly when you’re depressed, it’s very hard to see through the nonsense and see the counter evidence.
The other trick they have managed is to make the right disown their victories. Until recently — and it’s important to realize this has broken — they could attack someone on the right and get them disowned and turned into pariahs. They’re still managing this with the more timid commentariat and more hidebound right-pundits about Trump, but they have reason to suspect this is not reaching the masses, and it’s part of what’s driving them nuts.
The truth is that without the shell of unified propaganda, the Marxists are a paper tiger.
With all the help from the west, and making big scary noises to keep the help come, all the USSR ever managed was to lose population/wealth/ability to do things SLOWLY. As opposed to the “very fast” that would have happened otherwise.
Even in a country as controllable as Russia (for various reasons, including because of climate, highly concentrated population) the resistance was getting larger and larger, till 70 years later they were governing in name only. But they could still project — abroad — the idea they were totally in control. Which is why you don’t realize any of this.
As for China — China is China and therefore complex — but there’s reason to believe that most of the control has always been ‘for foreigner to see’ and to be honest the same with most prosperity. Aside a few potemkin cities, the average Chinese lives like a medieval peasant in Europe, but without the charm.
The other little communist “paradises” are mostly just kleptocracies in the style of the region, with added oppression and horror that come from benefiting from the still existing Marxist media in the west.
Things have not been going well for the Marxocrats since the Soviet Union collapsed. Which it did because Reagan refused to kowtow to it or treat it as a world power. It was always a paper tiger and couldn’t stand it when someone blew on it.
The Soviet Union was not only their hope, and what they hoped was the promise of a communist future, but it was also their source of financing, since a lot of what they got by pillaging and raping Africa and South America went to fund Marxists in the west.
They reorganized, sort of, after the fall, by throwing themselves into the watermelon green movements, racial movements, feminism, etc etc etc.
Under this guise they managed to do a lot of harm to the culture, including the introduction of “political correctness” which they hoped would create not only the inability to say forbidden things but even to think forbidden thoughts.
It didn’t work. Sure, it corrupted the language and it has destroyed the arts, but unfortunately — for them — the geeks undermined it all. Mind you, it would have happened without the internet, but it might have taken another two or three generations. You see, political correctness and all the noveau-Marxist thinking is even more disconnected from reality than the old Marxism. So sooner or later the counterculture (real one. Us) would have won by telling the truth. Because the truth works. However, the internet made it possible for people to communicate without the left gatekeepers. This made a lot of us both aware we were not alone, and started the true resistance to the leftist constructed reality.
“Racist” stopped working as an insult, since we’re aware the left are the true racists; cancelling is an ineffective tool when everyone knows it’s happening. It worked great for fifty years when it was in secret; imposing controls on speech doesn’t work when people can speak around the controls; carefully constructed narrative breaks apart when you try to tell it where counterexamples are in the public eye.
The last twenty years have been a roll of failed attempts to gaslight us. Occupy Wall Street was supposed to take the economic misery people were experiencing under Obama and blame the free market for it. It was supposed to turn into a vast movement of the dispossessed which gave Obama the power to act as a socialist dictator and take everything. Instead, it collected the mentally ill and some college students.
Summer of recovery one, two, etc. was supposed to convince us things were better under Obama.
H*ll and damnation, people, Obama was supposed to be the new FDR, taking us all the way into socialism.
In reality they can’t even pretend that he’s beloved or saved the country from anything. Heck, even racial minorities ain’t too fond of him. And what’s more they know it, because they know how much they had to fraud in 12.
BLM was supposed to spark a revolt of everyone against white people. Instead, it was the paid for psychos and a few crazy people and white college women. And not enough to terrorize the suburbs. In fact, the only place they really could terrorize was the cities they already controlled.
Oh, yeah, they also got to scare corporations and churches, which are already administered by their own. But that isn’t going so well when the lumpen proletariat realized it could boycott back. And also when the little leftist psychos wouldn’t say bought. (Quite possibly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen/heard was our last visit to our church in CO, which had just re-opened, and which got a fiery Marxist deacon to preach on the virtues of BLM and “anti-racism” while the church and its property was being vandalized nightly. It wasn’t just me sitting in the pew looking at the man like he was nuts. Because he was.)
2016. Trump winning gutted them. You see, the fraud was in place, but those d*mn people went and voted in numbers that made it irrelevant.
And then after four years of demonization and an unprecedented “Let’s put everyone under house arrest” initiative to control those dang peasants, they voted for Trump in such numbers that the fraud had to be ramped up at the last minute and now everyone knows.
And the epic shenanigans of 2022 have pissed people off at the local level various places.
What’s worse, the mood in the country keeps getting uglier, and despite some older people and more timid commentators still buying the “He’s evil bad, disown him” the majority of us are going “yeah, no.”
Kyle Rittenhouse was supposed to be condemned and abandoned by the right, then made a public spectacle, to show you couldn’t resist. That didn’t go well.
Yes, the January 6 prisoners are a horrible thing, and for them what happened is a disaster. But it too failed to work. It was supposed to be a Reichstag fire, which would cause the entire country to turn on anyone to the right of Lenin. Yes, the old and brainwashed have bought the leftist narrative. But most people haven’t. In fact, the “hearings” were a massive flop, and convinced more and more people that it was nothing and the left was just making it up. (Because it was.) And more signally it failed to “get Trump” which was its principal purpose.
So even though we lost people — well, not us, but the lovers of freedom in general. Our people were too wary to walk into that trap of a demonstration with no set purpose that made any sense — this also wasn’t a win for the left. Not saying that it’s not horrible what happened to them, but instead of turning the nation against the left, it mostly injured the FBI’s and the government’s credibility. The same with all the various “get Trump” schemes.
In fact, the fact that despite everything they’ve done, Trump remains the republican front runner, is terrifying the left. Their sphincters are so tight they couldn’t pass a bean.
Viral explosions of “Let’s go Brandon” didn’t help either. It’s not just the opposition to Biden, it’s the implied knowledge that the media lies.
Oh, they’ll continue trying. They have nothing better. Right now they’re sucking their thumbs and telling themselves it’s just Trump. He’s a sort of Svengali that has galvanized the right, and if they get rid of orange man bad their plan will go forward. It’s not true, of course. Trump is not our leader, so much as our ramrod. He’s not the movement, just a visible part of it. But they can’t admit that yet, because if they do it’s abandon ships. There is nothing else they can do to save themselves. Which is of course the reality.
They’ll also try to get rid of or replace Biden, which is going to be hilarious — stock on popcorn — as it will set their various factions into a fight, various groups of kleptocrats in a naked-claw fight for survival. Because if you think they can expose the Bidens misdeeds and not have everyone else — under the cover of the media domination all of them have gotten that dirty, the last 100 years or so — suspect they’re next, you’re way more naive than you should be. Yes, they’re going to try to get rid of Biden, but it will get everyone fighting everyone else, including such paragons as the Obamas and the Clintons. The resulting effluvium of misdeeds revealed will make Hercules’ cleaning the Augean stables seem like a light dusting of a clean room.
In the end the left only has a plan, the same one they’ve always had: Take control of communications and the army. Disarm the populace. Engineer a famine. Take complete control. It has the added Gramscian flip in our case (And the late 20th century case, in general) of “Open the borders to 3rd world peasants and replace the population with one that’s easier to terrorize.”
It’s not going well for them here. Despite all the propaganda, people refuse to give up their guns or embrace their new unwashed overlords. In fact, despite all the entertainment trying to make it sound like the incoming illegals are some kind of holy people, normal Americans aren’t buying it. And remain strongly against it. (I don’t have any proof — how would I get it? — but I suspect many of the illegals coming in — a lot of whom are rounded up and chased onto the caravans by various means, or recruited with promises of welfare — are turning around and going back home. The only reason I suspect this is the fact that unlike in 2007-8 Spanish publications aren’t becoming any more prevalent at checkout and 90% of the people I run into who are immigrants were born and raised here. The exceptions are people from Cuba and Venezuela, and I wouldn’t bet on those obeying the regime once they’re here.)
In fact it’s not going well for them IN EUROPE. Despite fraud, crooked voting systems (first past the post is very manipulatable) etc, scary “Right wing” parties keep winning, and emerging, and winning. And largely unreported or giving a “glorious communist revolution” when reported, a lot of Europe is in open revolt and fighting against the socialist overlords. Europe! Where by and large their media is still controlled and they still believe the “coming climate catastrophe” not to mention falling for the covidiocy hook line and sinker.
Here? Don’t make me laugh. Sure, they have the newly indoctrinated,i.e. young “educated” people. And they have the old, who watch TV a lot.
The rest? Ah. The rest are just getting more and more angry about all this nonsense.
Meanwhile the left continues trying to drive their plan of disarmament and famine.
It’s not going well for them. It’s not going to go well for them.
If they weren’t the people who bought the message that the future is inevitably communist; if they weren’t true believers, they could save themselves and save us a lot of strife by giving up now.
Instead, they’re going to use everything they control to punish us and make us bow to them and fall in with their plan.
It’s not going to go well.
In fact, if it were happening elsewhere, to people far away, it would be a great comedy.
As is, their fall and the replacement of the “FDR model” which swallowed our republic is going to hurt very badly and is going to cost us wealth and more importantly people.
But in the end, we win.
The harder they fight, the faster they fall.
Take no counsel of your fears. Make things tight and fast for you and those who depend on you. Multiple sources of income. Ways to survive days or weeks without the modern conveniences. Some rudimentary medical supplies. Ways to defend yourself. Take care of your health now, and get yourself in the best shape you can.
And then …. keep your head up. Don’t be afraid. It is our fate to live in interesting times. It is our very great privilege to fight for freedom on behalf of future generations as well as our own.
They can’t win, and we must. It is the cause of humanity.
Part of the reason I hate fundraising is that it’s so tedious. I mean, here we are on day 8 and what can I tell you about the reason I’m fundraising, that you haven’t heard before?
OTOH of course there are people who only check this blog every week or every other week, or whatever, or who were on vacation and haven’t seen this. Or who skipped the fundraising posts because they simply didn’t want to deal with it but won’t remember if I don’t repeat. Or–
Every time I do a fundraiser there will be people who say “Oh, I missed it” and send stuff late, who never actually saw the post.
So the way I’m dealing with the tedium of showing you the same info over and over is either silly stuff (Like the ornithology pics this week) OR by giving you something beautiful.
Today it’s beautiful pictures obtained while I was playing with midjourney bot.
Anyway: As to why I’m fundraising. I spend a lot of time every day on this blog. If the blog doesn’t pay its own way, I’m going to perhaps have a lot more of fill in posts and things, even when I’m not having fun with doctors type of weeks. Mostly? Because I can’t justify it.
Mind you, the way this is going, I’m really to have to push on the fiction, to make ends meet. And that’s fine. It’s just choices, and I should be doing it anyway.
It’s just there’s only so many hours in the day, so… I try to make these hours pay as well, since I do work at it. (Yes, to an extent it’s also fun, but so is fiction and it’s fun of a peculiar kind that comes with a sense of obligation and a need to have to will power to work.)
Anyway, so the blog is fundraising. Which not only pays me for my work, but allows me to pay my assistant (No, not Indy. Holly. She does things like remind me of short stories due to anthologies, and makes arrangements for conventions and stuff…) and people to do my websites and– Eventually younger son and lovely fiance to run stuff like boxes from Sarah’s garage, which is on hold but not lost. Lovely fiance is also doing audiobooks of the Dyce series, for which I must pay. (Yes, I know I could do kickstarter. And might.)
(And yes, last year’s donors will get their rewards, even if I’ve been impossibly slow. No, I won’t bore you with why. I’ll just shut up and work on fulfilling promises.)
Anyway, for all those reasons, and for me to have time to sleep now and then:
The first is Give Send Go. They forbid the use of incentives to donors. So if you give via GSG you’re doing it for the satisfaction of helping According to Hoyt stay up and for me to be compensated for my work. Yes, that total is scary but I never intended for it to be carried by GSG alone. That’s the funding goal for all methods, for the year. A keeping-track-of goal, you might say. To donate to Give Send Go: Link Here.
But if you want to get something for your donation, and particularly if you want to incentivize (totally a word) my fiction writing: I’ve started a substack called Chapter House, in which I’m serializing two novels, one fantasy and one Space Opera, at two chapters a week. (The idea is for Witch’s Daughter to get two new chapters on Wednesday, and Winter Prince two on Friday. because July is h*ll this year (Fun with DOCTORS! People and cat doctors. Yeah) these might slip for the next two/three weeks. After that they won’t. Go to Chapter House, read the free portion of the books, and consider subscribing to receive the updates. You get a chance to read the novels as they unroll and perhaps to talk/argue about them. You’ll also get them at the end in ebook format. (I’ll try to have a free story once a month or so, for the free subscribers, but no promises) Anyway, to subscribe to Chapter House, the link is: Here.
And for those of you who have Patreon and just want to donate in a system you already have, I have one of those, and I will be posting life events, and excised scenes, and art, and … well, be warned, likely cat stuff. Because I’m owned by cats. Anyway, to donate on Patreon, please: Go here.
Finally, if you must send things by snailmail, yes, we accept checks, cash, and cat pictures. Do not send pictures of our cats, though. We’ve already seen those.
*All I have to do is say I just can’t and lo and behold, readers chase me around the room with slippers going “we sent you guest posts.” My bad. they have. I just couldn’t find them. Partly because mostly asleep.”
Peace by the Balloonatic
I have never been a big fan of horror, whether on the screen or in a book. I grew up in the 70s and 80s outside a small town in northern Ontario with a movie theater that let you in regardless of the movies ratings and watched movies there and on TV that I really wish I hadn’t. I think it happens to people with vivid imaginations – we can place ourselves inside the story and it feels too real. So my memory is filled with clips of a giant sea turtle dragging a man entangled in a rope down to the depths, an unkillable Chuck Norris rising from some waters and visions of a car with my name chasing someone into a dead-end alley – all the way to the end.
I will never forget my first year of university, when I was going home for Christmas. I bought my Dad an autographed copy of a Robert Bateman coffee table book of wildlife paintings, that I knew he would love. The book store had a special sale, and because of the cost of the book for my Dad, I was allowed to choose a free hardcover book for myself. I was heading back across the country on my first ever plane trip, so I chose a book that looked like it would be peaceful and relaxing. It was “Silence of the Lambs.” I ended up starting and finishing it in one day. I couldn’t put it down – not because it was that good, but because I knew my imagination would come up with something worse.
That’s how I feel now after hearing about the tragedy of the Titan Submersible. I picture myself in there with them. What were they thinking and doing while waiting and hoping for rescue? Were they angry and yelling, fighting amongst each other? Blaming each other, themselves and the company CEO who was in there with them for the decisions that led to their predicament? What would it be like, to be trapped in there, hoping for a miracle that you knew was unlikely to ever happen? Were they raging against the dying of the light? Or were they able to find peace and closure before their deaths?
I think most of us have made choices in life that we regret. We can spend way too much time looking back through the past, trying to pinpoint the moment, the decision, that led us down into the depths of despair and grief. The “What if….” What if hadn’t moved away from home and halfway across the country? What if I had chosen a different major in university, or attended trade school instead? What if I had said yes to that blind date my brother was trying to set up? What if I had made a different choice in a partner, or chosen to stay single? We make bad choices all the time. Fortunately for most of us, those choices, while they may be tragic, are not fatal. We can recover from bad choices and learn from them and move forward. And if we are fortunate, we can overcome the results and find peace in the world instead of horror.
The road to peace, like the journey to joy, often comes from trips down through valleys and pits of despair, horror, pain and grief, where we keep slogging onward with our heads down against the storms raging around us. We climb up, inch by inch until we break free and are on the peaks where we can see the sun again and can look back and see the rainbow of promise and hope. While I would like to forget the horrors, bad memories and hard times in life, they serve a purpose in helping me to appreciate the moments of peace. So when I look back and remember not just those clips of horror from tv and movies, but also the daily fears and struggles, I will also remember long walks in meadows, finding flowers and hidden creeks, lying peacefully in the grass and dreaming of a future that I am living now where I have found peace.
I have most of a post written, but I keep falling asleep, and I have chapters to do for Witch’s Daughter, but I need a nap.
For explanation: I’m sleeping in the family room, because Dan is sleeping on the recliner, so he can be comfortable after surgery. The problem is I can’t be comfortable. I also can’t be away, because he’s still unbalanced, and I’m afraid he’ll get up, fall, and I won’t hear him. But I’m one of those people who sleeps on her bed, in one position. I don’t even like hotel beds, with rare exceptions.
So– I can’t.
Post tomorrow. I’m going to nap and do chapters for the serialization. And maybe putter around with one of the almost done novels after.
