In Kate Paulk’s Con Vampire series, she has the forces of evil gather at science fiction conventions.
Now, part of that is necessity of the set up. Her character is a vampire who hangs out at science fiction conventions because there really is no natural light inside the hotels, as long as he’s careful, and it beats sleeping all day and wandering the empty streets at night.
So, of course, the big bad will also have to be at the cons.
But she has a good explanation nonetheless (because she is a good writer.) And that is that SF in particular gathers most of the Odds and that the Odds dream the future for the normal people who can’t conceptualize it, and you break the back of the optimists in the world.
Now, if this were true, she’d be 30 years too late, at least. At that, it’s got better with indie, and of course, Baen was always a haven of relatively sane science fiction.
I don’t know about you but I remember screaming something like “I’m so tired of rusty futures” in the late 80s.
Of course, by the nineties, I was getting it both directions: the books I bought all assumed dire post-apocalypse or dystopia ahead. And the writers’ groups were even sillier. People were writing characters in 2010 having to continuously wear masks outside because of the pollution. And meanwhile I was screaming “WHAT POLLUTION? Y’all are way cleaner than Europe.”
Or it was 20 years in the future and everyone was living under underpasses and only owned a shirt. I kept looking back and trying to figure out when the bomb had hit EVERYWHERE, because dudes, even if we have a major crash ahead — and we do — our material wealth isn’t going to VANISH.
You’re not going to be in the situation I was in, as a kid, where our family owned ONE SHARP KNIFE. It had been sharpened so often it was almost as thin as paper, but mom used it for everything nonethless, because knives were EXPENSIVE.
You’re not going to be saving pins and needles like gold, and owning a limited number, because most of us have thousands in the house. We could subdivide twice and it still wouldn’t be scarce.
You’re not going to have people living in used container boxes. Not unless they want to. Because I don’t care what they told you, but there isn’t a massive overpopulation crisis that will require a bazillion new houses built faster than we can accommodate. Not for 20 years or so. In fact, with commercial buildings becoming less needed we’re more at risk for ghost towns.
And yet, a recent TV series had people in 2030 cramming two to a shipping container.
You see, the problem is that Kate was right. Most people can’t project the future at all. Instead, they get the idea of what the future is from things they catch in the air, which in turn is things that Odds and Futurists (BIRM) think are coming, and which pervade Science Fiction.
(In trad pub, except Baen, they enforced this, too. Which is why I never sold science fiction elsewhere. “This can’t be the future. There’s no overpopulation.” “What about the depletion of resources? They’d all be poor” or “It can’t be set 500 years in the future. If there are still humans we won’t even look the same.”)
Anyway, so–
The crazy internationalist agenda, demanding we eat the bugs, trying to cram us into giant non-funtional megalopolises, wanting us to use electrical everything because “we’re running out of oil?”
This is the science fiction of the seventies and eighties coming through. And because it was based on a bunch of popular, very badly figured out “non-fiction” they piously believe we have too many people, and we’re running out of everything, and they want us to live the future they were promised.
I suggest you hoist middle fingers aloft, and give it to them good and hard.
They were sold a lie! The future is more prosperous than they can dream.
We’re Americans. We come from the future, and we’re going back there.
Yeah, yeah there’s going to be a little inconvenient contraction for a little while, and we might have to eat the bread the devil kneaded for a couple/ten years.
But in the end, America will be prosperous again. And we’re going to the stars. If nothing else to spite everyone who doesn’t want us to. Because we’re G-d’s own bastard children, and we don’t recognize the authority of these so called experts.
We can dream our own futures, thank you so much. And we’re going to dream they bright and shiny and prosperous.
Let’s leave the rust in the past and embrace the amazing future.
*I don’t normally echo posts here from Mad genius Club, because a substantial number of you read both. But I have a feeling this one is somehow important to echo. And it explains some of the stuff that’s been going on. – SAH*
The price for the gift is to exert the gift.
Have you ever realized that most of the depictions of magic in fiction are a decent description of the writer gift?
I mean, it should be no surprise to anyone, right? What else are we writers going to talk of? What else will we equate with magic?
Perhaps that’s not true — I don’t know — of writers who aren’t what we call “gateway” writers. I hear — but it’s hard to know for sure, you know, because fiction writers lie. It’s kind of what they do — that there are writers out there who function solely on the rational side of the brain. I have heard them in panels, on blogs, even in my own writers group, assure me that they come up with the plot, rationally, and rationally cast characters for it, and rationally pen every single word.
Maybe they do. I’m almost sure that is true for some of them, because I’ve read their books, and they are utterly and completely lifeless. Interesting intellectual exercises.
Sometimes, if the premise is interesting enough, they will carry you through. But you won’t say “Oh, I would love to meet so and so in that book.” You don’t remember someone’s passion or sacrifice. You don’t… The book is not about real people.
Don’t get me wrong, it can be diverting, but you come away detached.
… For some of us it’s not like that. And the choice is never between writing or doing something more productive with our time.
We can pretend. Oh, boy, we can pretend like anything. Catch me in a crowd of “we’re all professionals here” and I will tell you I can write or not write. And that if writing stops paying I’ll walk away and go do something else.
But you know? I lie for a living.
Writing is… Something I do, because I need to do it.
It is also something at which I was always good, as far back as I can remember, or at least since I started writing at six.
Am I saying I was publishable at six? Oh, dear Lord, no. Most of my writing then was, to be honest, bad fanfic (of Enid Blyton.)
The thing is, it was better than I had any right to be. I hadn’t done the work. I had no idea what I was doing. And yet… there was life there.
I no longer have those writings. Whichever remain have probably long since been eaten by rats in the family’s outbuildings. Heck, I no longer have my first novels written in the US. They were written in media I can no longer read. And that’s probably a mercy, because the current me, the person who actually knows how to tell a story, cringes and wants to hide at the things I do have. The clumsy, hasty introductions, the dramatic scenes that aren’t, and most of all, the stories that are utterly incomprehensible unless you are also in my head.
The weird thing in those, and from what my husband tells me — I don’t know — in my earliest novel written in English is the grace notes, and the things I was given for free: the characters that live on the briefest of descriptions, the emotions that shine through, the urgency, the… life.
I can see it, even through the cringy bits.
This was not something I learned. It might be something I can’t learn.
Sarah, how do you write characters? Well, they are in my head, and they talk to me. Not that I hear them, physically (Oh, dear Lord, trust me, this might make me a rarity among … for lack of a better term “gateway writers.”) but I feel them there. I know who they are. I know what they do in their scenes that aren’t in the novel. I know what matters to them, what’s in their heads when they wake up. I know them, either as close friends, or as the guys down the street. They’re themselves.
And that comes across.
The learning? The craft?
Yeah, you should learn that, but that is not the inexplicable gift. The craft is what tells you what scenes to show — even when they upset your characters (rolls eyes to the inside of head. Shut you. I don’t want to hear it.) — craft and practice are essential. Even the most gifted of artists is a mess without the craft side. And if you study and practice enough, the craft becomes part of the gift.
Look, think of the gift as fire you are given. It is just fire — and if you let it run wild, it will consume you, and leave nothing to show for it, but ash — and there’s nothing amazing in it. Except that you have it, without knowing how to make it. You were touched by the divine fire, and life pours out to your stories, but if the stories suck, it’s a waste.
So you study and work, and if you’re lucky and apply yourself, and sometimes rewrite and re-shape the fire, you have an immortal phoenix, shining through the centuries for all others. (Which btw, passes through being entertaining. Because nothing that people fail to love lives forever.)
The problem is that the price of the gift is to use the gift.
And the magic in most fantasy books warns of the downfall. There are many ways of killing the fire, the life in your fiction, the passion, the strength of your writing thing.
I always liked Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar description of ripping your magic channels through by doing something you shouldn’t be able to do, and being left with a hurt/half-dead magic. Because that’s what it fell like when I pushed through a book I had to write, but which I didn’t want to. Forcing the gift into it left me sore and tired, and wondering if it would ever come back.
Yes, I do know. The working artist must have schedules and produce regularly. I’m not telling you otherwise. But I think there’s ways around it.
Usually the way I came back from that was to take a few months, read my old stuff, pick up an old thread, write some fun stuff.
Then came the year of homeschooling and writing six books, none of which I wanted to write for various reasons. That was fifteen years ago, and I forced it through.
Here I should explain that teaching, any teaching, pulls from the same place as writing.
That left me… dead. I described my writing after as “arid.” The grace notes, the fun stuff that just falls in wouldn’t. I’d have to reach for it, struggle.
Oh, there were exceptions. A Few Good Men came through, against my rational wish not to write it. (Look, it’s space opera, about a future USAian revolution, with gay male leads, and the world’s weirdest romance, for various reasons.) But it wanted out, and I wrote it in two weeks (if you count the six days I took off for urgent reasons.) Or I wrote it in a week and a day.
My autoimmune was acting up, and I felt like hell, but each day that week and a day I got up and wrote almost 20k words, and I wasn’t tired. I was flying.
And the Dyce books started out as drudgery, but they had a song of their own, and they ripped through me in about 3 days each. (Hush you.)
But in between books the recovery time was longer. And anything that didn’t have a force of its own became harder to write. A short story could take me two weeks, suddenly. And novels were started and floundered, which is why I have about twenty of them half written.
Forcing myself to finish one, just made me silent for months.
Now, some of this, don’t mistake me, was physical. Each of the last …. oh, 20 years in Colorado, my auto-immune has been worse, and my thought more muddled. I wasn’t sleeping, and I wasn’t functioning properly, and any treatment was a brief patch over the abyss.
…. I thought it was getting old. I knew some of it was burnout. The complete disproportion between how much I loved or worked on a book, and the result it achieved. My inability to influence cover or marketing, or …. any of it. And then my doctor told me that I was actually suffering adverse effects of altitude. Which led to trying to get the heck out of dodge fast.
(Despite everything that has happened politically, and everything I don’t like about my poor, beleaguered, beloved Colorado, I don’t think I’d ever have left without that. A part of my heart, a large one, will forever remain in the Rocky Mountains.)
I’d already started trying to do stuff for the burnout. Small wins pull you out of that, and the fact Another Rhodes sold amazingly was part of that, as was how well Barbarella did.
And three weeks ago I wrote a short story for LawDog’s Saints of Malta Antholoy, and yeah, it took forever, but it took forever, because I’d forgotten what it was like to have a voice come through. I’d forgotten and didn’t trust the voice that tried to sing through me, like an expert player through a disused harp. And so the poor story squeezed through backwards and sideways. The first thing I got was the last paragraph, and had to fumble in the dark, until I figured that out, and then had to TRUST the voice screaming to come out.
I don’t scruple to say that might be the best story I’ve written in the last 7 years at least.
And then, suddenly, I could feel it, the old flame struggling back to life.
… I no longer remembered what it tasted like. It was like… trying to speak a tongue in which I was once fluent but no longer really remembered.
I told a friend it felt like French. I used to be fluent in French and speak it without hesitation, think in it, as I think in English.
Now I can’t. I know the words. They’re there, in my head, but I don’t TRUST them, and so I never say them. I understand French. I just am afraid to speak it.
And that’s what was happening both in writing that story in finishing Bowl of Red (ALMOST , truly, almost. It’s been more mundane things that stopped it yesterday and today.)
I’m now, slowly, haltingly, learning the language of creation again. Letting the writing thing come through.
And I’m glad I got there before I read the last thing I tried to write before getting out of Colorado. It is a half finished novel, and I looked at it the other day. And I was scared out of my wits.
It was dead. Not bad, as craft, mind. But dead. LIFELESS. There’s nothing there. It’s a hunk of dead words. I can redo it, but I’ll have to start from page one and recast it.
I’d never ever ever have read anything of mine that was so devoid of life. I didn’t know I could write stuff that dead.
So… How did I ALMOST kill my writing thing?
I’m starting to get glimmers of that.
You can’t kill a writing thing by ignoring it. Eventually it seizes control and makes you write it.
But you can kill it by forcing it. By forcing it to write what it doesn’t want to, what it blatantly despises. (Note there are three books of mine I’ll never re-issue. Not unless substantially rewritten.) By forcing it again and again over and over to write and put life in what it doesn’t want to write or put life into.
Over and over again. Don’t play. Don’t enjoy it. Don’t give it time to recover. Plunge again and again into the battle, with your ever more battered little fire, till it’s all just ashes and nothing.
Heck, for all I know my physical issues in some part at least are part of this.
Because writing is part of who I am, woven through my being. And the price of the gift is to use it. But … not to abuse it.
So, does this mean I’ll write less?
No. I think I’ve figured what “re animates the embers.” I am going back to what I used to do. I read the old stuff. I find the threads that work. And I write experimental things I’m not sure will work, but feed my soul.
I try new things. I go where the life is, and stay there a bit. Even if sometimes I still have to force the harp to sing, when it wants to run off and catch butterflies.
I am now planning for built in periods of rest. Not rest in silence, but rest in letting the fire have its way a little, feed a little.
So it can grow anew.
It’s all still very fragile and tentative, as I grope my way back to where I was 15 years ago.
But two things I know: The price of the gift is to use it.
And: You must let the gift be its best and do the impossible now and then, or it dies off.
So. This is how I almost killed my writing thing.
And how the fragile, bloodied, almost dead thing is at last stirring anew.
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.– SAH*
This time, they invited the last fairy to the christening.
Elise, uncursed at her christening, received strange gifts about castles and roses. With such good fortune, what more does she need? She grows up forever in the shadow of her lovely, cursed, tragic cousin.
Even when the curse falls, and Princess Isabelle lies in enchanted sleep, life must go on for Princess Elise. Despite the curse, the kingdom can not sleep itself, and neither can she.
Maddy mused abstractedly in the back of her mind. What if one of the sweet, kind people she knew were someone else on the inside—someone capable of murder? Madalyn Mitchell is the contented wife of a Lutheran pastor in a quiet rural Iowa town. Suddenly her world is turned upside down when the body of a murdered man is found in the city park. Maddy follows clues to identity of the murderer, motivated by the desire to return to her safe, calm existence. But can life ever return to normal?
iktaPOP Media proudly presents three classic westerns by pulp author Robert J. Horton!
Rider o’ the Stars
When he was hired on to the Diamond H Ranch, the stranger gave his name as Dane. After seeing his skill with rope and gun folks started calling him “Lightning Dane”.
Was he a gunman? An outlaw? Why was he here? Nobody knew except Dane himself. And he wasn’t talking.
The Prairie Shrine
Annalee Bronson and her mother left everything behind when her father died, setting out to homestead in the prairielands of Montana. But being from the east, they simply don’t have the experience to cope with all the circumstances they find themselves caught up in.
Luckily, prairie poet and loafer Andy Sawtelle and mysterious gunman Silent Scott are more than willing to lend a helping hand.
The Man of the Desert
It starts with a stampede, and never lets up from there!
This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions by indie editor and author D. Jason Fleming putting the book into historical and genre context.
At eighteen, Allen Rupert’s criminal past caught up with him and he faces a choice of military or prison. To get as far from central Texas as possible, he joins the navy but spends half of his time in the brig.
Recognizing Allen’s mechanical skill, he’s trained as a machinist and assigned to the small corvette Liberty, patrolling the Gulf of Mexico. During an ASW drill, Allen defuses a torpedo that went live in its tube, and is summoned to the bridge. There, Acting Captain Ryland Rigó commends him for his good work.
For the first time in his life, Allen sees someone look at him with respect. Weeks later, ashore, he invites her to lunch. To his utter shock, she accepts.
Thinking her just another girl, Allen is shaken to his core to find himself swept into a maelstrom of domestic politics, international intrigue, and the plots and plans of Demi-humans and Machines. All while trying to fix his broken life and attain the only thing he wants: Ryland.
Her great-uncle, the mage Oron, bequeathed to her his oak-shaded chateau and a debt of magical honor. But in a world where women do not do magic, Miss Ardhuin Andrews must hide her magical talents. How can she repay the debt? When Oron’s enemies attack, how can she survive? Political intrigue, duty, and echoes of an old war not truly ended combine to create a smoldering crisis in a world where magic and science coexist.
Welcome to a world where Familiars choose magic workers, and a few others, as their partners. A world of adventure, tax-deductions, bad publisher tricks, and odd veterinary clinics, where wolverines wear glasses and iguanas sing along with the radio—badly—while casting spells and keeping their chosen humans out of mischief.
Reverend Joy Norton is a timid city girl, and she’s never been the primary priest in any parish. When her bishop sends her out to a remote back-country church, she doubts both her ability and her suitability. Those doubts grow when she hears of the mysterious death of her predecessor. But from the first encounter with her congregation — having her little car rescued from a muddy ditch, she finds herself deeply involved with her parishioners and touched by their qualities and eccentricities. Which makes it worse for her to think that one of the people she’s coming to care for murdered the previous priest…
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.
*Sorry guys. I’m still trying to finish the novel, and there’s other stuff happening that is making life confusing. Not bad but confusing. Thanks to everyone who is supporting this novel-finishing effort by sending me (GOOD) guest posts. You guys are the best- SAH*
It’s Mostly About the Money A Guest Post By Confutus
A couple of years ago on the Arizona Ballot, there was a voter initiative dealing with some school choice matter. As I looked through it, trying to evaluate the pro and con arguments, I noticed something interesting. The con arguments, which were full of dire warnings about the fate of the public education system if this initiative passed, were chiefly authored by a teacher’s union here, a school board there, the employees of a school district somewhere else. In Arizona, tax money for the schools is doled out mostly on the basis of enrollment; so much per student. Ohoh, I thought, if students leave the public schools for some kind of private education, it’s a direct hit to their income. So, without peering into my crystal ball to predict the future, I could at least predict who would oppose the measure and who would support it.
Higher Education? Likewise. Professors and researchers must not only publish or perish, but they must bring in grant money or other funding to the department to finance their research. Although the ideal of dispassionate, disinterested searchers for knowledge who freely exchange views is a wonderful myth, it is often exactly a myth. More often, it’s “he who pays the piper calls the tune” when tenure and reputation are on the line. In scientific disputes, if you can’t follow the science, follow the money. And no, it isn’t the oil companies that generate most of it.
It works the same way in religion. Whether it was Christians versus Jews in the 1st century, or Christians versus Roman Imperial worship, Catholics versus Orthodox, or Protestants versus Catholics in the Reformation, the most important arguments, wonderful and marvelous though they may have been, were not theological. The bloodiest battles were about money flow to and through temples and churches and who would control it. Even today, poaching of parishioners who pay the pastors is likely to result in sectarian animosity.
What about business? But of course, and quite openly. Businesses work to maintain or grow market share and stifle the competition. Some economics consider this heathy provided there is opportunity for entry into the market, but the business that is losing customers to the competition may have a decidedly different point of view. Our hostess pointed out that without intending to, the campaign to restore popular taste to Science Fiction became a threat to the incomes of those who were looking more for literary recognition.
News coverage? Same. Speaking of newspapers, although some organizations try to enforce a separation between the advertising division and the news division, if no one reads the paper, they usually don’t read the ads, either. The sensational gets the most eyes. Well, there are the bargain shoppers who read only the ads and coupons, but the newspaper still gets paid. The funding model has shifted from column inches of print to internet clicks, but the fact that the news is revenue driven hasn’t changed. TV and radio are variants of the same thing: No viewers or listeners, no ad sales, but it’s the ads, not the news, that pay the bills.
What about governments? If one considers voters as a form of currency, it works there too. Political parties and candidates succeed or fail according to how many votes they can attract.
More important than this, though, is publicity. I observed way back in high school student government elections that usually the person with the most name recognition won, regardless of qualifications. That meant that the person with the largest, most numerous, or eye-catching signs and slogans did the best. Once I graduated from high school, the same pattern appeared. In serious adult elections, the wealth of a campaign is determined by the number of donors and patrons the candidate can gather. There’s a snowball effect: The more one has, the more one can get. Candidates form entire networks of supporters. In turn, publicity, in the form of advertising, can usually be bought. Sadly and cynically, it’s seldom the best qualified who win elections. It’s those with the broadest network of supporters and the deepest pockets. It doesn’t always happen that way: A hardworking candidate with a good public face, and lots of luck, can occasionally overturn an incumbent with deep pockets but a bad reputation. But that’s the way to bet. Longstanding political observers and consultants know all this, of course, and talk about it much more than they do public issues.
The information on whether a person is a good representative is probably best determined by how they vote on matters of public record. This is public information. However, it will not be spoon-fed to anyone. A candidate is most likely to boast about a few public highlights (and, of course, they will remain silent about any negatives in their own record, while their opponents trumpet them to the skies.) Good information is mostly dry and boring and it is necessary to dig for it.
And this is before we even mention government agency turf wars and who gets how much of the budget and whether it is more or less than last year’s.
An author I used to follow once claimed that if you overwatered an education system with money, you grew, not teachers, but bureaucrats. It is no accident that the growth of the Federal Bureaucracy can be traced in large measure to 1913 and the 16th Amendment which allowed the income tax.
It is considered crass to point out that those who dole out money from the public treasury are essentially buying votes, but in effect, that is exactly what they are doing. Republicans and Democrats both do this: They just have different favorite constituent groups. It appears that the Democrats have slightly the more numerous constituents, who are notably concentrated in the larger cities where the largest media markets are. This is probably not coincidence.
One of the greatest sources of dismay among political conservatives is the consistent failure of the Republican party to make any significant check on the bureaucratic state. Reagan tried and couldn’t do it. Newt Gingrich, in Congress, probably came closest to success, and Clinton then claimed credit for balancing the budget. Neither President Bush tried very hard. Donald Trump threatened the bureaucratic state but was too embattled and too often betrayed by his nominal subordinates and appointees to accomplish much. A balanced federal budget was not something he ever promised. The Democrat party…pfft. Tax and spend is their lifeblood.
At this point, I’m not sure the system can be saved. The rot has gone too deep and too far. The political will for repairs has never been there, and too many people are captive to and dependent on the system. I am absolutely not calling for revolution or joining HeadsOnPikes (other than metaphorically…I care nothing for federal careers). Rather, I expect the whole thing, from Social Security through the Federal Reserve all the way to the UN, NATO, and the EU to come crashing down of its own unsupported weight. The elderly and the poor, those without community or family, will be hardest hit. The only thing to be done in that case is to rebuild on a solid foundation. Nevertheless, while the system remains, I want to fight the good fight to delay or mitigate the collapse.
About the only thing in nature that can compare to a bureaucrat addicted to tax money is a drug addict, who will notoriously do anything…anything…for another fix. Once again, our hostess can bear personal witness at how utter vicious and ugly people can become when their income is threatened. Lies and character assassination and attempted character assassination are to be expected. As a rule, the nastier, more acrimonious and less logical a fight is, the more likely it is that money is somewhere involved.
There are few things that raise the passions more than fights about money, as many a marriage counselor could probably testify. It’s only natural that government employees fight to protect their regular paycheck, benefit packages, and retirement accounts. It’s considered somewhat gauche to talk about it openly and rude to ask about it. Usually, in a dispute, the non-monetary arguments will be advanced first. And it isn’t all about money. Sometimes, there are genuinely more important things, and on occasion, people do act against their own financial interest. But those are exceptions, not the rule.
The next time you hear someone Screaming Bloody Freaking Murder to High Heaven about Dire Consequences of this or that, especially if that someone is in government, I recommend wax in the ears, an infusion of steel in the spine, and a close look at cold, heartless money, because that’s usually what it’s really about.
I hope no one was alarmed by my sudden disappearance. I know, these days you never know what can happen to a person who is not paying attention. The watermelons in my garden might have ganged up on me, and killed me in a sugar rush. Or perhaps the bugs that ate my tomatoes might have held me hostage (for more tomatoes.)
In fact, I was my usual ditsy self and completely forgot that Dan had an appointment for his eyes — which means a ride mumble hour away (he has weird eyes and needs a specialist) — and hoped I’d go with him to help him stay awake on the drive and back (Besides, riding in cars is time together.)
I’d have put up one of two guest posts that arrived, IF — and this is a big if — I hadn’t been sick as a dog till way past 2 am last night. Which meant I didn’t sleep a ton. Which in turn meant I woke up and fed the cats and kind of stumbled out of the door in a haze.
I made good use of the time Dan was in with the doctor to figure out why Bowl of Red was not doing what I expected. As in to sketch the rest of the plot after it deviated from the plot.
<insert swear words here
Turns out it’s a lot more complex than I thought, so it’s going to take a little more work to finish. And honestly, we’re just back (okay, okay, we stopped for lunch on account of I was starving, okay?) And I’m seriously considering a short nap before I write some more, because I’m still stumbling around. BUT I know where the plot is going now which is a relief.
And beneath is the lovely cover for BOR (which hell or high water will be up for pre-order in six days, though it might not be available for another month) courtesy of the one, the only, the extraordinary Jack Wylder:
I call this one the boyz, the boyz, the shifter boyz…. are in a world of trouble and pain….
All societies lie to their young. You sort of have to, for the same reason that translation is as the French have “betraying a little.”
I had to make my peace with that last while trying to tell mom something funny the kids had done, only it wasn’t funny in Portuguese, so I had to change it around.
For years I felt guilty over it, but it was the only way to communicate how very funny her grandkids were (and they were.)
And that was before we got into trying to explain to her how… you got jobs in the US, say, when Dan was unemployed, or why I had six novel contracts one year (not because I knew someone) or– All of it involved some level of “lying” so she would get what was going on, without my spending months on a graduate course on “how things work in the US.”
It’s kind of the same with kids. You can’t explain to your kid why this or that doesn’t work without lying a little. “No, you can’t ever fly, because you don’t have wings. You can only fly if you were born with wings.” Or “I can’t let you cook because it’s against the law to let your two year old turn on the gas stove.” (As opposed to “I don’t want you to burn down the house, kid,” which would lead to an argument for an hour. They still did it, and by four both were cooking for themselves, but it put it off another day.)
And there are the lies you tell them inadvertently, like the first time our 5 year old came to us crying his eyes out because the police were going to come arrest him. You see, the computer had performed and illegal operation and shut down and–
Or until 18 my older son thought it as illegal to park in front of houses not your own. We figured this out as he was driving all over creation in the maze of little streets in Denver named after presidents, and we were going “Son, the lecture was back three blocks.” “Yes, but I’m looking for a place to park that’s not illegal.” Us: “Er…. what?”
How he’d arrived to this conclusion: We lived in a downtown neighborhood, and only had space for two cars in the driveway. This meant our friends often parked alongside the house, so he figured that was okay. It belonged to us. However, we had an insane next door neighbor whose favorite pastime was to park ACROSS OUR DRIVEWAY. And in such a way that it blocked both of us coming out. Now, most of the time that didn’t matter on weekends, but sometimes we did have to drive somewhere, and then we’d ring their doorbell and if they didn’t answer, we’d call the police. (They weren’t being annoying on purpose. They were just stupid. They were renting the bottom half of the house, which meant that the driveway was taken up by the other renters. And they were AFRAID to park in front of our house, because they came home at night, and they’d heard someone had got stabbed on that corner. Which absolutely was right. Sometime in the seventies. When we lived there, you had a greater chance of having the next door dog run up for pets than of being stabbed.) So, he deduced “parking in front of other people’s houses was illegal.” Add to that times like when we went to see fireworks, and neighborhoods near the park were fully parked, except for the areas with yellow stripes, and Dan would go “I’d park there, but it’s illegal” and he got “oh, parking in front of other people’s houses is definitely illegal.” We only caught this two years into his driving himself around, and it made me wonder how many hikes that poor kid had gone on.
And sometimes the things they infer from what they were never told is life endangering. Like when we were driving back from Manitou, I think and the kid, at 15, was putting in his “drivers’ training” by driving with me in the passenger’s seat (let alone that it was nightfall and I couldn’t see very well. Still can’t. Night blind.) We get to an intersection downtown, and the light turns green, and the kid makes a left turn IN FRONT OF ONCOMING TRAFFIC.
After we got to the other side and I calmed my heart attack down, I was like “What on Earth possessed you?” And he was like “What? It was green and left has right of way.” (He’d gotten confused on protected and unprotected lefts. The fact I remember this 16 years later tells you just how terrifying it was. I think I put holes on the seat fabric. I still don’t understand how we didn’t get hit by the three lanes of oncoming cars. There was much tire squealing and I’m sure a lot of creative cursing, too.)
These things happen. You see, kids …. don’t have the life experience to interpret a lot of stuff. They are little aliens in the world, and everything is new. And they want to please you and be “real adults” so badly. It’s like an innate drive.
So they take not only what you tell them, but a lot of inferences about what you didn’t say. Like I remember being convinced the kids next door were evil. Were they? Oh, no. But they were poor and their parents were both alcoholics, so the kids were …. less than clean, in a place and time when bathing took time and effort and determination. (Heating the water, filling the tub pot by pot and afterwards dragging the tub out, emptying it, etc. Heck even washing in a basin with a sponge took time and effort (including heating the water so you didn’t hate every second of the experience) and it took buying soap instead of wine, now and then.) My parents were terrified I’d get lice. I had knee-long hair, (I have a picture of myself at ten, dressed in only my hair, and it’s not even mildly kiddy porn. Nothing showed. I often ran around — till I had it cut at 11 — in only panties and my hair, leading to my brother’s giving me the nickname “Lady G”) and it was heck to get rid of lice (I caught them twice, I think. I’m still terrified of them, and still recognize the signs in people’s hair. It was so unpleasant to get rid of them. And yes saw them a couple of years ago. A lady in the Denver Cathedral downtown. Not badly dressed, but looked profoundly depressed.) But I was a kid. My parents allowed me to play with other dirt-poor kids, including one that practically lived at our house and followed me around everywhere. So– The only reason they wouldn’t let them play with those other kids must be they were evil. My youngest cosmogony was composed of the “evil next door.” Because those poor kids were dirty and neglected.
Why is this important?
The left, all of them, collectively periodically lose their minds over the “we can’t teach about alternate genders to 5 year olds, and what if the kids that age feel isolated and get depressed because they aren’t standard boys/girls?” Or “Why can’t they read homosexual romance in middle school? Some of them are already gay. Isn’t that indoctrinating them into heterosexuality?” Or “Why can’t we teach them that the white race did all these evil things so they don’t grow up to do them again?”
And all of this would make some sense — not a ton, no. For instance, the reason Europe colonized the world and not the other way around had nothing to do with being evil, but with a bunch of …. accidents of industrial and civic development at the time. And they did no more evil than the other races when they conquered (For an eye full I recommend The Washing of the Spears about the Zulu conquest of Africa. They perpetrated landscape-changing slaughter unequaled till WWI) — if you buy into their premises. And what could it hurt to give kids the information to cope with perhaps a distressing situation?
Well… what it could hurt is that you’re lying to them, and they’re not lies that will make them more functional.
Look, I have gay friends. Yes, okay, my religion forbids it, and if I had the slightest chance of sinning that way, I would have tried to fight it. Since it holds no attraction for me, I find a ton of other ways to sin (TRUST ME. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I laugh at the idea of sainthood, ever. I’m studying to the test and hoping to make it into purgatory.)
So, it’s a sin, but it’s not the worst sin. And we’re all sinners together. And some of my friends are much, much holier than I am despite that sin. (And consciously so. Yes, I have weird friends. Deal.)
I hate “gay activists” as I hate “Latin activists” or “Women activists” but that has nothing to do with the real people, just trying to live their lives.
I don’t think we shouldn’t write books with gay protagonists. Even books with YOUNG gay protagonists. (It would come nicely from me, considering what I’ve written already, and not counting the planned stuff. Including the half-finished book with a gay high school student. (Who to be fair is more worried about breakthroughs from the dungeon dimension.))
What I object to is having MOST books accessible to kids be about gay relationships. Or worse, most of the ASSIGNED books. Or having the teacher explain to kindergartners that they get to pick their own pronouns and that no one knows if they’re boys or girls. And that if they’re at all non-standard, they are the other sex and should do life-hampering changes at that age.
Because kids make inferences, in addition to the things you tell them. They are DESIGNED to try to infer things, so they fit into human society faster. Also, their brains are designed for human life about 10k years ago, when things were simpler. (Yeah, designed/evolved for. Deal. It’s a short-cut handle-word.)
So when you show them more examples of one thing than the other, they assume these things are NORMAL. And the other must be forbidden and looked down up. Being “cis-het” is definitely not what the teachers like, right? They are so encouraging to all the kids who say they are ‘really’ something completely different.
Then there is the white thing. All white people are evil, right? Look how they oppressed other people. And because they teach the Warts-only version of American history and other countries prettify theirs, the US must be the ONLY and MOST evil country on Earth. (Yeah. Then they hit the streets shouting “No America at all.” Unaware their rainbow persona would get them killed anywhere else in the world.)
… All societies lie to their kids. They usually lie to them in a way that will make the kids more functional/adapted.
Yes, that means if you don’t mention gay people at all, young gay people will have trouble coming to terms with their sexuality. And some, yes, might choose to live closeted their entire lives.
And?
How is it better to convince kids, the vast majority of which will be straight, because yes, evolution, that they should be gay, and if they aren’t it’s something to lie about, or invent a new persona about, so you’re not that cis-het evil thing?
How does this benefit the new generation, growing up? You might as well run around telling them that left unprotected turns have the right of way.
Because here’s the thing: those kids are still going to be boys or girls. And the overwhelming majority of them are still going to be straight. WHY do you want them to go through life feeling guilty and hiding what they are?
AHAH! You say. But you want to do that to gay kids.
No. Not especially. But that’s a talk for parents or close-to-kids adults to have when they’re older. Now I know it varies with where you live, but it’s the 21st century and gay marriage is legal. I very much doubt that people don’t know someone who is gay and someone who is gay and married, at least in their extended cycle.
The conversation with the kids is best had under “Oh, yeah. Mike is married to Bill. Yeah, I know it’s not the average thing, but it happens sometimes. Some people just fall in love with the same sex they are.”
Note, no details on what goes on behind closed doors are needed, unless you are in the habit of telling your kids “Yes, Uncle Bob and Aunt Lucinda are married. That means at night, they get in bed and he–” Which I can’t imagine, even to eighteen year olds. Heck, I wouldn’t have that conversation with my kids now, and they are ADULTS.
Do they need extremely detailed descriptions, or as one YA book in the library that parents are objecting to: DRAWINGS? Seriously?
Trust me, as someone who grew up in a restricted culture, and whose parents would rather commit seppuku than give her “the talk”, I figured all the basics by eight, from listening and making inferences, and I was well into figuring out all the side avenues and possible perversions by 14. (No, not in practicality. Bless your heart. I didn’t even get kissed till 18. But– Well, it helped that I had access — in a friend’s house — to a beautiful, illustrated encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Myth. Or, as we call it around the house “perversions A-go-go. I’m still puzzled by the illustration of Ganymede and the Eagle. Given bird anatomy, I don’t think it would be po– Okay, never mind.)
And yeah, gay kids might feel like they stick out. Mostly because they do. The majority won’t be like them. That frankly doesn’t make them any different than kids who are too poor, too rich, too smart, too stupid, too creative, too autistic to be average.
Those cases have to be dealt with one on one, not by lying to all the kids at once, and making gay kids think they’re average, except the other kids still make fun of them, or hetero kids feel they’re wrong, except they’re still what they are, or–
Yes, that stuff should be dealt with, but it should be dealt with one on one, and with careful talks about how to live as an Odd in the normal world. (Admittedly everyone, even the most “normal” person needs this for something, even if it’s just loving anchovies on their pizza.)
Yeah, some of the kids won’t have anyone who can do that. And? Some of the kids are screwed no matter what you do. Fortunately they are a small minority, and a lot of those come to a good place too, eventually, after struggles.
I’m quite at home with my oddities now at almost sixty. And it wasn’t all h*ll along the way. And the lice-infested kids who used to live next door to me all got married and have decent (more decent than their parents lives) lives.
Schools are not instruments of mass-lying-to-kids. Other than “you should feel safe here” and teaching them the basics and what we know to be facts (which might or might not leave aside History until they’re MUCH older and can argue) they should leave the kids alone.
You shouldn’t lie to the young, of course. But you have to, to some extent, to simplify things so they get it.
What you shouldn’t do was pack the kids heads full of non-functional nonsense, and make them feel they “should be” things they aren’t, and things that frankly will make their lives harder.
Sometimes I feel school assignment lists are the losers of the previous generation trying to justify themselves. It would explain all the never end of the “The Vietnam war was wrong and I was totally correct in being a draft dodger” that my kids were forced to read in middle and high school (A lot of it outright lies.) It was like people who were starting to suspect they had done real evil and were trying to justify themselves to kids who didn’t know any better, so they had a sort of ideological bodyguard around them.
The current insanity might very well be the result of the free-love-never-have-kids generation trying to get over their own regrets.
I don’t care. The kids are not your wailing wall, or your confessional. They don’t exist to make you feel better or grant you absolution.
If you feel that bad, go to confession. The priest might be confused, but most of them will talk you through the mess in your head.
Just don’t pass your bolus of guilt and dysfunctional onto the kids and destroy the future with it.
Speech vs. Violence: A Guide for Idiots and Academics (But I Repeat Myself) by Martin L. Shoemaker
Speech is not violence. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot or an academic. But I repeat myself.
Speech is me saying, “I’m gonna bash your head in with a baseball bat.” Violence is me bashing your head in with a baseball bat. There’s a difference.
When I say this, some idiot or academic (but I repeat myself) will bring up a psychological study that purportedly shows that speech can cause the same PTSD as can violence. Besides the fact that more than half of psychological studies are irreproducible bullshit, this sort of “thinking” assumes that PTSD plus a bashed-in skull is no different from PTSD.
Some other idiot or academic (but I repeat myself) will argue that Wrong Speech will incite violence and thus is violence. Since these arguments are themselves used to justify violence used to stop speech, the person making this argument has just self-incriminated. By their own “argument”, they have just committed “violence”; and to stop them—according to their own argument, not in fact—I am “justified” in bashing in their skull.
But I’m not, because their argument is fallacious. There are specific legal definitions for incitement. Something you disagree with is not incitement. “You’re wrong” is not incitement. “You’re an idiot” is not incitement. “You should have your skull bashed in” is probably incitement. “Bash his skull in!” is incitement. But ideas you disagree with are not incitement, and they’re not violence. You being offended is not proof of incitement. If you insist otherwise, you’re an idiot or an academic (but I repeat myself).
“Dog whistles!” shouts some idiot or academic (but I repeat myself). “Dog whistle” is a claim that a speaker doesn’t have to say “Get them!” for all of his eager dupes to understand “Get them!” The accuser is smug and superior and knows what the speaker “really meant.” The idiot/academic (BIRM) making this argument is committing the Straw Man Fallacy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man):
A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man”.
They want to accuse the speaker of violence, so they assert that they can read his mind and the minds of the listeners. People who falsely claim to be able to read minds are lying. They’re looking for an excuse to attack the speaker, rhetorically and perhaps physically.
Note also that even in a case of true incitement, there are two invalid, illegal responses: “He’s right! Get them!” and “He’s wrong! Get him!” You are in the wrong if someone’s inciting words lead you to violence, either against the speaker or against the speaker’s target. You are allowed to violently defend yourself against violence. You are not allowed to violently defend yourself against speech. The answer to bad speech is more speech.
P.S. I predict that someone with ill will or deficient reading skills will quote excerpts from this essay out of context and use them to accuse me of supporting, advocating, or excusing violence. That person will be an idiot or an academic. But I repeat myself.
*For more of Martin L. Shoemaker’s writing, this time fiction, go here. And if you like GOOD science fiction, you should run, not walk. – SAH*
When I was little, the room in which I spent most time — being of a sickly disposition, in a society not yet used to the existence of antibiotics — didn’t have a window. Well, it kind of did, but it was a slit high up on the wall behind me, to capture the light that came into the living room through the two sidelights on the front door.
But on the wall, in front of me, there was a picture of an angel walking behind a boy and a girl, while the boy and the girl, blithely walk at the edge of an abyss.
I feel like right now I’m sitting here, in my office chair, typing at the edge of an abyss. I sure as hell hope there is an angel ready to save my butt, but I’m not going to tell you there is.
For once this doesn’t make me even vaguely special. Right now, this morning, whatever you’re doing, including sitting on your chair reading this blog, you’re doing it at the edge of the abyss.
I remember similar times, when I was very young, and we were not sure what the rules were or how they were changing, and we definitely didn’t know what came next. And I remember my mom complaining to her friends about how hard it was to concentrate.
… I’m having a heck of a time finishing BOR because who cares about made up fights and perils of dragon and lion shifters, when we’re not sure what is going to go boom where, but we’re sure it’s any second now, and we’re sitting here, waiting for the crack and boom.
The only thing I can say is that unless you’re a person of more power and influence than I think reads this blog, whatever you do today, in the normal run of your life is more important, overall for your future than what is going on over our heads, in the beleaguered and plagued entrails of our poor Republic as it attempts to purge itself of the Marxist infection killing it.
Unless you are in a pivotal position, at a pivotal time — and if you are, you will know it — you’re better off dancing at the edge of of the abyss and ignoring the howling winds than trying to pull everyone along with you back from the edge.
Yeah, it’s not easy. I’m not going to claim it is.
But even my day job, which is mostly making up entertaining lies is important to someone. How do I know?
I have the letters. “Your books kept me going when my family was falling apart/I had cancer/my father died.”
And I’ve experienced it from the other side myself. Sometimes, in the years of hell, the only thing that kept me together was books, and honestly, at the point? The more amusing the better. If they could manage to slip in one or two comforting verities or a bit of hope even better.
So even my work, even the sillier books matter.
And other things matter. Because I’ve been fighting this novel to the finish, (And at my age, what business has a plot running away from me?) my house looks like Pompeii after the volcano. Only with more dust and cat hair. As soon as I finish this thing, there’s going to be such a cleaning as has never been seen. Well, not recently.
That matters too, because living in confusion and mess affects me and my work. Jerry Pournelle, as we headed into the dark in 2008 told me if I couldn’t concentrate to write, or do anything else, just “Work on making things organized and very clean.”
For one, if there are supply/energy disruptions, cleaning will be much harder — trust me on this — and starting from a clean place helps.
So, as you hold your breath and wait for a crash; as each fresh bit of news makes you start up and go “What fresh hell is this?”, unless you’re in a special place at a very special time — and you and only you will know that — dancing is the best you can do.
Keep dancing.
And for the love heaven, unlike Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons: Don’t look down.
As long as we’re not away we’re on thin air we won’t fall.
*I want to point out that despite us having been called “the Church of Heinlein” that’s not the Bob. Also, I’m up to my neck in a plot that’s escaped my control, and am probably going to ride it, on tattered fingernails to the finish. I’m okay, my muse is just torturing me.* – SAH.
The BOB List — A Guest Post By Doug Irvin
*Foreword addendum. The date this first appeared, 2/15/2021, my state was hit by crippling harsh weather. Temps dropped well below freezing, the electrical network collapsed as gas pipelines froze over and wind generators iced up. Over a third of the state was without power for a week. Frankly, my precautions failed, and I had to bogey south to a relatives house who had power. You live and learn. – Doug Irvin*
Foreword: I started compiling ideas and source lists for emergencies some years ago. Not all of the material below is from my own research. Some of it is from other sources. I didn’t keep track of the sources at the time, since this was primarily for my personal use.
If someone claims this is their work; fine. I’ll split the proceeds with you. You can have half the zero amount I got. OTOH, I would note you as a source then.
The Absolute Minimalist BOB
The minimalist BOB is something you can chuck into your trunk and forget about until needed. It is for the family member who is resistant to the idea of a BOB, or meant as an extra bit of smart packed into each of your car’s trunks to augment a basic BOB.To assemble it you will need:
Several quart sized and one gallon sized Ziplock type bags.
A lighter. Fire is our friend.
One flattened roll of toilet paper with the cardboard tube removed. Toilet paper is also our friend. Once flattened, place in appropriate ziplock bag, squeeze out all the air and close Ziplock bag.
A pocketknife, preferably a Leatherman Supertool or something similar that is high quality. This is without a doubt incredibly useful. You shouldn’t even put it in the bag unless it is a spare, put it in your purse or on your belt. This isn’t a pocketknife, it is a toolset. It is a can opener, a knife, a saw, a file, an awl, a bottle opener, a pliers, a wire cutter, a crimper, a flathead screwdriver, a Phillip’s head screwdriver, and both a metric and English ruler. This ain’t your Daddy’s Swiss Army knife. Spyderco also makes a gadget knife with a blade so sharp you could do surgery, so check it out as well. http://www.SPYDERCO.com
Five Maxipads. This is optional, but in addition to their accepted use, they are very absorbent and sterile, so they can be used as pressure bandages in case of an accident. Put in Ziplock and squeeze out the air.
2 pint bottles of water. (optional).
2 or 3 power bars. If you can, get the horrible kind like they put in military combat rations, the dreaded MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat), these bars will last longer than commercial counterparts.
A flashlight. They now make small disposable LED keychains that are extremely bright and run off of a watch battery. Normally these things run under $1.00USD, although some places charge more. While this is good from a size standpoint (they are about as big as a quarter around), and from a weight standpoint (maybe a quarter ounce), they are not terribly rugged. Mag-Lite makes a very small flashlight that uses AAA batteries called a Mini Mag-Lite that is very bright and about as big as a man’s middle finger. All Mag-Lite flashlights can be used to kill or injure a grown man, so look at getting one of those. It is more expensive, but wow! Tough as tough can be, water proof, and they come with a spare bulb in the base. Leave the batteries in their package and stick the light into a ziplock bag with at least 2 extra batteries. Other light sources are http://www.MAGLITE.com, and http://www.surefire.com
If you have these items you will be set for the vast majority of life’s little curveballs. The Leatherman or a similar tool alone will solve the majority, but the others really do matter.
Take the stuff and put it into the gallon ziploc bag. Express the air and zip it shut. You can then take the second bag, place the full bag into the second so that the zipped portion is put in first, express the air, and zip the second one shut. This will provide a lot of moisture protection.
The Basic BOB
The Basic BOB is meant to be carried every day, and is geared towards an urban or suburban environment. This is something that, since it is meant for everyday carry, must be comfortable, rugged, and useful in daily life.
The bag itself. We suggest something inconspicuous and easy to carry,
but with an appreciable load capacity. A medium sized briefcase will suffice, but try to get a North Face or Jansport type bag that college students use as book bags. The bags will have extra external and internal pockets which will come in handy for little things you need to get to quickly such as toilet paper or food. The bags often come with Fastex buckles which allow the bearer to externally attach other items allowing the user to customize his carry.
A Leatherman Supertool or something similar as mentioned in the Minimalist BOB.
Spare glasses. If you wear glasses get a spare set and put them in. If you wear contacts, get a pair of glasses and store them in the bag. In an abrasive or caustic atmosphere you can seriously damage your eyes with contacts, and you may not be able to clean your hands enough to replace dirty or lost lenses. So, glasses it is.
One roll of toilet paper. Never be without at least one roll of toilet paper. For ease of carry remove the cardboard tube and smash it flat. Then take it and put it into a ziplock bag. Express the air from the bag and seal it tightly. If you’ve ever in a position where there is no TP, you understand the necessity for this one.
A multifuel lighter (zippo-type) or an unopened drug store butane lighter. If you don’t smoke you may never need it, but fire is man’s most basic tool, so get it and have it. If you get the Zippo, remember extra flints and fuel.
Food. Have some power bars or some cookies. The best way to figure your needs is to miss lunch, then see if one or two packs of Oreos or a power bar or two takes most of the edge off. The prepackaged cheese and crackers snacks for kids are a good idea also. Plan on a 48 hour period of relying on your BOB. Have six very small meals, each in its own ziplock bag. Eat them once a month and restock so they don’t go bad on you.
Water. Have a minimum of 4 20 ounce bottles. If you can stomach warm Gatorade, get that instead. Most hunger pains are actually thirst, so try drinking a half a bottle of fluid with each mini meal you eat.
Medicine. Be absolutely certain you have any daily meds you take. This may be something you have to put into and remove from the bag each day, but don’t forget them. If the medicine you take is not easily perishable and not a controlled substance, get your doctor to write an extra prescription and keep a spare bottle, that you rotate out monthly, in the bag at all times.
Space blanket. There are emergency blankets that fold up to about the size of a sandwich. They are inexpensive and very warm. They are also usually waterproof. Get one or two. http://www.SPORTSMANSGUIDE.com
Toothbrush and toothpaste. This is optional, but performing personal hygiene can make you feel worlds better in a bad situation. Put them in a ziplock bag together.
Money. A spare $100.00 is a very good idea. At the very least get a roll of quarters for vending machines since they may work in the absence of electricity. Be aware that money may not have much value in a true SHTF situation. Money is a good idea, but it only works in a civilized paradigm.
Deodorant. Very optional. This only applies if you are from the US. Other countries don’t seem to want it.
Spare clothing. This is optional, but not a bad idea. At the very least you will want some spare socks sitting snug in a ziplock bag.
Personal protection. Get the strongest pepper spray you can find and rotate stock every six months or so. If the button gets pushed, get rid of it. The can will leak.
Firearm. If you live in a free state, get a concealed carry permit so that you can carry your weapon without fear of arrest. If you are in a state where the rights of all people are not recognized, rely on the pepper spray. For a BOB firearm, the suggestion is for a something reliable. It has to go boom every time the trigger is pulled. A compact lightweight revolver such as Taurus or Smith & Wesson makes may be the ticket. Firearms are a very personal sort of equipment, and if you don’t know anything about them, get help and get good teaching. At the very least get a small semi-auto .22LR pistol and learn how to use and maintain it. Keep it in a holster or case so the sights and trigger can’t be bumped. Any gun is better than no gun when people around you lose their minds.
Feminine hygiene. Get some maxipads. Remember they can be used as pressure bandages.
Pencil and paper. Being able to write a note can be very necessary at times. You may need to write down a license plate or a description for the police, so get a small wire bound 3”x5” notebook and put it in a ziplock with a pencil.
Band-Aids. Always a good idea. Stick 10 or so in a ziplock bag and seal it tight.
Radio and batteries. A cheap transistor radio can be a big help. If nothing else it can tell you if there are road or bridge closings or if there is a shelter nearby. Make sure the radio isn’t a flimsy headset design that will break with rough handling, and make sure it is a RADIO, not a CD or an MP3 player when you buy it. Put the radio and batteries in ziplock bags.
A flashlight. Just as described in the minimalist BOB, get a small AA or AAA battery using Mini Mag-Lite or a LED keying.
A respirator. This is optional. Lowes, Home Depot, and other hardware stores stock painter’s respirators that run about $15.00 USD. They use replaceable canister filters that are really very good for what they are. This isn’t a gas mask of course, but if there is a lot of stuff in the air these cans will help keep it out of your lungs, especially dust in the event of a nuke or radiological “dirty” bomb. A respirator doesn’t weigh much, is about as big as a fist, and is cheap insurance. Get one and put it into a ziplock bag.
Soap. One or two bars of hotel sized soap can help with cleaning hands before eating or for just getting yourself a little cleaner. This is especially helpful in the event of a small wound. It may hurt to wash a scrape or cut, but it is the best way to avoid infection.
A fork and a spoon. Eating with your hands isn’t just bad manners, it is a health hazard. Remember the Four F’s of Food Sanitation: Fingers, Face, Flies, and Feces. Getting food poisoning when you have no ready way to care for yourself can be very problematic. Even freshly washed hands can carry enough bacteria to make you ill in dirty conditions, thus poor personal hygiene coupled with a failure of civil sanitation is a recipe for trouble. If you have a regular metal fork and spoon, you can sidestep this large potential problem. Put them in a ziplock so they won’t get lost and put them in the bag. You can make a cup if needed by cutting the top off a plastic pop bottle, or by using your can opener on a soft drink can.
Intermediate BOB
Now we move on to something a little more substantial. Since cold weather is the most difficult thing to deal with, this section is geared towards people who travel in rural areas and who may experience unpleasant winters. This is a BOB you will fill and put into your vehicle, opening it only to rotate stocks every so often or if you need it.
The bag itself should be larger. We suggest a medium sized rucksack with or without a frame. An internally framed ruck is better, but it is not necessary. A cheap solution is a medium sized military issue ALICE rucksack. ALICE stands for All purpose Light weight Individual Carrying Equipment. Leave it to the military to come up with a 7 word name for rucksack and then an acronym to shorten it. The ALICE ruck’s design was employed in numerous conflicts and to the best of my knowledge no one ever complained about the rucksack except to say the frame was somewhat flimsy. The frame is aluminum, and will bend if abused by being sat upon or in some other fashion. If it is used in its intended fashion, it will last a lifetime with no care at all. Read some reviews on the ALICE here-www.trailspace.com/gear/review/00002483
Another alternative is a gym bag of tough construction, preferably with 4 or 5 external pockets. Several sporting goods places on the web offer “range bags” or “shooter’s bags” that are made of very strong stuff and have many external pockets. Get one with good sewn in handles and, if possible, end handles as well as the standard top handles. Good quality gym bags can be found at most retail outlets like Wal-Mart.
If you drive a truck with no back seat, try to get a gym bag with a bottom width the same as the floor with the seat moved to the rear. If you have to put the bag in the back of the truck, try to avoid putting water in the bag as it will freeze and burst the container.
Consider this list a continuation of the basic BOB:
Clothes. Put in a spare set of jeans, a shirt, socks, spare boots or athletic shoes, a scarf, a balaclava or a ski mask, good gloves, a lightweight waterproof parka or windbreaker, and some long underwear. Put them separately into plastic bags and seal them as best you can. That which will fit into a ziplock, put into a ziplock. As always, get the air out of the bag before sealing.
Fatty, salty, and sugary foods. Get a can or two of Spam, yes Spam. I said Spam and throw it in there. A can or two of Dinty Moore stew should go in there as well as junk food like chocolate chip cookies, etc. A good rule of thumb is if your kids whine for it, you will want to carry a little of it for any potential on foot impromptu camping trip. Get also a few packets of dried noodle soups like Hot Ramen or Cup A Soup so that you can drink stuff to warm up. Hot chocolate packets and instant coffee is also recommended. The General Foods International coffees are about half sugar and come in a sturdy tin, but beware, after drinking a cup you may feel compelled to start talking about your feelings. When the temperature drops and you have to walk through snow and ice you need to eat and drink horrible crap like that. The drinks and noodles will warm you, fat will feed you, and the salt will constipate you. Constipation is good because who wants to stick their derriere out and squat in 10F weather?
A small pot. Get a 2 quart, preferably iron, pot for melting snow or heating water for drinking or making soup.If you feel that a 2 quart pot is too much to carry, there are alternatives. One may choose to go with aluminum cookware, but it may be damaged or crushed if abused in some fashion. It may also make your food taste nasty and is unhealthy from a long term perspective. Another suggestion is titanium cookware which will only crush your wallet.
Get a small camper stove. This is optional. They are simple inexpensive affairs of flat stamped metal that you can build a small fire under and put a pot on. Alternately you can have a small propane stove with a cylinder of gas.
Maps. Don’t forget the map if you have to ditch your vehicle. Try to avoid going out without one. You will want that piece of paper if you are unfamiliar with the area, and you will want it if you are. Things look different at 3 miles an hour, land marks won’t pass with that familiar tempo.
Yes you have a map function on your phone – how well does it work when the battery is dead?
A tent. Get a small inexpensive pop up tent and put it in your bag. A $20.00 USD tent will be more than enough to keep the wind off of three huddled people, which can be the difference between life and death in a nasty winter storm, especially if wet.
Candles. Get two or three emergency candles. You would not believe the amount of heat these things throw off in a confined space. Try it out. Get in the tent sometime, seal it up, and light a candle. You should have to start taking off clothes within 10 to 15 minutes. A note about clothes. If you are cold with your clothes on, try taking some off or opening them up. The cold may just be there because your sweat can’t get away from you. Dry is warm and warm is dry.
Sleeping bag. Get a decent bag. Try to get one that goes into a “stuff bag”. They compact the best and are easiest to carry.
Poncho. Get an army surplus or, better yet, a new poncho. We wouldn’t advise wearing one because they will make you sweat, which will make you cold, but they are great to rest a tent on. Also, they make a great hasty tent or sleeping bag. You can find quality stuff at http://www.rangerjoes.com.
GPS and a compass. This is most likely unnecessary except in a blizzard, but hey, be prepared. Get a moderately priced GPS with preprogrammable waypoints and an expensive compass. Preprogram your waypoints along your most traveled routes. Never be lost again, right?
Spare fuel. There are emergency fuel packs sold in Wal Mart, K Mart, Auto Zone, etc. These are “trunk safe” containers of mineral spirits that can be used in a pinch if you run out of gas. One or two is a good idea. If you have a diesel, cooking oil can serve as an emergency fuel, so keep a couple of gallons of vegetable oil in your vehicle.
A small can of red spray paint. This is optional. If you need to mark your way whether by marking trees or by leaving a directional arrow in the snow, have this item.
Water. If it is snowy, you have water. If it isn’t you need at least three 20oz bottles per day. Figure to have on hand a 3 day supply. Gatorade is better, but have something to drink.
A charcoal hand warmer. These can be found at sporting goods shops. Have one and extra fuel. Store them in ziplock bags. This item can be the difference between losing and keeping digits in a frostbite situation. If you can, get two so you can warm your hands and feet at the same time.
Personal protection. I know I am repeating myself here. Carry pepper spray. There are bad people in the world and you don’t want to get to know them. There are good people on the road, but that’s not the expectation you should use.
Firearms. Get a quality pistol and get good with it. Stick it in your parka pocket and zip it shut when you walk. If you have it on a holster it might show and people might not slow to help you. It will also be more difficult to get to under a parka. If it is in the pocket you can keep your hand in there and no one will notice. They will assume you are just cold. Make certain you zip of button you pocket when you walk as to prevent your weapon from falling out.
Advanced BOB
Oh dear, it finally happened. Some jackass nuked half a dozen major cities simultaneously, the food and petroleum supply has been disrupted, there is a plague that makes the Black Death look like a head cold and we can’t fight it, or Mike Tyson is in an elevator with you. Whatever it may be, it is time to haul ass in a big way, and you have a long way to go. This isn’t just getting home due to a bad hair day, this is Bosnia for a Croat or Rwanda for a Hutu time. It is time to “Run Forrest, run!” or “Run Luke, run!” depending on how grandiose your self image is.
When you go you know that travel may be uncertain. There may be roadblocks as is routine in rural Africa when there is one of their periodic disease outbreaks, there may be civil unrest like the Rodney King riots, there may be martial law declared so you can’t use the roads. Any way you slice it you have to maximize the chances of getting yourself and your family safely to safety, and this may involve transition from wheels to feet in order to get there.
Before you can even consider this level of planning you need to consider the goal. If you wish to go to Grandma’s farm 300 miles away, you need not one plan, or two plans, you need several alternates. What takes 5 hours by highway may take weeks with a family in tow on foot. Write down the plans in a notebook and have the appropriate maps. If you catch some Apache’s arrow, the rest of the family will still need to make it there if they can.
Consider the size of your family and their ages. This will be a major indicator of what needs to happen with regards to provisions.
Never try to carry any more than 50-60 pounds per healthy adult male, and never try to go 25-35 pounds per woman or teen.
Always plan for the worst. If you have 3 kids and a wife make every plan as though it would be made over land without roads and carrying at least one member. Figure that if you can go 15 miles a day with a family on foot, you are really doing well, so 300 miles equals a minimum of 20 days of travel, with a realistic expectation being 30 days. And an angry, dirty, whining, X Box withdrawal group of unhappy campers they will be.
This list is a continuation of the above BOB lists. The first two lists were just for a single person. Do the math. Multiply where you need to, more tents, ponchos, etc. Figure a roll of toilet paper lasts an adult male a week when he eats regularly, so multiply rolls times people times weeks. Family of five going 300 miles? 5 people X 4 weeks is twenty rolls of paper, which is a lot of volume, so everyone carries their own TP in their personal ruck. Another thing, get the roughest TP you can get. It wipes off the poop better, it stores better, and the women won’t use as much.
The bag or bags. Go to a dive store, that is a place SCUBA divers shop, not a store with cheap beer and cheaper women. Get one of the large dive bags they sell. These bags are designed to hold heavy and bulky stuff in harsh environments and are extremely rugged. Don’t forget to buy individual rucks for those who don’t have them. They make good book bags for kids, so tell them that is what they will use them for. It will get them used to carrying them.
A shovel. You will need to bury your poop and scrape a fire pit. You may also need to bury someone. If you have to bury someone, mark the location in your GPS. It may be important for you to return later. Bring at least a military issue entrenching tool. They are small, inexpensive, light, and they collapse.
A water filter. You cannot expect your wife or kids to drink ditch water. Get a reverse osmosis filtration pump with an iodide filter. An inexpensive backup that you must have is regular household bleach. 3 to 4 drops per gallon is all that is needed to make water safe for consumption, so get a small medicine dropper and fill it with bleach. Add the bleach to the water, stir or shake vigorously, and let it sit for an hour. It will then be drinkable. Try to avoid ingesting any sediment.
Binoculars. Have at least one pair. You may have a need to look at things at a distance. Don’t go cheap on binos, this is one area where expensive is good.
A wagon. Go to Lehman’s online catalogue or go to Lowes or Home Depot, etc. They will have very sturdy wooden wagons or metal garden wagons. The metal garden wagons typically have better handles, better wheels, better suspensions, and carry more, but they can be uncomfortable to touch in winter and they can rust. If you have to put an infant in one, you don’t want there to be a chance of instant frostbite just because he was fussy and flailing around. The suggestion is to go with wood. You can order a Lehman’s wagon with very large wheels for off road use. If you have small children who may need to be pulled, get two wagons. One wagon is for provisions and the other to carry rug rats. http://www.LEHMANS.com These wagons can carry two or three hundred pounds easily, so these are not your old Radio Flyer.
Food. Half a cup of dried rice is equal to roughly 1 ½ cups of cooked rice. That is a lot of rice per person, so no one should be very hungry. Figure a family of five eating twice a day is five cups a day times thirty days travel is 150 cups of rice.
With 16 cups per gallon two 5 gallon containers should suffice for a month’s travel. Get PVC buckets with pour spout lids.
Beans. Rice and beans twice a day for a month will cool ardor and may lead to acts of violence, but you will be pleased to see that they have plenty of energy to argue, since rice and beans will provide almost all the nutrients a body needs.
The question is, “How much of beans do we carry?” If you plan on canned beans figure 60 eight to twelve ounce cans. If you get dried beans, figure ¾ a cup dried volume per meal, or a little over 3 gallons of dried beans. The drawback to dried beans is that they have to be soaked for 24 hours, so you will have to start soaking beans 24 hours in advance of each meal which is a pain.
While dried beans are better in the long run because the excess can be planted at your destination come warm weather, you may wish to opt for canned.
Fat. Get a two gallon jug of Crisco. You will need it in order to cook wild game which is always extremely lean meat. You may wish to get a three pound block of lard instead. Lard would actually be better since it is a solid and can’t leak. It also tastes better, and takes up less space.
Salt. Carry a pound box of iodized salt. You will use it at your destination or for barter. Ever wonder where salt comes from? It most likely isn’t a local product. You will be sweating a lot on this trip, so you will need salt.
Meat. This will be provided by Mother Nature. Do you know the Iroquois word for bad hunter? Vegetarian.
Cookware. Bring a metal measuring cup. You need to measure that rice. Bring a cast iron skillet and a cast iron 2 quart pan with a lid. Get a metal serving spoon and a metal spatula. That should take care of all your cooking utensil needs.
An axe. Never be without a good axe. Get one with a hammer side if you can.
Soap. Carry a few bars. You need to bathe once a week, and daily hand washing is very important. Try to stock anti-bacterial if at all possible. Don’t carry liquid soap as it is heavier and can spill.
Radio. Get a hand powered radio. They will pick up shortwave, weather stations, AM, and FM stations. They don’t take batteries, so that is one more thing you won’t have to bring. Also consider getting some walkie-talkies. Have extra rechargable batteries and keep them charged.
Insect repellent. Get some suitable repellants for the older people and for any infants. You can’t use high concentrations of DEET on infants and toddlers because it can cause skin irritation and seizures. Remember, spray it on your hand and wipe it on the kid, don’t spray it on them.
Fishing tackle. You can make a fishing rig out of a bean can or a Coke can, some monofilament line, a float, and a hook. Fishing rods can get broken, so unless you are one of the lucky few with a Pocket Fisherman, you will have to improvise. They are available on Amazon.
Hammock. Get a cheap fishnet hammock for every member of your party except the littlest ones. The hammocks will serve as hammocks, naturally. They will also serve as a hasty stretcher and as a hasty fishnet with the use of saplings cut for poles. You can simplify putting them up and taking them down by tying a heavy duty D ring on the end ropes. You just wind the line around the tree trunk a few times and snap the D ring onto the rope to secure it. They are cheap and will roll up into a ball the size of a man’s fist. They fit easily into a small ziplock for carrying.
Rope. Get about 20 or 30 feet of stout ½ or ¾ inch rope. You may need it to pull the wagons or for some other unforeseen purpose. Learn some knots. A ready source (and free!) Is A. Hyatt Verrill’s Knots, Splices and Rope Work, on gutenberg.org. If your Bug Out is by water, his “The Book of the Sailboat: How to rig, sail and handle small boats” might be handy. But regardless, knowing a handful of useful knots will always be helpful. A couple of hundred feet of paracord will always be useful. An older copy of The Boy Scout Handbook would be handy.
Firearms. Have a .22LR rifle at the very least. It isn’t much of a self defense weapon, but it will kill rabbits and squirrels. A 12GA shotgun is also strongly recommended with a variety of loads. A centerfire rifle is even more strongly recommended. Every able bodied member should bear a long arm on the trip, even if they don’t know how to use it. If you carry some slugs, some #1 buckshot, and some #6 shot, you can take deer as well as small game. Again, firearms are a very personal choice, so make yours wisely, and get some training.
Personal bags. Each person who can carry one should have a backpack of some sort. In addition to toilet paper, let them put whatever they want into it without comment when you leave, they will need that psychologically.
Medicine. Over the counter meds are strongly recommended if you have needed them in the past. Also make sure you get some Imodium for the treatment of diarrhea. Diarrhea can be fatal in kids. Children’s vitamins are also a good idea if they are already taking them.
A sewing kit. A good all purpose emergency sewing kit will weigh only a few ounces and take up less space than a pack of cards. It is good not only for suturing clothes, but skin as well in a pinch. Get one and a few extra buttons.
Gas mask. A gas mask, better called a protective mask, may be something an individual may consider not carrying at all. Protective masks are good for filtering out nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. Lets talk about the three NBC scenarios.
Nuclear They work best against a nuclear threat where they will act to keep radioactive dust out of your lungs. Since an area that has been bombed will lose most of its danger due to fallout in days, hours if there is a strong rain, this mask will be of limited usefulness. In fact, this degree of protection can be approxamated by breathing through a wet rag, and an almost identical degree of protection can be given by a cannister type painter’s mask. A promaks is a good thing to have in this instance, but the remotenet possibility of an nuclear attack along with the extremely remopte chance of your encountering it may not justify the purchase of this item.
Chemical Chemical warfare agents are difficult to make, transport, and employ. They just plain old don’t work very well, and as a result it is almost an impossibility that even soldiers in a combat zone will ever encounter them much less a civilian.. A good quality mask will protect you from inhalation of toxic fumes for several hours to several days.
Biological In the event of a natural or man made plague a quality pro mask will provide excellent protection. Virises cannot easily pass through, bacteria certainly cannot at all. The problem here is that most likely by the time you discover there is a danger of infection, it is too late to don your pro mask.
The problem with pro masks is that they provide temporary protection. You can’t live in one, so you must leave the area. Another problem is that if you have a family you may be able to protect your adult and young adult members, but infants can only be protected by “Gas Tents” that use battery powered filtrations systems, and retail for several hundred dollars each.
A good source for these items is http://www.APPROVEDGASMASKS.com. This is another place where expensive most likely means good quality. Don’t skimp if you buy one of these, it is a false economy.
According To Hoyt 