BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

…make me write bad books.

Well, okay, let’s not write bad books. Even though Sean Connery says that women will sleep with you if you write a bad book, I’m not looking for that sort of validation.  I am, however, about to step in the proverbial “pile o’ poo”.

You see, as a general rule, people will say just about anything they damn well please to an author and expect us to take it. If they don’t expect us to take it, then they will expect us to “explain ourselves” as if we owe them. This isn’t everyone, of course, but there is a sizable enough segment out there that it prompted me to pen this particular blog entry. The problem is, unless you sit there with a smile on your face, or wholeheartedly agree with them that you are a big doody-head because you didn’t write something exactly the way they wanted, then you automatically become an asshole. I’ve seen this happen to many an author. For the most part, it’s just a speed bump in the road of life, but there have been a few career busting sinkholes out there too.

Now, as far as reviews go, I don’t even read them. Good or bad, doesn’t matter. I pretty much feel I need to give them equal time, so I don’t bother with any of them. Why? It’s a waste of my time. The good reviews will make me feel good, but the bad reviews will make me feel bad. I’d rather spend the hour it would take to read the reviews fantasizing about The Evil Redhead. That makes me feel good. No bad involved. Well… Okay… But it’s the good kind of bad.

But I’m not actually talking about reviews here. I’m talking about the commentaries that happen at book signings, show up in email, or happen on social networking venues. The stuff like, “You need to have XYZ character do ABC in the next book,” or “Your pagans aren’t real enough because in MY community we all go by our magickal names, not our real names.”

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I’m actually here to run off at the mouth about one particular comment that I have received. While the comment in question hasn’t come from everyone, I’ve heard it enough times that I feel a need to address it here.

Before we go any further I’d like to point out that I’m not angry or upset about it. I’m just really confused. And when I say confused, I mean big ol’ WTF kind of confused. I should also point out that what triggered this blog is that I heard the comment again recently. If the young lady who made the comment happens to read my blog, I certainly do not want her to be upset about this. I am not – I repeat, NOT – being a big asshole here. I’m just nonplussed to the nth degree.

The comment itself takes many forms – everything from flat-out, angry and accusatory rhetoric, to a simple, offhanded remark. But, it always boils down to the same thing.

You see, starting with the sixth book in the RGI series, I introduced an antagonist named Miranda. Now, Miranda is a little different in that she is a female serial killer. But what’s more is that she is a rare sub-type, that being a female sexual predator. In short, she’s a “killer dominatrix” – in more ways than one.

Apparently, a handful of folks out there take exception with this. Not that fact that she’s a serial killer or that she is a rare sub-type of female serial killer. Nope… What bothers them is that she’s a Dominatrix. They are anywhere from angry to upset to just plain not sure what to make of the fact that this  fictional woman engages in a BDSM Lifestyle and ends up taking it a little too far.

Okay. Good on ya’. You like vanilla, I like twisty cones. Not a problem.

But here’s the thing. The comment – whether angry or phlegmatic – always carries with it the following, “I really loved your other books in the series, but putting BDSM in them is offensive.”

Sometimes I get that direct quote; sometimes it’s just inferred. But, it’s always there even if the exact verbiage isn’t used. This is when I have my gi-hugic WTF? moment. Allow me to explain.

I write paranormal suspense thrillers about a witch who helps the police solve serial murders. In the first book, Harm None, there is a killer who skins his victims alive. In the second book, there is a killer who burns his victims alive. In the third book, Perfect Trust, there is a killer who rapes and kills women. In the fourth, The Law Of Three, victim gets eviscerated while still alive. In number five, Crone’s Moon, the killer is all about torturing the victims to death with electricity.

Are you seeing my point? If not, let me try to clarify a bit…

I am utterly perplexed as to how anyone could be offended by some woman dressing up in leather and spanking some guy, or walking on him in high heels, or making him bark like a dog, or whatever, prior to killing him (she is, after all, a serial killer and a sexual predator at that – meaning she’ll want to get off on it, or else why do it?), BUT the same individual(s) have no problem whatsoever with any of the other horrors my other antagonists have perpetrated upon their victims.

I can’t imagine that it’s just the sexual aspect. After all, sex was all over Perfect Trust. It just happened to be a male in control over the female victims, and getting his jollies with his own bizarre paraphilia.

So, if it isn’t the sex, then is it the fact that it’s a strong female archetype who is killing men?

You know… forget I even asked.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever get it. Nobody has been able to offer me a reasonable explanation for their dislike of the Miranda Saga just yet, and I doubt they ever will. There are just too many contradictions.

Fortunately, it’s a small group.

More to come…

Murv

I’m not a huge fan of chocolate.

I don’t hate it, but it’s not my first choice when it comes to candy and desserts. But then, I’m not much of a sweets guy anyway. Licorice, now that’s one thing… And I mean LICORICE… Well, what I’m able to get my hands on, anyway. I’ve never had any of the really good imported stuff.

But we definitely aren’t talking about that red stuff that kids think is licorice.

And there are certain pies I like.

And certain cakes.

But I really have to be in the right mood. At any rate, faced with a choice between chocolate whatever and a slice of Lemon Chess Pie, I’d go for the Lemon Chess Pie. Faced with a choice between a slice of Lemon Chess Pie and a piece of Fried Chicken, I’d go for the Fried Chicken…

I know, how can a fat guy not be into sweets. Dunno. Just one of those things. But, that’s not really what this blog is about.

When I worked as an electronics technician, I absolutely loved things with moving parts. Why? Because items with moving parts are wayyyyy more likely to break down. Friction, wear, deterioration of plastics and polymer gears, belts, etc. It was guaranteed money. After all, as a tech your job is to fix things. If they weren’t breaking then you were out of a job. It also didn’t hurt at all that I’m mechanically inclined. I can look at a mess of gears, sprockets, belts, motors, solenoids, and the like, and pretty much tell you what drives what, in which direction, how fast, and the reason.

However, this blog isn’t about moving parts either…

It’s actually about a USB device. Universal Serial Bus,  in case you aren’t familiar with the acronym. The device in question – that being a flash drive, also called a thumb drive, memory stick, and several other names – has no moving parts. It’s a lovely little piece of circuitry that contains something called NVRAM. Non-Volatile Random Access Memory. Basically, that means that even without power applied it remembers what you told it. And, you can tell it to forget that and remember something else. Or, remember the first thing AND something else… I all depends on how much capacity your flash drive has.

So why all this fuss about USB flash drives?

Well, as an author who happens to be a former electronics tech, I don’t trust computers. They break. I know this. It’s how I made a living… While I specialized in printers, computers have moving parts too. Hard Drives, fans, and the like. Plus, they think they are smarter than us, and on occasion decide to prove it. Mine threw one of these fits back when I was writing my third novel. I was nearing the end of a marathon writing session – back then they all were, because I still had the “day job” and could only write on weekends. During this particular session I had hammered out close to three chapters of Perfect Trust. I blinked. The screen flickered. Then it turned blue. Then silly words about exception errors and the like popped up.

Apparently my computer had taken exception with something I had written, and in retaliation it crashed. But not only did it crash, it corrupted my saved files, as well as my autorecovery file. Yeah. I lost it all, except for the backup I had made the previous week.

After that painful incident, I began backing up more often – like every few pages or so. Not just saving. Saving in multiple places.  And, a copy goes with me. For years the copy was either on a 3.5 inch diskette or a CD-ROM.

Then I got my first USB Flash Drive.

Small. Compact. Bunches of memory. A place to store all sorts of stuff. And, it fit right in my pocket. This was what I had been looking for. A simple way to carry all of my manuscripts and notes around with me, just in case of a catastrophic failure of my system at home, my notebook computer exploding, and my other backups being corrupt. Basically, it was another layer of redundancy that made me feel better about my redundancy. Know what I mean? Of course, it didn’t account for a CMF – that being a Catastrophic Murv Failure.

Well… It was unseasonably warm that year at PUF.

Yeah… I know… It looks like I just changed subjects again, but keep reading…

I had a workshop to do prior to jumping in the van and heading into town for dinner with some friends who lived nearby. Normally I don’t leave events for that sort of thing, but this was a special case and The Big Kahuna was all good with it. Unfortunately, the person using the seminar venue ahead of me ran over with her workshop. Not a big deal, really, except that what ran over was not the workshop itself, but 30 minutes worth of cleanup. I’m not exactly sure what she had been teaching, but she had all manner of props, etc, that she had to pack up and move out before my class could sit down and listen to me ramble. Among the props were 4,897,236 Hershey’s Kisses.

Don’t ask me. Like I said, I haven’t a clue what she was teaching…

At any rate, as a gesture of apology, good will, don’t kill me, or something on that order, she walked over and thrust a handful of these chocolate bombs at me. I tried to politely decline, not being a big chocolate fan, but she insisted that perhaps the o-spring might want them. Conceding, I took the foil wrapped confections from her, and that was when the initial failure began. A failure that would soon cascade into a full blown CMF.

What was the failure, you ask? Simple… I stuffed the Hershey’s Kisses into my pocket.

Yes. I know. Stupid. Why do you think the title of this blog entry is Stupid Murv Tricks? Don’t worry. It gets “stupider”…

So, anyone who has seen me present a workshop knows that I’m not a “calm” sort of speaker. I’m more along the lines of Morris Massey without the leisure suit (yes, my videos are OLD). If you’ve never seen one of his motivational  / training videos, then the simplest explanation I can give you is that I’m all over the stage. I run, jump, wave my arms, yell, talk, laugh, dance, and generally have a good time. Presenting should be fun. Attending a presentation should be fun. See the correlation?

Anywho, and hour or so later, after generating an enormous amount of fat guy body heat, in the unseasonably warm afternoon, presenting a workshop in an outdoor pavilion, there I was, riding along in the passenger seat of the Evil Mobile as we headed out for the dinner. Johnathan Mentos and Dorothy Morrison were in the back with the O-spring, and E K was behind the wheel, as usual. We were chit chatting, comparing notes and generally “debriefing” as we tend to do post seminar, when suddenly everything turned blue.

Well… not really. But it sure seemed that way, for you see a random snippet of information shot through my forebrain. It took the form of a complex mathematical equation involving the integrity of foil wrapping, ambient temperatures, elevated body temperatures, proximity to such, and the melting point of Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses. All of that was divided by the variable, USB Drive In Pocket.

Unfortunately, my math co-processor experienced a glitch, and instead of completing the equation, spawned a virulent sub-routine from my overall operating system.

My mouth engaged, suddenly announcing, “OH SHIT!”

At the same instant, the snippet of faulty op-system code triggered my motor reflexes and blocked all Logic Services from my brain. My arm flew up, then immediately down as I slapped my palm against my pocket. Apparently the subroutine wanted to know if the Hershey’s Kisses were still there.

Unfortunately, they weren’t. In their place was Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. Prior to the catastrophic failure it had been nestled precariously within the confines of the ultra-thin foil wrapping.

Not anymore…

In the end, the USB drive survived, although it seemed a little touch and go there for a bit. To this day it sort of smells like a toll house cookie…

But the thing is, I’m not a huge fan of chocolate…

More to come…

Murv