Writing , New Ideas, and the Virus Block

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I have been having trouble writing these blogs and the cause has been starting me in the face. I’m stuck, isolated at home. I need inputs. One big source of inputs is conventions. Be it radio conventions, Science Fiction, or Steampunk conventions. Meeting new friends or old acquaintances. Talking to people seeing new things doing something different.

It may be two more months before I get my shots and can go to the grocery store and not feel like I’m risking my life.

The president got it, and he has the best medical help in the country, I can get it. And the doctor told me if I get it, it will not be good.

So to find ideas and get back to normal I have to start reading books. I have to start talking to people even if it’s only on Facebook or even zoom. I have to start writing emails and letters. Ideas here I come.

The NPR commentator was complaining about how there will be all these old geezers flying around after they get their second shot. We stayed safe, stayed isolated, we earned it. Stay safe and you will get yours, in a good way.

Six people killed in seconds on I-35 in Texas. I’ve been on that road. There’s a short distance till the other freeway dead ends into I-35 and you have to get over 7 lanes and the exits lanes are hard to get out of once your in one. There was another pile up near Austin. It was only 30 or 40 cars. Not enough to make the news, it’s under a hundred vehicles. I still can’t figure out how that white car got on top of two other cars. It did not look that beat up to have climbed on top of two car already stacked on top of each other.

So many books to read. I want something funny, something light for these dark times. So much of Steampunk is so dark. People in the 1800s laughed, they played jokes on each others. I may have to write that book.

Stay strong, write on, and laugh.

Professor Hyram Voltage

Too Little Background or World in the Story?

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I’m writing a story set in 1890s Paris, France. I have a history book that tells me that this is a time of great upheaval. They are rebuilding the streets of Paris. Widening them and straightening them.

Of course this means taking away land, building and homes that have been in families for decades, centuries. Napoleonic law is about rules, it doesn’t care about people.

How do I include the stories about corrupt construction, building supplies that vanish, people thrown out in the street, rich aristocrats buying houses for a song and selling them to the government for ridiculous prices because they have good connections.

Those stories have little to do with the story of my heroine, but they are happening all around her. She has to notice them.

Writing gurus tell me that I can’t include anything that is not vital to the story or the TV-cell phone addled reader will drop my story and go to something that has more action.

The little things like the land grab make the background of the story I’m writing. They show why things happen in the story.

Has it gotten to the point where the only thing that readers care about are super heroes and the super heroes only care about super villains.

Not caring about the details or the real world does make writing a book easier.

Stay strong, write on.

Professor Hyram Voltage

Writing and the Government Don’t Leave It to the Experts

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I’m not against experts, but experts can be wrong and some of the experts I have dealt with refuse to admit they have ever been wrong. It’s bad for business when an expert admits he made a mistake.

One day as a kid my dad bought me a comic book. That was a big thing. Unlike many authors, there were not many books in my childhood home. There was no local library and the books that I got were read to death.

It was a Legion of Superhero comic book, in the 1960s this was set in the Superboy universe. I don’t know if superman has a childhood now a days. Since he’s been promoted to godhood would he have a childhood? They rewrote his story line in the movies.

Superboy would travel to the future to pal around with a group of young superheroes. In this future the world government is run by a robot brain and scientist. Something that was a hold over from the 1940s and 50s. The brain (what we would call a computer) was fooled by the villains to outlaw the young superheroes. Makes since, the superheroes have super powers and could kill people. The parents, of the super heroes, were law abiding, so no using your powers, no dressing up in costumes and no getting together, it’s the law.

Side note, the young superheroes had an amulet that they used as a cell phone to talk to each other since they could not get together. Cheap plot device, but it was suppose to be advanced technology that no one else had. Who in the 1960s would believe that 50 years later everyone would have a pocket phone.

The US government is on the verge of the same thing, handing the running of the government to experts. Politicians seek experts for guidance. Those experts work for lobbyist and big companies, which is a conflict of interest.


So the rich and powerful people just have to buy experts instead of politicians. That leaves the ordinary people being governed without a voice.

Another big problem with computers, scientist or experts running the government, experts are not always right. Long Term Capital hired the best in the world, including Nobel prize winners, and it went broke. Expert told the California that a new style of teaching reading would save the state tons of money. The experts would not admit they were wrong, it had to be the teachers, until they were over ruled when for several years the state tied for last place in national reading scores.

From what I read on the net, the experts at Disney corp have messed up Star Wars for long time fans of the movies and universe. They are not making the money they projected. After three movies they have not changed, the experts refuse to admit they were wrong. The experts at Disney broke the mythos of Star Wars to attract new viewer. They alienated the long time fans. I’m waiting for a reboot of the Star Wars series with a new better look Luke, that what the people making Marvel movies would do.

Will the new US government depend on experts that will break the myth of the United States to attach the younger population (voters)? Is the old way that has worked for over 200 years going to be thrown out? If they make a mistake will they admit it. I don’t think they will ever admit they were wrong. The real world doesn’t work like many experts believe.

Stay strong, write on, and hang on for a wild ride.
Professor Voltage