David Dubrow

Author

RIP, Peder Lund

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Peder Lund (L) and Lee Morrison (R)

For about twelve years I was employed by Paladin Press, a mail-order publishing company in Boulder, Colorado. The stories I could tell, from my unorthodox job interview to my departure on a cold December morning before 6:00 AM could fill a book. A book few people would want to read, so I won’t put anyone through the experience of it. Nevertheless, I did work for what was called “The most dangerous publisher in America” for quite some time, and lived on the bleeding edge of First (and Second) Amendment issues long before today’s crop of free-speech warriors graced the nascent pages of the internet.

Paladin’s early history can be found here.

I recently learned that Peder Lund, Paladin Press’s owner and publisher, died in Finland on June 3.

He was generous and a good man to work for. Few people have TV movies made about their business.

Rest in peace, Peder.

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Writing Updates

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I’m three short chapters away from completing the first draft of the third book in the Armageddon trilogy. It’s a massively difficult task to bring everything together in a way that satisfyingly completes both character and story arcs, which is why it’s taking so long. And the first draft is so horrible I’m not even sure I can bring myself to look at it to work on a second draft. As we say in the video business, “We’ll fix it in post.” Anyway, the end is in sight. The story of angels, demons, psychics, Nephilim, witches, and ordinary people living in extraordinary times is drawing to a close. The series titles in order are:

After this series, I’ve got tentative plans for a more traditional Urban Fantasy series. And, perhaps, something more science fiction-oriented.

Because I don’t have enough to do, I’m also contributing to a short story anthology. This is a collaboration effort with another writer, and will focus on near-future science fiction along the lines of my short story Hold On. Stories about next week as opposed to next year, focusing on the cultural and social changes we’ve instituted, and where they might lead. Plus some very strange stuff I’m really looking forward to writing. You want to be entertained? Provoked? Amused? Horrified? It’s in there. More details will become available when we’ve got the foundations laid a bit better.

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MRE Experiment: Menu 12

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My son and I like to watch science experiments on YouTube, like the Backyard Scientist channel and the Crazy Russian Hacker channel. Lately, the Crazy Russian Hacker has been filming the unpacking and consumption of MREs that people mail him from around the world. (MRE stands for Meal Ready to Eat. For more information on military chow in the field, click here.) It’s fascinating to see these military food kits, particularly the ones that include breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We like to get out and do things we see on video, within reason. Including science experiments. As I don’t have a 25-pound Gummy Bear and a bunch of M-80s to ram up its poop chute, let alone a slow-motion camera to capture what happens when it explodes, I figured the next best thing would be to acquire an MRE myself so we could see what was in it and how it tasted. Unlike the men and women in the United States military, we’re doing this in ease and air conditioning; we’re not fooling ourselves into thinking we’re roughing it in any fashion. The MRE I got is Meal 12: Penne With Vegetable Sausage Crumbles in Spicy Tomato Sauce.

Everything came in this one package. Note the helpful description on the front.

 

Clockwise from top left: non-dairy creamer, sugar, chewing gum, instant coffee, salt, Tabasco sauce

 

Clockwise from left: heating kit, matches, toilet paper, wet wipe, hot beverage container, spoon

 

Clockwise from top left: nut raisin mix, lemon-lime drink powder, penne with vegetable crumbles in sauce, white wheat snack bread, energy bar, chocolate peanut spread

[Read more…]

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My Triumphant Return to Facebook

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It’s never happening. Please forgive the clickbait title.

I quit Facebook a year ago, and my reasons why haven’t changed: it’s a terrible waste of time; it encourages jealousy, pettiness, and negativity; what you post there is used by Facebook to manipulate you; and Facebook’s editorial stance is entirely at odds with my values. While I do miss occasional family updates, friends’ pictures, and the pride of showing my friends what my wife and son are doing, the cons significantly outweigh the pros.

Yes, I have my website link to Facebook when I have a new blog post, but that’s me using Facebook rather than it using me. I still maintain that nobody gets rich off of Facebook ads, but even if they did, there’s no way on God’s green Earth that I’ll give my money to Facebook.

I moderate my use of Twitter with an electronic timer. My daily Twitter allotment is 20 minutes a day, though I haven’t gone past 12 minutes since I began timing myself. Sitting there, scrolling through the feed, is exactly like looking at Facebook, just with shorter posts and more hostility. Between the endless book advertisements from the same rapacious hack authors and the blistering political hot takes retweeted from a thousand bleating opinion sites, it’s digital noise. No, scratch that: it’s digital cacophony.

Oh, I still kibbitz with my Twitter buddies and enjoy seeing what they’re saying and doing. But more time spent on Twitter means less time working, reading, or being with family. We used to say that TV rots your brain. Social media rots your brain now. And it doesn’t make you feel good afterward.

I communicate with about 3 or 4 people on Google Plus, so it’s worth keeping. It has actually become my favorite social media platform. I’m in, I talk to friends, I read content, I’m out.

When I consider that few of the people I admire and want to emulate post a lot on social media, I realize that it’s a bad place to use what minutes I have on this planet to achieve my goals, whatever they may be.

My friend David Angsten, a terrific, thoughtful writer, titled his blog Be Here Now. Isn’t being here now the way to go? And doesn’t social media deny that by making us spectators in our own lives? David’s right: be here now.

It’s where I’m trying to stay. I hope you’ll join me.

We still have telephones and email addresses. We can talk and write letters and visit each other and maintain friendships the way we used to.

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Legoland Florida: Things You Need to Know

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Obligatory pic with Emmet and Wyldstyle

My wife, 6-year-old son and I recently returned from a 4-day, 3-night trip to Legoland Florida, which included a stay at the Legoland Hotel. It was an extraordinary experience for the most part, and my little boy had a terrific time. Still, there are things you should know about the place before you commit to a stay as lengthy as we did. Pleasantly, we’re locals, so it’s just a car ride up and back; the rigors of air travel, with the attendant expenses, frustrations, travel time, and potential for physical assault weren’t concerns for us.

  • Kids: It’s awful for me to say so, but I don’t have a great love of children other than my own. I don’t hate them, and as a parent I understand them more than I used to, but I could take or leave other kids. Other parents are much easier with other children, and I envy them that skill. Anyway, Legoland is specifically aimed at little kids. So naturally they’re everywhere and into everything and you can’t get anywhere, especially when it’s crowded. Which is fine. You’ll see unacceptable public behavior that you thought only your kids did, which is a relief. You’ll see parenting styles that will make you feel like Mom of the Year. You’ll see tantrums and shrieking and laughing and oblivious cutting in line and uncovered sneezes and deliberate cutting in line and uncovered coughing and demands for this and that and everything else. Get used to it.
  • Service: Mostly good, mostly friendly. If you’re waiting in line for food, there’s a southern slowness that makes everything take about ten minutes longer than it should. Combine that with a small child’s natural impatience, and it’s a pain. The ride attendants are all quite nice and patient. If you eat at the hotel buffet (Bricks Restaurant), the servers tend to hover, waiting to snatch up your empty plate so you can go back to the buffet and fill up again right quick.
  • Food: The best thing I can say of the food is that your kid will probably love it. For me it was an epic fail. For dinner, the Bricks buffet cuisine is about as bad as you’d expect for a buffet mostly catering to small children, with trays of mac ‘n’ cheese and baby corn dogs for the kids and fajita-style chicken and vegetarian fried rice for the adults. The breakfast buffet was typical for a hotel breakfast buffet. The Skyline Cafe sit-down restaurant wasn’t a whole lot different from the buffet, quality-wise. At the park, the Fun Town Pizza & Pasta Buffet is mediocre, the fried chicken restaurant is okay, and the Panini Grill is inedible. Avoid it and its partially-toasted sandwiches at all costs. Do get the Apple Fries, though. If you’re just doing a day trip, bring your own lunch: your stomach (and wallet) will thank you for it. I was nourished mostly on sunlight, dinner buffet petit fours, and Apple Fries during our trip.

    I…I had to get this.
  • Rides and Lines: If you’re horrible like us and go during the week when school’s in session, thereby robbing your child of precious education days, you’ll have so much fun that you’ll get tired of having fun. The lines for rides were short to nonexistent, so we could just do any ride we wanted with little waiting time. Lego Ninjago was terrific, with playground-style stuff outside and a 3-D ride inside. My son liked Beetle Bounce so much he did it six times in one day. The Island in the Sky was broken this week, but we’d been there on a previous visit. Driving School was fun, as were the Royal Joust and the Lost Kingdom Adventure. Basically, all the rides are great. You will get soaking wet on the Lego Chima ride (my son did, and as it was a cool morning, got super-pissed at the cold and shivered and grumbled his way through the whole ride). Wait for a warm day to do the water park, but do the water park. Make Lego boats to sail on the track, swim in the wave pool, go down the enormous water slides. The $10.00 for a locker rental is worth it. Bring your own towels.
  • The Hotel: We got an adventure room, so it was decorated in the style of ancient Egypt. With Legos. My son loved the bunk bed and his own TV. The room’s quite cramped. If you swim in the pool or go to the water park, your stuff won’t get dry overnight unless you’ve got a balcony room, so bring extra towels/suits. The lobby has a big pool of Legos by the columns, where kids build stuff. To the left of the front desk is another play area, half castle and half pirate ship. This also has pits of Legos. I was heartened to see that the number one thing that the boys built with these loaner Legos was guns. So we haven’t beaten healthy aggression out of children just yet. All of them built guns or short swords and chased each other around the area, shrieking like banshees. The hotel pool was warm, with plenty of chairs around. You need to go through the pool area to get to the fire pit if you want to do s’mores after 7:00 PM. The front desk has s’mores packages for sale, complete with wet wipes.

The park is great, the hotel is good. For day-trippers, save money on food and buy Legos instead.

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Things You Should Always Do Before Writing Articles for Another Website

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Congratulations! You’re a writer. You’ve written an article, published a short story, ground out a novel, gotten a piece linked in a magazine, or something similar. You’re on your way. Then you realize that for people to read you, they have to find you. You’ve got to get your name out there. Create that much-vaunted Author Platform. All the experts say that blogging is good, but who has the time to do it often enough to get noticed? That’s long-term, shouting words into the ether. What to do, what to do—wait: maybe you can write pieces for a more popular site and piggyback on their traffic! Yes. Lots of people will read your stuff and will like it so much that they’ll click on your name, find your author site, and start gobbling up your books like Joey Chestnut on a plate of hot dogs. And you’re contributing to the Community, whether it’s genre-focused, politics-focused, or whatever-focused. You’ll make friends, develop business relationships, maybe find new books to read: it’s all good. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but it can’t hurt.

Here are a few things to consider before selecting a site to write for, if they’ll have you. (They will have you: nobody turns up his nose at free content.)

  • Exposure: You’re doing it for the exposure, right? The sweet, sweet exposure. Just remember that you can’t spend exposure. Nobody has ever paid a mortgage or bought a cup of coffee with exposure. You want money, don’t you? We all do. You’re not offering your books for free, so why should you offer your articles for free? It’s a dilemma. But still…that exposure. Getting your name out there. So you take the trade. The hope of potential future earnings in exchange for hours of your time writing content for someone else’s website. Fair enough. Whatever you do, make sure that it’s good exposure: your name needs to be at the top and/or bottom of every article in clickable format that links to either a page all about you or your personal website/social media home of choice. Your articles need to be shared by the website on the most-trafficked social media platforms available, and on each share your name/handle needs to be front and center so people know that you wrote the piece. That’s only fair.
  • Gratitude: Along with the meager-to-nonexistent pay of Exposure, you should also be remunerated with gratitude, the coin of the volunteer’s realm. Each and every piece you write must be received with a thank you so you don’t get the feeling you’re pouring your time into somebody else’s ungrateful well. (No writer is an island; even loners work for psychic income.) Requests for your effort must be made in friendly fashion, with no pressure applied. Compliments are necessary. If the site owner doesn’t make it clear that he knows that you’re doing him a favor by providing free quality content for his site, he’s not worth your work. You’ve earned those thank yous.
  • Controversy/Drama: Some sites are controversial, either because of the content or the owner/editor’s personal drama. While controversy doesn’t typically devolve upon unpaid grunts like yourself, personal drama always attaches itself to you if you write for a drama queen on a regular basis. It doesn’t last forever, but it does cling to you like shit sticks to a blanket. Avoid all drama queens: the cost of doing business with them is never worth the Exposure. Drama queens are easy to spot as long as you don’t ignore the signs: lots of self-created enemies, passive-aggressive communication on social media, cliquish junior high school behavior, a constantly-expressed feeling of being attacked.
  • Values: Make sure that the site you write for shares at least some of your personal values. We don’t have to agree on everything, but when you find yourself significantly at odds with the site’s editorial slant, you’re eventually going to run into trouble. Even if you keep your personal beliefs separate from your work, others may not. Combine that with a lack of gratitude or a penchant for drama, and you have a combination that’s sheer poison. A casual perusal of the site and its associated social media accounts will show you if you’re a good fit. If you’re not a good fit, don’t risk it. The red flags are there to protect you, so do not ignore them.

I foolishly ignored my own advice some time ago, and as a result all the hard work I did was deleted by a hostile, ungrateful drama queen because I dared to express, on my own social media sites, deeply-held opinions that millions and millions of other people share. Pleasantly, the sites I write for now, including my own, are run by kind, generous people who behave like consummate professionals, and I appreciate it.

For now, I’m heading off to the bank to cash this month’s Exposure Check. Cha-ching!

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