Tag Archives: post apocalyptic

Nov26

Arisia sci fi con

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Arisia sci fi con

I once again will be appearing at the 2018 arisia on Martin Luther king jr weekend where I will be on 3 different writing panels. 2 on Friday and 1 on Sunday so I will most likely be spending Saturday drunk and frolicking.

I was thinking about one of my favorite scenes to write on my drive this evening so I figured I’d post a snippet of it since it is my website and I can do as I wish with it. enjoy.

 

I hit the bottom of the stairs and listened at the corner for a moment. Thinking it was clear, I swung myself around the corner. There was a feeling of abject terror as I saw this massive hand wrap around the barrel of my M-16. As it shoved the barrel toward the ceiling, I pulled the trigger and fired blindly, as the other hand pounded me just in front of my left temple. A quick glimpse was all I caught of the behemoth in front of me as my left eye started to swell shut. He nailed me again in the same spot while he twisted the rifle, pulled it out of my hands and tossed it behind him. I tried to gather myself but he connected again with the side of my skull this time. He sent stars shooting across my field of vision. I stumbled, he grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the wall. I kicked hard at his gut and got a smile in return. He squeezed tighter as I reached down and pulled my blade out of the sheath in my boot. I flipped it around and drove it straight up into his arm. He grunted, but his grip held. I was starting to black out, the edges of my vision were beginning to go dark. I brought the blade up and tried not to close my eyes as I drove it down into the back of his meaty hand. It bit into my flesh and dinged off of my collarbone. It hurt like hell, but it worked. He screamed and dropped me.

He stumbled back and pulled the knife out of his hand while glaring at me and roaring. Leaning against the wall coughing and choking, I tried to suck in as much air as possible. He charged at me and I dove to my left as he barreled into the wall where I had just been. Yanking out my other boot knife, I pushed myself up. My legs felt like rubber. He spun and charged me again with a growl from deep in his throat. Flipping the knife in my hand, so the blade was flush against my forearm, I slashed him across the cheek and sidestepped as he dove at me. He was all brute strength, no finesse. He was in a rage and the blood was freely flowing down the side of his face as he grabbed at me.

I felt his fingers graze against my ribs as he went by. I stuck my left hand out and caught the back of his collar. I pulled back, trying to rear him like a horse, while stuffing my blade deep into his kidney. He howled and thrashed, slamming me again with that beefy paw of his, swatting me like a fly. He flailed at the wound on his back as I pressed the attack. I caught him up under his ribs. He stopped howling and stared blankly down at me. I put my hand on his shoulder and shoved the blade deeper as he gasped.

He leaned forward onto me, his hands still reaching for my throat. I could feel his ragged breath on my face. I jerked the blade again. He had slouched down so far now that we were eye to eye. He stumbled forward a few steps driving me backwards down the hall. He was gurgling as he took a breath and I could see the fear on his face. Blood began to run out of his mouth and he gasped, one last breath, before his head hit my shoulder. I felt him tremble a few times before he went still.

The body dropped as I leaned against the wall. I gasped and choked while trying to catch my breath, just praying to not throw up. Still winded and shaking, I stumbled down the hall, ducking around a corner trying to find my way out. I saw the small rectangular window a couple yards down the hall and made my way toward it. Strangely, it was silent as I limped down to the window. I could hear my breathing and as the adrenaline started to wane, began to feel the pain in my legs, chest, collarbone, neck, and most especially my head. I undid the latch and groaned as I shoved it open a couple inches. Using the last of my strength to pull myself up and wedge my shoulders through the frame. I planted my hands into the soggy, snow covered ground. I wiggled the rest of the way through and out to freedom. Smiling, I pushed myself off the wet ground a second before I heard someone yell “Take him!” and then everything went black. 

 

Jun16

Just a little rant.

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Just a little rant.

Every now and again I end up getting a review about how my stories couldn’t possibly ever happen because I make it seem like our military is inept. That you could never assassinate an officer and get away with it like they do in my book, so it just isn’t believable.

Some flaws to your logic, if you are indeed one of these people.

This is NOT the US military. It is the remnants of what is left after a cataclysmic, world changing event, where 95% of the population has been killed.

Most of the soldiers that were very good at their jobs are, once again, DEAD! the officers and leaders that help make the military as good as it is today are also DEAD. The people that are now in charge are essentially the people that should NOT be in charge. So yes, they are inept!

After they came out of the bunkers the military was so depleted they started recruiting and offering food and shelter to those who would enlist and those people’s families. In return a lot of people that signed up were only in it for the survival of their families, again, probably inept.

They are also very spread out. The main focus and base of operations is the midwest of the country where they were welcomed back and celebrated. The east coast has been a thorn in their side and they have minimal coverage there because the manpower is so limited and recruiting is much lower in those areas.

All of these points are spoken of in the series and if you were paying attention instead of being angry about how inept the military was you may have realized even a couple of these points.

Oh, and last but not least. ITS FUCKING FICTION! I have watched countless and I mean countless hours of movies and shows where the military or police, or whatever the bad guy may be is not as awesome as the good guy. Do you know why this is? it’s because IT’S FUCKING FICTION, that’s why. A couple hundred thousand stormtroopers can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn or beat a farmboy, a smuggler, a whiny princess, two unarmed droids and an old man that doesn’t carry a gun? Oh, they’re also supposed to be the most feared army in the galaxy!  Yeah, Star Wars sucked why would anyone ever watch that crap. (granted the new ones were crap, but beside my original point)

In conclusion, please get a grip on your fucking selves. It’s fiction. God forbid anyone say anything bad about our own military. Which, if you read the above points, you’d realize that I’m not doing. It’s just a story that is supposed to entertain you and bring you to another place. It’s not a survival guide. It’s not based on actual facts. It’s not a critique on our government or military. IT’S FUCKING FICTION! Have a little fun with it and get your head out of your ass.

Ok that made me feel better now. I can only hope that one or two of these people actually reads this, but I’m almost positive they won’t. Enjoy the rest of your weekends. I’m off to go do some work.

Don

 

Feb2

It’s Saturday and I feel hungover.

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It’s Saturday and I feel hungover.

I’m not hungover,I just feel that way. At least, I think I do. I’ve never actually had a full blown hangover like you see in the movies. I’m not sure why I haven’t either, lord knows, I’ve drank enough in my day. Over the years Read the rest of this entry →

May8

Back to work

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Back to work

I started back to work again this week after being out sick for three weeks, well it should have only been two weeks but then my work needed a note and my doctor wasn’t in yada, yada, yada. Anyway, so it’s day two and I have to say after being out for that long it makes for a very tiring end of the day. My job isn’t even that hard, mostly driving around, but by the time Iget home the last couple days I’m just about ready to pack it in. need to get back into work shape I suppose.

If I could just get the second book finished I could probably actually consider  writing as my real job ( Oh how wonderful that would be!) I will say this though being back at work and on the road has put me back in the right frame of mind to get back to cranking out a bunch of pages soon. Driving along by yourself for long stretches helps me work out plot, subplots and any issues I may find myself stuck on. It must be great to drive up next to me on the highway, considering I usually talk to myself and say dialogue outloud to make sure it sounds right. I must look AWESOME, or completely insane. I prefer AWESOME!

Back to work with me, enjoy your evening or day, whatever, 🙂

Don

May1

Quiet time

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Quiet time

I’ve spent a good deal of time at home lately because I screwed up my back. It’s better now (I’m sure you were all worried). But that isn’t the point of my post tonight. Because I’ve spent all this time at home I’ve had a lot of time to work on the second book, and it is coming along nicely. Every now and again I get stuck on teh story, something doesn’t fit right or something just isn’t working for me. Whatever it is I get stuck.

Which brings me to quiet time. Even though my house is usually very quiet during the day I find I still need that break when I’m not staring at the laptop or the TV isn’t distracting me in the background. I seem to find the most peace when I’m out on my porch smoking a cigarette. I know it’s an awful habit and quitting is imminent, I’m sure. I’m getting way to old to be doing it for much longer.

I do seem to get my best results though. It’s quiet and I have nothing to do but sit and let my mind wander. I’ve always been good at letting my mind wander. Usually it involves pretty girls but since I’ve started writing it now tends to be about plot lines and story issues. For some reason almost every time I get to have some quiet time I end up figuring out the next cool subplot or how to start the next chapter> I never know what it’s going to be which is probably why I think it’s so much fun, it’s like surprising myself!

Anyway, I just thought I’d mention quiet time since I’m about to go have some to see where my story takes me next.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the day!

Don

Apr12

Meteor over Texas

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Meteor over Texas

Today I read a yahoo news story about how people saw a plane, not a meteor, flying over Texas a couple days ago. I looked at the picture that yahoo had available and zoomed in on it with photoshop and low and behold there was no plane there to be seen. The contrail from said plane as well looked nothing like any other contrail from a plane that I have seen either. Now, I’m not an expert in planes but even from a quick glance at the photo on the story I could see it wasn’t a plane.

I also read the comments left by people on the story and a few of them lived in Texas and supposedly saw the incident and seem to be completely convinced that it was NOT a plane as the government claims. Have to say I’m gonna side with the comment leavers and say that it was NOT a plane. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this kind of thing though… Which brings me to the point of today’s post.

When I was a lot younger I heard a story which gave me the inspiration for my book After the Storm. Scientists had reported that they had been studying a meteor for the last ten years and after going over the numbers again and again they were sure that it was indeed going to hit the planet Earth in about 17 years. They made their announcement and it was covered by the news media for a day or so.

It got pretty good coverage actually, and a couple days after it was announced that the scientists were actually wrong and the meteor was definitely NOT going to hit us at all and that it would miss us by more than a million miles. Seems pretty odd that these experts in their field could study something for so long and be off by so much, and then suddenly discover their mistake AFTER they announced it. Seems really odd to me, actually it sounds really fishy to be honest. Well, truth be told it sounds like an out and out lie but i was trying to be nice.

A few weeks later I remember mentioning it to someone and they told me that I was crazy and that they had never said it was going to hit us just that it was going to barely miss us. I then went to some other friends and brought it up to them and they agreed with the first friend. After that I went to outside sources and could find no trace of the story and bringing it up to people that I didn’t know. Some of them vaguely remembered but for the most part I got the same reaction as my friends.

Now, I’m not saying people are stupid, well I’m trying not to say it anyway, but i find it odd that people only hear what they want to and only listen to sound bites. i find it kind of sad actually that no matter how hard you try and get someone to listen, most never do.

The same thing happened during 9-11 I was watching the coverage in a hospital waiting room and heard that one plane had refused to answer radio calls and that fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept. a few minutes later that jet “mysteriously crashed in a field in Pennsylvania and the feds were on the scene and had it roped off before the media got there and didn’t allow any footage to be filmed. Now, that one I understand because the “right” thing to do was to shoot the plane down before it took out the white house or whatever target they were aiming at and possibly killing thousands of people. I do get that the american public isn’t and probably never will be ready to accept that we shot our own plane down but they didn’t need to try and make heroes out of the poor people that died on that plane. I don’t mean this to be inflammatory it is just another example I remember of this kind of thing happening.

I do apologize if I just offended anyone it was not my intention, I just really dislike my government lying to me and the rest of the public and treating us like we are idiots. If they don’t want us to know something they should just outright say we aren’t telling you. I am perfectly fine with the ” We can’t tell you because it’s a matter of national security.” line, If I don’t need to know then I don’t need to know, but please don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.