Things That Go Bump, 2013: Issue #1


Welcome to another edition of Things That Go Bump!

Every year in October I celebrate all things spooky and macabre with a series of supernaturally-themed blog entries, in which I poke Things Man Was Not Meant to Know with sticks and generally make light of the dark.

Tonight, I'll post a few interesting images from a video ITC session I conducted last night. I'll also ruminate on the nature of the universe, and slip in a few quick adds for my books, because it's one thing to ponder the underlying quantum construction of reality and it's quite another to pay bills.

Let's start by sashaying right where angels fear to tread, and see if we can catch a glimpse of the Great Beyond using common household items and a bit of computer magic!

SATURDAY NIGHT ITC SESSION

ITC. The letters stand for 'Instrumental Trans Communication,' which generally involves putting a video camera in front of a TV and recording the images formed when the camera's output is connected to the TV's input, resulting in a video feedback loop.



The Scole Group claims they captured the image above using the standard camera-and-TV method. The man's face is clearly visible, and my first thought upon seeing the image was how much it resembled a cut-out of a photo affixed to the TV screen for a frame or two. Because I'm a suspicious lad by nature, you know.

But the people involved with the Scole Group were reputable, respectable people who seem to be above the clandestine use of scissors and rubber cement. So, thought I, why not try and recreate some of their results?

My ITC setup.
I did this before, back in July, and got a few odd examples of video noise. Nothing like the face above.

A frame-by-frame analysis (which is still incomplete) of last night's video left me with a few images I'll share below.

First of all, my very own face amid the static!


Look center, then left, then down a bit. See the patch of green amid the white and the blue?

Let me blow that up for you.



Weird, huh? I see a rather stern man's face, neck, and shoulders. As well as his eyes, nose, and unsmiling mouth.

I shall call him Mr. Pareidolia, after the tendency of our brains to find faces in random patterns.

But it does look like a man. Not as much like the Scole Group's image, sure, but it's closer than anything I expected to catch.

Next up is a figure we'll call the Dark Angel, because that sounds spooky, and it kept popping up in the video:




Look at the image just above. If you've seen the movie The Ring, then you'll understand why I half-expected the figure to climb out of the TV. Too, can you pick out a vague face shape to the right of the dark figure?

There were lots of other images too. The one below went to blues and greens, like a watercolor done by a particularly inept painter:


So far I haven't found any other faces. But the process of going frame-by-frame is excruciatingly slow, and I do have books to write.

Books such as:



I did warn you I'd be hawking books.

I got nothing on the audio as far as anomalous voices go. I was planning to visit a couple of cemeteries today to try out my new germanium microphone in the wild, but the weather had other ideas. 

STORY FODDER: COSMOLOGY GLITCHES

A school of thought concerning the nature of the universe claims that we may all be simply bits of a gargantuan simulation, created by beings for purposes unknown and by means so far advanced beyond us we lack the capacity to understand them.

This isn't kook fringe science. There are even efforts underway to search for evidence that our universe is in fact a vast Sim.  

Which started me thinking. These physicists are looking for the cosmological equivalent of 'glitches' in the Matrix. 

I've seen much the same phenomena, on a much smaller scale, when it occurs as what PC gamers call glitches.

Most of the time, glitches are the hilarious but unforeseen effect of some obscure part of the game's code. It's not a program failure, as such -- no, it's doing precisely what it was designed to do, but with results the game's creators never anticipated.


Stay with me for a moment. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that our universe and more importantly me are merely the product of a cosmos-wide simulation.

Then let's assume that nothing, no matter how advanced, is this large without a few teensy-weensy flaws here and there.

Glitches, if you will.

My assertion is that Fortean phenomena are our universe's version of video game glitches.

Let that sink in. 

Never heard of Fortean phenomena? There have been, for example, numerous well-documented instances of frogs raining down from clear blue skies. Of spark plugs found encased in million-year-old quartz. Of objects appearing in places and times they should not, could not be found.

Most Fortean phenomena are simply ignored, because science has given us a clear, consistent model for how the world works and no one wants to jettison all that and start over because it rained live frogs in Paraguay.  It's easier to simply assert such things never happen, because doing otherwise gives you that queasy, unsettling sensation that maybe we don't have things figured out quite so neatly after all.

So maybe it does rain frogs, at times. Maybe people do simply vanish into thin air, at times. Maybe voices do ring out from empty air, now and then. 

Maybe those glitches in the universe.

You heard it here first.

LOCAL GHOSTS, SERVED FRESH DAILY


As the IRS and many of you know, I live just outside Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi, a number of fine eating establishments, and of course a history of hauntings.

In honor of October, and as a lazy way to snag some ghost stories for this very blog, I have created a Facebook page called HAUNTED OXFORD. I hope people will use the page to share their own spooky tales of the supernatural, and maybe give me some spots to visit.  

So, locals, please head on over to Haunted Oxford and share with us your ghost stories!

Okay, that's it for tonight. Take care, all, and remember -- those scratches and knocks in the night might be just branches in the wind. Or they might be....

....something else....




A Night in the Lonesome October

SOMETHING IN THE AIR


First of all, welcome to autumn!

Fall is my favorite season. I like everything about it -- the scrunch-scrunch of fallen leaves, the chill in the air, the fat harvest moons, the cessation of lawn mowing.

And of course with fall comes Halloween, which is also my favorite holiday. Christmas comes with too much emotional baggage. Thanksgiving is just an excuse to eat turkey. New Year's Eve is what happens to young people while we're at home snoring.

No, give me October and Halloween. Spooks and haunts and scary movies. Costume parties. Kids out engaging in mild forms of delinquency. Pumpkin carving and pumpkin pie.

Oh yeah, bring on October!

There's a book I like to read every October, because it sets the perfect mood. Sadly, you can't get it for your Kindle, but it's worth chasing down in hardback.



A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny, with illustrations by the late great Gahan Wilson.

The illustrations are, of course, amazing. Heck, the whole book is amazing. There aren't many authors aside from Ray Bradbury who can capture the essence of a season so well you can feel the chill coming off the pages, but Zelazny does it here.

I got my copy many years ago from the Science Fiction Book Club. There are still some copies about, but they aren't exactly cheap -- click here for Amazon's list of available editions. There's also an audiobook version for less than 25 bucks, and that might be the best way to experience the book (although without Gahan's illustrations).

Anyway, that's my pick for a great October read. 31 chapters for 31 days. It's like carving your brain into the shape of a grinning jack o'lantern!

LISTEN LIVE!


Tomorrow (Monday the 23rd) I'll be appearing as a guest on Steve Bradshaw's Refocus Memphis radio program. If you're in or near Memphis, you can listen in on AM 990. Or you can click this link to listen and watch via the studio's webcam, at 4:30 CST tomorrow!

LINK TO AM 990 RADIO SHOW 

Host Steve Bradshaw is an entrepreneur and the author of Bluff City Butcher and The Skies Roared. We'll be talking about whatever idiotic thing pops into my head, and believe me folks, nobody does idiotic like I do when I'm nervous.

To make things even more interesting, right after confirming my Monday appearance on the show, I got sick. Sick with a chest cold that rendered my voice perfect for use as a horror-movie villain. Think Darth Vader with a mouthful of warm butter and a freshly-stapled tongue.

I'm much better today. Hopefully no trace of the rasp or rattles will be left by tomorrow.

So tune in and join me, if you can!

That's all for tonight. Expect the usual ghostly October material to start next week, as I once again take to the road in search of EVPs and photographic anomalies!

Until then, stay safe, and....

Click me for a surprise!

Boo!





The Five Deadly Questions

The Magic Rock. Batteries not included.
As soon as people find out I'm a writer, they look up from the police booking photo monitor and start asking the kind of questions that led to my charges for simple assault and destruction of ornamental waterfowl in the first place.

I used to tell people I had a magic rock that provided me insights into the mystical world of publishing, because they didn't seem to believe me when I said the secret to getting published is to A) write and submit, and B) keep doing A. I suppose it's human nature to wish for a short-cut past all the drudgery, even if that means believing in magic rocks. Which, by the way, used to sell for 20 bucks a throw.

I still get questions, all the time. Most are genuine questions asked by intelligent people with a keen interest in the subject. Nobody, not even me, minds those kind of sincere questions.

Today, though,  I'm talking about the other sort of queries. The spiteful questions, usually asked by people who are actually intent on issuing a veiled insult. Maybe they once fancied themselves writers, but quit. Maybe they don't like my genre. Maybe they're just nasty by nature, and they enjoy the odd bit of passive-aggressive insult. For some reason, I've gotten several of these lately, so I thought I'd collect them all here, while I wait on the bail bondsman to show up.

FIVE QUESTIONS NEVER TO ASK A WRITER

Q: How much do you spend publishing your books?
A: I'll demonstrate by smashing this elegant plaster reproduction of a goose over your pointy head. Seriously. Publishers pay writers, not the other way around. If money goes anywhere but to the author, then you're doing it wrong. I'm not doing it wrong.

Q: If your book is any good, why don't you send your book to Hollywood and have it made into a movie?
A: Gosh, yes, why don't I? Because that how movies get made, isn't it, you just shove a book in a bloody envelope and mail it off to Warner Brothers and three weeks later a new Harry Potter movie hits the theaters! Why didn't I think of that before thank you so very much now let me apply this cement flamingo directly to your forehead.

Q: I've got a great idea for a book but I'm way too busy to write it why don't I let you write it instead and we can split the profits?
A: That's so generous of you, Mister I Don't Know Fiction From Formica! I was just standing here wishing I could spend the next six months sweating blood over some idiot's half-baked mumblings, let's get started right after I introduce you to my little friend Mr. Heavy Iron Owl Reproduction!

Q: Writing is easy, aren't you just making things up and typing?
A: Having a concussion looks easy, aren't you just lying on the floor and twitching?

Q: My cousin's old room-mate's fiancee's plumber's mechanic told me that getting published is all about who you know, so who do you know?
A: Yeah, that's how the industry works, because rural north Mississippi is a freaking hotbed of literary powerhouse figures who secretly control New York publishing houses from inside Cooter's Creekside Bait-N-BBQ. You deduced my secret, Sherlock. Have a whack of golden eagle statuary and a swift kick in the groin as a reward.

Thanks. I feel better now. Let's post bail.

MARKHAT NEWS

The new book is under consideration. Will post special blog entry when there is news!

NEW MERALDA AND MUG NEWS

Made some progress this week. Hope to continue the momentum and get this book banged out as soon as possible. If there are any wealthy philanthropists reading this while looking for a worthy cause, please consider sponsoring me so I can write full-time without having to crawl out here exhausted and try to write like a man who isn't chewing raw coffee grounds just to stay awake. Thanks.

RANDOM PHOTOGRAPH NEWS
The author astride his mighty Honda Rebel. Photo courtesy Karen Tuttle
Went bike riding for a bit this afternoon. To take this photo, I had to set the timer on my camera, throw it ahead of me, and then catch it as it fell after taking the pic. What the photo doesn't show is the shark-tank I was jumping over at the time, or the hoops of flaming napalm I flew through during my landing.

Wow, it turns out making stuff up and then typing it down isn't so hard after all.

VARIOUS SAILORS

Arrrr.
VIDEO BLOG OF THE WEEK

Hey, you can uncover your eyes, it's not me in the video. I promised not to do that again without posting a warning.

Instead, have a look at this week's blog by Elyse Salpeter, a fellow (former) Cool Well Press author who has a great blog and some cool books. She did a video blog this week I think you'll enjoy, check it out!

Publishing is Like Growing Pumpkins


FRIENDS DOING WELL

Another friend of mine, the inimitable Fanny Valentine Darling (which is one of the coolest names ever), just landed a spot in WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME 2, an anthology of short stories featuring works by the likes of Mercedes Lackey and Jillian Boehme. Fanny's story is entitled The Last Perfect Heart, and it alone is worth the price of admission.



That wraps things up for me, this week. Time to get back to work!





Frank Turtle, Otter at Large: Fun With Google Voice Search



I'm a fan of all things Google.

Google is my go-to search engine. I use Chrome as my default browser. I want a Chromebook so bad I'm nearly ready to start mugging little old ladies in parking lots. I have a Chrome account, which lets me add apps from the Chrome store (most are free) and run them from any machine I happen to be using at the moment.

So, when I decided to play with Google's new voice search feature, I expected great things.


After all, this is Google. I've heard about their voice search software -- it's said to be even more conversational than Apple's Siri. Ask Google for the population of Chicago, for instance, and it will tell you. Then ask 'Who is the mayor?' and Google will tell you that too -- it assumes that you mean the mayor of Chicago, since that's what you asked immediately before asking 'Who is the mayor?'

That's pretty impressive. Even Siri can't do that.

So I pointed my browser at Google, clicked the little microphone icon, and spoke clearly into my very nice (studio quality) Blue microphone.


I like to start testing some newfangled technical thingamabob by confirming what everyone already knows, i.e., that I am a self-aggrandizing hog for attention. So I started out by searching on my own name, followed by the word author.

Google quickly interpreted my backwoods accent as asking for a search for 'Frank turtle otter.'

Ha ha, quoth I. I cleared my throat and tried again.

Frank huddle bother?

Frank hurt a bottle?

Frank turned art tour?

By now, I began to suspect one of two events was taking place. Either my Mississippi accent is simply alien to Google's voice recognition software, or --

GOOGLE IS PART OF A VAST GLOBAL CONSPIRACY DESIGNED TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM BUYING MY BOOKS.

Think about it. If Frank Tuttle can't be searched on Google, then people can't find my books. If people can't find my books, people can't buy my books, which is why I'm lurking in dark parking lots hoping to nab a stray coin purse so I can buy a Chromebook that won't search on my name anyway.

Crime truly doesn't pay.

Not one to let a technical glitch go undocumented, I decided to run a few Google voice searches on my name and capture screen shots for your reading pleasure.

I quickly realized that clicking the mic icon to initiate the search and stabbing madly at the screen capture key and holding the mic at the same time required two more tentacles than I'm allowed to display here on Earth. Instead, I put my camera on a tripod in front of the screen and captured the results of my attempts to do a voice search on my name, because yes, my life really is just that boring.

The dismal results are below.


Google never had a problem with my first name. Frank is fine, sayeth Google. But Tuttle?

Forget it...




Okay, we got author! And tunnel is close to Tuttle, but alas, as they say, no cigar (or, according to Google, 'nose boxcar').


Well, I never! Even Siri is never so forward.


Now Google is just being mean.


By now, I was convinced my accent was to blame. Surely the average Google user, who of course speaks in a flat American Midwestern dialect devoid of any unique pronunciations or inflections, can easily find my webpage or works?

I grabbed the first person I saw, which, um, let's just say grabbing a stranger wasn't my best decision. After a brief explanation to the court, it occurred to me that Google should best be able to understand another computer generated voice, because after all the same methods are used to synthesize speech as they are to interpret speech, are they not?

I have two computers. Both have sound systems.

And thus, my Computer to Computer Voice Search Test Rig was born. See below.


The speaking PC used a free Chrome Text-to Speech app called Chrome Speak from Dante.

It's really simple. You enter the text to be spoken and click speak.


My listening PC has a good soundcard and an excellent, studio-quality microphone. So I aimed the speaking PC's speakers at my listening PC's Blue Snowball mic. I clicked the mic icon on Google Search. Then I clicked speak on Chrome Speak. The text I entered was Frank Tuttle, author.

And how did Google hear this?




I won't bore you with more screen-shots of Frank title upper or the ever-popular Frank timer otters. Although I do like the mental picture conjured up by 'timer otters,' who I see as bespectacled otters in suits inspecting pocket-watches through monocles. 

Not a single test returned a proper search for Frank Tuttle or Frank Tuttle author.

But Peter Piper can pick a peck of pickled peppers, oh yes he did!


Google, Google, why doth thou despise me?

 I own an iPhone, and Siri has never had any trouble understanding me. I just did a quick voice search for Frank Tuttle, author, and Siri instantly came back with my webpage, this blog, Amazon reviews, etc.

If you've got a machine with a mic, please try Google voice search in your own name, and let me know if it works!

OTHER NEWS WHICH I ASSUME WILL BE QUICKLY SUPPRESSED BY THE GOOGLE ANTI-TUTTLE CONSPIRACY


All the Paths of Shadow will be free in Kindle format for a few more hours! It reached #127 on Amazon, which is pretty cool. If anyone out there is interested, hitting #127 overall meant I gave away nearly 3000 books in the last 48 hours. Emphasis on 'gave away,' because I don't get royalties on freebies.

The trade-off, of course, is that you might pick up a goodly number of new fans, who will go on to buy your other titles.

Hey, it's a business, and it's a tough one at that.

MORE HI-TECH GIMMICKRY USED BY WRITERS

Marvel upon my latest writing aid! Yes, I've got computers, word processors, spreadsheets, etc. But what I really needed was an old-fashioned corkboard I could pin notes to, like this:


I've got all the scenes for the book in a Word file.

But as a day-to-day workspace to quickly add (and just as quickly remove) scribbled notes and reminders, this corkboard works pretty well. Too, it serves a second purpose, that of providing frequent mild head injuries because, like Google Voice, I sometimes have trouble recognizing things in my environment.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Not final final, just the last ones for tonight. Unless you know something I don't. And if you do, I don't want to know.

I'm just starting the second of ten scenes in the new Meralda and Mug book. Which makes me around 12% complete, he said, yanking random numbers out of the air.

You know, I haven't tried Google voice search for "Meralda and Mug." Let's see what I get!


Google voice search folks?

You've still got some work to do!







BioShock Infinite, and Other Necessities




Oops. Guess I should have warned some of you I'd be opening with a close-up of a spider. Sorry about that!

This is Emily, the big yellow spider who took up residence in our flowerbed. She keeps a tidy web and never plays her stereo too loud. Okay, sure, she dines by liquifying the internal organs of her prey and sucking out the resulting goo, but don't we all have one neighbor like that?

Here's another view of Emily, because I think she's pretty.


I took these images with my trusty Fuji Finepix, which I held about 4 inches from Emily before snapping the picture and then running away screaming like a leetle gurl. 

 I'd never heard a spider snicker before.

WRITING NEWS

 Markhat's fate, like that of Schrodinger's Cat, awaits the collapse of the quantum probability waveform. In one world, the new Markhat book sells and I indulge in jubilant celebration. In another, the publisher says no, and I bury myself in wet leaves and sulk until late November.

Never idle, though, I am hard at work on the new Meralda and Mug book, which is the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow.

I'm taking a slightly different approach to the writing of this book. I've often decried the use of outlines, because as soon as I outline a book I begin to lose interest in it, because I already know what happens and I have the attention span of a crack-crazed crow.

But this book needs structure. I can't just wing it and expect this one to work -- so I've stumbled upon a compromise.

This new book will consist of ten scenes. Not chapters -- a scene can easily encompass two or more chapters. No, a scene is a distinct piece of the story arc, designed to move the tale from here to there while accomplishing this, that, and the other thing along the way.

The great thing about working with scenes is that each scene can be summed up in a few sentences of very broad narrative brushstrokes. I don't go into much detail in the scene descriptions. It's very much a bare-bones affair, just hitting the high points and hinting at the rest.

The advantage to this method, at least for me, is that I don't get bored with it.

Here's an example (I'm not using any real ones from the book because I don't want to spoil any surprises).

SCENE 1:
Here: Tirlin
There: Halfway across the Great Sea

Meralda promises Mug she will not be aboard the airship Intrepid when it sets out for Hang across the vast Great Sea. Two months later, she is indeed aboard the Intrepid, a fuming Mug at her side. The Intrepid leaves the Realms behind, only to be beset by mishaps that look like sabotage. The crippled airship encounters a storm and falls, out of control, toward the storm-wracked sea far below.

This: Meralda resolves to resign her position as Mage as soon as the voyage is done, convinced she will never be allowed to complete any of what she considers her real work while matters of Court intrude.
That: Meralda's relationship with Donchen is strained, as he is not part of the voyage.
The Other Thing: Separated from the Royal Laboratory and its contents, show Meralda improvising with what few magical items she has on the Intrepid.

The loose structure lets me fill in the details as I write, which by the way is the only way I can write.

Why ten scenes? Why not twelve, or eight, or twenty-two?

Okay, you've got me there. And it might wind up being nine scenes, or eleven. Ten is just a nice round number, probably influenced by the books I've loved.

Did I mention I make all this stuff up as I go along?

Well, I do. If anyone out there has other ideas I would love to hear them.

CLICK ME: Blatant Plug O' The Day.

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

I feel compelled to share this with you, my treasured readers (both of you guys, c'mere, here's a hug).

You know how a good book draws you in, makes you a part of its world, tricks you into cheering for the good guys and getting mad at the villains?

That's a unique experience. Up until now I'd probably have put music and movies and a very few TV shows in the same category of emotional experience sources, and my list pretty much stopped there.

But now I've found a game that plays just like a good book reads. Hard to believe?

Believe it.

I give you <drumroll please> Bioshock Infinite.



Set in a 1912 that never happened, the game puts you in the role of Booker DeWitt, a disgraced Pinkerton detective with a gambling problem, a tortured conscience, and a deft hand with a shotgun. As Booker, you are told your debts will be erased once you do a job for your nameless employers.

You are given a box containing a pistol and a photograph. The serious and unforgiving nature of your employers in punctuated by the dead man seated before you, who bears a sign reading DO NOT DISAPPOINT US around his bloody neck.

You are then whisked away to Columbia, a city held aloft my massive dirigibles.

Yes. A flying city, in 1912. Columbia, you see, was built for the World's Fair, as an example of American scientific and industrial prowess. And Columbia is a wonder -- buildings move, docking at certain places at certain times. Neighborhoods are connected by skylines, which look like the fever-dream of a roller-coaster designer brought to life up in the clouds. Airships great and small sail past, fans glittering in the high-altitude sun.

Even so, Columbia looks and feels like small-town America circa 1920. The kids wear knee-britches and chase rolling steel hoops. Brass bands tootle and hoot from red, white, and blue bandstands. You can buy popcorn and cotton candy from street-cart vendors while carnival barkers exhort you to sample their wares.

Despite all the wholesome Americana, Columbia is rotten to its technologically-advanced heart. The place is now run by a bearded religious fanatic who preaches a mixture of hellfire-and-brimstone rabid nationalism that rings eerily familiar today. It's as if Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh sat down with Glenn Beck to design the ideal culture while slugging back Mason jars filled with whisky, mescaline, and LSD. Columbia split ties with the US soon after going airborne, and its whereabouts have been a mystery -- until you find yourself wandering its tidy brick streets.

I'll stop providing details now. But I will say this -- every other game I've played, no matter how much fun they were, were basically mere exercises in blowing off steam. I never really cared about my character in Oblivion, for instance. I just enjoyed sneaking up behind bad guys and putting arrows between their shoulder blades, because obviously I have a myriad of unresolved personal issues.

But BioShock Infinite is different. Like a good book, it punches you in the gut now and then. That's a first, at least for me, in the genre.

It shocked me.

Then it troubled me.

Now I'm angry, and ready to pour undiluted 100% pure weapons-grade murder over Columbia's smiling citizenry if that's what it takes to protect the object of my job.

I have no idea what I'm going to do next, but it appears I'll be disappointing the kind of people who don't endure disappointment in calmly-measured stride. But that's fine, because if Booker DeWitt is anything, he's a guy accustomed to dealing with disappointment, quite possibly with a shotgun blast.

The visuals are stunning. I've spent as much time as I could between gunfights just wandering around, soaking up the sights. And my companion's AI is pretty impressive. She doesn't just stand there, waiting for me to do something. No, she's off poking into things or wandering off or even wandering into view of the Columbia police, which adds a level of realism to the game I haven't seen before.

Is BioShock Infinite expensive? Yes. The retail version is around fifty bucks. I got my copy from Steam for $39.99. But be warned -- the Steam download is nearly 20 GB in size. Yes, twenty gigabytes, that's not a typo. And check the system requirements carefully too. This isn't going to run on a tablet or an old machine.

But man, is it worth the trouble.

If nothing else, watch this...

BioShock Infinite Trailer

Oh, and the song in the trailer? I looked it up -- it's  'Beast,' by Nico Vega. And yeah, I've got it now...

LAST WORDS


My home-made X-ray machine is coming along nicely! My hair should grow back any day now...



Frank's Handy Guide to Building Your Own PC

Fig 1., the author's new machine. The blue fans are for verbs, the green ones for nouns.

If you're like me -- and let's hold a moment of silence and hope you're not -- you need a new computer every few years because your old machine is beginning to spew cooling fans and bits of germanium every time you turn it on.

My former machine, which could run the letters A through C in Word 1877 and add two digit numbers twice every year.
So, if it's time for a new machine, you've got a few decisions to make.

1) Laptop, desktop, or tablet?
2) PC, Linux, or Mac?

Let's tackle Question 1 above first. 

For me, a laptop was out of the question, because I need a monitor the size of a movie screen just to see lower-case letters now. Too, I've never met a laptop keyboard that didn't feel cramped and flimsy. My typing style involves a lot of pounding, and detached solid metal gaming keyboards are the only ones that hold up. 

But what about portability, Frank? What if you want to write away from home?

I tried the whole write-at-the-coffee-shop bit a while back. Hated it, too. For one thing, coffee shops won't lock the doors no matter how politely I ask, and people kept getting in and ordering coffee. Worse, these people hang around after ordering, talking and reading and breathing. 

I hate that. Too, my trademark black hipster author beret keep falling down over my eyes and making me miss the tiny laptop keyboard. 

Finally, I've got everything I need right here -- large dogs, privacy, peace and quiet. No one wanders in and orders a double-stuffed mocha latte horseradish shellac hibiscus Concorde or whatever it is they drink these days, and if they did, Thor the behaviorally-challenged German Shepherd will be happy to show them the door.

So no laptop for me. 

A tablet? Look, those are nifty for watching the Youtubes or Facing the Mybooks, but I've got work to do.

So, that's settled -- for me, it's a desktop, aka The Grandpa Box, with a solid-steel mil-spec keyboard and all the trimmings.

Question 2 evokes the eternal struggle between the People of the PC and the Masses of the Mac, while one bearded guy in hiking boots looks up from his Linux box and waves.

Look, I'm sure Mac machines are fine pieces of equipment. They're even cute with their spartan little keyboards and their clever hidden components and their animal-themed OS designations.

At this point in our discussion, you need to reach beneath you, and feel around under your seat for bags of money.

If you're one of my writer pals and you're reading this, don't bother, because while we might not have much else in common a distinct lack of cash-sacks is certainly a deficiency we share.  

Macs aren't cheap. Take the current Mac Pro desktop. It runs a cool $2499, and comes with a quad-core Intel processor, 6 gigs of RAM, and a 5770 video card with 1 GB of DDR5 RAM. 

Maybe those specs don't mean much to you. If that's true, allow me to look upon them and yawn in polite boredom.

My old machine boasts better specs.  6 gig of RAM? Puh-please. A 5770 video card? 2010 is on the phone, and it wants its hardware back.

$600 would be a bit steep for such a rig. $2499 is just nuts.
Another factor, at least for me, is the upgrade/replacement aspect. 

If a part goes bad in my new PC, no big deal. I open the case, remove the bad component, pop in a new one, and I'm back up and running.

I can upgrade, if and when I want. Since I chose a roomy case and a hefty power supply, I can just swap out the other parts for years to come, and still have a decent computer without a major expense. 

Apple doesn't exactly encourage you to open their machines, much less start poking around and sticking new motherboards in. 

So, for me, the choice is clear -- I'm going with a PC build, at least until I can afford to drive to the Apple store in my Mercedes with a quick stop at Oscar de la Renta's New York shop for a new black beret.

Why not Linux?

Linux is a free operating system that involves entering a lot of things like ./grep -r -al/wtf/dammitdammitdammit  and hoping that somehow makes BioShock Infinite start up. Linux machines are largely impervious to viruses and malware, mainly because there are only six of them running in the entire world outside of server farms and businesses and why bother. 

Now comes the time when you need to decide whether to buy or build.

I used to buy. I bought Dells, and was pretty happy with them, at first. But then I wanted to add memory. I had a fan go out. Finding memory or replacing a fan suddenly wasn't quite the trivial task it should have been, because in order to cut costs Dell uses proprietary components which are often hard to find, and expensive when you do. Buying a new PC instead of maintaining the old one quickly becomes the most attractive prospect.

Finally, I took the plunge and built my own machine out of parts I chose and assembled myself, and I've never looked back.

Oh, and did I mention how much money you can save my building your own machine?

Well, you certainly can.

My new build has a 6 core processor and 8 gig of RAM (soon to be 16) and a video card that, if plunged into a flood of red-hot magma, would produce a puff of vapor more powerful that any ten 5770 video cards. And it cost less than half of that ludicrous $2499 Apple wants.

That still out of your budget?

I could put together a modest writer's work machine (hardware only, Windows 7 is another hundred bucks) for a little more than $300. It wouldn't run the latest games on the highest settings or store the entire contents of the Library of Congress, but it would run the crap out of Word 2010 and get you on the net and let you Face the Mybook and anger the crunchy candy birds while you're supposed to be writing.

Curious about how all this is done?

It's not as complicated as it sounds.

You need eight (maybe nine) components to build your own PC. Here they are:

1) A case, to hold everything together and provide ventilation.
2) A motherboard, which houses the CPU, the memory, and other vital components.
3) The CPU. The brain of the machine. You can opt for any of the CPUs made by Intel, which are excellent but relatively expensive, or you can chose a CPU made by AMD, which are still bloody good and a lot cheaper than Intel. Those are your choices.
4) RAM memory. RAM is what the CPU uses for fast operations. You want at least 8 GB (gigabytes). You could get by with 4. 6 is just silly. 8 is great, 16 is mahvellous, dahling.
5) A hard drive (HD) or a newer, faster solid-state device called an SSD. This is where your programs and files are stored. Hard drives are cheap and fairly fast. Get at least 500 GB. SSDs are super-fast but uber-expensive. I haven't bought one yet. Send me money, and I'll try one.
6) An optical drive. Yeah, I know, who uses CDs anymore. You might only use it once, to install the OS (operating system). But you'll need it, so get one, and since they can be had for $20 or less why not?
7) The OS (Operating System). Windows or Linux. If you read that and thought 'Linux? What's that?' forget it and shell out the hundred bucks for Windows 7, the 64-bit version. 
8) The power supply. Unlike Macs, which apparently run on unicorn giggles and the innocent 8-bit dreams of children, your PC will need power. Power supplies are rated in watts. A bare-bones strictly-business PC would be just fine, probably, with 350 watts. Start adding video cards and fancy motherboards and multi-core performance processors, and you'd better start looking at the 550 to 650 watt range. Two big video cards? Better get a kilowatt. Oh, and bring your wallet.
9) A video card. Look, you might not need this. Most motherboards come with onboard video features. AMD's new chips come with onboard video processors; they're called APUs. I wanted a video card because I have this fantasy that someday I might be able to start and actually finish a PC game (which I've never done). I don't need the card to run Word, but I like knowing it's there. But it is an extra expense, so weigh your needs carefully.

The list above assumes you have a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse handy. If not, you can get them too, but I won't be including them in my discussions.

I buy all my components from two places. They are:



Both are excellent, trustworthy online merchants I've used for years. They've both got great selections, fast shipping, and prompt customer service.

They're also good places to learn about what really goes into a computer. I learned just about everything by looking at what they call 'barebones' systems. With a barebone system, they've selected components which are compatible with each other, they tell you what performance to expect, and there are videos which show you what each part does and how to put it all together.

I've never ordered a barebones machine myself, but I did learn the basics of what works when paired with what, and what goes into a basic machine as opposed to a fancy gaming rig.

Just remember the following tips as you proceed:

1) Some motherboards like Intel chips. Some like AMD. None like both. So you'll have to choose either Intel or AMD, and stick with it. Intel chips are faster. AMD chips are cheaper. How deep are your pockets, Sunshine?
2) That $20 power supply? Yes, it's cheap. And yes, it will BLOW UP IN YOUR FACE the instant you take it out of the box. Forget it. I use Cooler Master power supplies because I once saw a Cooler Master PS take a direct lightning hit and then climb out of the case and PUNCH THE CLOUD. 
3) You can get a decent case for $40 bucks, $30 if it's on sale. I like Cooler Master cases. Don't go any cheaper. You'll regret it if you do.
4) For motherboards, stick with ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, or MSI. I stick with ASUS, myself, and have never had one fail.
5) For RAM, I suggest Corsair, Kingston, G.SKILL, or Crucial. You get some really cheap no-name stuff, but I have to assume it's made from the toenails of unidentified corpses and bundles of Fukushima asbestos. 
6) Worried about what CPU chip will fit in which motherboard, and what memory will work with both? Not a problem. Go to pcpartpicker.com and build your system there -- if you choose the wrong parts, you'll be told what won't work, and why, all for free!
7) No, do NOT choose Windows 8. Just. No. Windows 7, 64 bit, so you can pile on the RAM (the 32-bit version can't access much RAM).
8) Both Newegg and Tiger Direct have 'Memory Finders' which match RAM to your motherboard. Use that, and you can't go wrong!
9) Stop looking at Windows 8! Honestly.

There is a vital rule of thumb to consider when choosing between AMD and Intel CPU chips, and that rule is this -- whatever you choose, you have chosen poorly.

That's because there are Intel fanboys who will hurl acrimonious bile you way if you go AMD, and AMD fanboys who will do the same if you select Intel.  Both camps have benchmark test figures to back up their claims.

I suggest you ignore both camps entirely and buy whatever you can afford. Without a bench crammed with test gear, you are never going to see any real-world difference between comparable Intel or AMD products. I can hear furious fanboys rushing my way now.

Here's a link to a great video series that shows you, step by step, how to build a PC. Yeah, it was made in 2011, but while the hardware has changed the build procedures have not. You can find much more recent how-to videos out there -- just Google your MyFace toward 'DIY PC build video' and start watching.


Here are the parts I used in my new build.







Here are the specs:

CPU: AMD A-6300 six core CPU, ASUS MA597 LE motherboard, 8 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 MHz RAM, 500 GB WD Black hard drive, Cooler Master case, Cooler Master HyperX CPU cooler, Cooler Master 650 watt Bronze power supply, ASUS optical drive, Rosewill wifi interface card, Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS, and an XFX Radeon 7850 Core Edition video card with 2GB of DDR5 memory. There are also 3 Cooler Master 120 mm lighted case fans, because if I'm ever wandering around inside the case I'll be happy I installed some lighting.

It worked the first time I powered it up. Total build time was probably five hours, including Win 7 installation.

Anyway, if you're interested in building your own, check out the links I posted above, and have fun!

WRITING NEWS

I have very little to report. THE FIVE FACES is still under consideration by the publisher. Work on the new Mug and Meralda didn't see much progress this last week because we were on vacation.

But tomorrow it's back to the usual routine, so I should have a decent word count to report next week.

So get out there and build something!







 

Glowing Plastic Werewolf Heads

Fig. 7A: The author, before coffee.
The image above may explain a few things.

That photograph was taken a half-hour ago. Yes, it's a werewolf head. Of the glowing plastic variety. 

I bring your attention to it because it is an artifact from my childhood. I thought Wolfie was gone forever, buried deep in a landfill somewhere, quietly decomposing. But he must have found a good hiding place instead, because I found him just this morning after my father unearthed him from whatever remote corner of the house he's been haunting since I was nine. 

Woflie had a body once. A tall, furry, raggedly-dressed body, arms upraised, talons gleaming with plasticine menace. Sadly, the life of a plastic werewolf is fraught with danger, especially when BB guns and cousins become involved. But Wolfie's head survived, and he spent many a night glowing faintly on my bed, keeping the other monsters at bay.

He still glows, as you can see. I think he was even pleased to see me again, after all these years. 


He now perches atop my PC case, where he can once again emit a pale yellow-green glow and make sure the zombies don't sneak up behind me.

Welcome home, Wolfie. It's good to have you back.

IN WHICH I OBTAIN MILLIONS OF US DOLLARS IN A SAFE AND 100% RISK FREE BUSINESS TRANSACTION WHICH IS PERFECTLY SAFE AND LEGAL, YES SIR, SAFE AND LEGAL.

In last week's blog, I posted a couple of emails from a scammer calling himself Wang. Dear old Wang promised me a sizable hunk of some sweet, sweet Chinese cash, if only I would agree to help him out.

Well, being an agreeable fellow, I emailed Wang back and explained that I would be more than happy to collect a few million dollars for a good cause. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I let Wang in on my own little secret -- I confessed to him I am in reality the crime-fighting super-hero known as THE NIGHTCRAWLER.

Now, such a revelation might have sent many business associates running for the hills. But not Wang! Oh no. Friend Wang is made of sterner stuff. Even after my Nightcrawler email, he's not only willing but eager to do business with me, as witnessed by his reply to my Nightcrawler email, which I'll post below:

Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 17:27:05 +0800 [08/16/2013 05:27:05 AM EDT]
From: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book China
To: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book
Subject: YOUR DETAILS INFORMATION NEED

Dearest Friend and Partner, 
It has indeed been a great honour and privilege having you as a friend and business associate and I have decided to take you as a very close and prospective partner in this venture with hopes that we would meet someday and shake hands together. I want you to be fully assured that you are dealing with a man of absolute integrity and honesty and want to sincerely assure you that you would never have any cost of regrets doing business with my person. I want you to trust me like a brother which I have taking you to be.  I want you to be sincerely assured that you have met the right and appropriate person to do business with and also assure you that this transaction is 100% legitimate which you will not be exposed to any form of risk for partnering with me in securing this noble effort.

BLAH BLAH BLAH Another page of scammer-speak deleted it's all crap anyway.

Will you still help? If you are willing to help,   I will need the following information’s from you as soon as possible.  
Full names:
Contact address:
 Country:
Telephone/fax number(s).
A copy of any form of valid identification / international passport or id/, driver’s License sent by email as an attachment.  
As I will know who I am dealing with we need to build trust, As soon as you provide this information I will process with the legal document and the shipment of our package with the money inside to you 
Note the Diplomat will contact you.
Furthermore, I would like you to introduce me to lucrative domestic investments in your location and I will welcome proficient advice on terms and procedures of investments, okay?  Be rest assured that all facilities for the successful transfer of the fund have been carefully arranged provided that you maintain secrecy follow my advice and instruction on transfer of money as I may do same when time for our investments come. Thank you once again and I look forward to a good business relationship with you which would be of much benefit to both parties. 
Looking forward to your urgent response
Best Regards to you and your family,
Wang Xingwu

Okay, so Wang wants my name, contact info, a scan of an ID card, all the usual nonsense.

Well, I've come this far, and I do need forty million dollars to pay off my bookie after a series of bad tips on the hamster races, so here goes. I sent all the following information and documents to Wang:

NAME: Frank F. Frank
ADDRESS: 419 Batmannish Groin Drive
                   Gotham City, GC 909423
COUNTRY: USA
TELEPHONE: (redacted -- it's a legal brothel in Nevada, have fun with that Wang)

And for my 'identification,' here's what I sent:


Like my new beard, and my piercing Russian stare? And bonus points to anyone who can name the motto on the Gotham City seal.  

I predict Wang will indeed respond, despite the ridiculous nature of my credentials.

Once he does, I'll post that here too. 

WRITING NEWS

The new Markhat novel is still under consideration.

The new Mug and Meralda is still underway. My word count this week stands at last week's total, give or take a couple hundred words, because I deleted nearly as many as I wrote. 

That happens sometimes. I don't consider it time wasted, because I did explore a path I simply decided not to take. 

The book proceeds, though!

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON

Hope to do more EVP work with my fancy new germanium microphone this week. If I do, I'll post the results here on the blog, as always.

FINAL WORDS



Wolfie bids you all a good night, and pleasant dreams...



Ectoplasm Stew


My fearless Writing Team at the ready.

First of all, as promised, a word count!

The new Mug and Meralda book stands at 9,001 words. Assuming a finished length of 80,000 words, that would indicate I am currently 11.25% done with the first draft of ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

Eleven percent done. When I write it out like that my right eye starts twitching.

Only 89 percent to go.

Pardon me while I go outside and scream incoherently for a bit.



MARKHAT NEWS

No news yet on THE FIVE FACES, not that I expected any so soon. Will post as soon as I know, though, so watch this space!




GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON

I've left the departed pretty much alone this week. It's been so hot I imagine even the most determined spectres, haints, haunts, and free-floating vapors took cover in deep shade anyway. I was planning a run to a cemetery this afternoon for some EVP work, but the heat brought on thunderstorms, so that will have to wait. Walking through rainswept cemeteries holding metal gear while lightning flashes about sounds like a good way to experience the afterlife first-hand, and I'm not quite ready to extend my research in that direction.

I did read that long before Konstantine Raudive accidentally recorded his first EVP voices, other people were actively trying to record ghost voices. In 1941 a photographer named Attila von Szalay tried to catch ghost voices using 78 RPM records as a recording medium.

That didn't work, but Attila kept trying. He switched to reel-to-reel tape and in 1956 finally had some success. My favorite bit is the "Hot dog, Art!" snippet, which he captured from a microphone which was housed in a sound-proofed box.

Someone asked me if I ever tried using a Ouija or spirit board in the course of my investigations.

The answer is no, I do not. Mainly because unless the planchette is able to move itself about, I figure any motion is due to the ideomotor response, or one of the participants fooling about. Dark room, candle-light, spooky mood -- is it any wonder that the planchette 'mysteriously' moves?

Show me one that scoots around by itself, and I'll take note. And look for magnets, but that's because I'm a suspicious sort myself.

There's another less scientific reason I won't use a spirit board, and it is this -- the things creep me out. Irrational, I know, but there you have it.

Yeah, this is me. Been working out.

IN WHICH I REVEAL MY SECRET IDENTITY AS .... THE NIGHTCRAWLER!

I get a lot spam email, including more than my fair share of dim-wit con-artists out to sucker me into an advance fee fraud scam.

You've seen the emails too, I'm sure. Some yo-yo claims to have a huge sum of money, and they want you to help them move it. you are promised a generous cut of 70 million dollars, or some similar nonsense.

Of course, there is no sum of money. The people dumb enough to fall for the scam wind up sending the scammer hundreds or thousands of dollars in 'lawyer's fees' or 'storage fees' or 'international steel-plated demurrage fund stacking charges' or whatever made-up gibberish is en vogue at the moment. The money is sent Western Union, of course, so there's no tracing it, and no chance of recovering it.

Well, I'm no dummy, but sometimes it amuses me to play with these morons. So when I got the email below, I couldn't resist. Here's the first email:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:11:05 +0300 [08/08/2013 03:11:05 PM EDT]
From: Xingwu Wang <wang.xingwu15@gmail.com>Add wang.xingwu15@gmail.com to my Address Book
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Reply-To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: GREETINGS TO YOU
-- 
Dear Intending Partner
would like to discuss a project with you. Please email me back.
via: xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn
(1) Can you handle this project?
(2) Can I give you this trust?
I expect your urgent response if you can handle this project.
Best Regard's,
Thank You
Wang Xingwu

Wang, Wang, Wang. Mass-mailing strangers in hopes of finding a dunce among them is no way to go through life.

Here's the email I sent back:

Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:38:16 -0400 [08/08/2013 03:38:16 PM EDT]
From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book
To: wxingwu@yahoo.cnAdd wxingwu@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: Re: GREETINGS TO YOU

 Dear Exalted Significant Xingwu Wang,

 I can handle this project. I can be given this trust. Let not your underpants pout, my friend, for together we shall amass and/or acquire vast sums of currency, see also moola, loot, cabbage, cash, greenbacks, Benjamins, coin. I see us as lifelong friends, Wang, lifelong friends who shall not want for fancy cars, new ice trays, and all of those little wax bottles of sugary candy water we can ever desire!

 Yes. It was Fate that brought us together, to conduct this spiny, quartz-encased business. You see, Wang, who is called Wang, I have made a decision -- I shall put my trust, my whole trust, all eighteen English pounds of it, in you. I shall see this business through, come Hell, high water, surly waiters, or inclement humidity! Nothing shall stop us from achieving the achievement of having achieved that to which we aspire to achieve!

 Trust me to handle this important project, which requires much trust. Trust is a weighty word, my friend, but it is a word I know how to spell. T - R - U - S - T. Trust. Not truste or truust or trooste or even terust, but trust, plain and simple.

 Let us discuss details so that we might work for our mutual linear fully clothed gain.

 Frank F. Frank, Director
Frank Global Industries

Now, you might think most scammers would be put off by the tone and content of my reply. But not friend Wang, who is only to eager to get things started! 

Here is his reply to email. I'm deeply hurt, because it's obvious he didn't even read my reply. But decide for yourself:

Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:09:00 +0800 [08/10/2013 06:09:00 AM EDT]
From: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book China
To: Undisclosed Recipients
Reply-To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU
Dear Friend,
Thank you for your reply to my first email. I needed to be very sure of you before I disclose my identity for confidentiality purpose. I would also like you know that this transaction is 100% risk free and legal.

I could not give you my true details in my first contact because I felt it would be huge surprise for you to receive such email from a serving customs controller of the People Republic of China Customs. Now that you have replied the correspondence with interest I will give you more information about myself and the business.
My name is Wang Xingwu (customs controller of the Peoples Republic of China Customs).


<BLAH BLAH BLAH I cut a page of scammer-speak nonsense here >>


Thank you Once again and I look forward to a good business relationship with you which would be of much benefit to both parties. 

Looking Forward to your Response

Sincerely,
Wang Xingwu

Wow. What a sweet deal. I get thirty percent of forty million dollars. I could use an extra 12 million bucks -- I have expensive tastes where socks are concerned -- so here's my heartfelt reply:


Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:26:21 -0400 [08/10/2013 04:26:21 PM EDT]
From: franktuttle@franktuttle.comAdd franktuttle@franktuttle.com to my Address Book
To: Xingwu. Wang <xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn>Add xingwu.wang@yahoo.cn to my Address Book
Subject: Re: GREETING FROM WANG XINGWU

Dear Trusted Sequential Combine Wang,

I was so excited to receive your email. And I understand your need for a trusted and reliable partner in this business.

I believe I am the very person you seek.

Can I be trusted? Yes. Yes I can. You see, although the world knows me as Frank F. Frank, wealthy philanthropist and corporate giant, my secret identity is that of....

....the Nightcrawler.

Yes. That's right. By day, I run a successful multinational conglomerate specializing in the manufacture of volatile chemicals and flimsy lingerie. Or maybe its flimsy chemicals and volatile lingerie. I'm so busy rolling in enormous heaps of cash I seldom get down to the manufacturing floor these days. 

By night, I don the black body-armor of the Nightcrawler, and I venture forth from my secret lair to fight crime. Perhaps you have heard of my heroic exploits against the Gang of Elderly Pensioners, or my mighty triumph over Mrs. Baker's Second Grade Art Class?

I thought so. My defeat of the Surly Parking Lot Attendant on Fifth and Holmes street was particularly impressive. He will never again insist on exact change while I have a rubber mallet and a stingray in my utility belt, I can tell you!

So I have already shared with you a secret. I did so because I trust you. I am the Nightcrawler, champion of Justice, defender of the weak, part-time library assistant (paid). 

Do you trust me now?

I ask that you keep my secret identity safe. My life is in your hands now, friend Wang. If the evil crime-lords of the Dark Brotherhood were to learn the Nightcrawler's secret identity, I would be dead before sunset.

Now, as to this business.  How do we proceed? I have the resources of Frank Industries at my disposal.

I await further instructions.

Be safe, my friend.

The Nightcrawler

Will I hear from Wang? Will we proceed with this 100% legal and totally non-criminal enterprise unmolested by the evil forces of Cub Scout Troop 66A, or the staff of Larson's Big Star Grocery Store?

I'll keep you all posted!

Now I should get back to work. I suppose I'll have to keep my day job until Wang comes through with my twelve million...




Things That Go Bump, Mad Science Edition #2



Yes, that's cardboard and aluminum foil. Can I please get a research grant?

As you may recall from last week's blog, we were delving into what serious paranormal researchers call 'spooky stuff.'


Because A) it's cheap fun, and B) even I get tired of listening to me rattle on about writing.

So this week, we'll continue with the spooky stuff. First of all, I promised you a video of my experiment with ITC (Instrumental Trans Communications), and I'll (finally) post the link below. But first, a brief introduction, for any newcomers.

ITC is the practice of aiming a video camera at a video monitor and then feeding the camera's output right into the monitor. You get video feedback, which looks weird. Some people claim you can also capture images from the Great Beyond. 

Below is a photo of the setup I used:


Oops, no, that's what the neighbors do when they hear I've been messing with ghosts again. Wait, here's the ITC rig:


Simple, right? A humble video camera aimed at an old CRT television (with no antenna or other inputs).

Now, the question you're probably asking is this -- did you capture any ghostly faces? Apparitions? Free-form non-terminating repeating spectral vapors? Gozer the Gozerian?

Nah. Feel free to watch the video, but if you see any faces in that mess you've got better eyes than me. 

Here it is, in all its barely-edited glory:


And here are a couple of typical screen-shots.

The Afterlife is NOT in HD.

Green is the new ectoplasm.

Meet Mister Screamy Face.

I do see why people believe they can see images in the visual noise. Heck, sitting down here alone in the middle of the night, I thought I saw things too.

But they vanished on playback. 

I certainly didn't capture anything like the image captured by the Scole Group, which I call Bubble Man.



But I'll keep trying.

Which brings us to the EVP portion of our program. I built two brand new toys to play with, both designed to capture EVPs. 

One is a Raudive microphone in a box with a built in audio amp. That's the first image I used, and yes, it is a box covered in aluminum foil. Because I didn't have a metal box handy, and the foil will act as an RF shield.


It works, too. I recorded a long session with it today, and got nothing but static. 

Now, if you'll look below the foil-covered box, you'll see an odd-looking dingus with a coil on one end.

What is that, you ask?



This is a germanium EMF mic. You need not Google it, because I made that up. 

I took a metal shaft and ran a length of copper wire through it. Insulation keeps the copper away from the steel. The business end of the copper wire sticks out, and is soldered to a 1N34A Germanium diode. The other end of the diode is soldered to the copper coil thingy, which returns to the steel casing and winds up soldered to that.

At the other end, a pair of wire leads connect to the steel shaft and the back end of the copper wire. The leads connect to a mono mic jack. That gets plugged into my voice recorder, or into the small battery-powered 200 milliwatt audio amp (the white box in one of the pics above).

Why the tube and the copper wire and the coil and so forth?

I wish I could say the design came to me in a mystical dream, but honestly those were the first things I grabbed in my junk drawer.

Look, that would be a Bad Idea if I was trying to build a working FM radio. But when one is building a microphone suited for use by ghosts or extradimensional entities, there is no design book. I figure random junk has as much chance to work as carefully-designed circuitry, because nobody has any idea how we might communicate with ghosts anyway, if they even exist.

Also, I thought it looked cool in an old-school B movie sort of way.

Why germanium? Why a 1N34A diode? Why not a Zener or a switching diode?

I don't have any of those.

I wasn't expecting much out of this, um, device. 

I waved it around at Karen. It picked up our cells phones buzzing and clicking.

I plugged it into my recorder, and then went to help feed Max and Fletcher. Fletcher is our diabetic dog, and he likes it when we both feed him. 

So the EMF mic and the recorder were out here in an empty room. 

I got two pretty good EVPs. The first says, at least to me, 'It's a trick.'

It sounds best with headphones, but here it is, looped so you can hear it better. Foljks, please, max out your volume on this one. Not joking, and I promise this isn't a prank!


And here's the second one. I cannot make out the words, but I hear what sounds like a male voice mumble, and a female voice respond.

Reduce your volume to normal for this one!


Again, there was no one here when those voices were recorded.

I can't wait to take my EMF mic to a couple of the places I've gotten EVPs before. Maybe this week I'll have time.

By the way, if you want to try the EMF mic trick yourself, 1N34A germanium diodes can be had from Amazon for a buck. The mono mic jack is a Radio Shack product, which will set you back $3.19. The shaft and the copper coil is more decorative than anything; the diode is the heart of the thing.

WRITING NEWS

The new Markhat novel, THE FIVE FACES, went off to Samhain for their consideration last week. 

Which is big news, to me at least. 

I'll be perfectly honest with you. Every time I finish a book, I'm surprised. 

I am the laziest person alive. I kid you not. There are slime molds with more influential work ethics than me. My base state of being is that of reclining, preferably on a bed, while True TV airs another episode of 'World's Dumbest' and I watch by snoring my way through it.

But another novel has appeared. It's a good one, too. Markhat doesn't just get lucky this time. He fights his way through, and --

-- well, you'll have to wait for the book.

If there is a book, of course. The publisher might say no. It's always possible I've written a stinker and just don't know it.

I can't entertain that line of thought. Instead, I've started the new Mug and Meralda book, which will be entitled ALL THE TURNS OF LIGHT.

And I have a surprise for all you Meralda and Mug fans out there -- THEY LEAVE TIRLIN!

That's right, no more puttering around in the Royal Laboratory with holdstones and calculus. Meralda is on the road, baby, and hating every minute of it....

My plan it to get this one done and out before Christmas. If my courage holds, next week I will start posting weekly word counts, so that you, my friends, can brow-beat and guilt me into actually doing some work.

TECH NEWS

If I counted up the hours of my day and what I do with them, pounding away at a keyboard would doubtlessly marshal the majority of my time. 

The PC at which I work was built in late 2010, which means it's beginning to show its age. I've been collecting parts to build a new rig for months now, and I'm nearly done acquiring components.

When I am done, I'm going to build the new machine, piece by piece, in front of a camera. Karen has graciously agreed to film the build, and we hope that watching me build a new PC from scratch might help anyone else out there who wants a solid machine at a bargain-basement price. I'll post parts lists, suppliers, and technical notes, of course.

Building a machine isn't as hard as you might think. And oh, the money you can save! 

I'll make sure everyone gets a heads-up before we post that.

Okay, it's almost time for FALLING SKIES. And I need to get in my word count. Enjoy the voices, people!

And check under your beds...bwahahahaha....



Things that Go Bump: Mad Science Edition

I always knew infinity was blue.

Put on your vortex goggles and hide the unstable isotopes, kids, because tonight we're going to rip away the very bed-sheets of Space and Time and peer right up the skirts of Infinity itself.

The image above? It's a screen-grab from a video I made last night. But more about that later.

Right now, let's take a brief detour back to 1993, and pay a quick visit to a little enterprise which has come to be known as the Scole Experiment.

What was the Scole Experiment? Let me use their own words to describe their efforts:

The Scole Experiment chronicles the extraordinary results of a five-year investigation into life after death. At the beginning of 1993 four psychic researchers embarked on a series of experiments in the Norfolk village of Scole. The subsequent events were so astounding that senior members of the 
prestigious Society for Psychical Research asked to observe, test and record what took place.

 -- From the Scole Experiment website

 Okay, by now you may be thinking to yourself 'Aha. Tuttle isn't normally very enthused about psychic researchers. He must be short of blog ideas.'

Nay, nay. It's true I'm not usually a big fan of so-called psychic researchers. But this bunch captured some truly extraordinary evidence, and they did so in the presence of a professional magician on the lookout for fakery.

You can peruse their website and decide for yourself. But I would like to call your attention to a few intriguing photographs they obtained.

Click here for a page containing video screen grabs from various ITC (Instrumental Trans Communication) sessions. Two in particular caught my eye. Here's the first one:

Man in the Bubble

Blue

As I understand it, these images were obtained using a 90s-issue VHSC video camera aimed at a television screen. This setup is the basis for ITC, or Instrumental Trans Communications.

The Scole group produced a volume of fascinating material. There are circuit diagrams. There are images. There are drawings. Copies of newspapers. Odd little scribbles. You name it, they got it.

They also had a long conversation with a being claiming to be an extra-dimensional entity. Not a ghost. Not a spirit. Just an energy creature hanging out in its crib, playing with the 33rd dimension's equivalent of a HAM radio.

Of course not everything they present is thrilling. I'm still puzzling over this screen-grab. They see a face in the image. I see -- stuff. Video noise.


Even so, I couldn't get that 'Man in the Bubble' image out of my head. It's either genuine evidence of the paranormal, or it's fake.

Bubble Man.

At this point, I came to the same decision I came to years ago, when I first became intrigued by EVP recordings.

I decided to try and gather ITC evidence on my own, so I'd know it wasn't faked.

Furthermore, I built a special ITC rig of my very own. But that's for later. Right now, let's look at a standard ITC setup, and see how it works.

Standard ITC setup
It's simple. You aim a video camera at a television screen. The camera's video output is connected to the television's video input. Thus, you wind up with the camera filming its own output.

That creates feedback. Hold a live microphone up to the loudspeaker. That awful shriek is also feedback.

Here, we have video feedback instead of the audio version.

The theory behind ITC video images is similar to what some people say about EVP voices. The random video noise created by the feedback loop somehow allows spirits or other entities to create images, which are then recorded and can be replayed at will.

Okay. Regardless of how far-fetched all that sounds, the purely physical setup is pretty easy. Here's how my own ITC experiment looked:



That's a Sony Handicam on a tripod aimed at an ancient Sanyo CRT TV. The camera lens is about two feet from the TV screen.

That TV is old, people. It's pre-digital, which means it can't even get broadcast signals anymore. I use it to watch the occasional concert on DVD, but I disconnected the DVD player for the session. My point is that the TV isn't going to just randomly display images of people, for instance, because it is essentially a brick without a video source.

Here are a couple of static images I took when I started the experiment:



Stay away from the light, Carol Ann...

One quick note here -- I tried this first during the day, and I immediately spotted several fairly obvious reflections in the glass of the TV screen. There was me, for instance. The window behind me. A few other objects, none ghostly or extra-dimensional as far as I could tell.

So I dumped all that video and waited for dark. 

When the feedback loop is established, you get a strobing effect that takes about two seconds to move from full black to bright white. In between the extremes, you'll see mobile, indistinct shapes blossom and shrink and darken and die. 

It's these shapes that seem to hide the faces and other images.

And these are also the places where our old friend pareidolia comes out to play.  Pareidolia is what lets you see faces in the wood grain of cabinets, or in the clouds. We are hard-wired to make out faces, and do so quickly.

So my criteria for what constitutes an actual face is pretty high. A pair of dark spots and a slit for a mouth isn't going to cut it. 

No, I want to see an image like that of Bubble Man.


Old dude with glasses. That image isn't pareidolia. It may well not be real, in that someone may have cut out a perfectly mundane photo of a man with glasses and stuck it to the TV screen for a single frame, but it jolly well isn't pareidolia.

"Come on, Tuttle, quit stalling! You said you held an ITC session. Did you get anything, or not?"

Well. Yes and no. Mainly no. 

See for yourself:


If that image is the result of an extra-dimensional communicator, he needs to try a little harder. Yeah, okay, two eyes and a mouth, but that's obviously just a random formation of lights and darks. Bzzzzt, better luck next time.

What about this next image, which is a lot more complicated?



I asked for an image of a dog, and that's not actually a bad image. I believe it's nothing but pareidolia, but I can see where some might not.

But we're a long way from photographic-quality images such as the Bubble Man, aren't we?

Yes we are.

The truth of the matter is this -- analyzing ITC data is a lot more laborious than doing the same for EVP recordings. You have to wade through the video files one frame at a time. Let's see, at 30 frames per second and 60 seconds per minute that's 1800 frames per minute, or over 21,000 frames for the single 12 minute video I shot last night.

I'm about four minutes in. And I've been at this for seven solid hours.

So a complete analysis will have to wait. Sorry about that; I know I promised a good blog entry today, but the sheer math of it has overwhelmed me.

We won't even talk about trying to use Windows Movie Maker to do a frame-by-frame analysis of a longish video clip. We won't talk about that because I don't like to use those kinds of words in public. Suffice it to say I will be on the lookout for a basic cheap video editing package.

Again, my apologies for not finishing all this today. I will finish analyzing the video. Until then, these screen grabs will have to suffice.

The image I opened this blog entry with doesn't look at all like the blobby grainy green images I've shown, does it?


That's because this image was generated using the same camera in a device I built myself Saturday afternoon, after seeing the first grainy strobing pictures produced by the old-school CRT tube.

Televisions work by refreshing the screen 60 times a second or so. I think that's part of what causes the strobing effect we saw earlier. So, I decided I'd eliminate that by using four mirrors placed at ninety degree angles to reflect the camera's unblinking little lens right into its own viewfinder.

That way, I'd create an optical feedback loop, without all that headache-inducing strobing.

Here's how my 'infinity mirror' array works:


And here's what it looks like, without the camera.


And with the camera:


The screw assembly on the right is there to make minute changes to the pitch of Mirror 1, to keep the image centered.

Running it is simple. Just hit record. It doesn't matter whether the room lights are on or not; I zoom in until the viewfinder fills the screen, and that's that.

Here are some screen grabs. Turns out infinity is blue, just like we all suspected.


A screen within a screen within a screen....


Everything seemed to rotate slowly, counterclockwise...


Then things would (literally) spin off into the distance.


The little screen icons on the camera viewfinder, repeated to infinity...

What I didn't see were any faces. No faces, no dogs, no big text messages reading HI WE ARE FROM THE AFTERLIFE.

Looks like the process needs the strobing and the noise to conjure up faces and so forth.

I have an idea for a modification of the mirror array which will add some noise without strobing. If I can, I'll add it for next week's blog.

Until then, I'd like to hear your comments on the matter.

Did the Scole group fake their results? Is the Bubble Man image paranormal, or the result of scissors and rubber cement? What do you think?

I'm on the fence. But I need to shoot a lot more video before I have a strong opinion either way.

EDITED TO ADD:

Got the mirror array video uploaded. Click below to view:

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/ITCmir3.mp4


The Crow Word for Snake

Tastes just like Diet Coke.
It's been a very busy week, here in the Valley of Unfinished Manuscripts. 

I envy the writers of old, who enjoyed leisurely days of writing interrupted only by rare changes of tweed jacket, trips to town to purchase more pipe tobacco, and delivering the odd Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Which brings us to William Faulkner. Oxford is hosting the annual Faulkner Conference this week, which means the town is filled with Faulkner scholars eager to glean something new about the man and his writing.


There you go, Faulkner scholars. The secret ingredient to 'As I Lay Dying' revealed. Please leave a dollar in the tip jar on your way out.

Rowan Oak, Faulkner's legendary crib. See how I talk just like the young folks?
As a lifelong Oxonian, I've been to Faulker's Rowan Oak. It's a nice old house, and though it's close to Oxford's bustling Square it's so quiet and heavily wooded you'd think you stepped back in time.

Here's Faulkner's writing desk:


I took the pic. I still haven't figured out where he plugged his LED flatscreen monitor in, or what version of Word that old Underwood runs. I was glad to see Faulkner, like all burly he-men, eschewed use of the Mac.

Surprisingly, the elephants were life-sized.
I'm pretty sure that if Faulkner came back from the Great Beyond and saw my writing rig, he'd spit whiskey bottles and dangle participles in sheer unholy envy. The man typed everything, first draft to final, and he did all that before Liquid Paper was even invented. 

Not that ol' Bill couldn't think outside the box. You've probably heard that he was prone to write plot outlines on his walls -- well, he did, and here are the pictures I took of them:



That's the outline for 'A Fable.' The lore claims Faulkner's wife painted over the outline and Faulkner wrote the outline again over the fresh paint and then shellaced it to make sure new paint wouldn't stick.

I suspect the wall wasn't the only thing partaking of shellac during all this, but I wasn't there.

There is a story that Rowan Oak is haunted. The tale hits on most of the haunted house tropes -- star-crossed lovers, a stern father who refuses to grant his daughter's hand to a Yankee, broken hearts, suicide, anguish, all-around bad times. From that, it is said, a ghost arose, to walk the grounds at night.

It's hogwash, all of it. Faulkner himself made the story up just to watch it spread and grow. And, like his other stories, people have enjoyed it so much it persists to this day.

I myself have never written an outline on my walls. That's what Word is for, to preserve carefully-constructed outlines that you ignore in the end. 

THE CROW WORD FOR SNAKE

I like crows. They're smart, they're brave, and they have a certain dramatic fashion sense. I watch them, and listen to them, and over the years I've been able to make out what I believe are a few words of basic Crow.

Seriously, their calls are different. You've got the bored, half-hearted caw they croak out every five minutes or so in the heat of the day. You've got the strident, brief Caw! that I think says 'I see you, other crow.'

And around here, they have a word for snake. 

Look, this is Mississippi in the summertime. Rural Mississippi. Snakes are like clouds -- everywhere, most of the time, and best left where they are and observed from a safe distance.

But crows hate snakes. Let a single crow spot one, and within moments all his crow pals are gathered about, mobbing the slithering fiend in a wheeling, noisy circle of black wings and sharp eyes.

I managed to record a mob of crows circling a rat snake this afternoon. It's a short audio file, less than a minute. Hear what the crows have to say!

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/crowword.mp3

As long as I'm posting audio files, here's another one. I took this one during the fireworks show on the 4th of July, so it has explosions and crowd noise. I know there are people out there who collect audio clips of such things, and if you are such a person, you can have this one, if you want it. Or, if you're at work, crank up the speakers and watch people jump...

http://franktuttle.com/podcast1/fireworks.mp3

AND NOW, FOR THE FEMURS....

Never gets booked for birthdays parties...

The image above? From the movie, of course. Just one image, without explanation. I will say that is one decidedly un-funny clown. 

It's the big shoes. They make one grumpy, and by grumpy I mean homicidal and deranged. 

As they say in the movie biz, that's a wrap. Got to get back to work, which won't be on a 1912 Underwood typewriter, and for that I am grateful.









A Cast of Thousands!

This was a most unusual week.


As I mentioned earlier, my friend Matthew Graves is making a movie based on a screenplay I wrote. We shot the short film this past week, in a three-day marathon run of night-time shooting.

I've agreed not to post any pics or reveal too many details. I will let it slip that I had a small part in the movie, which meant I got to experience make-up and be on the set for the filming.

It was a blast. One day I will post pics, and you'll get a laugh. But for now, I'll just mention some of the people who worked on the movie.

Johnny McPhail did an amazing job playing  -- oh, wait I can't say. Same with Rhes Low, who truly brought the role of <redacted> to life.

Everyone on the set worked very hard to make the movie a delight. When it premiers on Halloween this year, I'll make sure to provide links. I truly believe you'll love it.

Watching Johnny and Rhes bring my characters to life was an experience I'll never forget. It's one thing to imagine the characters, to see them in your mind's eye. But it's another entirely to see an actor put on a costume and make-up and assume the role. When those first words come out, it's a genuine thrill.

My time on the set did teach me a few things about being an actor.

FRANK'S TIPS FOR BIG-TIME MOVIE STARS SUCH AS FRANK:

1) The other actors grow agitated if you try to claim the food on the craft table is yours and charge them two bucks a slice for the pizza.

2) Don't giggle and say the words 'the cheese' each time the director yells 'cut.'

3) If you try to make your own fake Screen Actor's Guild card, sharpen the black crayon first.

4) Shakespearean soliloquies are a staple of dramatic presentation, true, but impromptu renditions of the dagger scene from Macbeth are best performed within the actual play, and not during a coffee shop scene in a romantic comedy.

5) Prop toilets don't flush.

6) Keep up morale on the set by spiking the bottled water with LSD. When your finished film turns out to consist of one hundred and eighty minutes of lens cap with an audio track of slurred mumbling, sell it to the SyFy channel, because at least it's not about mutant sharks.

7) When you first arrive on the set, immediately begin shouting orders to the gaffer. The resulting limp, bruises, and swollen right eye will cut make-up prep time for your hospital scene in Act IV in half.

8) Break up tension buy secretly replacing a random page of every script with a page from a SpongeBob SquarePants script. Listen as classically-trained actors attempt to read Squidward as the suicidal failed heavyweight boxer.

And fear not, gentle readers -- my role is small, and non-speaking, so I had no chance to goof things up. I'll wager most of you won't even be able to pick me out.

I'd like to take a moment and thank Karen and Matthew and Melissa and Rhes and Johnny and Cookie Chris and Laura and Greg and Andy and Daniel and Ben and *inhale* everyone else who worked on the movie.

It was a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to see the fruits of our labor.

OTHER NEWS: REVIEWS IN THE WILD


Google Alerts let me know my book All the Paths of Shadow got another review! You can see the review by Olga Godim at Silk Screen Reviews. I was pleased, both with the review and the fact that Google Alerts wasn't showing me yet another torrent site where book pirates are stealing my books.

YET MORE OTHER NEWS: THIS YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE

All I can say about the following item is that it is in fact true. I kid around on this blog a lot, but this is no joke.

On Tuesday, I'll be giving a brief presentation at the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies (CISS) here on the University of Mississippi campus. I was asked to speak as an author of speculative and fantasy fiction, and give my take on the uses of surveillance and intelligence gathering in science fiction and fantasy.

Now, at first, you may think to yourself 'What? Surveillance and intelligence gathering in fantasy? Are you into the mushrooms again, Tuttle?'

No. I'm not. I think I'll post the text of my remarks here next week, so you can see what I mean.

FINAL BUT MOST IMPORTANT WORDS

You're a reader. I'm a reader. We're both readers.

And what do readers love?

In my case, whole bags of cheeseburgers, illegal moonshine whiskey, and yodeling. But I'm talking about books. Good books.

Good books for free?

That's enough to make me drop my cheeseburger and spill my whiskey and push the yodeler off the cliff. And you can get some great free books by clicking on the link to Maria Schneider's Bear Mountain books blog, where she is making Under Which Ghost (A Moon Shadow series short) free for you to enjoy!

Please check out the series. They're great -- you've got witches and vamps and werewolves and love, but without all the sappy soap opera filling that is choking Certain Other paranormal outings (I'm looking at you, True Blood on HBO).

Seriously, grab a free copy! Maria is a great writer.

And now I'm out. It's back to work for me, as soon as I get this make-up scrubbed off my face...




The No. 7 Fireworks Embalming Pump Mail-Order Skeleton, And Others!

Find a nice comfy chair, boys and girls, because tonight's blog is one of the long ones.

Fortunately for you, most of the length is composed of photographs. As long-time readers of the blog know, I am fascinated by fireworks, and tend to get excessively camera-happy around the 4th of July.

This year was no different. Indeed, I had three cameras trained on the sky. Two were digital, one was film. The only film processing shop in Oxford is closed until they get parts in for their developer, so you will spared the film photos, at least.

And for a treat, I'm featuring photos taken by a real photographer on a real camera as well as my own amateur offerings. Karen Tuttle, who many suspect may be my wife, took her Canon Rebel SLR to the fireworks show, and got some truly amazing shots.

But before we get to the exploding things, let's take a brief detour into the past. Our vehicle will be a comic book I unearthed while searching for an old solenoid. The comic's cover is gone, so I don't know the name of the series or even the year, but I suspect it to be from around 1969, because that is the year I learned that Life is fundamentally hostile and that no good can come of it.

SKELETONS ARE A BOY'S BEST FRIEND

Direct your gaze onto the advertisement below. Try to see it through the eyes of a bookish six year old who loves all things strange and eerie.

Oh yeah. This is the stuff dreams are made of...

Life-sized monsters. Seven feet tall. SEVEN FEET TALL. That's tall, people. With glowing eyes! Reaching hands! Imagine the terror, indeed.

For a dollar.

Did I absolutely have to have a seven-foot-tall glowing skeleton of my very own?

Why yes. Yes I did.

So I shoved a buck thirty-five into an envelope and checked 'Boney the Skeleton' and the clock on my frantic little life came to an abrupt and screeching halt the instant that envelope hit the bottom of the mailbox.

I'd never wanted anything so bad in all my life. I went to sleep dreaming of the fun Boney and I would have! We'd stroll around town, scaring Hell out of everyone. We'd sit out on the porch and wave to horrified passers-by. We'd be the terrible talk of my tame little town, and if any kid came around with some lame Frankenstein's monster we'd knock his block off.

That is what I dreamed. Such thoughts consumed my every waking moment. And oh, did the moments drag. The ad didn't include the traditional admonition to allow six to eight weeks for delivery. How many hours did I spend, pondering the significance of that mysterious omission? Did the fine creators of Boney the Skeleton rush their sinister creations to the happy owners in a matter of mere days, instead? Was there, even now, a dark, unmarked truck speeding through the night toward Oxford, an eager Boney at the wheel?

Hours dragged. Days crept. Weeks crawled.

Moment by agonizing moment, I waited for my skeleton friend's arrival, forsaking all lesser concerns.

One Week. Two weeks. Three weeks, four. I lost my appetite. Lost interest in all things unrelated to the subtle click of clever bones.

Five weeks. Six weeks. Seven weeks, more. My eyes developed dark circles beneath the lids. I walked with a slump. Dragged my feet. How long, I wondered, so often the very words left paths in my brain. How long must I endure this never-ending sojourn through darkness?

Then, on rainy Tuesday afternoon in September, my mother met me at the door, smiling the smile of a relieved but patient parent.

I knew. I knew without words that Boney had arrived!

He was home, home at last, all seven glorious glowing feet of him! All 206 intricately connected phalanges and metacarpals and femurs and mandibles!

I was alone no more.

I was....complete.

I raced into the kitchen, sure Boney would be seated at the table, waiting to give me a cold but friendly embrace.

Instead, atop the tiny Formica eating table, sat an envelope.

An envelope. Thick, yes, and larger than the usual bills that came to us.

But only an envelope. No more for more than a single toe-bone. If that.

Mom must have recognized my confusion.

"It's from the right place," she said. "Open it! You've waited so long."

My mind raced. All right, I thought, though I'm sure I didn't use those words. Boney's delivery has been delayed. Or maybe they send a letter ahead before the actual skeleton arrives. Yes, I decided, as I tore into the paper. That must be it. It's a warning, so people won't be frightened.

Mom moved to my side.

So she was right there, for that awful moment when I removed the contents of the envelope, watched them unfold in my hand, and realized that Boney, my magnificent life-sized seven-foot-tall skeleton friend, Boney of the glowing eyes and the reaching hands, was nothing more than a cheap piece of plastic with a crude rendering of a skeleton painted upon it.

I do remember quite clearly thinking this:

Life-sized. They said it was life-sized. That means sized like life, with height and width and thickness.

They lied. The lying liars lied.

I dropped Boney on the kitchen floor and started bawling.

The weight of every moment of the long agonizing wait fell over me like a tidal wave. I had to say goodbye to my skeleton pal Boney forever, because there really wasn't any magic at all in the world, not even for a dollar plus thirty-five cents shipping, not even from storied New York.

Mom is gone now. Boney, who I kept, flaked away into bits of dust decades ago. I turned quickly past all the ads in my comic books, because after that I knew darned well Sea Monkeys didn't wear festive outfits and build little cities in your fish-bowl, and X-Ray Specs were just cheap plastic frames with concentric circles drawn on the lenses. No. Those were merely more lies. The world is what you see, nothing more. Jobs and bills and tired Dads and worried Moms and pets that sometimes never came home.

And all that came rushing back when I lifted that old comic book out of a stack of cast-offs and saw that ad again.

I still miss ya, Boney my skeleton pal.  Maybe one day.

Maybe.

This is life before the Internet, kids. Count your blessings.
THE SUPERIOR EMBALMING PUMP No. 7 SPECIAL

As I've mentioned before, my friend Matthew Graves is making another movie. Entitled The Embalming,
it's a macabre little film which will debut during the Oxford Film Festival next February.

I got to build a couple of the props for the movie. An embalming pump will be featured in several shots, as well as the sign on the door of the mortuary at which all the action takes place.

Building weird movie props turned out to be a lot of fun. The pump is actually just an old electrical box joined with a clear dog food tub, some hoses, a few lights and switches, and the contents of my cast-off plumbing parts drawer. But it pumps goo, and it looks appropriately creepy, if I do say so myself. But you be the judge!

There are some stains even Formula 49 won't touch.
If your initial reaction was 'yuck,' I've done my job. Now imagine the fluid tank filled with a bubbling concoction of syrup, old coffee, soup, and maybe just a dash of clam bits. Add bubbles, and presto! Instant gag reflex.

The stains are actually a mixture of mineral spirits and hardened mahogany wood stain, with some splashes of melted black crayon and floor dirt rubbed in. Not sure if you can read the label in this pic, but it claims the pump was made by Superior Embalming Pumps of Arkham, Massachusetts, as a shout-out to H.P. Lovecraft.



The guts of the device. I know, real guts would have been more impressive, but Karen says they stink up the place.



That's the pump that makes the whole rig work. My cordless drill powers it, so even if my lines spring a leak mid-shoot no one gets electrocuted.

And here's the sign!


I'm proud of that sign. I did the text, the fonts, the graphics, and had them printed on a clear vinyl decal (thanks Vistaprint!). The frame is wood, and aged to look a bit weathered, but better maintained than the pump.

Sorry for the reflection in the image!

But now, let's see some THINGS EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

 THINGS WHAT EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

 First, Karen's pics, because she has a good eye and a good camera. I have a good eye too, but I keep it in a jar in a safe deposit box.

That Canon Rebel never ceases to amaze me. Look at the detail it captured, without a hint of blur. Go on, blow it up -- incredible.


 Same here, and here. The optics can capture so much so quickly.


Karen really needs her own webpage of pics. I think she said she shot 800 during that single fireworks show.  I'm just not that fast. Speaking of which....

AMATEUR HOUR

I took my cameras, too. I've got a Fujifilm S1000that I put on a tripod and set for long exposures. I've tried this before, with no success, but this time I captured a couple of images I liked.

Here's the first one:

Boom.
The smoke, the flash, the colors -- okay, it's not National Geographic worthy, but it's pretty cool.

Below is another one from the S1000:


Neat, huh? Not everything is in perfect focus, but I like it anyway.

I had friends on that Death Star!


My other camera is a much older 5 megapixel box I've had for years. But it takes great pics. Here are a few it captured.









Boom. Hope you enjoyed the fireworks, sorry about the skeleton, and wash your hands thoroughly after each use of the Superior Embalming Pump No. 7 Special featuring High Pressure Cavity Inject.

Shooting for the movie starts this week, so expect some pics from the set next weekend!

Until then, don't pin your hopes on mail-order skeletons, son, because they'll burn you every time...


Markhat is Grinning Tonight!

Fig. A: Inside the author's mind, which is almost always in a tree.
I have some very good news!

My fearless beta reader, the tireless and eagle-eyed Kellie, has read the first draft of the new Markhat novel.

Her verdict: It's a good book. The word 'loved' was used.

You may have heard my sigh of relief all the way from Mississippi.

I was terrified the series was going the way of so many others and getting stale. She said The Five Faces  avoids that entirely, which is exactly what I intended to avoid. She saw what I doing, even though I didn't tell her beforehand, and that makes me very happy indeed.

So. I'll make another thorough pass while reviewing her comments. If I feel another passes (or ten more) are required, I'll make them too. But hopefully The Five Faces will be off to the publisher for their consideration very soon.

I won't lie to you. Every time I finish a story or a book a mean little voice starts whispering from the cluttered corners in the back of my mind. "Oh, they'll all see what a fraud you are this time, they will," it says, in Gollum's voice, of course. "Know you for the poser and the no-talent hack you are, they will!"

"Why do you sound like Yoda?" I ask. That usually shuts it up for a few minutes, but by then the damage is done.

I'm not alone in harboring persistent doubts. Every writer I know endures that same little voice, from time to time.

I keel you! I keel your career!
After all, what we do is so very subjective. It is entirely possible -- heck, it's inevitable -- that one will find intelligent, educated, tasteful people who will love Book X, and persons with the very same qualities who will loathe Book X.

Which doesn't mean Book X is bad, necessarily. Or that it's good, for that matter. It simply proves the old adage 'you can't please everyone.'

There are plenty of good books which are despised by many. Any Harry Potter title, for instance. And plenty of bad books which are much beloved -- I'm looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey, and by the way put some pants on.

I understand that. I know not everyone is going to love my books. And that's fine. I don't rail and shout and argue when I get bad reviews.

If the reviewer has a valid point, I try to remember it, and do things better the next time around.  TEACHING MOMENT, for my writing class students: Don't EVER argue with a reviewer, particularly online. Don't even respond, not even to say thanks, because (in my opinion) the review area is for readers, not writers.

Your baby, your book, is on its own. Let it stand on its own two metaphorical feet. Let it fight its own mighty battles of analogy.

You, the writer, should be so consumed by work on your next project you're barely aware of reviews anyway.

Isn't that right, writing class peeps?

But I digress. The little nattering whispers of negativity I'm talking about tonight come from inside.

Those, you must absolutely ignore.

Writing is a lot like walking a high wire, except of course most writing is not done with one's feet. Once you're out there on the line, you've got nothing to keep you going but your wits, your balance, and most of all your nerve. If you start focusing on the whispers that tell you your next step is your last, you are going to fall.

Sure, you're not on a wire stretched hundreds of feet in the air, and the worst thing that will happen physically is a dropped participle, but your act comes to a screeching halt in both instances.

I've learned to all but silence that nasty little voice while I'm working on a project. But once I'm done, here's how my mental processes usually proceed:

Stage One: Euphoria. The book is done. Done, and I love it. I am clearly a genius. A prodigy. Future generations will praise my name and sell Frank Tuttle bobbleheads in the Tuttle Writing Museum Gift Shoppe. Another novel complete. Parades, confetti, and the really expensive Ramen noodles with the added flavor packets all around!

Stage Two: Evaluation. Sure, the book is done, but is it any good? Frantic re-reads. Edits. Re-writes. Repeat of Step One, if the book is deemed worthy. Adoption of air of quiet confidence.

BOOK SUBMITTED HERE

Stage Three: Night of the Panics. OMG what was I thinking? Did I really send that manuscript off? Is it too late to recall the email CANIDESTROYTHEENTIREINTERNETTOPREVENTITSRECEPTION where are my PILLS where are my PILLS AAAAAAGH.

Stage Three usually only lasts about half an hour, but it always occurs at 3:33 AM and is accompanied by an inexplicable apparition of Isaac Asimov shaking his head at me in profound disappointment

Maybe I should stop picking my own mushrooms.

Anyway, I am now firmly in the midst of Stage Two with The Five Faces. I am bolstered by Kellie's appraisal of the book; while my cruel little voice freely questions my judgment, it cannot dismiss hers.

So ha ha, little voice. Maybe the Markhat series will someday jump the shark and lurch to an unseemly end, but that day is not today.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY AHEAD

Well, sort of.

I'm building a prop for a friend of mine, the talented and lovely Mr. Matthew Graves, who makes documentaries as well as movies. Matthew needs an embalming pump for use in his upcoming film The Embalming, so I'm whipping one up from bits of this and chunks of that.

Now, when you see the picture you'll probably think 'Yuck what a disgusting object. It's filthy. I hates it, I do, nasty Hobbitsess with their thieving little handses..."

And I'll point out that we're both far too familiar with Gollum-speak.

But yes, the pump is dirty. It's supposed to be. There's an art to making things look dirty, by the way. I use a thin film of Elmer's Glue, spread by hand, followed quickly by a liberal dumping of a just-filled dustpan on the housing. Blow off the big stuff, let the dust stick, and viola, instant dirt (the glue dries clear).

Soon, the pump will be bubbling with a disgusting fluid, which shall be a viscous mixture of water, clam chowder, black coffee, syrup, and tomato juice. The soggy grey bits of clam -- oh, they add so much delightful texture, as they whirl past in the clear tank...

I plan to use hand-pumps to make the mixture flow and bubble. Matthew said he could add a mechanical whir in post-production.

So, without further adieu, the prototype pump, still under construction:

Not UL Approved.

Finally, and on a wildly unrelated note, let me share with you a comment made by one of my writing class students, who yawned as I expounded on the merits of showing, not telling, and then explained herself thusly:

"Sorry, Mr. Tuttle, but I stop listening when you start monologuing."

So let that be a lesson to me. No more monologuing! Instead, I shall speak from the heart, and also carry a small but powerful taser, because no one likes absolute honesty.

That's all for this week. Take care, people, and remember -- if you can't get real congealed blood from a rotting corpse, syrup and black coffee will suffice.




Walk Like an Egyptian

First of all, gentle readers, allow me to introduce a new member of the Tuttle writing team.

Bear Kingsley, seated center, says hello.
Now, long-time fans already know Mr Bones (seated, skeleton right) and Mr. Skull (resting left). Please say hello to new bear Kingsley, who came to me all the way from the UK courtesy of my friend Sue Sadler.

Sue, please know that Kingsley is quite happy in his new home. Mr. Skull and Mr. Bones are thrilled to have someone new to talk to, and it turns out even British stuffed bears have remarkably melodious accents. So thanks! I need all the inspiration I can get!

Speaking of Egypt (yeah, we weren't, but clever transitions are the first to go when I've got a headache), there is disturbing news out about the place. No, I don't mean political unrest -- I mean the old gods awake from slumber, plagues of locusts, a hundred days of darkness kind of disturbing. 

I refer to this news item, which reports that a 4,000 year old Egyptian statue has been observed turning in circles inside its sealed glass case.

That's right, people. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is awake! It will not rest until it has VENGEANCE!

Or until they slip some rubber vibration dampers under the case. Or VENGEANCE! You've got to admit that's more dramatic than simple motion transfer. I suppose if one wanted one could combine the two, and assert that the angered statue is seeking vengeance by turning in slow circles inside its case when heavy traffic passes by, but that lacks a certain Old Testament flair.

Anyway, here's a link to the story of the moving statue, and since the source is The Sun, you know it's the unvarnished truth.... 

NEW FEATURE: NAME THAT HAIRY BUG!

Many claim Nature is filled with multitudinous wonders.

I say Nature is full of bugs.

Think I'm wrong? Turn over a rock. Look under a log. Leave a pristine fried egg sandwich out on a clean white plate for 30 seconds. I don't care if your plate rests on a table inside a sealed nuclear confinement chamber deep inside a super-secret Shadow Government Doomsday project, a fly will land on that sandwich even if it has to crawl through sixteen miles of hot glowing magma to get there.

Because that's what bugs do.

I was out with my camera earlier when I spied a white fuzzy crawling thing making its way up the trunk of the massive silver birch tree in the backyard. I watched the white fuzzy crawling thing for a moment, because MY LIFE IS TRULY THAT BORING, and maybe some bug sixth sense warned the caterpillar it was being observed because it ducked beneath a piece of bark.

I set my trusty Fuji for near-field and took the following shots:

Bloody paparazzi, can't crawl anywhere these days...


It seems Mr. White Hairy Bug has friends! They watched me watching them, waving their antenna in what I can only assume was a friendly greeting.


Despite my expert wilderness tracking skills (I once found an open Wendy's burger joint without using a GPS, in a light misting rain), I couldn't name these creepy-crawlies. So I went to the net, and found that we are viewing a cluster of common caterpillars called F. Horriblis Terriblis, which will spend 120 days in the caterpillar stage before entering a cocoon and ultimately emerging as:

Yeah, a can of Raid isn't going to work here...
On the upside of having a monster gestating in the backyard, that really should end our mole problem once and for all.

BEHOLD, THE SUPERMOON!

Nature isn't all about deadly bugs who seek to consume our tender, tasty flesh.

It's also filled with enormous celestial bodies careening towards our fair planet, intent on smashing it into molten, lifeless bits.

Even the Moon gets in on the act, now and then. You see, the Lunar orbit is, despite what you've been told, wildly variable. Sometimes the Moon comes within sixteen miles of the Earth's surface. Sometimes it veers off course and threatens to hurl us screaming into the sun. It has even been known to hit your eye like a big pizza pie (what astronomers call 'an amore').

That's all according to the History Channel, at least. Which should be re-named the 'Aliens Are Here to Kill Us All' Channel, and should be put next to 'Dim-Witted Rednecks With Too Many Regressive Genes' channel (formerly TLC) in the lineup.

The truth is that this weekend's so-called 'supermoon' was basically indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill Joe Six-pack workaday moon. Yes, it was at its orbital near point to us, but we're talking a truly small measure of near.

But hey, it was a clear night, so I stepped outside with 35 billion biting, stinging, gnawing bugs and had a look.

I even took photos, as seen below, in the stunning image NASA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE!


Bonus points to anyone who can correctly explain the significance of this genuine, un-retouched image! Heck I'll send a signed copy of THE BROKEN BELL to the first one to email me with the name of the pipe-smoking man in the image. 

Maybe the next supermoon, I'll remember to adjust for the Moon's inherent brightness, so I won't wind up with 62 pics of a featureless white disc. Nice going there, Frank!

MYSTERY SOLVED!

A few of you may recall mention of a local 'best of' contest here in my hometown of Oxford, last week.

Here's a link back to the blog entry concerning that.

But that's not the end of the story! It seems that a number of Oxonians, upon reading my name in the local paper as winning the Best Local Writer title, called and emailed the local paper's editor asking just who the heck this Frank Tuttle character is.

There was, it seems, suspicion that I am not even real.

Face it, there's something fishy about this Tuttle character...
That suspicion stems from an old episode of the TV show MASH. In that episode, Hawkeye and Trapper created a fictitious captain named Frank Tuttle and diverted all his pay to the local orphanage. 

All was well until the Army press caught wind of the selfless and heroic Captain Tuttle. Hawkeye and crew then faked the Captain's death to get out of the mess they created.

So naturally, forty years after that episode aired, a few of my fellow citizens decided I was nothing more than the long-planned realization of that TV trope.

The editor of the paper (The Oxford Eagle) called me and we had a good laugh verifying my existence. You can see the start of the story that ran last week here.

So that mystery, at least, is solved. I am me, and I have the paperwork to prove it. 

Unless I forged all that too....bwahahahahaha.

In writing news, well, I have plenty. The first draft of the new Markhat is out with my fearless beta-reader, who is even now probably trying to think of a gentle way to tell me I jumped the shark on Book Number Eight.

The new Meralda and Mug, which is entitled All the Turns of Light, is officially underway! So I beg just a little more patience from fans of that series. I promise it won't be long!

That's all for this week. Be sure to tune in next Sunday for more awe-inspiring pictures of things I find crawling around and inexcusably overexposed images of Earth's closet neighbor, the planet Krypton.


Not Bad For an Old Dude



Fig. 1: The author.

As you can see, I'm holding up quite well, despite just turning fifty. Could use a manicure, but Mrs. Chan just screams and runs when I enter the nail salon these days. Must be my new hairstyle.

A few weeks ago, the local paper (the venerable and always informative Oxford Eagle) ran a contest to name the 'best of' Oxford in various categories. One of the categories was writer.

Oxford is home to a number of renowned authors, both living and dead. William Faulkner lived, worked, and drank here, usually simultaneously. John Grisham was an Oxonian for a long time before moving away. Barry Hannah was a instructor on campus. Ace Adkins lives not far from me. These are big names with powerful followings, so I never expected to be mentioned.

But the votes were counted, and somehow I won the thing!


I'm not accustomed to seeing my name appear in a larger font than that of John Grisham. So, to all the locals who voted for me, THANK YOU! And I'd also like to point out that my status as a living author has been confirmed by the professional press. So put the mallets and the wooden stakes away. I'm just pale, people. And a lot of men wear capes nowadays. Fashions change.

The first edit of the new Markhat book continues. I hope to wrap it up this week. I'm eager to finish it and get started on the new Meralda and Mug book, All the Turns of Light.

 ON THE TURNTABLE

But Frank you ask, in a stunning non sequitur of a transition, what music are you listening to right now?

Glad you asked, because I have a new album to rave about! See the cover below...


Yep, if you thought you recognized the name, you probably did -- Natalie Maines is/was the lead singer for the apparently dormant country group The Dixie Chicks.

I'm not a huge fan of country music. But some voices transcend genre, and Miss Maines is one of those rare talents.

Mother is a solo album, and of course my favorite track of the album (and I mean album as in vinyl, baby) is her version of Pink Floyd's legendary Mother.

But that's not to say the other songs are less worthy. Each is a tour de force. Maines can sing anything -- rock, folk, country, it doesn't matter. She sounds amazing just standing there silent. Yeah. That good.

The last time I was this happy with an album was when I first heard AA Bondy's brilliant When The Devil's Loose.

Look, I'm one of those hard-core nutjobs who believes vinyl recordings capture some magical essence of music that digital media simply misses. Mother is loaded with that special kind of musical magic. The songs soar. They march. They float effortlessly. They resound.

Gargoyle and Dragon approve!

The moods range from happy to melancholy to wistful to sad and back again. The quality of the recordings is top-notch. Listening to this record is akin to being hot and filthy and exhausted and being treated to a sudden cool rain. Or a sandwich and a beer. I'm trying to say it's a genuine journey, laid down with soulful sounds.

Do I recommend this album? Yes. Yes I do, in the strongest possible terms. If you have to crawl through swamps and bite snakes in half the whole way just so you can use the carcass to swat away giant leeches while fighting off mutant flaming crocodiles do so and get this album. It will be worth the effort, and anyway I for one could use the exercise.

I hope another album is in the works.

Natalie Maines, it's good to have you back.

I should get back to editing now. So all you crazy kids go listen to some good music while you read a good book, and I'll see you back here next Sunday!







A Post Five Decades in the Making

© packo michael | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I turn 50 tomorrow.

The rational part of me realizes any birthday is simply an arbitrary and entirely artificial milestone that has no relevance beyond the realm of cheesy birthday cards. My fiftieth birthday? It's just a number. I'll be no different tomorrow than I am today, on any meaningful level.

The irrational part of me (roughly 89% of my makeup) is running in panicked circles screaming bloody murder because I may no longer count myself among the young.

Sadly, I resemble both images.
Face it, man, when you start getting those AARP membership forms every couple of weeks, the needle on your YOUTHFUL TIME REMAINING METER just fell into the red, hit the zero, spat gears, and started smoking.

Too, I'm attracting a lot of interest from buzzards lately. I get the feeling they're eyeing me with regards to how much oregano they need to have handy.

© Odm | Dreamstime Stock Photos
So what do weigh? 190? 200? Just asking, no reason...


Of course there are upsides to growing older. Really, there are. I'll list them all below:
  • Yep. Ought to be something written here.
  • Here too.
  • This is a lot harder than it looks.
  • I give up.
Now, if anyone wants to give me a birthday present, go to Amazon and review one of my books if you haven't already. Especially Brown River Queen. That would be so awesome of you I'd start rocking faster in my squeaky old rocking chair.

Grim reminders of impending mortality aside, I do have one bit of news for Markhat fans. Drumroll and fireworks please:

Boom.
The first draft of the new Markhat novel, currently entitled THE FIVE FACES, is finished!

Finished. Done. Complete. Yes, it's only a first draft, but it is done.

The village mob seems pleased.

Now, if anyone believes that a completed first draft is subjected to a cursory spell-check and then shipped straight to the printer, I have bad news. Because that's not at all how the process works. 

This first draft, beloved though it is, is flawed. Deeply flawed. It's full of typos and poorly-chosen words and scenes that don't work and plot holes I can nearly shove my old-man electric mobility scooter through. 

My work on it is far from done.  

I'll start by doing a cold read, beginning to end, making notes as I go. Then I'll address plot holes and big issues. Once that's done, I start again, this time looking for scenes that don't work. Again, to check dialog. 

Then again with spelling and word choice.  

By this time, I'll be so sick of the book I'll need to pass it off to my fearless beta reader Kellie, who will wade into the fray and no doubt laugh at my authorial shortcomings.

Only after that will the completed manuscript get anywhere near an editor, because A) I'd rather publishing industry professionals not realize the true depth of my incompetence and B) See A.

But, even with all the work that goes into editing and revising, completing that first draft is all-important. Without the first draft, without all its warts and faults, there can never be a final book.

So, as I look back on a half-century of life, I can at least say I wrote a few books. I hope people have enjoyed them. 

Well, I'm off to start the edits. Here's to another fifty years of avoiding prosecution!

Cheers, all. Have a good week!





Found Money and Lost Plots

First of all, a yellow-green ladybug perched on a flower!


I attempted to interview the ladybug, but it turns out they aren't fans of social media. Who knew insects could even make that gesture?

If you read last week's blog, you may remember the bird I couldn't quite identify. Well, I got a good close look at her this week, and she's a mockingbird, complete with distinctive wing-stripes.

The first draft of the new Markhat book is nearing its end. We're talking the last ten thousand words or less, which means it's time for the big dust-up and the aftermath.

I'll certainly finish up this month, and get a good running start on the next book, which will be the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow. I plan to finish it within the year as well.

I'm eager to wrap up the last few scenes of The Five Faces (the new Markhat book) and do a re-read from start to finish. I have a nagging suspicion this book is going to go down as the darkest in the series thus far. I'm not sure why it wound up that way, but it certainly has. All necessary, of course, because this book deals with some intense subject matter -- Markhat is forced to relive some of his experiences as a dog handler during the War, for instance. He and his dog Petey explored Troll tunnels, hunting owl-eyed giants down deep in the dark. There's absolutely no humor to be found there.

An exploration of free will versus pre-ordained fate also crept into the plot. I won't even give you a hint as to where I land on that.

Oh, and here's a hint for my writing class -- don't EVER write yourself into a corner that requires you to solve the 'Grandfather Paradox.' Talk about a headache! But I believe it was worth it, because it really lent the ending quite a punch.

A start-to-finish cold read of a newly-written novel is necessary for a number of reasons. My primary mission on my first read is to seek out and resolve instances of what my friend Denise Vitola calls pocket amnesia.

Denise describes pocket amnesia as it relates to writers in her blog Thomas Talks to Me. Her entry on pocket amnesia describes the phenomena as akin to unexpectedly finding a twenty dollar bill in a jacket pocket. Yes, you left the twenty there, and yes, it was important (because to all the writers I know, a twenty dollar bill is something that happens most often to other people), and yes, you completely forgot about it as soon as you took off that jacket and stored it away for the winter.

Think of chapters as jackets, and the twenty as a plot element, and then wipe that smile off your face because the literary form of pocket amnesia isn't nearly as much fun as the money-finding kind.

It's like this. Say I state in Chapter Five that my hero, Markhat, is allergic to shellfish, but in Chapter Ten, I sit him down to a lobster dinner.

That's a simple example of pocket amnesia. That one is easily fixed; either omit the allergy reference altogether, or serve beef in Chapter Ten.

The danger, of course, lies in not catching the problem in the first place, and winding up looking careless and inattentive to your editor. In extreme instances, you might also find yourself facing an insurmountable plot conflict -- what if I established, in Book Two, that vampires can always tell when a human is lying, but the pivotal scene in my current book, Book Eight, relies entirely on all-too-human Markhat successfully lying to a vampire?

You can't go back and re-write the previous book. Gutting your current book is tantamount to applying sandpaper to your own tongue. But despite the work and the pain involved, the problem has to be fixed.

Not that I suspect I've done anything quite that disastrous. But the fear is always lurking, a constant companion on that perilous first reading of a first draft.

What if I've neglected to address some fatal plot flaw? What if this entire intricate plot is about to collapse, flying apart like a house of cards in a whirlwind?

And people wonder why we writers are such a morose, glaring bunch. It's because we're always just a few words, a single turn of phrase, between fame and infamy.

Okay, that's a bit melodramatic, especially in light of the irrefutable fact that most of us are so far from actual Fame we'd have to buy time on the Hubble Space Telescope just to get a distant glimpse.

It's either Fame or Fomalhaut, either way, I can't make out much detail...
But we are always at risk of losing that precious unspent twenty-dollar bill.

And for the modern writer, that's a sum we can ill afford to gamble.

Wish me luck this week! I will of course post a bonus IT IS FINISHED WOOHOO post as soon as I type the last word.









The Big Green Birds of Spring

All too often I get wrapped up in my own little world of private jets and international espionage and I forget about the small dramas playing out all around me.

That's easy to do when you're, say, trying to open your secondary chute after leaping from a flaming 747 twenty thousand feet over the French Alps (that was Tuesday afternoon, I believe), but it's true.

Consider, for instance, the birds. They're everywhere, now that summer is near. Chirping, flapping, pecking at the ground, relaying messages to former KGB cells -- in short, going about the business of being birds.

Most of what I know about birds involves pounds of body weight and hours spent basting in an oven at 375 degrees. I can usually distinguish between a bluebird and a mockingbird, or a hawk and an incoming Exocet missile, but that's about the extent of my birding skills.

So when I noticed the chirping of baby birds coming from an old birdhouse I stuck in the crook of a Bradford pear tree last year, I naturally assumed they were bluebirds.

Now, I'll go ahead and say what most men fear to whisper, which is that all infants of all species are ugly. Sorry, but they are. Shriveled and wrinkled and usually an odd shade of blue, babies just aren't pretty, and these are no exception.

Still, I didn't see a mother bird, or a father bird, or even a social worker bird from PCS.

So I grabbed my camera and, after quickly dispatching a pair of Ninja assassins hiding in what they failed to realize was a bed of poison ivy, I waited for mama bird to appear.

The following pics are the fruits of my patient labor.

The birdhouse. One bedroom, one bath, priced to move at 120K.
You can see the little birds poking their heads out. Below is a close-up:

We demand bugs!

Here's another shot:

Look, maybe we're cute from a distance.
I waited for a long time, before I saw Mama bird, perched in the next tree over, giving me the eye. If anyone knows what species she is, let me know! I suppose she is a bit blue, in a greyish-green sort of way, but frankly she doesn't look much like a bluebird. Of course I'm colorblind so I'm not the best judge of these things.



I managed to grab a single image of Mama actually feeding the babies, and then I decided I was making them all nervous, so I left. But here it is!


Notice how even in the image above she's looking at me and saying, in Bird, "You want I should peck your eyes out? YOU WANT DAT MONKEY-BOY?"

This next pic is just a green leaf. But it's the green you get only in spring, and only for a few weeks of spring. Soon the rains will stop and things will turn desert-dry and blast-furnace hot and this shade of green will go brittle, touched with brown, and dry.


I like this next image because it captured green, blue, and white, all in the same frame. It was shot looking up beneath a young oak tree.


Next up are many shades of green, taken over a blackberry patch:


Finally, and this is just for anyone who occasionally collects weird images to use as samples or bits for webpages, this shot of weathered cedar:


Birds and random leaves aside, I've been working hard to push the new Markhat novel to a close. And I'm getting there, via the most complicated ending I've ever written. I do like the way what started as Markhat's most mundane case (finding a little dog named Cornbread) turns into a mess that, as Stitches warns, could result in the unraveling of the entire universe.

But some days are like that, aren't they?  

I meant to have Mug's contribution to Sidekick Sunday ready for today, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, I'll leave you with a link to an MP3 sound file of me reading aloud 'The Knocking Man,' a scary short set in a cemetery where the dead are laid, but seldom rest....

The Knocking Man

Problematic Paranormal: Ghost VS Dynamite

Maybe you believe in ghosts. Maybe you don't.

I believe ghost hunting reality shows have truly jumped the shark.

I won't name the show, because the guys making it seemed like good guys doing what they believed was right, but when your ghost hunt culminates in blowing up a 'ghost trap' with very real dynamite it's time to re-examine your investigative protocols.

First of all, the ghost trap featured in the show. They constructed what has been called a 'devil's toybox,' which is simply a cube, about a foot on each face. The interior surfaces of the cube are lined with mirrors.

The premise is that the hapless ghost enters the cube only to find itself unable to exit, because the mirrors prevent this. How do mirrors prevent this?

Because, you know, they're mirrors. Reflective and, um, stuff. Partly magic. Magic, because apparently the ghost is forced to remain at the center of the cube and ponder its own reflection for all eternity, which is quite a trick considering their lack of optical surfaces or detectable reflection.

Curse you, moderately reflective surface!

Another problematic feature of the so-called ghost trap is this -- if a ghost passed freely through the mirror to get into the box, why can't it do the same to get out?

A mirror is nothing but a sheet of glass backed by a reflective substance. Silver was once commonly used, but the mirrors you get at Walmart use cheaper reflectors (probably aluminum), so there goes any kind of superstitious mumbo-jumbo about the mystical properties of silver. After all, you never see vampire hunters or the like cry 'Halt, vile spectre, for I wield the power of sacred aluminum!'

Side note: Telescope and other special optical instrument mirrors place the reflective surface on the front, to prevent refraction as light passes through the glass. They are called 'first surface' mirrors for this reason. That science moment brought to you by the letter I (for incredulous).

If you want to get really snippy with the whole ghost trap critique, wouldn't it be necessary for each and every interior seam to be perfectly reflective? Since that's impossible to achieve with flat mirrors cut and glued to plywood, wouldn't the 'ghost' (which hasn't been proven to exist anyway) simply slide out through any imperfect and therefore unreflective joining of walls?

Okay. Forget all that. I'll give them a pass -- let's say some mystical property of mirrored surfaces does act to block the movement of spirits. You've caught a ghost, huzzahs and Miller Lites all around.

That still doesn't explain what these ghost hunters did with the trap after confining their ghost.

They took the trap outdoors, put dynamite around it, and blew it up.
Eat C4, Casper.

Okay, that's a first for a TV ghost hunting show. Dynamite, things blowing up? Not the usual visuals.

But really?

Let's say the mirrored cube did somehow trap a disembodied spirit.

What possible good would blowing up the trap do?

Wouldn't the spirit simply be freed? One second it's pondering its lack of a reflection and wondering why it can traverse space and time but can't pass through an eighth of an inch of cheap mirror glass. Then some guy presses a button, and BOOM the mirrors are rapidly-expanding clouds of dust and the plywood cube is a million windborne splinters.

Wouldn't the ghost simply float away, possibly to return to its home and resume bedeviling the unfortunate homeowners?

Not according to some. Trap the ghost, detonate the trap, problem solved. Roll credits and previews for next week's show.

Sorry, I cannot complete the mental gyrations required for that to make sense. If a being is immaterial, neither mirrors nor dynamite can interact with it. If a being is NOT immaterial then it can be seen, photographed, and probably even heard screaming to be let out of the bloody box.

Now, I'll be the first to admit the mirrored ghost trap has a certain dramatic appeal. I plan to steal the concept and use it as soon as I can in a book or story, simply because A) it's cool and B) it has a certain intuitive logic about it. Mirrors creep people out, always have -- so naturally they would affect ghosts in some way as well. That's how our brains work. We're always making sense of out a nonsensical world.

But that doesn't make any of it real.

So I'm pretty much giving up on ghost hunting shows. Not ghost hunting, mind you -- just the TV depictions of it.

I do wonder what's next for that particular show. Will they go after pesky poltergeists with shoulder-launched missiles or hidden Claymore mines? Will viewers be treated to one-sided firefights between ghost hunters armed with shotguns and unseen ghosts returning fire with silenced ectoplasmic spook rifles?

If the network smells ratings, possibly so...



Work on the new Markhat book continues. Hey, I do have a favor to ask -- if you read the last Markhat book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN, and you liked it, how about giving me a quick review on Amazon? Reviews mean sales, and sales mean money, and money lets me buy dynamite to blow up ghosts. You do want to see ghosts blown up, right?

Right?

So please, a review, if you will! Thanks.

Speaking of reviews, check out this review of ALL THE PATHS OF SHADOW. Look, too often book reviews themselves aren't much fun to read, but this one is a hoot. And yes, Meralda does spend a lot of time in her laboratory doing math....

FANTASY REVIEW BARN

Finally, a record review. Record as in vinyl music LP, and review as in not a review because I can't play the album.

I didn't know I couldn't play the album at first. It's a standard-sized album, entitled Strange Cacti, by Angel Olsen.



I carefully put the record on my turntable and then scurried upstairs to get to work.

The first song started.

Now, I bought this album based on whim and caprice. I'd never heard of Miss Olsen, or her music. I have no idea what her style is. The earnest, bearded young man at the record store praised my choice, so I thought I'd stumbled on a hidden gem.

The sounds emanating from my homebuilt speakers were anything but precious, though. If ghosts in traps sang, this is what their songs would sound of -- discordant, growling, unintelligible.

Okay. I'm an open-minded dude. Pink Floyd has some weird intros too -- A Group of Small Furry Mammals in a Cave Grooving With A Pict, anyone?

So I kept listening.

It got worse. Growling, keening, muttering. The music, too, was strange -- slow, dragging, like a funeral procession gone inexplicably underwater.

Thor looked up at me, his head tilted in doggie confusion. He listened with me for a moment, and then he came to his feet and, for the first time in all my years with dogs, he began to howl at the record.

I went downstairs, sure I was experiencing some sort of turntable malfunction. I tried a different track with the same results.

Then I looked at the tiny print on the record label, which indicated the album might be a 45, rather than the usual 33 RPM record.

The jacket said nothing of the sort. Indeed, the jacket is so secretive it's hesitant to even reveal the album's name.

I switched to 45 RPM, and the sound quality improved, although the vocals do seem, to put it kindly, distant.

Anyway, I haven't made up my mind about Strange Cacti, since Thor won't let me play it without growling.

Okay, back to work for me! Have a good week, people. Be nice to strangers, kind to animals, and show cheese who is boss.


Tula Cemetery EVP recording, October 1, 2017

 

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