Usually, for me, ideas tend to hit right when I’m in the middle of doing something, hands covered in grease, in the shower, doing the dishes, etc. So usually, I’ll have to repeat the idea to myself until I can scramble for a notepad or my phone to jot down the idea and get it out of the brain pan.
Luckily the idea that hit recently, happened to be while we were hanging out in Pigeon Forge for the youngest child’s birthday.
The Sunliner was freaking awesome. Complete 50s-style diner with dudes in soda fountain uniforms, greaser outfits and the waitresses in poodle skirts. The grub was damned good too. And with as much of a Fallout Family as we are, Bubba started vibing when “The Wanderer” came on the vintage juke box.
And the day spent at the NASCAR speedpark was a blast.
Not only did we enjoy a little Car Warriors style fun and inspiration, Elayna said something random that inspired a mouthy little pixie who will be written into the Dragon anthology we’re doing next year.
Currently working on
I’m still trudging through the first draft of Black Tooth Grin, which will be the first modern Thriller style novel in the JTF-13 universe. In this novel, I tie back to my original novel, Widowmakers, with the modern incarnation of the Widowmakers (Wiskey Mike Squad). I’m working as hard as I can to get this one wrapped up before LibertyCon and ready to roll.
I had Jennie work up something, trying to get an idea of what I want for coverart, but that’ll be wrapped up after I get the draft done and into editing.
Enjoying
Being the gullible little “Jack of all”, when I saw this “Lock repair kit” for a little over $3, I snagged it up quick.
So far, I will say that it has been well worth the coin, even if you don’t intend to get serious and just want to piddle around to get an idea of how to pick a lock.
Hell, it even came in handy the other day when I had to pick the lock of an interior door for the neighbors because the baby had locked themselves into the room.
Besides that, the Word Witch picked up a tasty new cigar for me to try out. A Fat Bottom Betty from Drew Estate, that paired up nicely with a stout and a shot of Paddy’s Irish Whiskey. Paddy’s has pretty much become my go-to for sipping. Nice flavor and smooth. The cigar burned for a long while, great flavor and smooth as you can get.
Reading
Recently I burned through the first three Dungeon Crawler Carl’s by Matt Dinniman. Fair warning, you will laugh your ass off! It is a great escape from the daily and takes you on a wild ride with Carl, Donut, and Mongo.
Currently I’m going through “The 48 Laws of Power” which so far has been a great “philosophy” type read, with lots of historical references that in my opinion, brings ideas and perspectives from other texts such as “The Art of War, Volspa, & Havamal” together into one manuscript that can be applied to today’s society and scenarios in the modern perspective.
Playing
Here recently, most of my vegetation time has involved chilling with Mojong or fueling my Car Warriors inspiration with Wreckfest.
Listening To
Honestly, here lately I’ve been all over the place. Bouncing from metal, to Fallout Radio, to Darksynthwave, to EDM, back to Classic Rock and The Sword. I have been binging quite a bit of Revolution X and a new Industrial Metal band out of Australia, headed by an author I met after the last Apex Writers meeting I had the honor of teaching at.
The band is called “Ark of Light” and you can find them here. https://open.spotify.com/artist/4WJ2eoHlhVZ08chIDmjFRz?si=84CvC93LSrKFXuxrQObvVw
Writing Tip
Can I tell you a lie?
There’s something special about Military fiction of any kind, and if it’s written well, it takes us veterans back to the days with our brothers and sisters in arms; on deployments or back at our home bases, learning to be the best grunts we could be.
I enlisted in the United States Air Force, earned the callsign Hillbilly on day three of basic training, and became an F-15 CREW DAWG! (Crew Chief, Maintainer, or Tactical Aircraft Maintainer are also acceptable terms.) We worked our asses off keeping those twenty plus year old F-15’s airworthy. We were some of the grunts of the Air Force. Yeah, yeah… I can hear you knuckle dragging crayon eating types cracking Chair Force jokes already.
And…that’s alright. Because to a point, that was true. To get the differences across to people, I’d usually explain to them that I was actually part of what equated to the modern version of the Army Air Corps. The Chair Force existed on the other side of the base where all of the corporate style offices and hospital were, because that’s what it felt like. We truly did work our asses off, in every possibly shitty kind of weather you can imagine, and anything before the twelve hour mark on a shift was considered a cutback; all to keep those birds airworthy and ready to fly at a moment’s notice.
We worked hard and we played hard.
Now by this point, you’re probably thinking, what the hell is Hillbilly going on about?
It’s all a matter of the experience.
Think of it like this, and your chosen career path in service really doesn’t matter. You are what is considered a ‘content expert’ in your particular field, or even if you barely made it through the ranks to join the E-4 mafia, you know specifics to your part of the military.
Now how many times have you been watching a show on TV, or chilling with a great military flick or reading a book and you immediately picked out bullshit handwavium that someone tried to slip into the story like a snake oil salesman.
We all know that if you aren’t writing modern military fiction, there will be some level of handwavium. It’s just how it works. Plasma cannons and blaster pistols replace trusty, field-proven equipment.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s guns, tanks, aircraft, or even that special red stapler that laser etches your name on everything it staples. The point is, great handwavium in military fiction should feel natural, it should feel correct for the particular branch of service. That laser carbine you just bullshitted your way into the universe should feel so real to any ground-pounding grunt that they’re ready to pick it up and go.
Now, for those of you who aren’t veterans, or were stuck as a cook instead of doing tour after tour on fire teams in some of the worst places around the world. You won’t have that experience. You won’t know what kind of flavor to lace into your works.
So, what do you do?
You, research.
Now granted, the internet is a great and powerful tool, but to really get down to the nitty gritty, you reach out to those ‘content experts’ to gain the knowledge you need. Never fired a gun in your life? It might be a good idea to hit up a local range to understand the feel of a weapon in your hand, the smell of the burnt gunpowder, or the sudden cacophony that the weapon produces when fired. You try to get as close of an actual analog to what you are writing into your stories to get the realism correct. Talk to vets, buy them a drink, and listen to their stories. It is amazing what you can learn.
Visit museums. See the weapons of war up close and personal to get a true perspective of scale.
And then, you’ll have gained the tools to step up your game and tell everyone those little lies, that sound like whole cloth truths.
Perspective and content matter a great deal in my opinion. And can easily solidify the plausible likelihood of your work, keeping the reader engaged instead of dropped out of the story and contemplating the validity of that thing you created.
So go ahead. Work on your pitch, and tell me a lie.
Patreon
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Until next time, keep your heads up and your pens sharp
~WJR~