54,357

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1,237.
4,381.

Numbers, just numbers. Or so it would appear.

But each of those numbers represents something important to me.

54,357 is hours spent in front of my computer, sometimes so deep in thought that my house could have fallen down around me and I would not have noticed.
54,357 is a labor of love.
54,357 is my attempt to make the world a better place.
54,357 is laughter and learning to stand up for yourself.
54,357 is heartbreak and hope.
54,357 is the word count of Gray Zone.
54,357 is a finished book.

1,237 and 4,381, on the other hand, represent beginnings.

1,237 is a new kid’s book, a fantasy novel related to the Behold the Eye trilogy, but not a continuation of it.
1,237 is the chance to enter an entirely new world.
1,237 is looking forward to losing myself for hours as I build that world.
1,237 is meeting new characters and making them real.
1,237 is just an outline, but it is an outline that I can use to build something wonderful.

4,381 is a second Department of Temporal Adjustment book.
4,381 is delving into the intricacies of time travel.
4,381 is exploring history, and figuring out which events most effected our present.
4,381 is recreating our world in a different way.
4,381 is the outline and summary of chapters. A very good beginning indeed.

54,357.
1,237.
4,381.
Digits strung together to form a number.
Or are they more?

DTA is on Kindle!

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When I opened the email I almost jumped for joy, I was so happy.

I had been waiting, for what seemed like forever, for Department of Temporal Adjustment to be made available on Amazon in the Kindle format.

And now it’s there!

I think I’ll reread it. Only this time, I’ll read it as an ebook.

I have two books in the works currently (I’m not including Gray Zone, since it’s finished), and one of them is connected to DTA. It probably wouldn’t hurt to remind myself of the ins and outs of the story.

 

Why I wrote Gray Zone

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Bullies have been around for as long as anyone
can remember. We’ve all seen them. They are the
biggest, baddest kids on the playground and everyone knows to stay out of their way.

But there is a new breed of bully in town, one that is unseen and virtually invisible. A sneaky breed that hides a cruel streak that drives the bullying behavior behind a screen name. A breed that pummels a victim with negativity much more brutally than the old style bully could with his fists.

These cyberbullies do it partly because it is so easy. It takes very little effort to snap an embarrassing picture with a phone and post it, spread a rumor via twitter, or send an abusive text.

From the bully’s point-of-view it’s little different than a game. None of it is really real. It all happens in the no man’s land that is the digital world. And the digital world is, after all, simply a fairy tale land made up of wispy clouds of data.

Besides, the bully is safely hidden behind a mask. No one knows who contributed that comment or posted that humiliating picture, so as far as the bully’s is concerned, there’s no reason for guilt.

But the victim’s point-of-view is quite different since she can never escape the bully’s insulting taunts.  And instead of an embarrassing moment dying a natural death, it goes viral. Suddenly everybody knows about it. Life becomes a misery.

And stays that way. Zombie-data lives on forever on the Internet. Rude comments, insulting tweets, and mortifying pictures never truly die, they just keep coming back over, and over, and over again. There is no escape.

This is the world that we live in, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Our first task to to make everyone understand that the digital world IS a part of our world. What goes on in that crazy, mixed up place doesn’t stay there.

It is what Gray Zone is all about.

 

New word for the EER

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Ridiculosity is a noun that means something that is silly, funny, or absurd.
Worthy of ridicule.

It is a good word, for as far as it goes.

The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough. It isn’t ridiculous enough to mean something that is the ultimate of ridiculousness.

For that we need a new word. A word that represents a new era in which people have found a way to be more ridiculous than in any other era.

Yes, people, we now live in the Era of Extreme Ridiculosity (the EER for short). An era that was invented by the Media (although named by me), nurtured by the Internet, and given a huge injection of growth serum by smart phones with cameras.

So I would like to propose a new word that was created by my husband.

He thought long and hard for this word. He wanted it to portray the true flavor of what it is to be ridiculous while still appearing normal enough to be plausible.

Drum roll please….

The new word is:

Ridiculosilo

Ridiculosilo is the low comedy of ridiculous. It is supreme ridiculousness. It defines the ultimate amount of ridiculosity.

It’s an extremely good word. Quite appropriate for the EER, don’t you think?

Use it well and use it often.

 

A post by Emily Walsh

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I usually don’t have guest bloggers. But sometimes a message comes along that is worth sharing.

My husband spent more than twenty years serving in the military. The well-being of veterans is very important to me.

So without further ado, I would like to share this post written by Emily Walsh, Community Outreach Blogger for the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance.

 

Helping Veterans Adjust to Civilian Life in a Healthy Manner

 

In many ways, military life is different than civilian life. Since most veterans enter service shortly after they leave home, many do not learn the skills they need to keep themselves healthy. Adjusting to an unstructured life can be difficult for many, and veterans may need help from friends or family members to adjust appropriately. Here are some of the ways in
which friends and family members can help veterans make the adjustment to civilian life.

 

Make health a structured activity
One of the best ways to help veterans is to help them structure their lives. Many aspects of health can be greatly aided by structured routines. For example, setting aside particular times for cooking and preparing meals can help veterans eat healthy. In addition, viewing
exercise as a requirement instead of an optional activity may help as well. One problem many veterans face is not adjusting their eating habits after leaving the service; military personnel burn many calories during the day, and those who keep eating the same amount of food while reducing their physical activity will likely put on a significant amount of weight. Structure can help.

 

Regular medical examinations
Veterans are often trained to quietly suffer their pains, and many are reluctant to rely on doctors when their health may be at risk. Friends and family members can encourage veterans to see their doctors on a regular basis and be honest about any problems they are experiencing. Those who are suffering from cancer, for example, have much better survival
odds if their cancer is detected early. Unfortunately, some veterans may have come into contact with as asbestos during their service, and asbestos has been conclusively linked to the dangerous cancer mesothelioma. By stressing the importance of making medical examinations part of their lives, veterans can increase their odds of surviving illnesses.

 

Building support networks
Veterans rely on others who serve with them while the service, but some become isolated upon leaving the military. Unfortunately, this can lead to isolation and difficulty in making new friends. By encouraging veterans to reach out to others and to build a support network,
it may be possible to stave off the likelihood of mental illness while giving veterans a group of friends they can rely on if they need help.

Dogs and cats

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The world is divided into two categories, dog people and cat people.
Which isn’t quite right. It should more like a Venn diagram.
I can’t be the only person in the world who likes both dogs and cats. I refuse to believe that.
That said, I haven’t had much opportunity to get to know any cats in recent years. My husband’s allergy to the little critters made sure of that.
But I do have a dog, or to be exact, one of the cutest dogs that has ever existed. She’s scruffy, fluffy, playful, and so soft and cuddly that she could be mistaken for a toy animal.

She loves us unconditionally and has a very sweet personality. Give her a toy or scratch her behind her ears or on her belly and she’s in hog heaven…or maybe dog heaven.
Recently I finally got the chance to spend some quality time with a feline friend. A little black ball of fur named Jinx.
At first, I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d heard stories of fiercely independent cats who would rather watch a fly navigate the ceiling than give a person the time of day.
Could I make friends with such a creature? Would she scratch me or bite me? Or worse, pretend that I didn’t exist?
I am very happy to report that my fears have proven to be unfounded. Little Jinx is a friendly creature who seems to love unconditionally and has a very sweet personality. Give her a toy or scratch her behind her ears or on her belly and she’s in hog heaven…or maybe cat heaven.
Hey! That reminds me of someone. But who?

Free for all!

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I’ve read about them. Those caped crusaders who troll the Internet, searching for poor consumers who are unable to pay for the movies, books, and articles they crave.

“No fee, make it free! Free for all,” they cry through their masks. “No one should charge for content on the Internet. It must be made available to all who want it, for free!”

So they set up sites to provide that much wanted content to the poor, helpless, needy masses trapped in the wasteland of the virtual world. The angelic smiles of the masked ones glow sweetly as they watch the poor, starving masses ravenously gobble it all down.

Virtual feeding of the masses. A noble life’s work indeed.

So what if the content is stolen?
And who cares if the caped ones populate their sites with ads to make a few bucks on the side? Who can blame them? Behind those masks they are real people. They do, after all, need to eat.

The important thing is that they have provided for the little people.

They have righted a wrong. They have taken what was created by the greedy–the writers, filmmakers, photographers, and other content creators–and made it available to all.

Copyright, schmopyright.

Those content creators–the writers, filmmakers, software developers, and so forth–aren’t real people anyway. They don’t need to eat.

Besides, why should they get paid for what they call their “hard work”? What’s so hard about it?

“No fee, make it free! Free for all!”
The caped crusaders troll on.

That CRASH can only mean…

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I am sitting in my office (a comfy chair in my kitchen) when a loud
CRASH
in the living room startles me.

It’s 8 am. My husband has already left for work and my two daughters are both still snuggled in their beds, sound asleep. The dog is upstairs dreaming about cats. Or maybe bacon.

So why the noise?

The light from my laptop is bright, but not bright enough to see into the other room. And if any truism of life works, it is that mysterious noises will make me crave light. Lots and lots of light.

I quietly put down my laptop and tiptoe over to the nearest light switch. As light floods the kitchen I breath a sigh of relief. There are no monsters lurking in the kitchen. I’m safe.

Except the noise came from the living room, not the kitchen. The oh-so-dark-with-no-nearby-lightswitch living room.

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and quietly place my foot on the first of two steps into the living room. I scan the abyss of darkness, searching for any sign of movement. Luckily, there is none.

I step down again, but this time the stairs squeak. In a panic I throw caution to the wind and race to the lamp to click on the light.

As glorious light floods the living room I take a moment to calm my frayed nerves. I scan the room, looking for something, anything, that could have made that horribly loud CRASH.

That’s when I spotted it. A flower in a pot on my dining room table, lying on its side.

It was the only thing in the room out of place.

But how did it fall? What could cause a plant to suddenly tip over like that?

And then I realize there is only one explanation that makes sense.

The Jupiterians are back!

You might think me crazy. After all, the Jupiterians are prone to annoying pranks.  But I’m kind of glad they’re back. I’ve missed the mischievous little aliens.

I wonder where they’ve been for the past year and a half?