Yesterday, Melissa and I went to Barnes and Noble. I had a great conversation about books and authors with someone that worked there, and he recommend this book to me. I wouldn’t have found it otherwise, since I mostly hang out in the Fantasy and Science Fiction sections, and this was in General Fiction.

Brian’s Summary:

What if there is one true religion, and it’s Zoroastrianism? The main character, Soren Johansson, a devout Mormon, discovers the truth the hard way, when he dies and goes to Hell. The story is about his journey through a particular hell, in which he must find the book of his life before he can move on to heaven.

The Review:

I’ll try to do this without spoilers, though apparently the book has been out for 13 years or so.

It’s very good! I recommend it.

I appreciate the craft of it. The prose, and the execution. It manages to cover a nearly unimaginable scope of time and space, without losing track of the character and emotional journey.

I’ll say it again: It’s very good.

It’s written in first person. It’s short. Probably around 25,000 words. I easily read it one sitting, with gray daylight streaming in the window and a cat on my lap.

While reading it, I thought I could see something of a puzzle in the story.

When I finished reading it, I sat back and thought about it for a little while. I’m not sure the conclusion is satisfying, but then, I don’t know that there is a satisfying way to conclude this kind of story.

I hadn’t looked at blurbs on the back until I finished. When I did, I discovered a familiar name: Dan Wells. In his blurb, he says ‘it will haunt you, fittingly, for a very, very long time.’ The next time I see Dan, I’ll ask if he still thinks about this story.

I think Michael Gallowglas will enjoy this book. The next time I see him, I’ll give him this copy.

Other Thoughts:

I’m not sure I’m particularly good at book reviews. I’ve only done a couple, and I feel like I should do more.

The problem is that I’m critical about some things that most people don’t care about, and I’m more forgiving about some things that other people complain about. I want to fall into a story and feel something, and if the prose is too cheap or lazy, I’m going to be distracted by that and fail to engage. Once I’m into the story, though, I can forgive and ignore plot holes or inconsistencies, as long as the emotions I’m feeling are real.

I didn’t have those problems reading A Short Stay in Hell. The writing was far from lazy, and the emotions I felt were profound.

If you’ve read it, let me know, and maybe we can talk about it. If you’d like to see more reviews from me, let me know that, too.

The title of this post is killing it.

Anyway.

Earlier today, Stephen King posted this to BlueSky:

Don’t know how you feel about Brad Sigmond being executed by firing squad in SC, but the report in THE GUARDIAN kinda glossed over the fact that he beat his gf’s parents to death.

— Stephen King (@stephenking.bsky.social) 2025-03-08T17:03:19.978Z

The replies to this are mostly people “debating” the merits and follies of the death penalty, and since I just got up from a ridiculously long nap, I figured I’d talk about it and potentially, alienate some people that disagree with me.

The question: Am I strictly opposed to the death penalty?

My answer: It’s complicated.

I don’t trust The State to execute people, but I can probably get behind a jury deciding that the evidence surrounding a crime is sufficient to warrant execution.

Maybe I need to go back a few steps and start with: Is killing ever acceptable?

I detest war, but soldiers are going to kill each other on the field of battle. So, I’m not going to blame a Ukrainian soldier fighting and killing the forces invading their country. I will judge harshly the people that started the war, however, but the soldiers put into a position where they must fight or die are blameless, in my eyes.

I also believe self-defense can justify lethal retaliation. This is not Brian Buhl saying that it’s okay for one kid to kill another kid on the street because they got in a fight. However, if someone were in their home and another person entered it, brandishing a weapon with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, the person defending themselves may have no choice.

The details matter.

I can imagine scenarios where homicide is justified. It follows, then, that I can imagine a legal system which allows for the death penalty.

What about the case Stephen King is citing?

I don’t know anything about that case. Without looking at evidence, I’m opposed to killing the accused. Is there video evidence of Brad Sigmund beating his girlfriend’s parents to death? Did the police pull up to the scene and find him in the act, with bits and pieces of the victims all of Brad Sigmund, in his hair and in his clothes, all while he was grinning like The Joker and slavering to keep going?

It’s okay to kill an irredeemable monster, in my opinion. The word “irredeemable” and “monster” are doing a lot of work in that sentence, though. If someone was out of control of their actions, and the condition that put them into a murderous state is curable, then we shouldn’t kill them. They should spend the rest of their lives trying to cleanse their soul.

I guess this is a long way of saying that I’m not completely opposed to the death penalty, but I believe the justification for its use requires an overwhelming preponderance of evidence. The crime must be comprised of actions so heinous that no other punishment can be justified. And, the evidence must convince a jury.

I’m not going to look up Brad Sigmond. I think the firing squad thing is iffy. I’m not sure any of the execution methods we have are humane enough. Maybe we shouldn’t have death penalties until we figure out that anesthesia should be involved, or something.

In other news, my birthday was fine. Very quiet, which is what I asked for. Since I deleted Facebook, I didn’t wake up to a ton of messages. I got a card from my mother-in-law yesterday, and a card from Mary Robinette. I played games with Mike, John, and Nick, which was nice. And then the next day, an Nvidia update tried to eat my computer.

Last weekend, I wrote 1100 words in the next Mel Walker novel. Tomorrow, I’m hoping to finish that chapter and move on to the next.

I hope you all had a great Brian-mas!

Right around the time one of the worst people in the world became President again, I went quiet here again. Not only that, I’ve struggled to focus on writing.

If you’re not aware, he’s done all of the following:

• Referred to himself as King, and posted images of himself in a crown to social media
• Planned genocide for Gaza
• Repeated Russian talking points and worsened our relations with our allies
• Tried to broker a deal for “peace in Ukraine” in which Russia gets everything
• Withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement (again)
• Started the process of withdrawing the US from WHO
• Pardoned January 6 Insurrectionists
• Appointed some of the absolutely worst people to positions of power, including RFK Jr, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, the DUI guy from Fox… honestly too many to list or remember, and that’s without mentioning Musk
• Approved a budget that completely eliminates Medicaid
• All his tariff nonsense
• Continued to execute the dreadful plan laid out in Project 2025

He’s fired FAA agents when the FAA were already understaffed. He’s fired scientists and experts from the CDC that are responsible for managing our response to H5N1.

He continuously promotes racism, starting with his unconstitutional executive order to end birthright citizenship. He defies checks and balances, ignores court orders, and threatens to withhold federal dollars to states when he feels they’re not bending the knee to him. First he started it with disaster relief for California. Today, he went at it with Maine’s governor.

There are things I’m forgetting. It’s so much, all the time, every day, and it’s overwhelming.

I can barely focus at work, let alone focus on my writing or these blog posts.

I don’t know how other people are staying functional when all of this bullshit is going on.

Some people have taken to the streets. Good! Some republicans are showing up to Republican held district townhalls and booing their representatives. Excellent!

It’s not enough, though.

Opposition to Trump and Musk continues to play by the rules, but it’s a sucker’s game. Trump and Musk are doing whatever they want, violating the rules, wiping their ass with The Constitution, and phone calling our representatives isn’t going to cut it this time.

We need actual leadership. We need an actual resistance.

Maybe we need to start breaking things. Not institutions and structures and objects which serve the people, but things that Trump and Musk value. People are already hurting, and we should try not to hurt American citizens more.

I wonder how I would feel if I read about Mara Lago getting burned to the ground. Or the destruction of a Tesla manufacturing plant.

It would be irresponsible of me to encourage that type of criminal activity, but I’m sure it’s legal for me to wonder about what the world would be like if such calamity should ensue.

If I was writing political thriller right now, I’d have a lot of material to work with. Maybe the final Mel Walker book will involve more politics. It will be about The End of the World, after all.

Anyways.

I hope you’re all hanging in there and staying more productive than I am.

It’s Saturday afternoon. My good friend Mike Baltar visited me today, and we went out together to a local coffee shop, HOLY COFFEE.

Positives:

1. It’s local
2. The coffee wasn’t bad
3. It’s not that far from my house
4. Really nice seating
5. Free wifi

Negatives:

1. Unobvious store front — it might be part of a church?
2. Christian music seemed a little loud

I didn’t have any problems writing there. I finally started making some progress on chapter 2. Any progress is good progress at this point.

We didn’t stay too long. We came back to my house and participated in the Water Dragon Publishing bi-weekly meeting. I relayed some ideas and thoughts I’ve had about independent publishing for a while, and the ideas were well received. We just have to have some follow through.

My thoughts, in a nutshell:

We need to build a plan for networking across different small and independent publishers. We need to establish a pattern, apply it, and spread the word. Individually, we all have a small reach. Together, we might be able to extend to a wider audience. This is especially true with the collapse of marketing through social media.

“Hold up, Brian. What do you mean by ‘the collapse of marketing through social media?'”

I mean, it’s all shitty, now. It was shitty before, but it’s gotten worse. The algorithms on both Twitter and Facebook suppress user generated content, especially if it looks like an advertisement. If you want to advertise there, you need to pay those platforms some money, otherwise your engagement will be nearly non-existent.

Also, Twitter and the Meta platforms are all rancid, both politically and morally. I’ve already talked about that.

You can advertise on BlueSky, but with about 30 million users, it’s still a relatively small (but growing) platform. There is no algorithm to suppress you, but there isn’t much to help your voice spread beyond the breadth of your current followers. There’s a couple of feeds that might help, but I don’t think it’s something you can rely on.

What we need is networking at a higher level. We independent and small publishers to cross pollinate. We need to support each other, ethically and effectively.

I’ve got ideas. Maybe their unrealistic dreams, but it’s something I’m going to work on.

If you’re reading this and you’re a small or independently published author, and you’d like me to review your book and post my honest, no-holds-barred review here, let me know. You don’t have to give me your book. I’ll look at the blurbs and buy it, if it seems like my cup of tea.

It is January 21st, 2025. We’re one (1) day into Trump’s second term, and it’s already a lot.

If you’re a writer, Mary Robinette posted a reminder of a video she has free on Patreon, which may help with productivity during these… uhm… interesting times.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/free-class-to-116768310

Beyond staying productive and busy, we must pace ourselves.

I deleted Twitter a while ago, and Facebook and Instagram last week, so one might think I sufficiently reduced the Social Media Attack Surface(tm). But no. BlueSky was going crazy today about everything, at high volume, constantly.

For example, there was great consternation about Marco Rubio getting unanimous approval from the Senate for Secretary of State. People were yelling about how Democrats are cowards, caving, yadda-yadda.

It’s important to maintain perspective on these things. Some asshole just swore to uphold The Constitution, then with his first set of executive orders, tried to wipe his ass with the 14th Amendment and end birthright citizenship. These are both terrible news, but the Dems giving Rubio a pass doesn’t even hit my top 10 list of bad things that happened already.

As I see it, there’s three types of people dealing with this news.

1. People like me that looked at Project 2025 and started grieving as soon as the election was over. If you’re like me, you’re viewing these executive orders without surprise, because it was telegraphed. I’m kind of numb right now. I hate it, but nothing that’s happened the last couple of days is a real shock.
2. People that voted for Trump, thinking they were going to get something other than what he is. He made your medicine more expensive. He’s putting the military in charge of the border. He’s going after trans folks, and minorities, and he’s unironically executing a witch hunt of our national security agencies. This group of people that voted for Trump may be experiencing some sticker shock. They were duped, or they didn’t believe people like me that said Trump was a monster, or maybe they’re still in disbelief and just hoping it’ll all be okay when the price of eggs goes down. Friends, the price of eggs is not going down. When he gets to the tariff portion of his dance, watch in shock and horror as the price of things you dearly love goes up.
3. People that voted for Trump, getting exactly what they want. These are the racists, misogynists, Nazis, flat-earthers, fart smellers, mouth-breathers… you get it. These are the people that hate trans, gays, Mexicans, and women that don’t smile enough. A lot of them call themselves Christians, but actual Christians aren’t like this. Some people in this group aren’t dumb, either. They’re just opportunistic.

If you’re in Group 3, I don’t know what you’re doing here. I have been anti-Trump for about a decade. I’m not going to change your mind, and I don’t care what you have to say. If you’re still pro-Trump after all that he’s done, and all that’s trying to do, you and I cannot be friends. Our morality is incompatible.

If you’re in Group 1, you probably already know what I’m about to say.

Group 2 folks, I see you. You didn’t tell me you voted for Trump because you wanted to stay friends with me, but I knew, and I still care for you. I’m not going to say, “I told you so.” We can be cool.

We’re all fucked. The World Health Organization, The Paris Climate Agreement… the lawless idiot wants us to get sick and ruin our future. He does not care about you. He does not care about this country. He does not care about making a better future.

The only way to get through this is to hold each other up. Support each other. Look out for the people being targeted and give them your love and support and protection.

Pace yourself. There is a lot of shock and rough emotion right now. There is no one out there that is going to come in and make things right. It’s all up to us, so don’t burn out emotionally in the first week.

When I started writing The Repossessed Ghost, it was just after midnight on November 1st, 2013. In the story, Mel stole the ’74 Chevy Nova during Halloween, right before the first chapter begins. In other words, I set The Repossessed Ghost in the same time period as I was writing the story.

It took years to actually finish the book, and it was about a decade after I began it that it was published. It’s remains readable because I didn’t put in too many temporally topical subjects. The worst offender is probably a mention of hurricane Katrina, and that’s only a problem because hurricanes like that are fairly common now.

I mention this today because I’m working on The Psychic Out of Time, and there sure are a lot of temporally relevant topics on mind right now.

I can tell you that I’m going to mention Covid. I’m probably not going to mention Trump directly. While I may have strong opinions about US politics, Mel is not me, and he’s mostly focused on the supernatural world. I’m not necessarily doing this to make my story palatable to a broader audience, but I’m also not not doing that, if you get my meaning. The story is the boss, Mel is driving it, and I’m writing a supernatural thriller, not a political thriller.

That being said, I can’t help but take a moment today to think about the state of the US as of today, and maybe offer some advice to like-minded individuals. We are living in unprecedented times.

Here is my list of advice, or things to remember, in no particular order:

• Do not expect The Constitution to protect you. We gave a lawless man the keys to the kingdom, and he’s violated The Constitution before without repercussion, during his first term. The question is no longer whether an action or inaction is constitutional or not. The question is what will the courts enforce.
• Human lives are worth more than money. This is a big one, and in this day and age, the hardest one for people to overcome. The power that the oligarchy wields is their wealth, and if you cannot be bought and told what to do via the promise of a cash payout, you cannot be controlled. There will always be people that value money over human life. Make sure you, your friends, and your family aren’t amongst that crowd, and you should be fine.
• We have more in common than differences. I’m not just talking about Democrats, or liberals, or people like me. All of us, regardless of the color of our skin, the gender in our hearts, the ancestry in our blood, are more alike than we are different. It’s through finding our common ground that we can connect and hold each other up.
• De-escalate without compromise. For the foreseeable future, we’re going to experience a lot of conflict. The best thing we can do is try to keep the conflict civil. Find the common ground. Find ways to keep things from getting violent. But also, do not compromise with people that are acting in bad faith. We cannot compromise with people that want to end the existence of other people. The current targeted demographic is trans people. This is a small minority of our population, and they’re just people trying to live their best life. We have to protect them without compromise, and we have to find a way to do so while trying to de-escalate tensions. Artists and storytellers, this is what we were made for.
• Remain skeptical, especially when the message comes from something without a face, and particularly if it is trying to heap praise on Trump he does not deserve. The most recent example is TikTok. Trump started the ball rolling on the TikTok ban. Two days before getting sworn in, the TikTok ban took effect. It was down for less than 24 hours. The reality is that the law was signed into effect by Biden, who said he was not going to enforce the law. TikTok went down anyway, with a message stating that Trump would fix it as president. Then it came back up, before Trump was president, praising him for restoring it. It’s propaganda, and shouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone.
• You do not need to participate in every argument you’re invited to.
• When you rebel, be smart about it. You have one life. No one enjoys their own martyrdom.

That’s probably enough for now. We have one life, and we have each other. We’re probably going to see atrocities, but the future is uncertain.

We had a chance to course correct in November, and we collectively blew it. Now, it’s up to us to hold onto what we can and hold each other up.

I’ve talked about Spin City a few times here. It’s a rewrite of The Arthur Kane Stories that I started when I was 16. I wrote some silly adventures following Arthur starting when I was around 13 or 14, but it wasn’t until I was 16 that I wrote anything really worth mentioning. It was after my Dad died, and I wrote through my grief. It helped me process, and it changed my relationship with writing.

We have some tough times in front of us. Earlier tonight, TikTok was shut down, with a message praising Trump for his promise to help bring TikTok back after his inauguration. Never mind the fact that he’s the one that got the TikTok ban started back in 2020 as a reaction to people on TikTok trolling him over one of his rallies. He tried to ban TikTok with an executive order and failed. But the 170 million people that loved TikTok today are probably not going to remember that little detail.

This isn’t about TikTok, or Trump, or anything overtly political tonight. This is about writing when the times get tough. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s hard.

While writing Spin City, I had to take a break because of something that happened during the story. One of the characters met an end, and it made me sad. She had become one of my favorite characters to write, and it would have been an injustice to her and to the story to bend the plot to save her. She died in the story, and I had to stop working on it for a little bit to mourn. But then I kept going.

I’m working on The Psychic Out of Time and the tough times are two-fold. First, real-life is rough. It’s hard looking at what’s going on in this world, the rise of an oligarchy, the death of a free and open Internet, and not feel some amount of sadness. There are solid reasons to be sad, and it makes it hard for me to put my head down and focus on the story.

Within the story, at the very beginning, Mel is grieving the loss of someone very important to him. In order to make a character like Mel be real, I need to go with him through his emotional journey, and the emotions he’s going through at the very start are not pleasant.

“But Brian, if the story is such a bummer at the beginning, how will anyone enjoy it?”

It takes longer to write the story than it does to read it. It took me months to write the first chapter. A reader will breeze through it in under an hour, so they won’t have to linger with the darker emotions for as long.

Besides, the darkness makes the light that much brighter. And there will be humor and light in the story. Just not immediately.

This weekend, I want to get another chapter written down. The writing helps me get through the hard times, and there are a lot of hard times coming. If you have even a curiosity about writing, I encourage you to write something now, too. Pour it out on the page, and see what it looks like. It will probably make you feel good, and it may come out better than you expect.

I posted announcements on Facebook and Instagram that I’m deleting those accounts.

I’ve wanted to delete those accounts since the first Trump election. I thought it was enough to just post less. But recent policy changes make it a moral issue I can’t ignore.

To be clear, this isn’t about the fact checker thing, though I do think that’s shitty, too. Regardless of whether it’s community notes or fact checkers, I don’t believe anything from the Meta platforms. No one should.

This is about the other policy change.

I’m (probably) not part of the LGBTQ+ community, but I will not shop or do business with places with policies that negatively target them.

My action isn’t going to change anything. It’s not going to send a message. It’ll probably hurt me more than Meta.

It’s not really about Meta at this point, though. It’s about what I’m willing to live with. I quit going to that chicken sandwich place because I found their policies unpalatable. I’m quitting Meta for the same reason.

I make this statement publicly not for praise, but because I hope others do the same.

In the long run, I think I’m going to be happier with fewer social media connections. Social media is like artificial sugar. It can be sweet, and it can fool you for a little while into thinking you’re getting what you need, but it’s fake and potentially cancerous.

If you’re still maintaining a presence on Facebook and Instagram, I encourage you to do some self examination and determine if it’s what you really can live with. Would you go to a restaurant that you knew maintained policies that were actively harmful to a minority?

I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was going to write a blog post every day. I’m going to write more frequent blog posts, but I’m not going to force myself to write one every day. I don’t want them to be forced, and I want them to have slightly more substance.

The plan this morning was to get up, drive my car to Folsom and back, hole up in a Starbucks, and start the next chapter of The Psychic Out of Time. My car needed the drive in order to charge the battery, and since I’m planning on going into the office next week, I need my car functional. Also, Melissa likes it when I drive her around. She’s enjoyed long rides since before we were married.

Unfortunately, the car didn’t start. In fact, my clicker wouldn’t unlock the doors. And, I rediscovered that someone jammed something in the keyhole, so I couldn’t use my key to unlock the door. I couldn’t get inside, so I couldn’t pop the trunk and get access to the battery. Quite the conundrum.

If I were Mel Walker, it wouldn’t have been a problem. He knows his way around cars. He would have known exactly what to do to get the hood open. He knows how to get doors open when you don’t have the key. But I’m not Mel Walker, even if I write him in first person.

Fortunately, there’s enough Mel Walker in me that I was able to solve the problem with a little bit of instruction. I searched online and found a video showing someone opening a similar car as mine. With their model of Mustang, they could go through the grill with a stick to pop the release. With mine, I needed to slide on my back through mud beneath the front bumper, and then trigger the release with a screwdriver.

One quick trip to the auto parts store later, and Melissa and I are sitting in a Starbucks after all. My car is functional with a new battery, and I have a new skill in my back pocket if I ever need to give Mel something to further prove aptitude as a novice mechanic.

This morning, I woke up a little earlier than usual, with The Psychic Out of Time on my mind. When I sat down to write Thursday, I was only going to poke around at the story for thirty minutes or so. I didn’t have a lot of confidence going into the writing session. I wrote for 90 minutes, and I finished the end of chapter one, which had been troubling me for a while.

The only reason I stopped writing was because I wasn’t sure how to start chapter 2. I know what is supposed to be in it, but that’s not the same as knowing how to continue. This morning, I woke up with an answer in mind. So I can keep going.

I’m genuinely happy with how this story is going so far. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to finish, and there’s still some stuff in the middle and towards the end which are foggy to me, but my confidence in producing a good sequel novel is high right now.

Soon, I’m going to write a post about the importance of audience.

There’s some interesting things I want to talk about, but before I do, I feel like I need to spend at least a little bit of time catching up.

I want to make my life better. I hope I made that clear yesterday. It’s not a New Year’s Resolution thing, but I am using the new year as motivation for making positive changes. Maybe it is a New Year’s Resolution thing, but I’m going to insist it isn’t because New Year’s Resolutions statistically fail, whereas making small lifestyle adjustments is how you make lasting change.

Here is a list that is The State of Brian, which will give us a starting point. Before you can change something, you have to know what it is first.

• The scales say I’m 227lbs. Last year, I started off around this weight and lost around 20lbs. Things got crazy, I quit caring about my health or what I look like, and I gained all the weight back.
• My hair is longer than ever. I don’t hate it.
• I haven’t written anything new in a couple months.
• I withdrew from everyone.
• I’ve been playing a lot of video games.
• Doomscrolling. So much doomscrolling.
• I take naps, now. I’ve never been a napper, but now I seem to nap every day.
• I’m not sleeping that well at night. I don’t think it’s because I’m napping, but I do think I’m napping because I’m not sleeping well.

Here are the changes I’m trying to make.

• Melissa and I are both doing a low-carb diet. This is how I lost a ton of weight when I was in my thirties, and again in my mid-forties. It mostly involves means I eat less bread and pasta and certain starches. I can eat pretty much whatever for breakfast, then it’s low carb, simple foods for lunch and dinner.
• I dusted off my Meta Quest 2 and got on the exercise bike this evening. My legs are jelly and I’m drenched with sweat, but it wasn’t bad. This is probably an every-other-day activity until I’m in better shape.
• I weight myself today. I had not been on the scale since May or June last year. I plan on weighing every week.
• When I got to my desk this morning, I made a list of activities to accomplish before bed time. I used to do this all the time, and I’m more productive and more active when I make a list like this. The list today included: blog post, exercise, write for 30 minutes, read for 30 minutes, and one of my work tasks I’ve been putting off.
• I received a Sodastream for Christmas, so I’m making my own bubbly water and dabbling with various flavors left over from when I was making my own Soylent. Ultimately, this is getting me to drink more water.

Am I addressing all of the things I want to change? No, not yet. But I’m setting modest goals and taking actions within my means to address most of the things. If I stick with the diet and exercise, my weight will go down again. When I weigh less, I might sleep easier at night, and not need to nap as much during the day. When I’m less tired, I may have a greater outlook and spend time with friends again.

I don’t think the doomscrolling is going to go away, though, because we still live in the worst timeline. But hey. Maybe getting healthier, writing, and putting more positivity back into the world is how we win.