David Barron's Blog

295 posts later...

The End?



Well, that was fun.



This blog was glorious, but I've got a fancy new site going on now (Check it out at H2NHePub.com!). This blog was so awesome, though. It kept me sane in a time of great boredom and ridiculousness and madness—jungle madness, the worst kind—and it taught me how to write.



That is, it taught me the lost art of Dedication. The First 200 Days of this blog were a glorious daily blogging extravaganza, which I finally had to stop because I was too busy writing fiction. Check 'em out in the archives, they're all quite good.



Going forward, what I want to do is take the best thirty or so posts from in here and refresh them for my current thinking, posting them at H2NH ePub under the title "Wednesday reWrite" in addition to the regularly scheduled awesome that's happening over there.



I'm going to leave this site untouched from now on. Feel free to buy books from the links in the side, but assume that everything in the schedule is completely out of date. Check out the blogroll, though, because I haven't migrated that over yet.



So, what does this site mean to me? It's an great picture of what I did to become a burgeoning pro, turning my mental instability into gold, learned how to program a bit, figured out how to edit images, discovered The Internet, and myself...oh, and in the midst of all that? I got a beautiful fiancée.



I'm a writer.




Those were the first words on this blog, and they're just as true today as they were then, with one addition:



I'm an author.




Thanks for reading!

by David Barron

August 7, 2010 - July 31, 2012

finAvailable Stories

Satellite of Lust


SFJ03


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

More of the Sun




Blurb

Jeremiad, lounge lizard revolutionary, is captured and
interrogated. What could be worse than that? Well, for one, there’s no bar.




Memories

before reading

Now that Jeremiad is an established character, I wanted to
tell more stories with him. This is the one that developed.




Review

after reading

In this one, we learn about Jeremiad’s philosophy...and his
ruthlessness. There’ll be more, later. I guarantee it. His war’s not over yet.




Next Week

(Fantasy)




Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

Pure Humanity


SFJ02


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

More of the Sun




Blurb

Fast-talking Jeremiad picks up a woman in a bar on Ceres
only to discover that they’re both on the run from the same crowd. Of course,
there’s more beneath the surface of this lounge lizard revolutionary…




Memories

before reading

I couldn’t just leave Jeremiad alone, so I wrote a sequel
exploring his youth, and with a new exciting adventure.




Review

after reading

We get some more details about Jeremiad’s background, and
why he’s a revolutionary.




Next Week

Satellite of Lust 






Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

Jeremiad


SFJ01


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

More of the Sun




Blurb

A fast-talking lounge lizard picks up a girl in a bar and teleports her
around the solar system. But there’s more to both of them than meets the eye…




Memories

before reading

Jeremiad is still my favorite character, even though I wrote
this story so long ago, because he’s so much fun to write. He’s so
self-centered, effete...while at the same time possessing a solid core of
ruthlessness that worries me.




Review

after reading

This is the first Jeremiad story, so we had to introduce
him, and then he takes off. It’s just good. If you want to know,
Jeremiad is the only character I write who speaks in my own voice, meaning he’s
the only one who I could make an audiobook version of. We’ll see. 




Next Week

Pure Humanity






Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

Hey, go read this over at H2NHePub.com now!

[image error]
"With great massivesness comes great responsibility"

-Uncle Ben['s Rice]

Having decided to take control over this earth-bound balloon that I have become, I hereby draw up a food eating thing. I'm told it's called a "diet". Since I'm not used to being fat, I have to learn a whole bunch of new vocab words.

Here's why I'm fat: For the first twenty-four months in Thailand, I was sick* every day, and had to eat a large amount of food just to keep up with all the food that was leaving me in another form**; the last three months in Thailand, I was no longer sick every day, having adjusted. Oh...goody. Thus began a downward spiral***.

I've sat down and figured out what I need to accomplish my work, and I hereby lay it out for you in convenient categories, from most important to least. I've included a whole bunch of links to Amazon for my own reference, because I am sorely tempted to set up a "Subscribe & Save" thing with them, where they send me these various staples and I only have to leave my house to buy booze and deli meats. Ah, scrabjous day, for the recluse; Amazon is my friend.

Most of my empty calories came in the form of soft (and hard) drinks of every variety, so I've taken the liberty of reducing them to the barest essentials, along with mostly cutting out red meats and adding "fruit".

Caffeine
I drink cold fridge-brewed tea for the most efficient caffeine intake over time. So long as I can consume it continuously throughout the day without getting twitchy, I'm good to go. I've found TAZO Awake Black Tea to be the most convenient toward this end, and it comes in neat little packets.

Beverage
When I just have to drink something out of a can so my mouth isn't plain tea dry, I go for a refreshing A&W Diet Root Beer or a hydrating AriZona Diet Green Tea.

Breakfast
Since I usually walk five kilometers right after breakfast, I want something light that won't weigh me down, but that won't leave me ravenous until I've written at least two thousand words (hence, not giving me an excuse to interrupt my words with food). To that end, cereal cut with fruit: Cheerios (and a banana) or Blueberry Morning

Lunch
A Sandwich: ham and turkey obtained from the Publix deli, with at least two cheeses chosen at random, with Annie's Naturals Organic Yellow Mustard on Whole wheat, sliced in twain, one half toasted, the other fresh, to be eaten one after the other while reading Cracked.com during my writing break.

Snack
Carrot sticks. How exciting...

Dinner
An unholy experiment with Chicken or fresh Fish, usually with brown rice, often a failure when I discover I forgot to learn the spell "Bind Dimensional Shambler". I eat it anyhow, unless the cat won't.

Booze
After a long day of writing and exercise, I like to sit down and read a book with, close to hand, a Murphy's Stout, an eminently drinkable beer, which I like because the pint-can has a nitrogen widget for a nice pour.

On Sundays, I enjoy a beer or four at the local, Brewer's Pizza, which has many glorious beers on tap, but where I prefer the brewed-on-site Tribal Rite followed by the aptly-named Landslide.

We'll see how this diet and exercise works out vis-à-vis my immensity. I'm tired of people calculating their delta-v as they pass me by.

Get back to work, jerks.

Thanks for reading!
[image error]
feel free to comment

*euphemism alert
**euphemism over
***or, more accurately, a centrifugal propulsion of fat outward and ill-health inward. Boo.



Available Stories

Hey! Go read this over at H2NHePub.com!



[image error]

Coming back to America kicked my ass.

That is, it lurked for a month while I got a lot of cool stuff done (cf: this blog), and then READJUSTMENT popped out from behind a corner and sucker-punched me into a decay spiral.

I haven't accomplished very much in the last couple of weeks—moreso even than my usual boom-bust cycle of manic-depression—and it is depressing. I need to get back in the saddle.

The trigger for this READJUSTMENT was, I suspect, my sitting down to write my Peace Corps memoir—working title: "Peace Corps Thailand: AFTER DARK"—and realizing just how hard I worked and lived while I was in-country compared to my pitiful existence now, waiting for my MBA to start*.

This has been a long, boring summer; front-loaded (and exacerbated) by the Greatest Day of My Life (...that'll be in the memoir).

Long, boring, nothing to do...wait just a moment, Dave:

You should never be bored.

I have a career! It's called "writing". Stop sitting around moping, you've got sh*t to do. I am in the perfect writing situation: Nothing in particular to do for days on end, except write, Nobody in particular to meet, either. I can be a recluse! I should...I guess I should probably take advantage of that.

Why haven't I been writing enough? I'm out of shape, so I wake up feeling bad. I'm in a completely different situation, so I don't have a Routine yet. My laziness results in porcine over-indulgence in all the stuff I haven't had for the last twenty-seven months. There are so many books to read. I'm just...scared of success? I hope not.

I'm not Motivated enough.

I spend too much time waiting. This is a transition, but not between "Peace Corps" and "graduate school"; but rather between semi-professional and professional. While I was traipsing around the jungle, I didn't have the resources I needed to go all-out on this ePub thing. But now? I've got them. I just need lots and lots of manuscripts to do filthy Internet things to, formatting them and editing them, and selling them to the highest bidder.

I've got SERIES to write.

This Tisroc series is awesome, it just needs to be done. I know what's going to happen, I just need to write it down. I have another series percolating, and another and another. A whole pile of short books that need to get written, and short books are FUN.

I've got BOOKS to write.

Leaving aside Lived Too Long To Die (which WILL get finished soon enough), I have herds of books to write. Post-apocalyptic novels, apocalyptic novels, a Fantasy with blood magic, an Horror novella. Romance, Pirates, Fishing! SPACE BATTLE ROYALE. Oh, shit. These need to get done.

There's all these SHORT STORIES, too.

I've run out appendages to count all the half-finished short stories I still have to finish. They are all so awesome, they want to be told. I just have to TELL THEM. I need 300 short stories. That's my goal.

Oh! And I need cover art and print books!

Yeah, and um...my covers suck. And there's no time like the present to fix that. They have to be 1600x2500 now anyways. Not to mention formatting: but I will anyways. Dean Wesley Smith makes an excellent case for "Nothing Below $2.99", and that's what I'm going to do. Once I get motivated.

Am I motivated? Looks like I am.

I can never be bored again.

Get back to work.

Thanks for reading!

[image error]

feel free to comment

*My schedule for when my MBA starts is easier:

Monday

walk

book

6:00-7:15

Tuesday

12:15-1:30

gym

read

6:00-7:15

7:30-10:15

Wednesday

walk

book

6:00-7:15

Thursday

12:15-1:30

gym

read

6:00-7:15

Friday

short story

Saturday

short story

Sunday

publishingAvailable Stories

DRAGON MARINES 


SF016


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

A Future Darkly




Blurb

A boy writes his first science fiction story while he waits
for his mother to come back from the war.




Memories

before reading

Yes, it’s supposed to be all-caps. It’s the title of the
story-within-a-story the boy protagonist writers, while he misses his mother.
This one actually started with me just babbling on Twitter about a silly story
about ‘Dragon Marines...in SPACE’, then I abruptly thought of the hook and
wrote this. Let’s read.




Review

after reading

This is a very emotional story, with a lot of subtle
touches. The last line...wow.




Next Week

Jeremiad 






Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

War of the Possible Future 


SF015


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

A Future Darkly




Blurb

A Middle Eastern nation erupts in protests against a
well-armed government. As a reporter tweets from the front lines, one man
struggles to keep a hospital from going dark, and a hacker plans to send the
dark back where it belongs. A short story, cyberpunk ripped from the headlines.




Memories

before reading

Written in the middle of the “Arab Spring”, the story opens
with a tweet from a reporter I was following at the time, and carries on
through the misadventures of a man sucked into the action by the need to keep a
hospital running in the midst of the chaos, and the shadowy figure who pushes
him to take it further. I wrote it in a blur of excitement and anticipation,
and it’s one of my most contemporary (political) works.




Review

after reading

This is a really sloppy story, but it was a really sloppy
time, so it fits. I like how I deliberately messed up the flow of the plot with
constant interruptions by @Reporter. I also have a soft spot for the drone
operator, don’t ask me why. (Oh, and the links in the fake tweets are real,
interesting.) This story has one of my favorite endings.




Next Week

DRAGON MARINES






Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

The Littlest Barnacle 


SF014


Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction




Collected in

A Future Darkly




Blurb

If a small boy lives, does anybody care?




Memories

before reading

Looking back on my notes, this story was supposed to be a
fun story of a boy stowaway with no particular skills, but a lot of heart.
Apparently deciding that that was lame, Creative Voice wrote a super-depressing
story about an abandoned boy who gets screwed by life. OK, then.




Review

after reading

...the fact that the story is really short is, when you
think about it, even more depressing. This is a very well-written story,
though, and I know for a fact that Mr. Editor had nothing to do with it. Except
for the very last line, where he inserted himself, and thanks be to him.




Next Week

War of the Possible Future 






Thanks for reading!

feel free to commentAvailable Stories

Go read this at H2NH ePub now!

[image error]

Let's address the elephant in the room: me.

Well, OK. I'm not that fat, but I am (medically) obese, and, more importantly, for the first time in my life I feel fat. It's time to do something about that.



Why?



My FATITUDE affects my ATTITUDE

I wake up feeling bad. That's no way to wake up. I only need six hours of sleep, after that I feel grouchy and uncooperative. And since I'm trying to cooperate with myself, I need to Zzzzzzzz. I need to be able to jump out of bed, healthy as a doornail*, without any weird ailments or headaches, stomachaches or ringings in the ears.



Lean, Mean, WRITING Machine

I eat and drink too much crap out of boredom or stress or just plain laziness, and that messes up my will to write. If I'm too full, I can't write with that white-hot fever of creative flame that I'm known for, and I've seen my productivity and get-to-itness decrease as my weight increased.



My fiancée is HOT

I have a pretty, sexy lady**, and she takes great care of herself, shedding the kilograms like nothing through sheer force of will (and hard work, eating right, and exercise). A lot of it is that she is very focused on her fun job, and that's what I want to be! The rest is that I want to walk down the street, arm in arm, both of us in amazing well-tailored fashions, and everybody will be even more jealous of us. We used to have that, until I bulked out. Whoops.



I have NO other flaws

I have spent the last ten years honing my mind into a pure engine of reason and creativity, and my morality and ethics are above reproach, and I am well-loved by all and sundry, and hardly an egomaniac at all. Yes, indeed: when it comes to humility, I'm the greatest.*** Now it's time to focus all that greatness on my encroaching waist-line.



What?



BAD Pictures

Aside from the as-yet-still-mild health problems, my main issue is that I look terrible in pictures. I can still hide my rotundity with clothing, but that just leads to further problems.



Frumpy STYLE

All the cool kids wear skinny jeans and suits. While I don't subscribe to that particular style, I've gotten to the point where my comfortable flowery shirts are no longer a fashion choice and more of a concealer. It's annoying. And none of my suits fit. And I'm not wearing double-breasted suits, I promised my father on his death-bed.



TOO Stereotypical

All that's to say, I'm too American-looking, not to mention the classic fat nerd and computer-using tub of lard. Boo on me. My image is important. Let's fix it.



How?



No SUGAR

A lot of my wasted calories comes from soda, and coffee with sugar in, and beer. My point is I drink a lot of beverages, so it's the easiest place to cut out unnecessary energy. I hereby declare that I can have all the home-made decaf unsweetened tea I can drink, and all the black espresso caffeine delivery method I can safely hold. More on beer later. This will also save money, a secondary consideration.



No DELIVERY

I am addicted to Papa John's. I admit it. Ever since I came back to America from the jungle, the lure of getting people to bring food to my door has consumed me. Well, no more! I have had my last pizza pie!



FOOD RULES

Much like writing, diet is one of those areas that has built up a monstrous barrier of myths and self-serving lies that confound the layman. In the same sense as I broke through all those myths by consulting the professionals, I have acquired Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (Michael Pollan), the primary ethos of which is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'll follow the less hippy-dippy of these rules, and I envision many soups and salads in my future. It is precisely as troublesome to cook healthily at home as it is to cook unhealthily. So let it happen.



Light BEER

Bud Light. That is all.



How much?



SIZE 36

My fiancée gave me a great pair of pants, size 36, which I wore for a while before stress and laziness bulked me above my waist grade. My goal is to once again wear those for pleasure. Pretty easy, and it saves time obsessively weighing myself.



When I look AWESOME

Once I start getting stared at again as I walk down the street, I'll know I've arrived. This is going to be awesome!



Reward!



BLUE Suit

Once I'm back to Size 36, I'll get the official uniform of the Creative**** tailored to my svelte form, and wear it at every opportunity to show off my regained youth and vigor. Everybody will be very impressed. There will be applause.



Lots of SEX

Well, yeah. Why else would I bother?



Get back to work.



Thanks for reading!

[image error]

feel free to comment



*Jacob Marley was dead as a coffin nail, so I want to be as alive as a door nail.

**Important comma alert.

***Said the actress to the bishop. Bazing.

****Sez me.Available Stories