Blazing Pine Cone Posts

Thu Aug 31 2023 | He edits his novels 75x... | I heard in an interview that Steve Berry put his books through as many as 75 rounds of edits and rewrites. And they aren't short novels — 500 pages on average. I'm not a fan of thrillers, but I just had to see how one of his novels read. You can read my three paragraph review of Steve Berry's The Alexandria Link on my Blazing Pine Cone blog or over at goodreads.com.

Mon Aug 28 2023 | Thick books aren't always heavy | "Much Ado About Corona is quite thick and yet I surprised myself at how quickly I got through it," says LL Tremblay, international bestselling author of Seven Roses. "I had a hard time putting it down!" There you go, just because a book is thick, doesn't mean it's heavy. To hear why this French Canadian novelist had such a hard time putting down my 500-pager, check out her short review.

Wed Aug 26 2023 | Barbarians toppling statues | Naked men parading through the streets. Rioters sacking goods. Barbarians toppling statues. No, I'm not talking about the fall of North America. I was actually referring to 5th century Rome. Check out this painting by Joseph-Noël Sylvestre.

Wed Aug 25 2023 | "Poor people have big TVs." | It's rare someone can't afford a book. Most "poor people" have a 5G cell subscription and a widescreen TV (with a costly dish). Can they really say they are too poor to buy a $9.99 ebook? As Jim Rohn said: "Poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries."

Wed Aug 23 2023 | Scattering my wife's ashes in a maze of sunflowers | My wife passed away last September. It was Nicole's wish that her ashes be scattered in a sunflower field. Cremation of her body, however, took nearly six weeks, due to a line-up at the morgue (with so many extra deaths from you know what). By the time I received her ashes, the sunflowers were all gone. Eleven months later, two weeks ago, I saw a sunflower opening in a public garden and realized it was time. I contacted six farms. Kustermans' Adventure Farm, near London, Ontario, allowed me, my son and a few close friends of Nicole, to have a private scattering ceremony in their sunflower maze. Singer/songwriter Pam Gerrand brought five newly emerged monarch butterflies to release, while she sang "Love is All" (a song Nicole had requested). I then read a poem, "After This," and we sang a chant I composed, "I, The Little Bubble of Laughter," for the harmonium. If you like, you can see a video of our gathering among thousands of sunflowers on YouTube.

Mon Aug 21 2023 | Lockdowns good for fertility, vaccines not so much... | Luzern University professor Dr. Konstantin Beck reports that there was a 3% increase in births starting nine months after the lockdowns began in Switzerland. He's calling it the "corona baby boom." It seems one of the few benefits we can attribute to lockdowns was a better sex life. Sadly, such a fertility boost can't be credited to the injections. Dr. Beck has testified that, nine months after their roll-out, live births plummeted 16.5% in Zurich — a historic drop not seen since all the men went to war in 1914.

Wed Aug 18 2023 | Whistle Blowing Nurse Found Wandering in the Woods | Yesterday, I finally met Andrew Brannan, the renegade ICU nurse who helped me make the medical details in Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story more accurate and gory. We went for a hike with my son (photo here) in our local woods. For more about Andrew's whistle blowing during the scamdemic check out this post from 2021 (which contains links to my past interviews with him when he was a her, using the pseudonym of "Nurse Andrea").

Wed Aug 17 2023 | Virtual Reality Sickness | For my forthcoming sci-fi novella, All The Humans Are Sleeping, I've been researching "virtual reality sickness." The symptoms include headaches, fatigue and vomiting. Gives me hope it's simply not possible to herd humans into a metaverse prison. You can read more at TechTarget.

Wed Aug 15 2023 | My barber may be a... conspiracy theorist! | Last Monday, while my barber was cutting my hair, she mentioned how two of her friends have teenage boys who recently suffered heart attacks. "Two!" she repeated. "I've never ever heard of a kid having a heart attack before." I paused, while I put on my Socratic robe, and asked, "What do you think caused it?" She responded in a low voice, "Well... it's probably the vaccine." This is someone who got both shots herself, along with her whole family (which she now regrets). Yesterday's ridiculed conspiracy theory is today's whispered suspicion. Tomorrow it will be openly accepted as truth. (On the subject of conspiracy theories, have you seen my latest book trailer? "She's a Conspiracy Theorist!" is available on YouTube or Rumble.)

Mon Aug 14 2023 | How to Stop Being a Resentful Victim | I just finished Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping. It offers a truly "radical" five-step path to inner peace, seeing the harm done by others as a positive force in one's life (rather than a source of perpetual resentment, anger and victimhood). You can check it out here.

Sat Aug 12 2023 | "The greatest enemy to our nation is not a tyrannical government" | Last month, I promised to run a draw, awarding the winner a signed, hardcover copy of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. To participate, all one had to do was sign up for the free viewing of The End of COVID. I thought the best way to choose the winner would be to pull out three of my long-neglected, ten-sided Dungeons and Dragons dice and give them a toss. The combined result was 097. 97th on the list of attendees was Max from Missouri (who recently fled Oregon due to the COVID restrictions). Better known as Max9Nine, he broadcasts dissident videos a couple times a week, making bold proclamations such as: "The greatest enemy to our nation is not a tyrannical government, but your own countrymen, who gain comfort in allowing that government to make decisions for them. By complying with unjust laws they legitimize those laws. By voting they uphold traitors.” You can check out Max9Nine's video channel over at dlive.

Wed Aug 11 2023 | Am I a Flat Earther? | Yesterday, I defended flat Earthers. Does that mean I'm one of them? Really! Do you want to know my vaccine status, too? Let's just say I'm an open-minded speculative fiction writer who has read a few thought-provoking books on the subject.

Thu Aug 10 2023 | Transgender Flat Earthers. Really? | In a recent episode of Just Right, host Bob Metz compared flat Earthers to transgender activists. How's that? Flat Earthers call it as their senses sense it: Flat horizon, motionless Earth with stars, sun and moon spinning above. Nowhere as far-fetched as saying a man has the right to compete in pro women's rugby.

Wed Aug 9 2023 | Why limited time discounts are as unethical as a COVID mandate | "Why don't you ever offer your novel at a discount?" people ask me. "Why haven't you done one of those 99 cents Kindle sales?" The reason is simple: I think limited-time discounts are unethical. In sales writing courses they literally state that offering a discount "activates people's greed glands" and manipulates them to "buy now." I feel discounts are also unfair to people who purchase at full price. Plus, they would create confusion over how much the book is really worth. Why does it cost $17 today, but $27 yesterday? What changed? Sounds like a COVID mandate. I'd rather you buy Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story because you've reviewed the rave reviews or the preview chapter and can't wait to start flipping pages —  not because you want to save $10.

Mon Aug 7 2023 | Vaccine Evangelists, Apostates and Apologists | You know Jordan Henderson as the cover artist of Much Ado About Corona and many other paintings exposing the COVID hoax. Well, it turns out he's just as skilled with a pen as he is with a paintbrush. Last week, Jordan published one of the most articulate and easy-to-understand essays I've ever read exposing the deceptive debate strategies "vaccine evangelists" and "vaccine apologists" use against "vaccine apostates." And we're not just talking about the easy-to-disprove mRNA jab. People would have to be blind not to see that was a fraud (actually, blindness is one of the side effects, isn't it?). No, Jordan's essay storms the long-held castle of vaccine propaganda by showing how immunizations were never responsible for ending the so-called contagious diseases that killed so many people (mainly children) in the 18th and early 19th centuries. You can read Vaccine Evangelists, Apostates, and Apologists over at Jordan Henderson's new Substack page. The essay opens with one of his latest illustrations.

Fri Aug 4 2023 | How words keep people slaves (who think they are free) | Locking innocent people in their homes is justified when government-paid doctors tell you it "saves lives." A man can become a woman simply by calling himself "her." A healthy person is sick simply because a PCR test says they are "infected." Sex outside of marriage is nothing to be concerned about because socialists call it "liberation." Clot-forming injections are life-saving because the company selling them assures us they are "safe and effective." And you are not a slave because the tax-collectors say you live in a "free and democratic nation." The Jones Plantation releases tomorrow. It is NOT a historical film about black slaves. It's a present-day political metaphor about how words are used to keep us all slaves. Check out the trailer.

Wed Aug 2 2023 | A robot, a farmer and the end of the world.... | Twenty years ago, soon after I married Nicole, I wrote a 30,000-word novella called, All the Humans Are Sleeping. With the birth of our son, I saved it to my hard drive and got busy changing diapers and paying bills (yes, the phone company really will disconnect your phone if you're more than two months late). All The Humans Are Sleeping takes place in the near future, after mankind has been devastated by a fake pandemic (spread by the very vaccine claimed to prevent it) and a nuclear war (spread by the very bombs claimed to prevent it). Well-meaning AI connects the survivors to a virtual reality utopia. The story begins three years later, when a solitary robot pulls a farmer out of the metaverse to help it run a greenhouse in the desolate mountains of Northern Norway. Two months ago, I began editing it again. I needed a break from Brave New Normal, and felt it wouldn't take long to get All the Humans Are Sleeping ready for publication. The finish line is in sight. I'll keep you posted.