Babyn Yar

It’s been a while. A long while. I can tell because the last post I made was promoting the most recent anthology my group and I published and there will be another collection coming out at the end of the month (31 March 2022). This post is not about that.

Between the end of August and those posts promoting Autumn an Anthology I also had a strong desire to post about Afghanistan and what happened—not merely the pullout but about our entire collaboration in the country. It is still very near and dear to my heart but no matter how many times I started it, I was not able to finish it. This post is not about that.

What it is about is what’s going on in Ukraine.

Some of it is information, some of it misinformation. I guess that makes it the same as every other newsworthy event and several of the non-newsworthy events that we still end up seeing ad infinitum on televisions, newspapers, magazines, and for those under a certain age, yes, the internet.

The item that prompted my post was hearing about the bombing of Babyn Yar, the Ukrainian name for the site of a mass execution of Jews by the Nazis in 1941. No mention will be made here of the “other” name being used for the site because that’s the Russian name for it and why would we use that one? It’s disconcerting to me that the entire first page of search results (no matter the engine I use) does not include the actual site’s webpage, so I included it here https://babynyar.org/en/.

I knew nothing about the massacre until Putin decided it was a target. And then I spent an hour learning about the site, the details, and what has been pieced together of what happened. Absolutely fascinating history. A Jewish friend told me that the bombing was misinformation—it wasn’t actually targeted or hit—but I can’t find anything about that because it is too newsworthy an item. It underscores the insanity of the Russian actions against Ukraine.

To me, the bombing is something that had the absolute opposite affect intended. The bombing was intended to wipe out the memory of the event, just as the Soviets tried to do during their time in control of Ukraine. I have learned much about the incident, the history, and now have a desire to go to the site more than any other Holocaust site I’ve been to (for those keeping score they include Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Aushwitz). But ultimately there is an incredible parallel here that no one seems to be talking about.

The Holocaust happened because of misguided racial thinking (an understatement to say the least). The little Austrian Corporal and his associates viewed the Jews, and many others, as non-humans. The treated them like livestock, unwanted livestock. Now I could go into details of their actions that proved they really thought otherwise, but non-humans is the stated reason. They did not consider Jews to be human.

Putin has not now nor has he ever considered Ukraine a country. He has stated as such (if you believe the news articles) and tolerated their “attempts” at democracy and self-government all the while waiting for a chance to come back in and set them straight. He classifies his invasion of a sovereign country as just helping out the rightful rulers, those who are sycophants that would treat Ukranian sovereignity as a vassal state to Mother Russia. In his mind, he is in the right. As did the Nazis. Both were wrong.

Currently, Finland and Sweden—two neutral countries—are considering joining NATO. That’s harsh. But what is more harsh is that Switzerland has imposed sanctions. Making the Swiss pick a side is the most clear indication of all that things in the Ukraine are off.

I will be back posting again soon, about the forthcoming book and hopefully my website changes. Until then peruse the website for the Babyn Yar Memorial and learn more about this fascinating piece of history.

Immer Autumn

There has been a great response to the new anthology so far. Thank you so much for your support. It means the world whether it was a simple congratulations, retweeting/reposting, attending the Meet the Authors event we had on 2 October, or the best support of all purchasing Autumn!

Buy it Here

For those of you who have purchased and read the stories, It would be great if you could post a review.

The best place to review is on Amazon, but there are other places, too. There are different sites for the different countries with Amazon sites:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HLJBYF4/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09HLJBYF4/
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09HLJBYF4/ (We already have 2 on Amazon Canada).
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09HLJBYF4/
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09HLJBYF4/

The next best place is on Goodreads, or you can copy and paste a review from one on both.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59125863-autumn

Again I thank you for your support.

Autumn is Finally Here

The new anthology by Authors Without Borders is here. The majority of the group is the same as the Tolerance Cartel from our March release but there are some new faces—more importantly there are all new stories.

Buy it Here

In this installment, we have short stories about Autumn. Some are about fall themed activities like Halloween or festivals, some take place in the fall, and one or two may take liberty with the word and allegorically be about something falling down (I may be wearing the underwear of the author that wrote in that vein).

For the release we have it priced at 99 cents, for a limited time. There will also be a Meet the Author Event on Zoom Saturday 2 Oct at 1100 CDT, and the price for our first collaboration, Tolerance, will also be 99 cents for a short time. Comment or email if you’re interested in attending. There are limited seats but there are always ways to get you in.

Come join us, virtually, actually, or just in spirit by reading.

Autumn is Nearly Here--in more ways than one

Yes, I know it’s still warm in the South, but Autumn is practically here. But I don’t mean the season I mean the new anthology by Authors Without Borders. The majority of the group is the same as the Tolerance Cartel from our March release but there are some fresh new faces.

In this installment, we have short stories about Autumn. Some are about fall themed activities like Halloween or festivals, some take place in the fall, and one or two may take liberty with the word and allegorically be about something falling down (I may be wearing the underwear of the author that wrote in that vein).

Apple has been the first to publish it, but the others are not far behind. The official date is 1 Oct, and our fingers are crossed that the paper books will be available at the same time as the ebooks.

Aging

The first thing I did today was to wake up and again beat my consecutive days breathing streak. I’m not only on a roll breaking the streak, but I’m on a streak of breaking the streak that’s almost as long. Really, today I am the youngest I’ve ever been and the oldest I’ve ever been, so age is just what age is.

Of course I’m still in the “I can’t believe how old the people I graduated high school with” phase. I don’t hit the “age is just a number” phase for a few more weeks. Which is kind of why I’m writing today.

About six months ago, I found two bottles of malt-vitamins in the clearance aisle at Walgreens, so, always on the lookout for a deal, I snatched them up. I have consumed them regularly, too. So much so that I decided it was time to look for more clearance vitamins. To no avail.

After commenting to my better three-fourths about it, Ginger told me it would be fine to pay full price for a new bottle. I resisted (of course) because buying them on clearance also feeds the cheap gene. However, I noticed a marked difference when I missed a day. Reluctantly, I brought myself to the full-priced vitamin aisle and looked around. There were a few empty spots, but all I could find were male, 50+ multi-vitamins. Not having reached that two-and-a-half score mark, there is no way I could purchase those, so I walked out vitamin less.

Today, 21 Aug, I looked and realized that I have exactly 10 pills left.

The Plan

About a month ago this article came to me in an email. It talks about a way of planning to increase productivity. Parts of it are things I already do, so I know those parts work. The rest may be useful too. Of course, a few things jumped out at me while reading.

The first was that the article was written several years ago, and this guy was just recycling it for his email list. A great idea that saves on time. It also shows the effectiveness of the system because if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t be able to reuse it.

The second thing was less important, though it may underscore some points in the article. The Helmut von Moltke the Elder quote is a misquote. He actually said, “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.” Rather than the more friendly and quotable “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Von Moltke’s other famous quote (and indeed his revolutionary method of reorganizing military leadership) is also useful as it relates to this article: “Strategy is a system of expedients.”

What the author has done is more of the latter quote. Not only has he made productivity a system of expedients, but he has turned it on itself in recycling the blog post. This makes me think that it’s time for me to recycle a few of mine as well. While there is certainly some drivel in the dusty archives, there are some nuggets, too. I’ll try to find more of those than the former.

For the record, I did pause at von Moltke the Elder's monument near the Victory Column in Berlin (which I also wrote about for Atlas Obscura) . I definitely did not make it to the Invalids Cemetery where von Moltke the Younger is buried, but I tried to get there because that's where the Red Baron was buried the second time. I got to see where the Red Baron was finally interred, but I only mention all of this to show that I get distracted by ribbons a lot.

In the Workshop

Some time back I wrote this short piece and forgot about it. It was an introduction to a short story that I did go further into but haven’t finished.

Digging around for ideas for the next collection of short stories I re-read this and keep thinking it is an interesting introduction.

Tools were scattered across the tabletop like discarded debris. Scraps of paper with scribbled dimensions and sketches of creations lay about as well. Some crumpled, some flattened, some were under tools, others over. One well worn and yellowed sheet was tacked on the board behind the main table. It depicted both a finished product and intermediate steps to complete in a gradual progression. The well-worn page had been revised with erasures and overwrites as well as new scribbles in the margins. 

The main workspace was so cluttered there was only a small space available for work, but that was exactly what was going on. Another toy was being created in the alcoved space for creation. “So you see how easy they are to compile?”

“But Dad, they’re so close to these other ones.” With a wave of his hand the Son indicated the workshop bench to the right. It was just as cluttered but contained stacks of completed toys. They were hunched over and fuzzier than the one just completed as if they could not stand up as straight. 

The Father frowned, “That will confuse them later on, but no, they aren’t the same.”

Picking up the new toy He tested its weight. “They’ll get heavier later on, but for now this is what they need. Did you see the Garden I made for them to hang out in? It’s the best.”

Silently the Son took the toy from his Father’s hands. Hefting it himself he held it up to the light, “They’re perfect.”

“Not perfect,” said the Father, “but they are to die for.”

It's Here

The world now has Jonathan Byrd in print.

OK, so the print on demand feature is running a little behind, but the ebook is for sale now. If I got the link right.

books2read.com/u/3JR8Ae

8 March Update: I’m not sure why but I’m being told that we can’t use this link for 48 hours because Amazon won’t let us in there. So the link may or may not work for a short while. I’ll update when it works again, but you can email me (or comment here) if you’re trying to find the book and can’t just yet.

9 March Update: It should be fixed now and it should also be on Amazon and Kindle in a few days. It should pop up as one of the options to buy when you click this link that should again work. But if there is a problem reach out to me and I’ll get it fixed for you.

10 March Update: Well, maybe still not cleared with Amazon. It seems that one of us has posted on their website all or a substantial part of a story included in this book and Amazon won’t allow sales of something offered for free somewhere else. While this could be taken as frustrating, I take it to mean that someone has read the stories (albeit it probably just a computer). More news soon, I hope.

11 March Update: Well that was easy. We are now officially on Amazon and Kindle. Next big change will be to get a print version available. No concrete timeline yet but we’re working on it.

The Serious Hobby of Writing

A mark of a serious hobby is one that requires meetings. Or perhaps that’s the sign that your hobby has morphed beyond the stress-relieving activity it once was. Either way you want to call it, my hobby has hit that mark.

For the first time in my life, I truly understand how writing could be a full-time job. The platform building and marketing that border on branding were always aspects that could demand full-time attention, but the distractions of a world that come at the speed of life have an uncanny ability to wrest attention away from the perspicacious details needed to truly make forward progress on a writing topic.

Spoken more plainly, the life of an artist is often interrupted by the art of life, which takes away the moments of brilliant insight necessary to craft the succinct, biting prose that makes the reader put down the written word and contemplate the grander scheme.

Or spoken even more plainly: life gets in the way. 

But this is still several steps shy of requiring a meeting. Meetings can be enjoyable. Mind you, no one is ever going to say on their deathbed they wish they had participated in more, but it is important to note that Rome didn’t conquer their empire by sitting in meetings they went out and killed something. 

My fellow world conquering tribe is a group I met in an online writing community. Our first meeting we gathered and schemed. Then we moved forward with execution. Now the heavy lifting of writing is finished and we’re in the polishing and planning for a launch stage. Work that requires meetings. Though we soon will go try our hands at taming the world.

We are on the verge of publishing an anthology of short stories. The year that was, knocked us all around a bit and we didn’t want to just let it go gently into that sweet goodnight. So we wrote one story with the theme of tolerance. Tolerance of everything but pornography, that subject was and is taboo, but anything else was on the table.

But who would want a book with only 10 stories? So we reached back into the dark recesses of our hard drives and manila folders for a “B” side story. One that was near and dear to us. For mine, I selected an anecdote my father once shared and built it into a story that even he might not recognize. Of course, the harder piece was the main story, and I pulled no punches there.

We will release it in an ebook and a print on demand format. There will be more updates on the book, and as always more stories to tell about the work, the team, and the process. For now though, it’s just an announcement. More to come, and soon. But first another meeting.

I wonder what the Romans could have accomplished if they’d used Zoom.

On Editing

A good number of people approach writing as if it is a simple hobby that one can just pick up and put down as easily as pausing the latest show they’re streaming on Netflix or Hulu. I’ve even seen an ad once for an “aspiring author” who was looking for a getaway cabin, either on a lake or in a forest, so they could work on their novel. But one thing that stands out as you delve into the writing life is that you won’t accidentally stumble onto a career as an author. Working at night or on the weekend simply writing won’t make you the next bestselling writer who ditched his day job and started a lucrative publishing career. There is a great deal more to it than that.

There has been much written on the craft of writing. I have at points in my life found and read books, articles, and essays by Clive Cussler, Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke​, Douglas Adams, and more. While Bova isn't one of my most influential authors (the other three are part of the Big Five) he is a prolific author with much to say on the subject. Recently I found and read a book by another of my Big Five all-time greatest influential authors, James Michener.

This isn’t the first Michener book about the craft I read. My Lost Mexico was great. Just thinking of it makes me think “And there was Gomez.” Powerful, but I digress. The one I recently stumbled upon was one I didn't know existed. It is called James A. Michener's Writer's Handbook.

In it, Michener goes into some exacting detail about his process. As a typewriter-era author, there is considerable time with scissors and paste. Literally cutting and pasting. He also used carbon paper, so when he finished with each draft he could see where it was and what had changed. There are first, second, third, and final versions of some of his stories that show the evolution and some of that is wildly altering the text. Fascinating to see even now. My only complaint about the book is that it has been too long since I read the original—published—versions of the stories he used for me to see the real differences in what he wrote versus what got published.

Michener originally got started in publishing as an editor and had a team of people who edited while he wrote. A very interesting process to see. There was one bit he wrote about editors that really stood out:

Three years into my writing career I dropped any attempt to differentiate between that and which. As a former teacher of grammar I had once known the rules, but I have now forgotten them and to keep in mind the multiple ramifications and niggling niceties is beyond me. I therefore appreciate the help of copy editors who have strong opinions on the matter and encourage them to enforce their rules. For myself, I am guided mostly by the sound of the sentence, and so are many other writers.

One task I have been finding Herculean about my writing is synopsizing it to a marketable blurb that others find interesting. I have no such writer’s block with a synopsis of this quote. A former grammar teacher and editor turned best-selling author says not to concern yourself overly with the specifics, rather concern yourself with the cadence, the rhythm, and the grace that language allows. The spice must flow, if you will. And if you won’t, they’ll catch it in the rewrites.