I wrote this several years ago, so no, don't go looking for Fred.

 

 


Some of you may have seen a shoe perched majestically at the top of the hill in my front yard. If not, I’m enclosing a picture as an introduction. We named it Fred. Say hello to the people, Fred.
 
(He can't speak, even though he has a tongue.)

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. “You named a shoe?” Well, why not? We always name the strays that end up hanging around our house. Last fall we named the mice that set up housekeeping there, even as I tracked them down and did a Dirty Harry on their rodent rears.

One day I got home and Fred was simply – there. I live on a main street, and lots of young people (read: litterers) go by, so a certain amount of trash is expected. My neighbors have been doing renovations, and whenever a stiff wind pops up some of their waiting to be disposed of debris will take up shop around my house. Just a few days ago I found the remains of a light bulb scattered across my porch. Who knows about that? Maybe somebody had an earth-shattering idea.

But a shoe?
 
I have a theory about how that shoe could have gotten blown into my yard.



That’s not an object easily blown around, especially to land at the top of an embankment. No, it had to have been thrown there. If so, it was an exceptionally artistic throw, as the shoe landed upright, proudly showing to passers-by that it was high-strung.

I’m generally annoyed at litter, but in this case I confess to being rather bemused. So bemused, in fact, that I left the footwear there, wondering if the owner might show up to claim it. Maybe it was tossed there by some clownish “friend” who thought it would be funny to see his buddy stumping around in one shoe. What a heel.

But no one claimed the poor little orphan, so I felt I had to name him, and picked Fred out of thin air. How do I know it’s a male shoe? How many girls do you know who would throw away a perfectly good shoe? I rest my case.
 
Some girls even pick shoes right off of dead people.



Later I told my daughter that Fred could stay until lawn mowing time, and she informed me in turn that I could simply mow around it. How, she asked, could I just boot Fred? I thought she was going to sock me. (Get it?) Her passion left me tongue-tied. (Get that one?) I appreciated her sole-searching, but couldn’t build Fred his own closet -- not on my shoestring budget. (Okay, that’s enough.)

For now, Fred stays. Maybe his other half will show up, and they’ll get off on the right foot with some other owner. Hm. Come to think of it, I wonder if they’re elevens?
 
 
Oh! I just made this connection. Brought to you by: Fred Toenges Footwear.*


Pay for my future footwear here:
 

·        Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

·        Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

·        Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

·        Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

·        Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

·        Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

·        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

·        Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

·        Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

·        Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

·        Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

·        Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

·        Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

·        Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

 
 
*Not really, but if they want to talk about a sponsorship ....
 



Oh, did you make it to the bottom? Then you get first look:

 
Haunted Noble County cover.png

 Good riddance, 2023. To paraphrase "True Grit", "the love of decency does not abide in you".

The problem is, I said the same thing at the end of 2022.

That being the case, I no longer make noises about the next year being better than the last one. 2023 started out with losing a nephew, paused in the middle for the death of our dog, and ended with my wife and I both down with Covid. Those are just the highlights. We also had to replace our car, and oh, yeah--our microwave caught fire. Again. (It was just smoke.)

Then there was the sinus surgery which, it turns out, doesn't prevent Covid. Emily had to face the death of one of the horses she worked with. We didn't get a new book out in 2023, and had to push back the deadline on the one we're working on. Oh, and I had a biopsy on my TONGUE.

 

 

Surgery or virus? You decide.
 

 

Could 2024 be worse than that?

Yes. Yes, it could. I mean, it's an election year, so there's that all by itself.

This year a third of the people are going to pick a candidate to fight a different third of the people who the first third hate, and the second third is going to pick someone who they hope will be horrible to the first third, while the middle third do their best to ignore all of this, even though they're the ones who'll suffer the most.

It's politics as written by Joseph Heller. We'll call it "Catch 24".

(Hey, I just had an idea for a new novel!)

There's not much we can do about a lot of this, including the elections, once the graveyard votes are counted. So what are we to do about the world's current state of affairs?

Laugh.

That's right, you heard me. Laugh, even if it scares people.

 

Now, that's scary.

 I'm going to make an extra effort in 2024 to make people laugh. I'm not going to guarantee health, or that my appliances will keep working, or that Congress will start acting responsibly. (See, that last made me giggle right there.) I'm fairly certain at this point that the Presidential election will be a farce regardless of who wins, so why not poke fun at it, too? Maybe, with luck, in the coming year I'll have another exploding lawn mower to talk about.

 

Okay, I don't want to go that far. Again.

But laughter often is the best medicine, at least for your brain, and I'm going to work on turning it into an epidemic. The laughter, I mean. Because we can't change a lot of bad things with the exception of politics, so we might as well feel better about them.

Maybe we'll even sell more copies of our humor books.

Okay, let's not expect too much. After all, it's still the 2020s.

 

 




 


 

 

Remember, it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, and we're all tired.

 

 

 


 

 Well, here I am, making my annual appeal for shoppers to buy our books for Christmas. Once a year isn't so bad, is it? I have yet to make a promotional post in honor of Arbor Day.

But wait--there's more!

That's something sellers have to say, I'm not sure why. Our books should speak for themselves, but they aren't available as audiobooks yet. I thought this year I'd let the books figuratively speak for themselves, so here's a brief description:

 Storm Chaser, The Notorious Ian Grant:

The second is the sequel to the first, and both follow the basic romantic comedy outline: One of the couple is a homebody who loves their little town; the other comes from the big outside world and proceeds to spread trouble. One is a cop, the other kinda/sorta works in the entertainment industry. In the first, a woman chases storms, in the second, her brother is the storm. The other thing they have in common: We're preparing to reissue them after getting the rights back from the publisher, so at the moment you'd have to contact us direct for a print copy.

 


 

 

Storm Squalls: 

Short stories set in that Storm Chaser universe, formerly known as Storm Chaser Shorts--but improved with more content and a better title. I haven't been talking about it much, pending the reissue of its parent novels, but it includes a new short story I'm particularly proud of.


Coming Attractions:

 Like the Storm Chaser books, this romantic comedy is set in northeast Indiana and also involves an outsider, this one trying to get the local drive-in theater shut down. Here's a secret cameo: One of the characters from Storm Chaser makes a very brief appearance, although he's never named. Well, I guess I gave away that he's a he.


The No-Campfire Girls:

Also related to Storm Chaser, but more of a spin-off. This YA adventure stars Beth Hamlin, the irrepressible teen from the other books, who plots to defeat a burn ban at her summer camp with the help of a Native America rain dance. It doesn't end well.

 


Radio Red is the first romantic comedy I wrote, and it's a little heavier on both the humor and the sex (!) I mean, the publisher is Torrid Books, so what does that tell you? It's about an irreverent Michigan radio station owner who hires a down on her luck air personality just before someone starts sabotaging the station.

 

 

What's that, you say? You want some non-fiction? Maybe even some humor? Okay:

People should be full of good humor: Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All, proves my co-author (and wife) Emily and I are full of it. We traveled all over the state I love to find out all sorts of cool details about it, and then ... made fun of them all. But it's good natured fun, so ... there.

Slightly Off the Mark and More Slightly Off the Mark are collections of my newspaper columns: The first are columns that never published because the paper got bought out, and the second are edited, updated columns from around the early 90s. Interestingly, while the humor/history/trivia book Hoosier Hysterical has been my best seller this year, these two books have been my worst sellers. Guess I should have added more history and trivia.

Images of America: Albion and Noble County:

This one is part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of America book, photo-heavy volumes about local history. Despite being something you wouldn't expect anyone outside of Noble County to be interested in, it sold very well--which is good, because Emily and I worked hard to produce it. It's also the only one that made it onto the shelves of a Barnes and Noble (and a local CVS pharmacy!)

 

 

 

On an even narrower area of local history, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department covers the first century of the fire department I served on for forty years. It's got a bit more humor, but of course it's still a local history book--and it took me 25 years to research and write! (I wasn't writing daily, of course.)

 


Wait, that's eleven. Am I missing one? No, I think that's it as far as what's published--more to come. There are also those anthologies I have humor pieces in: My Funny Valentine, Strange Portals, and The Very True Legends of Ol' Man Wickleberry (and his demise).

 

Where do you find all these, you ask? 

Thank you for asking, much appreciated. They can all be found on our website and on Amazon:

 

 

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

And also on my daughter's website, White Birch Lane Boutique:

https://www.whitebirchlaneboutique.com/search?q=books

 

 

Most, but not all, can be found at other places:


https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

 https://books.apple.com/us/author/mark-r-hunter/id1025271801

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/coming-attractions-11

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42934724

 

 

You can't get all the books at all those sites for various reasons, but all in all it ain't too shabby.

 

Remember, every time you gift a book, an angel gets his swim trunks. It gets warm up there.

 

 


 

When hamsters came into my house years ago they had little plastic balls, so they could run merrily all over. (Humans now have those, too. You’d think we could just walk.) We did have to close the door to the basement while they were out. I thought it would be kind of funny to hear the “thump-thump” of a rodent taking a ride, but the kids thought the hamster wouldn’t appreciate an E-ticket at Disneyland.

One day I found one of the balls in the kitchen, sans hamster. The lid had popped off. This triggered a panicked search, which was about as successful as panicked searches usually are. The hamster – Ranger, named after a slippery, hard to track character from a Stephanie Plum novel – was gone.

My daughters were very upset. I looked at it as a challenge … but before you congratulate me for my attitude, I should point out that I hate challenges.

After a time – a long time, during which I could have been doing more important things, like nothing – I found a little white puff ball behind the oven, as far back into the corner as he could possibly get. I could have done a few different things, but I didn’t have a gun on me, and in my experience napalm is dangerously unreliable. So instead, I tried to entice the furball out with a handful of his favorite snack, which looks suspiciously like shreds of colored paper.

Ranger instantly disappeared into the wall.

He’d discovered what I, in ten years, had not – the hole mice use to get into my house every fall. (They stopped coming after we got the pet snake, but that’s another story.) It led behind the cupboard and from there to – who knows? A rodent superhighway, perhaps, or a mouseport, or a hamsterteria.

The next morning, I found a very old mouse carcass on the floor outside the hole. I’m talking mummified. Ranger had not only made himself at home in the former mouse house, he’d even dug up the cemetery.

 

“Yeah, I’m bad, I’m bad–you know it.”

Now what? Offering amnesty wasn’t likely to help. There is a homemade trap you can build, making steps out of books that lead to a trash can. Water and food goes into the can, and once inside, the sides are too steep for the hamster to get out again. The problem is, Ranger is afraid of heights. Seriously. It took him a week to climb down out of the upstairs apartment in the hamster house.

I considered leaving him in that hole, until the squeaking started.

The only time they made noise was when they started fighting each other. Every now and then they’d get into a quarrel over who gets the best piece of trail mix, or who controls the remote. Then they’d squeak like crazy until they were all squeaked out, and ten minutes later they’d be happily sitting together again. And yes, it reminded me of my daughters.

The conclusion was inescapable: Ranger wasn’t alone down there. Hopefully we weren’t hearing loud rodent sex.

 

“You should have sent me in, coach–I’d have those rodents for breakfast. Literally.”

 

A few days later we found the little white furball, huddled behind a bookcase that turned out to be an excellent place to trap him. I was never so happy to be a book packrat. Or is that a bookrat? Ranger was none too happy, and who can blame him? He’d had free run of the house, so it was like moving out of the Taj Mahal and into a one room trailer. He was in a foul mood, and proved it with a couple of knock down – drag outs with his old roommate.

I never found out whether his mouse friend kicked him out, but later that day I saw the mouse trying to fit an entire soda cracker through its doorway. Eating for two? How friendly they were, I don’t know – can hamsters and mice cross breed? Was I in danger of being overrun by white mice, bent on freeing their dad? I’ve had a few disturbing nightmares.

All I know is, after his brief escape Ranger was awfully squirrely– if you’ll pardon my rodent-themed pun. I feel like I’ve separated Rangero and Julie-rat.

(You can read the original version of this--and see a cute picture of our dog--over at the newsletter:  https://mailchi.mp/1de8decbbe08/ive-become-an-interstate-sensation?e=[UNIQID]

I was featured in VoyageMichigan!
No, seriously. I can prove it:

https://voyagemichigan.com/interview/life-work-with-mark-hunter-of-just-south-of-the-michigan-state-line-in-indiana/

I know what you're thinking: "But Mark, aren't you a Hoosier boy?" Well, yeah, but I can start driving right now and be in Michigan in half an hour, assuming the highway is open in Rome City. As I explain in the article, Michigan has been very good to me, and I've been to several of its most famous places: Hell; Albion; Detroit; and this place:
This is Lake Bellaire, where my ex-father-in-law owns a cottage that, thank goodness, we still get to visit now and then. It's also the setting for my novel Radio Red, which was researched, outlined, and partially written up there. The book is what got the attention of the VoyageMichigan crew, who were kind enough to do the aforementioned profile. So yes, Michigan is my second favorite state, although I must admit in all fairness that I've never been to Rhode Island.
Check out the article and the rest of the website! Then check out the book, which you can find on our website, or here:
https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Red-Mark-R-Hunter-ebook/dp/B01MRZ52DM
Check it out: I guarantee you won't be disappointed.*

*Guarantees do not constitute a guarantee except within 500 feet of the Devil's Soup Bowl or in Hell (when frozen over).

Find all our books here:


Titling chapters, instead of numbering them, has mostly gone away in fiction, but it's still a thing in non-fiction. The only novel I put chapter titles in was The No-Campfire Girls, and I had great fun doing it. But that was self-published; I'm not sure I'd try it with an agent/publisher hunt.

(We don't literally hunt agents and publishers, by the way. Yes, I know what my last name is, but that's just a title I inherited. It's like an actor being knighted--they're not really expected to go out and defend the Queen's honor. Are they?)

More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, has a duel layer of titles. Each chapter is full of reconstituted humor columns, which is when you take an old newspaper and add water to the humor section. Too bad newspapers don't really have a humor section, unless you count the politics page. The humor columns came with their own title, and even when I made major changes in the old columns, I mostly stuck with the original title.

Then I divided the book into chapters, because I love organization. (Pay no attention to the condition of my office.) Hopefully the chapter titles will give a sense of the book, which starts with a prologue entitled:

Prologue, or: Prelude to a Forward Preamble, or: The Part People Skip

It's just to keep you on your toes. Some of the chapter titles include:

History ... Or Death

In Sickness and in Health, But Mostly In Sickness.

Dear Marky, or: Advice From the Clueless

That Cartoon Has Got the Boom

The Joy of Travel, or: Yes, There Was Sarcasm in "Joy"

People ... People Hating People

Government, Red Tape, Bureaucracy ... but I Repeat Myself, Just Like the Government

It's a Beautiful Day for Sportsball!

The Three Stooges Got Nothin' On Me

Weather ... Or Not

And then comes the finale, properly called:

Where Epilogues Go To Die

Tell the Pulitzer committee I'm standing by.


Brace yourselves, you luddites ... you could actually read the opening for free, here:

https://www.amazon.com/More-Slightly-off-Mark-Other/dp/1709741287

If you just can't wait and/or want a signed copy, contact Emily or me, or hit up the website, and we'll limber up our writing hands.

 
 

 

I don't talk much about politics, but just to show I've always paid attention, I uncovered this piece from way back in 2012. I think you'll find me on the cutting edge of activism:

 --------------------------------------

          New York City Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban supersized sugary drinks, as a way to combat malnutrition.

            He also signed a proclamation for NYC Donut Day.

            (Oh, another note of irony: I brought up several internet articles to familiarize myself with the Bloomberg Big Belly Ban, and the very first one was preceded by one of those annoying internet ads – for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.)

            The BBBB would apply to any bottled soda or fountain drink over 16 ounces that contains more than 25 calories per eight ounces, which is pretty much all of them. They’d be outlawed at restaurants, sports venues, street vendors, and – brace yourselves – movie theaters. Gasp! Next they’ll be taking my large buttered popcorn.

            But those goobers won’t get it without a fight.

            No word on whether the 17 ounce Big Gulp will be available in government offices, but grocery stores and convenience stores would be exempt. Apparently large soft drinks sold there are not dangerous.

            The good news is, banning things that are bad for us is always effective, and always, always works. Just ask the people who pushed Prohibition.

            Well, they can have my Slurpee when they pry it from my cold, sticky hands.

            If they criminalize supersized Cokes, only criminals will be truly refreshed.

Family reunions are a great place to exercise my right to choose.


            When Bloomberg came for cigarettes, nobody spoke (because they were busy coughing). When he came for trans fats, nobody stood up (because they were too heavy to get to their feet). Now they come for sugary drinks, and who will stand up for Mr. Pibbs? Has the medical field even debated this? Did anyone ask Dr. Pepper?

            Give me Mountain Dew, or give me death! And not Diet Mountain Dew, either. It tastes like artificially sweetened sheep dip.

            The Founding Fathers would be horrified. The whole reason they settled in the New World is because the British wouldn’t let us sweeten our tea.

            “One lump or two?”

            “How dare they alter our national beverage? Off with their heads!”

            Then we formed an independent country, so we could have southern style sweet tea. Thomas Jefferson wrote that right into the Declaration of Independence, along with a clause about fried chicken and gravy. Both were removed by a rather grumpy New York delegate named Samuel Chase, whose wife had just put him on a diet.

            Say, do you suppose that’s it? Maybe Bloomberg’s just steamed because his wife has him eating fish and asparagus.

            The Founding Fathers really would be horrified, as this kind of nanny state thinking is exactly what the Constitution was meant to prevent. It demonstrates that their written guide for the country is more relevant now than ever, despite the food stains.

 Rumor has it the Founding Fathers fueled their revolutionary ardor with Heaven's snack: S'Mores.


            Benjamin Franklin would be especially upset, as he was known to upturn an extra-large mug of mead himself, from time to time. Franklin, who famously said that wine is proof that God loves us, and wants to see us happy, would have loved one of those fountain drinks you need to haul around in a cart. Ben Franklin would have punched Bloomberg right in the nose. Well, maybe not … Ben would probably have slept with Bloomberg’s wife. He was into all sorts of excesses.

            I’m not so sure about Thomas Jefferson’s reaction. He believed in personal freedoms (unless you were one of his slaves), but also had a huge vegetable garden that he took great pride in. He grew over 250 varieties of more than 70 different vegetable species, in a garden 1,000 feet long. His children hated him.

            Once, Jefferson sent John Adams a sampling of twenty different types of lettuce. Adams wrote back: “Tom, would you relax and have a friggin’ donut? I’ll bet you can’t find twenty different varieties of donuts.” (This was before Krispy Kreme.)

            Still, they would have agreed that no mayor of York, old or new, had the right to come over and tell them how many lumps they could put in their tea. Should you stop drinking huge sugary drinks? Of course. Should we bow to a government telling us we have to? Hell, no.

We can’t have true freedom without independence. A nanny state, by definition, is a lack of independence. I may disapprove of what you eat, but I will defend to the early death your right to pork rinds.

            Yes, there have to be some limits in an orderly society, but we must draw a jittery line in the sand, with one of those big soda straws. Our voices, strengthened by a sugar rush, should shout out that we can be convinced to be healthier, but not be force fed. And, to paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we would rather die on our Frostie than live on our salads.

            Now. If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for a little non-violent protest. Supersize me.
 Is this a great country, or what?

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

 

 More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, was featured May 7 (today as I write this) on Bargain Booksy. It's a newsletter where you can find bargain books, see? (Oh, now I get it.) Their website is here:

https://www.bargainbooksy.com

You may not get their newsletter, but the price is still a buck ninety-nine for the e-book, and only $7.50 for the print version. That's less than most fast food meals--and without the cholesterol.

Just to clarify, if you read the subtitle carefully you'll realize it states that I do NOT hate cats. Got it? I don't want another repeat of that time when PETA burned a scratching post on my front yard.

See? We're having a great time.

Many people say humor doesn't sell, but I disagree. All you really need to sell a humor book is an author who's famous, infamous, or in prison. I'm working on it.

Anyway, More Slightly Off the Mark is the sequel to Slightly Off the Mark, and a modern day examination of humor columns I originally wrote twenty years ago. It is, in my considerable opinion, one of the two best books of humor columns ever written in my house ... I'll give you that I haven't looked into who owned the place since the Powells lived here in the fifties. I suppose it's theoretically possible that Fred Markey, who carved his name on my garage wall in 1879, also published a book of humor columns. Maybe I shouldn't be so full of myself.

 In any case, the key to sounding wildly successful is to be specific. Claiming to be the best humor writer in Indiana would be a big mistake. Claiming to be the best one in Albion is questionable, although I've heard that idea does make people laugh.

I'm not even the only writer in my own house.

 

 

More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies is just $1.99 on Kindle—free on Kindle Unlimited—and is also available in print for $7.50. Find it on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/More-Slightly-off-Mark-Other/dp/1709741287

Or on the author's website:

http://www.markrhunter.com/

 

Remember to support authors—because most have pets to feed, even if they're not cats.

 

"Whoa, wait--what about paying for pet food?"

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Well, this is embarrassing: I'd meant to post this before the blog I put up on the same subject back on 12/2. It's been sitting in my draft folder ever since More Slightly Off the Mark was originally released earlier this year; from a promotion standpoint, the book seems to have been cursed.

But I'm still putting this out here, for three reasons: First, it's already written. Second, hey--still Christmas shopping season, and I always hope to be shopped. Third, social media doesn't seem to want other people to see what you're doing these days, so there's every chance you might not have read the previous post, anyway.  

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

You probably already guessed this from my previous post. Still, now that we finally have the print version of our newest book, More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, available to buy, I can finally announce:

The print version of our newest book, More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, is available to buy!

Guess I should have led with that. Oh, wait ... I did.

It was what we call a slow rollout, which is another way of saying I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was, and I didn't take into consideration that great leveler of plans, Winter. This winter leveled a lot of us. (So did spring and summer, as it turns out.)

But now it's out, and only $7.50 for the paperback version, despite the fact that it's actually longer than the original Slightly Off the Mark. Or maybe because--all those words can be intimidating. Now, according to my calculations, you can have it for only 33 cents a page.

I might be wrong on that: I became a writer to avoid math.

Meanwhile, we've reduced the Kindle price of More Slightly Off the Mark to just $1.99, for those of you who have an e-reader, or a computer, and/or are just plain cheap. Remember, that's less than it costs to buy one of those super sized candy bars--and books have no cholesterol, yet still provide plenty of fiber.

And to further celebrate, we dropped the price of the original Slightly Off the Mark: The Unpublished Columns to 99 cents, which is what they charge if you want a plastic straw at Starbucks. It's true, I saw it the internet.

It's available on the website: 

 

Plus you can read the preview and get it any time on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1709741287

Remember, every time you don't buy a book, a reality TV show is born. Save our brains.

 

 
 

 

 I know all of you have thought to yourself, "What makes for a good advertisement? How do those people get me to buy their stuff?"

I dunno.

But I did write my own ad for our most recent published book, and sent it out into the cold, cruel world, where for all I know it's being read by someone in a secret bunker in North Korea even as we speak. It was an interesting challenge, because I put it up on a book site that wanted me to write something about a third of the length this originally was.

 I'm putting it here to show people an example of selling the soap, to ask what others think about it, and to ask if the expression is still "selling the soap". I've never sold soap. Despite that, I occasionally get up on my soapbox.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

 

Is the turn of the last century already ancient history?

In More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, Mark R. Hunter collects his 2000-2001 humor pieces—the earliest he put on a computer. In DOS … on a floppy disk.

The change in just twenty years resulted in a complete rewrite, so Hunter inserts his present self into the work—mostly to make fun of his older stuff. Along the way he riffs on everything from history to health, vacations, holidays, and, of course, technology. Weather also, naturally—because everyone talks about that.

It's just $1.99 on Kindle—free on Kindle Unlimited—and is also available in print for $7.50. Find it on Amazon:


https://www.amazon.com/More-Slightly-off-Mark-Other/dp/1709741287

Or on the author's website:

http://www.markrhunter.com/

Remember to support authors—the original self-isolation workers.

 


 

This was originally on our newsletter, which you can check out and sign up for here:  https://us10.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=02054e9863d409b2281390e3b&id=f39dd965f0
 
You may have also seen it on Humor Outcasts. But I'm putting it out to everyone because it's about reading, which is important (trust me), and also because I had a lot of fun writing it, and we could use some fun right now. (And also because I've got my first sinus infection in more than a year, and I'm not feeling very creative.)
 
By the way, the newsletter version has a crazy cute photo of my granddaughter on it.
 
 
 
September is a month dedicated to reading. I’m not sure why. Reading months should be in the dead of winter, when it’s too cold to do anything but curl up on the couch under a mound of blankets, pour hot chocolate over your head, and whimper about the weather. Or maybe that’s just me.

Or you could read, which seems more constructive.

But they didn’t ask me, and in fact they didn’t even tell me who “they” is, so September is both Adult Literacy Month and Read a New Book Month, which certainly do seem to go together. I don’t need to explain those, do I? If you don’t already know how to read, you’re probably not reading this right now, anyway.

September is also, according to the mysterious Them, Be Kind to Writers and Editors Month. Also related. As it happens, I’m a writer (thus this writing), and so I approve of Their decision. Since my fictional works have now been officially bought by editors, I also approve of editors.

So September is a month in which adults should read books written by writers, of which I am one. We writers shouldn’t let this go to our heads: It’s also Pink Flamingo Month, National Potato Month, and Save the Tiger Month. So They say. 

Therefore, I’m going to start writing a new children’s book about a Tiger who gives up his Pink Flamingo diet and becomes a vegetarian devoted to potatoes. It’s working title: Potato Tiger Picks Pink Feathers From His Teeth.

That title … well, it’s a work in progress. Anyway, I recommend celebrating Read An Edited Writer’s Adult Literacy Month in October. Why not? It’ll be colder then anyway, and for those who’ve already read one book, this will be your chance to read two.

 I recommend my books. Still available, mostly.
 
 
Even Beowulf has a favorite book.
 

 
 
In fact, I carry around a backpack full of copies, going door to door like a literary Jehovah’s Witness, only without the snappy tie.

Okay, fine– read whatever book you like, but please read one. I don’t get why I even have to ask people to read. I don't understood why people wouldn’t want to spend most of their time reading, with the possible exception of the late Hugh Hefner. And let’s face it, reading is way cheaper than sex, especially when you factor in certain prescriptions for someone who lived as long as Hugh. Not to mention alimony.

The irony is that I haven’t had much time in recent years to read; I’ve been busy writing. Stacks of books around the house tower over my head, ready to bury me in the most ironic death scene ever, and I’m not talking about just my own product. But by the time I’ve worked my full time job, then my second full time job of trying to get a fiction writing career going, I run out of time for my favorite relaxation activity. (I’m talking about reading – get your mind out of the gutter.) 

So I dedicated myself to reading one new book every month, in addition to catching up on my magazine reading. (No, not one of Hef’s magazines … mind. Out of gutter. Now.) Frankly, I need the relaxation, and I began with a book my wife got for her literature class: Strong Poison, a 1930 mystery starring some guy named Lord Peter Wimsey.

Well, it was new to me. And more to the point, it happened to be on the coffee table when I learned this was Read a New Potato Novel to a Pink Editor Month. It’s shameful, really. I used to go to the Noble County Public Library and load up on the limit of books I could check out – every month– but that’s just another example of how grown up life lets us down. One book I can manage, these days. I challenge everyone else to do the same, and although I’d prefer it be one of mine, make it something you enjoy, something fun.

 Stay away from Moby Dick, unless you’re a fishing fan.

Read to your pink flamingo, or read while feeding a potato to your tiger, or your editor, or whatever – but read. Let’s make this world literate again, in the way it was back when reading was fun instead of a chore. Oh, and be kind to the writers; maybe with a review, or a cup of hot chocolate. Be kind to editors, too … if they buy my stuff.
 
 

http://www.markrhunter.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R. Hunter"

 

While my wife recovered from surgery a few years ago, I did most of the cooking. I learned something about myself during that time:

I hate cooking.

Oh, who am I kidding? I already knew that.

That is to say, I hate doing the cooking; I do enjoy eating the cooking of others.

Ordinarily she cooks and I clean the kitchen, which has the benefit of us not coming down with food poisoning. I pretend this is a huge sacrifice, but sometimes a little mindless work can be nice and non-stressful.

But cooking? Pure stress, a panic filled hour of spinning from place to place, measuring and timing and trying not to burn the house down. I hate cooking with every bran fiber of my being.

Except for S’Mores. S’Mores are definitely worth working for.

Some people love cooking. They revel in it, joyful in their creation of fancy dishes.

Can we not do something with these people? Help them, somehow? How can we let them just wander around in the streets, searching for ingredients and the newest kitchen device? Isn’t there some medication that could help bring them back to reality, some procedure to help them see the real world? What kind of society are we?

When I told all this to Emily – okay, after a week and a half of cooking it was kind of a rant – she just looked at me calmly and said, “You know, some people think the same thing about writing.”

That hit home, because she and I have been known to spend hours happily pecking away at our keyboards – and no, that’s not code for something.

Okay, maybe the love of cooking isn’t a mental illness. Maybe it’s a … choice. But when it comes to cooking, I choose no.

I didn’t even cook all that much, by most standards. The day of Emily’s surgery, my mother brought over a gallon of spaghetti, a truck load of bread, and enough salad to clean out a whole field. For at least two other days we had takeout, because contractors tore up the kitchen. (I know what you’re thinking: suspicious timing. Let’s just say I left a calendar, with a twenty pinned to a certain date, for the roofer.)

A few times I sneaked in something really simple, along the lines of: “Remove cover. Heat at 400 degrees for thirty minutes. Be careful, product will be hot”.

Once I sneaked over to another family’s carry-in dinner, and ran out with two plates full. Whatever keeps me out of my own kitchen.

Emily couldn’t give me advice even when not heavily medicated, because as a cook she’s what's called a pantser. For her a dash here, a bit there, 350 degrees or so until it looks done … I need an amount, doggone it, and a time. Sometimes I think she just faked being asleep whenever I ran through the room with my hair smoking, yelling “But what does parsley DO?”

So I avoided cooking for as long as I could, but we’d bought ingredients and planned meals. Once she got to the point where she could get up and shuffle around a little, it became too hard to sneak Chinese food through the back door.

After that, from time to time I had to throw together more than three items to make one item, which is when I start to get Harried and Confused, which will be the title of my autobiography. The more items, the harder it is for me to keep my head straight. The more different dishes – and apparently meals are supposed to have, say, veggies and fruit along with the meat – the more confused and stressed I get. Cooking, for me, is like doing brain surgery would be for you. Unless you’re a brain surgeon, in which case you can probably afford a cook.

For awhile it was a tossup whether I’d burn the house down, kill us with salmonella, throw a pot through the window, or all three at the same time.

The joy of cooking was the very opposite of joy.

But then she makes me a brownie heart, and everything’s okay.

This brings me to the big discovery I really made about myself. I already knew I hated cooking, no shocker there, but my epiphany was on a grander scale. Since my teens I knew I wanted to write for a living, and be successful at it. I wanted to be so successful that I could do what I want in my life.

Now I know that I picked the absolute worst career path for financial success, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And was my ultimate goal a beachfront house in Hawaii? A yacht? Private plane?

Nope.

The older I get, the more I realize all I really want is to hire a private cook, and if they can stick around to clean up, so much the better. Emily might disagree, as she’s one of those poor, sickly souls who like to cook. But I know the true secret of happiness.

And it wears a chef’s hat.

 

 

When I had my newspaper column, I regularly wrote about two things: My family, and things I screwed up.

My family asked that I stopped writing about them. Luckily, I screw up plenty.

But there are times when I do something so stupid that I hesitate to admit it to anyone. (This is what I don't like about the proliferation of cell phone cameras. I'd rather have some control over which embarrassment I share.)
 
So it was recently, when I made a bowl of oatmeal.

The simplest things can go horribly wrong, especially for me. Remember, I've been a volunteer firefighter for four decades, and was never seriously injured in that position, depending on your definition of "seriously" (not counting my original back injury, which didn't seem serious at the time). Yet I once pulled a muscle jumping over a mud puddle. As a teen, I gouged out a piece of my ankle while hauling trash to the curb. There's a reason why my wife doesn't let me use power tools.

So it's no surprise that oatmeal almost did me in.

In my quest to be healthy--yes, there is some irony here--I've been eating food that's supposed to help lower my cholesterol. So it was one morning when I came downstairs, in my usual post-sleep stupor, and decided to make a nice bowl of healthy oatmeal, to which I always add brown sugar because, hey--I've got an unhealthy reputation to maintain.
 
Cholesterol or not, no. Just ... no.
 
The brown sugar, to my surprise, had hardened. Annoyed and half asleep, I chipped out enough to throw into the food, where it softened and mixed just fine. Then I ate while watching a documentary about the first Americans: I'm one of those people who has to read or watch something while eating. I haven't eaten at the table since 1989, except at holidays.

(In fairness, I've been researching for a story that involves the first Americans, so there. Spoiler: They didn't call themselves Americans.)

Then I took my bowl into the kitchen, started to put the brown sugar away, and noticed it was white.

Brown sugar is supposed to be brown. That's why they call it brown.

At first I thought my wife must have spilled some powdered sugar in there while making something, which is dumb because both packages were sealed up. Then I looked more carefully. I'd never seen it on brown sugar, but I've seen it plenty of other places: Mold.

I'd eaten a bowl of mold.

Oh, and by the way: I'm allergic to mold.

It didn't really seem that bad at first. I had a bit of a gut ache, which is to be expected, I suppose. I'm allergic to almost everything else, but I've never had an allergic reaction to food or medicine, so I figured maybe my body had just harmlessly digested it. And I guess it partially did, because my mold meal made it all the way into my lower digestive tract before the trouble kicked in.

I see no reason to give you the details. For all I know, you're reading this while eating.

What I can say is that my intestine is no friend of mold, and that the only real advantage of the whole thing is that I caught up on some of my reading while stuck in the bathroom. Also, I lost six pounds in a day. I would not recommend this as a diet, because once I got some 7 Up and soda crackers into me, I gained most of it back.

The stupid part, of course, is that I didn't look into the bag and spot the mold before I put it into the oatmeal. It wasn't the oatmeal's fault, obviously. Just the same, for safety's sake, maybe with future breakfasts I should change over to donuts, or pancakes, or bacon. Or all of the above.

After all, we must take care of our health.


I could just eat eggs. Nobody ever died from eating too many eggs.

 
 

 
I originally wrote this six years ago, but few people read it because it's about history. Ironically, it was one of the last pieces I wrote before my newspaper column became history. 
 
As I said in the opening to our book "Hoosier Hysterical", history would be a lot more fun if it was made ... well ... fun. So I had fun with this. (It's been changed slightly because I'm six years older.)




 
 
 
            Ever since Christopher Columbus first landed in the New World and hid all the Viking artifacts, America has been a land of opportunity, independence, and smallpox.

 
 
            Eventually the British colonists decided to go off and form their own country. (Except for Canadians, who were just too polite to leave.) Since our schools don’t teach enough history these days--there’s so much more of it now--I thought I’d give you a quick timeline of how we, the people, went from tea to coffee:

 
 
            1756: The French and Indian War

 
 
            This was probably the first World War. No, seriously: Over here we just mention the French and Indians, but the rest of the world called it the Seven Years War. It spread all over the globe, like a viral YouTube video, but with more cannon fire and disease. Nations involved included Austria, England, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Sweden. Oh, and the Indians, who had their own list of nations.

 
 
            (Later on Prussia, not wanting to be confused with Russia, changed their name to Germany.)
 

 
            Why does this involve American Independence, which came decades later? Because it cost the British government so much to defeat their enemies (and the Indians) that they began taxing the colonists to help pay for it. And yet they didn’t allow the colonies to raise their own armies, plus there was that whole taxation without representation thing.

 
 
            Oh, and one more thing: The whole world war began (well, mostly) because a young Virginia militia leader ambushed a French scouting party in the far west wilderness … near Pittsburgh. In later years, George Washington would be more careful to start battles after war was declared.

 
            1770: The Boston Massacre:

 
 
            No, it wasn’t a sporting event. It started when a group of colonists began throwing snowballs at a squad of British soldiers (In Boston. Sheesh.). That’s not so bad, is it? Then the colonists starting tossing sticks and stones, which, contrary to popular belief, can indeed break bones.
 

 
            This is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t throw stuff at people with guns. Five colonists died and the soldiers were arrested, but they were mostly acquitted thanks to the crafty defense by a young lawyer names John Adams.
 

 
            1773: The Boston Tea Party
 

 
            Tired of high taxes, an unresponsive government, and Earl Gray, colonists (In Boston—sheesh) dressed up as Indians, sneaked aboard ships (In the harbor—sheesh), and tossed 342 chests of tea into the water. In today’s dollars, they turned Boston harbor into the world’s biggest cup, with $750,000 worth of tea. They were led, of course, by the famous Boston patriot Folger “Starbuck” Maxwell.
 

 
            But why blame the Indians? They didn’t even drink tea.

 
 
            1774: The First Continental Congress

 
 
            They didn’t get much done. But in their defense, they were a Congress.

 
 
            1775: Patrick Henry stirs the pot

 
 
            With the grievances of the colonists ignored by a remote government—sort of like today, only without Facebook—a radical named Patrick Henry, upset because he had two first names and no last one, began making fiery speeches and resolutions.
 

 
            The truth is, Henry was kind of a deadbeat. Worse, a lawyer. But man, he sure could talk good, and his actions helped ignite the American Revolution. You’ve probably heard the last line of his big speech, which was “Give me liberty or give me death!” Luckily, he got liberty.
 

 
            1775: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
 

 
            He rode through the countryside yelling, “The British are coming!”
 

 
            Sleepy residents yelled back, “Shut up, you fool! We are the British!”
 

 
            Then he got arrested, probably for violating the noise ordinance, and the ride was completed by William Dawes. Unfortunately for Dawes, the name “Paul Revere” sounded better in poetry.
 

 
            Also 1775 (busy year, there): The Battle of Lexington and Concord
 

 
            Revere had discovered the British were marching by sea, which slowed them down considerably because the horses didn’t swim well. That gave the Minutemen almost a full two minutes. It was plenty of time to gather in Lexington, to protect stores of arms and gunpowder, and Concord, to protect the grapes.

 
 
            1775 (saw that coming, didn’t you?): The Second Continental Congress

 
 
            Didn’t get much done. They made up for it in 1776, though.
 

 
            1775 or so: The Battle of Bunker Hill
 

 
            It was actually fought on Breeds Hill.
 

 
            177—wait for it—5: Patriots occupy Montreal, Canada
 

 
            Things were looking up, up there. And that’s the last time things looked up for the Revolutionaries in the north, who discovered Canadian hospitality didn’t extend to invasion.


 
 
 
I wrote about both the American Revolution and Canadian hospitality in Hoosier Hysterical. Did you know Indiana was the location of the westernmost naval battle of the Revolution? You didn't? It's in the book--I'll go sulk, now.
 
 



 
            1776 (finally!) Egged on by the British, Cherokee Indians attack along the entire  frontier
 

 
            They were still upset about the whole Tea Party fraud. Also, they were mad about getting named for a country on the other side of the world.
 

 
            June 7, 1776: Richard Henry Lee points out to the Continental Congress that they’ve been rebelling against the British for more than a year, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually declare themselves to be rebelling?

 
 
            June 11: Five Congressmen are appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence. The other four talk Thomas Jefferson into doing the writing, pointing out that he’s the only one who’s invented a portable desk to use.

 
 
            June 12-27: Jefferson writes a rough draft, only to receive a rejection letter from the committee.
 

 
July 1-4: The entire Congress rips apart the Declaration. (Not literally. Sheesh.) Jefferson quits writing and goes into politics.
 

 
July 2: Congress declares independence, just as the British fleet and army arrive to invade New York. Talk about timing. John Adams declares that July 2 will forever be celebrated as Independence Day.

 
 
July 4: Having already declared independence, Congress now adopts the Declaration of Independence, declaring something they’ve already declared. John Adams’ head explodes.

 
 
July 9: George Washington has the Declaration read before the American army. The soldiers nod politely and ask when they’re going to get paid.
 

 
There was much more to it, of course. In fact, you could say the American Revolution went on until the US Constitution was adopted in 1788, or even until we fought the second Revolutionary war in 1812, which might also be related to the real second World War.



Now, that’s a funny story.
 

 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

What's that, you ask? Why yes, of course you can celebrate July 4th, or any date, by buying
Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All:

 
 

 

A free sample of More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies:

https://mailchi.mp/ff8ffdfa2652/in-which-we-give-free-samples-and-dog-photos?e=2b1e842057 

The latest newsletter is out, in which I talk only a little about the coronavirus, and you still get your image of the faithful Beowulf, who’s very photogenic. 

And—a free sample of our newest book, which you may have already guessed is titled More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies. NOT the same sample you can already get on Amazon! 



http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

Okay, so I already revealed the cover to More Slightly Off the Mark once, but this time we really, really mean it. We thought the original was a little imbalanced, so Emily added a newspaper nameplate, or banner, or ... whatever it's called. That brought us to this:

(Do I yell "ta da!" now?)

 

Which, yes, is similar to the original Slightly Off the Mark, but it is a sequel, after all. Hopefully it's not too similar. Let's compare:

Yeah, it's different enough. And here's the new book's back cover:

 

 

So, there you go. I've shown you my front side, and I've shown you my backside. Judge me as you will, or get a closer look here:

https://www.amazon.com/More-Slightly-off-Mark-Other/dp/1709741287

Just between us (until the next post), it's up for sale on Amazon, and we'll have it on the website to order soon. If you just can't wait and/or want a signed copy, contact Emily or me and we'll get you taken care of. Come to think of it--how many copies should we order?


As you probably know from the previous cover reveal, we've birthed a new book, and I didn't even take an epidural.

Kidding! It doesn't work that way, although sometimes it seems like it. Certainly gestation takes forever.

Print and website presence to come, but you can already pick up this infant book on Kindle:

https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO

But don't you want to know what you're getting? Okay, here's the blurb I wrote for the book I wrote about columns I wrote, and no wonder my fingers are tired. It's being added for sale in various places that you can bet I'll talk about, at least all through Christmas season.

 

 

Who would have thought the turn of the last Century would one day be ancient history?

In More Slightly Off the Mark, Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies, former newspaper columnist Mark R. Hunter went back to collect his humor pieces from 2000 and 2001—the earliest ones to be put on a computer. In DOS format ... on a floppy disk.

The amount of change in just twenty years resulted in Hunter completely rewriting the columns, and inserting his present self (and his dog, Beowulf, through pictures) into the work—mostly to make fun of his younger self. Along the way Mark riffs on everything from history to health, vacations, holidays, housework, and of course technology. And weather. Because everyone talks about that.

In a more serious section Hunter also tackles the 9/11 attacks … because those were the times we lived in.

Some of the chapters include:

Advice From the Clueless

I Ran Out of Excuses to Write About Excuses

When Bad Cities Happen to Good People

Civil War, Summer Vacation—Same Thing

I Just Can’t Stand Intolerant People

The Next Big Step in Medical Disasters

And, of course: Age Ain’t Nothin’ But a Number, But It’s a Really Lousy Number

 

Mark R. Hunter’s humor column was published in newspapers for twenty-five years, and he notes there’s little than can be done to stop him from collecting more of them in the future … although state and federal laws are pending.

Mark R. Hunter lives in small town Indiana with his wife/editor/book designer/cover artist/supervisor Emily, their dog Beowulf, and a cowardly ball python named Lucius. Mark thinks he's a Hufflepuff, but keeps testing Slytherin.

ozma914: (More Slightly Off the Mark)
( Dec. 17th, 2019 09:42 am)

Here's the cover of our newest book!

 

And you can order the Kindle version as of today:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082SLML4T

 

We're working on the print version. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Doesn't that look similar to one of your older books?" Well, yeah, it's a sequel. So, in honor of the second Slightly Off the Mark book, we lowered the e-book price of the original to just 99 cents. Happy Christmas shopping!

The Old One

 

Speaking of humor, we've lowered the e-book price of the photo-filled Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All from $3.99 to $2.99, in addition to dropping Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights to $1.99. They're all here:

https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO

Or here (Except for the newest, but it'll come soon):

http://markrhunter.com/

 

Remember, whenever a humor book doesn't sell, Mark Twain rolls over in his grave ... which might explain all those recent small earthquakes in Missouri.

 

Due to some required corrections and updates, we won't have copies of More Slightly Off the Mark: Why I Hate Cats, and Other Lies available at our author appearance on December 6. However, we will have a proof copy you can look at, and a pre-order sheet for anyone who wants their copy in a few weeks. (It goes without saying we'll have our other books, at a reduced price.)

Wow, it's in just a week! All the information on the event is here:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2019/11/author-appearance-december-6th-during.html

There's a lot going on that Friday night, but I hope everyone takes time to stop in at the church and visit all the vendors. I was told the Bazaar would start at 5 after a setup period, but I'm seeing it advertised as starting at 4 ... so we're going to try to get there right at 4, to get ready and split the difference. Either way, there'll be lots to see.

 

The new cover will look a little like this, because: sequel. Well, kind of a prequel. I'll explain later. Meanwhile, the e-book price of the original is dropping to 99 cents.

 

 

 

And if you can't make it, find our books at:

http://markrhunter.com/

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

(Remember, every book that doesn't sell by January 1st has to go to the Island of Mistfit Books.)

We've been on a staycation, during which I practiced writing full time. After all, if you have a goal, you should know what that goal entails.

Anyone who's done it will tell you the hard thing about working from home is avoiding distractions. (By the way, we really liked the new series, "Batwoman".) First rule: Turn off the TV, and turn on movie scores and classical music. Other voices, it turns out, interfere with my writing voice.

But before that, we had to get my new medical problems handled, and how often have I said that? As I mentioned before, my routine colonoscopy led to the discovery that I had another massive sinus infection, and also that the top of my head was about to blow off.

My blood pressure was so high that medical professionals who'd been on the job for twenty years would take it, then call in another medical pro: "Here, you try--that can't be right."

It was right. So they put me on two meds, one of which is a diuretic.

By the way, it's very important to understand that there's a big difference between diuretic and diarrhetic--big difference. Although they both involve the bathroom.

What the medication's designed to do is make me pee. A lot. As they ushered me out the door with this med, the nurse told me, "Now, make sure you drink plenty of fluids while you're on this."

Okay. So ... you want me to drink a lot of fluids while I'm on this drug that's designed to get rid of a lot of fluids? Got it.

But never mind. After my diastolic BP dropped thirty points and the little Terminator stopped shooting off his Gatling gun inside my skull, I discovered that I can, indeed, discipline myself enough to work on writing eight hours a day. (And also enough to give up the salt shaker.)

Even accounting for non-writing writing work, such as ... well, this blog ... I managed to add over 10,000 words to my novel-in-progress in a week. And that's good, because it's a mystery story, and keeping at it helps me remember what the heck is going on.

(Respect to writers who joined NaNoWriMo, an effort to write 50,000 words during November. I did it twice, and it was rough.)

At the same time Emily finished her editing work on our newest book, More Slightly Off the Mark, and we just got the first proof copy back. Now we check it for still more problems that need corrected, but it'll be available for Christmas order. It kind of makes me wish more of my weeks went like this.

Except for the Gatling gun part.

I posted this on Instagram the other day, showing that it made for TWO distractions.

 

 

Don't forget our upcoming author appearance:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2019/11/author-appearance-december-6th-during.html

 

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