February came early. While we missed the bullet...
Our troubles are nothing to complain about, especially as our South was swamped with snow they couldn't prepare for. Some things you can prep for, some not...
Hi,
Thanks again for being here and opening this. For being part of this community.
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Farming News - This winter isn’t too different from what we’ve been through before. This time it’s just been a lot more, all at once.
Writing News - That new book has me dropping everything else. I’m hooked.
Fiction News - The Hooman Saga continues. Sue is now safe — until the probe, anyway.
Expectancy Factor - Why Reality isn’t all it’s cooked up to be.
Farming News
What we got through is mostly over. A lot of what you see in the picture above has melted off. And while I write this, I see some cities own South are also just waiting for their own melt to come. Imagine - airports in Florida closed on account of snow…
I have to find things to be grateful for. The worst weather freakishly went south while our temps were manageable. Still, our roads are mostly too frozen to blade open, so the 40’s coming this week, will be very welcome. Two weeks of above-freezing temps are coming, supposedly.
This still means getting more wood for Mother’s fireplace - which is more of a furnace, actually. If you don’t watch yourself, the room will soon be around 80.
But I’ve got an fallen oak nearby, and my sister’s son-in-law is getting my gas chain saw running again (since I wore out my electric one.)
And, as last week, I spent catching up on writing. (More on that below.)
Cows are doing fine. And thanks for asking.
Andy is nicely chubby and enjoying his solitude. All he can eat while he stands in the sun and warms himself - and he does both, a lot.
The roads haven’t cleared off much. Since they didn’t scrape them earlier, they thawed slightly, then froze in various conditions of tracks. I’ve been used to my pickup taking that trip down to my cows twice a day, and have seen the roads gradually improve. But what I though was fine didn’t suit my wife, who only has a two-wheel drive, had to go to an appointment - and wasn’t happy with what I thought was fine. Fortunately, she got up our ash-treated driveway with no problem. And her car is staying parked until there’s a lot more thawing.
All the old tricks still work. If it’s cold for very long, the ice is much thicker to chop. If you don’t want your faucet lines to freeze, you leave them dripping. More layers and not rushing things is the way to get your to-do list done.
And if you’re stuck inside for awhile, just get used to doing something else instead of being frustrated. Yes, do get outside regularly to handle “cabin fever”. Again: more layers, take your time.
(Once my wife saw how my patched-up and decades-old [but still warm] insulated gloves looked, we spend a little time and money on finding replacements over the Internet. And they’ll be shipped here in two days. I’ll probably keep them two decades, like the others - which, yes, won’t be thrown out. I can’t even give them away.)
Tiny Home News
One more single-digit night coming up, and then were in the 40’s during the daytime for the next couple of weeks. That’s about the only really useful forecast we get. Even then, it’s adjusted several times during the day.
We have a, extra space heater to plug in on the worst nights. In addition to our quiet little oil-filled electric radiator and comfy electric blanket.
The trick to a tiny home is just like wearing an insulated jacket. More insulation keeps the heat in. And if you feel a cool spot, you zip that up or tuck something in it (like gloves and wrists, knit neck-warmers.
I’ve been able to find cracks where the cold was seeping in, and stuff these up. A tiny home is easy to heat — less space, less heat required. But the principles are the same. Since I can’t add more insulation, I put on an extra heater.
My brother is thinking to buy some land and put a barn on it, insulated and tall enough to store an RV. With that deal, you can pull the RV out in nice weather. Of course, you put a bathroom and kitchen in that barn - which then makes it into a “barndominium”. (No, I didn’t couch that phrase. Look it up.) Those RV’s have thin walls, but having it inside an insulated barn is much like putting on a thick coat.
Writing News
Yes, I shouldn’t, but those paperbacks are now on hold. Because I got so fascinated with this next book. (Yes, you saw this coming…)
There’s a whole scenario with creating a non-fiction book. Most of the really good ones are “big idea” books - which means essentially that they have discovered a paradigm shift in some area. Essentially, that’s a radical new model that merges different concepts under a single umbrella model.
Like Henry Ford had the idea of a packing plant to create cars on an assembly line. Instead of carving specific pieces off a carcass, they were installing specific parts onto a framework.
Napoleon Hill’s editor (and then wife) helped him transmogrify New Thought self-help principles around the idea of focusing on creating a business — instead of worrying about staying broke.
Malcolm Gladwell is mostly know for his Tipping Point (about word of mouth) and Outliers (about trained-in abilities) where in both books, he tried to explain those subjects around his own new core ideas.
My new book is revamping (and condensing) six textbooks to discover what they taught writing students. What would make them into selling authors within a year, or a few months, instead of the decade or two most authors take on their own.
It’s going under my Writerpreneur series - and again is because I wanted to improve my own understanding of this area and tell the world what I found - leaving a bread-crumb trail.
The paradigm shift here is around the core concept that the classic books that became perennial-sellers left all the clues to their success in print. All anyone has to do is to learn how to study those books and harvest those clues. Practicing and applying their craft devices through an author’s own contemporary styles then enables anyone to routinely produce a perennial-selling back-list of novels and textbooks. Essentially, this produces a business plan out of the sheer joy of writing. Focusing on author craft instead of how to run expensive and risky ads.
Like that old saw: since you’re going to be doing it anyway — because that’s how you’re wired — you might as well make a decent living, or even get rich, meanwhile.
The outline has been simplifying as I keep sticking to my bliss instead of slogging at it. We’re now into about four draft outlines. But this last one already has four chapters laid out.
Plenty to do.
And being cramped inside during winter is a perfect time to get all this done.
And the wheel keeps turning.
A new paperback (or maybe a few) by spring, I figure.
Also published this week (ICYMI):
Writerpreneur Guideposts
Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - Foreword
In 1938, Oklahoma's first Rhodes scholar started a very unique and successful university course for writers. His name was Walter S. Campbell.
Here’s the Foreword to this new book and mini-course. It lays out the setting and main characters we’ll be involved with. And the basic “big idea” that’s been uncovered to explain all writing in terms of stick-it-together continuity.
Fiction Posts
The Hooman Saga - XIII - Serial Fiction
THE DAY WAS BRIGHT outside and Soo-she shielded her eyes against the sun as it was low in the sky. It was already setting. It would be dark in the valleys soon.
Sue has now met two female wolves, who have befriended her. One is the mysterious Teacher, and the other Tig-she, who is involved in a tragic romance with Tig, Sue’s rescuer. After sleeping almost through the next day, she arises to receive an Amerindian princess beaded doeskin to wear instead of her spacesuit..
(If you can’t wait to see how this comes out, Here’s the book link to get your copy.)
Expectancy Tips
I’ve probably covered the difference between Actuality and Reality before. To the degree you really believe in something is how you make something become actual in your own life. Reality is the commonly agreed-upon composite of how everything else believes. To the exact degree that you can separate your own personal beliefs from conventional wisdom is how you can create your own actuality regardless.
Modernly, this Reality has started to be called “psy-ops”, since some are attempting to produce a veneer on top of agreed-upon reality and so gain “control” over what people expect.
Frankly, those ideas don’t work. It’s much like the old “brainwashing” that happened during the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. Once those prisoners returned to their usual surroundings and people, those mental ideas dissipate — and those victims in general would readjust in a decade or so back to the same old scene and behaviors they had before. That’s the same time span as people who were formerly involved in cults. And similar to PTSD, except not living through a nightmare.
You can check out the material about beliefs starting with Earl Nightingale’s Strangest Secret and the books he referenced there: Think and Grow Rich, Magic of Believing, and Wake up and Live!
One key point here: your personal beliefs are more powerful to you than any amount of people who constantly feed you conventional wisdom. They only want you to keep swallowing their Kool-Aid.
Thanks for being there, opening this.
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I hope your life is not too interesting to be overwhelming, but sufficiently engaging to keep you amused. (Like some of us here...)
Robert
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