The Eeyore Republicans

By JD Rhoades
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Eeyore is alive and well and working for the Republican Party.

You remember Eeyore, the perpetually gloomy donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories. Nothing was ever good news for him, from finding his lost tail (“Most likely lose it again anyway”) to someone wishing him good morning (“If it is a good morning, which I doubt.”)

I’m convinced Eeyore is running the right-wing press operation. As blogger Steve Benen pointed out last week, nothing makes these people happy — “An American POW goes free? Complain that he didn’t deserve it. Unemployment rate drops? Complain that the White House has orchestrated a conspiracy to manipulate data. A strike takes out Osama bin Laden? Complain that Bush and Cheney aren’t getting enough credit.”
The latest dark clouds effused by the right-wing gloom machine came in response to the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, the accused ringleader of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Now, you’d think that catching a murderous terrorist who orchestrated an attack on our people would be something everyone would cheer about. You’d think even the Republicans would be happy, since their current PR strategy has consisted of, to paraphrase Uncle Joe Biden, “a noun, a verb, and Benghazi.”
You’d think that, that is, if you weren’t familiar with the Eeyore Republicans. They’ve really outdone themselves with their creativity in finding something to kvetch about.
One of the most common gripes was that it took too long. After all, some said, Khattala had been giving televised interviews from cafes in Libya, so why wasn’t he caught then?
Some people apparently believe that a special forces operation is as simple as seeing someone on screen, immediately identifying the locale, putting together a team on the fly, entering a turbulent and chaotic country, and bagging the quarry within the 60-minute time frame of an episode of “24.” I may not be a military expert, but unlike some people, I do know that life is not like TV.
Some claimed that the capture was orchestrated to coincide with Hillary Clinton’s book tour. No, really — they’ve actually said this.
“In the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed book tour and failed book roll-out,” Rush Limbaugh sarcastically observed, “all of a sudden we capture the militia leader who led the attack. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Fox News host “Kennedy” claimed that she thought “this is convenient for [Clinton ] to shift the talking points from some of the things that she’s been discussing.”
Thankfully, not everyone on Fox was so cynical as to suggest that this was all about Clinton’s book tour. No, to them, Obama put American troops in harm’s way to promote Clinton’s interview on Fox.
“The timing on this stinks,” right-wing radio host Larry O’Connor told the network.
For the very first time, he claimed, Clinton was going to get some tough questions about Benghazi, and the triumph of Khattalla’s capture would distract from those. In other words, we captured the ringleader of the attacks on Benghazi to distract attention from questions about Benghazi.
Meanwhile, other right-wingers were taking up the old familiar cry that sure, we have a terrorist in custody, but big whoop. The real question is, are we being brutal enough to him?
New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte bitterly complained that the administration was “rushing to read [Khattala] his Miranda rights and telling him he has the right to remain silent,” even though regular criminal procedure hasn’t stood in the way of convicting and imprisoning dozens of other terrorist suspects.
John McCain (who was a POW) continued to wage his bitter war of words with none other than John McCain, griping that Khatalla should have been imprisoned in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay — a facility whose closure he’d called for in 2008.
But, hey, who cares about consistency? Or for that matter, sanity? It there’s one thing the last few years have proven, it’s that accusations of inconsistency or pure silliness have stopped meaning anything to these people. They just don’t care about those things, because the only thing that matters to the right wing is their hate.
They hate President Obama, for a variety of reasons: racism for some, tribalism for others, partisanship gone mad, whatever. Ergo, anything Obama does is wrong, anything that goes wrong anywhere in the world is entirely his fault, and there is no plot too outlandish to be beneath the man who is, in their minds, both a fiendishly cunning supervillain and too dumb to speak without a teleprompter.

Sorry, Eeyores, but when you can’t celebrate ANYTHING as good news for America because the president you hate may get some small amount of credit for it, then it has to be said: Maybe you hate your president more than you love your country.

Via: J.D. Rhoades

    

6.27.14 – On Clichés

By JT Ellison

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I planned to write today, but the writing was going to take place in a snippet of time (exactly one hour) carved out of a very busy day. Even whilst on deadline, there are still things that must get done — doctor appointments and license plate renewals and sanity breaks in the form of lunches with friends and manicures — the flotsam and jetsam of our lives.

I have a strict rule about these kind of errands. I stack them all on a single day during the week so I’m not interrupting writing time to run out daily. That way, if I know I’m going to miss half a day on a Friday, I’ll load the rest of the day with as much as possible, and try to get a little work done in the down moments.

And sometimes, that even works. Road to hell, best laid plans… Insert all the cliches here.

I didn’t get any writing done, but I did write this blog, and think about my talk Sunday (see below) and caught up on social media, even though I sort of wish I hadn’t. But I also had a long talk with the BFF about her book, which got me to thinking I need to take some of my own advice, and so, this evening, I’ll be laying out a bit of the story-to-come in a more structured manner.

Do as I say, not as I do, right?

With that, I bid you adieu until next week. I have a working weekend ahead, and I’ll be speaking to the Nashville Writers MeetUp at the Green Hills Library Sunday afternoon from 3 – 4:15 p.m., if you’re hanging about and want to drop by. There will be enlightenment.

Via: JT Ellison

    

6.26.14 – On Moving Right Along

By JT Ellison

2043 today, moving right along. Still need a major day, but it’s coming. I need to use the principals behind the Rachel Aaron’s 10K a Day method, map a few things out and just go balls to the wall.

The fun of not outlining is things happen that you don’t expect, but it also means things go slower. Now that I’m over 1/3 of the way home, I can start looking at exactly what needs to happen to make the story sing, both in the earlier pages, and in what’s to come.

Tonight is Literary Libations, where Nashville’s Literati come to have a drink and see each other IRL – in real life. So I need to boogie so I can make it downtown in time. Hope to see some of you there!

One last thing: Jeff Abbott’s new book, INSIDE MAN, is releasing Tuesday, and there are several pre-order specials going on. You don’t want to miss this awesome thriller!

B&N: http://bit.ly/BNInsideMan
Books-A-Million: http://bit.ly/BAMInsideMan
Indiebound: http://bit.ly/INDInsideMan
Apple: http://bit.ly/AppleInsideMan
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1iDp38k
Google: http://bit.ly/GoogleInsideMan

Go get you some thrilling goodness!

Via: JT Ellison

    

6.25.14 – On Manipulations

By JT Ellison

Diana Scharf

Okay, I admit it. I am a goal manipulator.

One of the big boons of Scrivener is being able to set word count goals, both daily and manuscript-wise. At the beginning of each project, I put in my deadline and my anticipated total word count, and it tells me exactly how many words a day I need to write to meet the goal.

Glorious! It saves me all sorts of time messing with spreadsheets and the like. Tracks everything, and at the end of the day, I simply pop the total into my master, annual word tracker spreadsheet and I’m done.

I normally shoot for an 80,000 word first draft, with the deadline set a month before the book is actually due, to give me enough time to do edits and allow my betas time to read before it’s submitted to my editor. I add words when editing, rather than subtracting, so the books usually end up in the 95-100,000 range.

The past few books, though, have been well over 110,000, with THE LOST KEY first draft coming in at a whopping 130,000. So I’m a bit off on my normal calculations.

I’m on an über-tight deadline for WHAT LIES BEHIND, so I initially popped in a projected 100,000 word draft for for a July 15 draft date. My goal was in the 1300 range for the first month. Then, as things weren’t working, the daily numbers grew – I needed more and more and more to meet the goal. Which means more pressure, and that’s not a good thing.

The closer I get to said draft date, the more I manipulate the numbers. Massage is probably a better term. Writing 5 days a week gives a different daily load than 6, or even 7, which is how a book generally progresses for me. The closer I am to deadline, the more I’m writing – toward the end, the last month, it’s 7 days a week, generally anywhere from 6-10 hours a day, whereas in the beginning, it’s a gentler pace, 1000 words a day in 2-3 hours writing time.

As you can see, momentum is everything for me.

Writing to a 90,000 word first draft also changes the daily outcomes, as does a 85,000 draft.

Right now, after several massages, I’m set for an 85,000 word draft, due to myself July 21, writing 7 days a week. If I do 2,000 words a day from now until then, I will finish with a week to edit, and a week to marinate. (Of course, there’s RWA to be planned for – and the 4th of July, spent with family this year. There goes my week to marinate.)

Still, 2,000 word a day is doable. Especially now that the story seems to be cooperating.

Also, something that’s taking a bit of pressure off, my editor is reading as we go, 100 pages at a time, so I’m circumventing the beta read process entirely in order to meet the deadline. Betas will get the book at the same time as my editor, something I’ve never done.

Confused yet? I’ll say this – planning is a big part of writing. You have to be able to organize yourself, know your limits, understand what you can, and can’t do. I read a superb article last week on why projects take longer than you plan, and it’s well worth a read. I always advise people to double the time they think it will take them to finish a project.

I’m just thankful I know myself and my habits well enough to be able to manipulate these figures with confidence that I’ll make it on time. I hope.

2419 today – and that’s not manipulated. Story is starting to shape up. Can I get a hallelujah?

Via: JT Ellison

    

6.23.14 – On Barbaric Yawps

By JT Ellison

Friday’s barbaric yawp seemed to terrify my Muse, who got in line and allowed me to find a thread, albeit a small one, and definitely not golden, into the story. Despite some sort of bug-like ickiness over the weekend, I managed a couple of thousand words, adding a new character, a prologue, and a few new scenes. I’m happier now.

It’s always fascinating to me how this works. I hit this wall writing nearly every books, though this time was worse than ever before. The only thing that works is opening up a vein and asking the universe for help. So thank you, everyone who sent good thoughts and vibes, because you helped me find a path.

Today I started fresh, from the beginning, editing the new stuff, added 800 words and got up to Chapter 14. There’s something resembling a book in here, but it’s going to take a week of truly concerted effort to find it. But I’m at 30K now, and building toward the end of act one, so we’ll see what happens.

Made soup, and did 5.5 miles on the bike. I’m trying very hard to up my cardio, and up my yoga. The more I move, the less stuck I seem to be. All that oxygen going to the right places, I guess.

In other news, I wanted to share this quick clip of Elizabeth Gilbert talking about the intimacy of social media.

It’s true – I’ve experienced the same thing. My Facebook page is a really fun place, for both me and hopefully everyone there. I love Twitter, always have, though I sometimes lurk more than I post. Having direct contact with readers, many of whom have become friends, is the coolest part of this gig.

And in the bittersweet news category – Kyle Mills will take over writing the Mitch Rapp novels for the late Vince Flynn.

I think Kyle is an excellent choice. He’s great writer, and will do the character and series justice. We do miss Vince, though. He was one of the good guys. If you haven’t read him, I can’t recommend him highly enough.

Via: JT Ellison

    

Through the Mideast Looking Glass

By JD Rhoades
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends: the eternal and ceaselessly bloody drama that is the Middle East.
A Sunni militia calling itself “the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (or ISIS) has routed the Iraqi military forces we spent years and billions training and arming. They have seized the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Tal Afar, and immediately began doing what they do best: slaughtering their countrymen for being the wrong kind of Muslim.
Faced with a looming humanitarian crisis in Iraq, patriots like John McCain know exactly what to do: play politics by blaming the current president, and not the one who stupidly invaded the country without a clue about what to do after we beat the Iraqi Army, deposed the dictator, and took the lid off of the boiling pot of religious and ethnic hatreds that is Iraq.
“All the success we had,” McCain claimed on the Senate floor, “is torn asunder because of a policy of withdrawal without victory.”
Keep in mind, however, that McCain is also on record as saying other things, like: “the people of Iraq will absolutely treat us as liberators”; “it will be brief and we will find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction”; “post-Saddam-Hussein Iraq is going to be paid for by the Iraqis”; and the ever-popular “there’s not a history of violent clashes between Sunnis and Shias, so I think they can get along.”
McCain also seems to have forgotten that the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, that set the timetable for our withdrawal was negotiated by Obama’s predecessor, the President Who Must Not Be Named. He’s also forgotten that he took to Twitter to celebrate the last American combat troops leaving Iraq, claiming, “President Bush deserves credit for victory.” You can look it up.

And yet John McCain, along with a plethora of others who were ceaselessly and consistently wrong about Iraq, remain the go-to guys for your so-called liberal media for commentary on the current crisis. People like Doug Feith (whom Gen. Tommy Franks of Central Command called “the dumbest [bad word] on the planet),” Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney are all too willing to take to the airwaves and assure us that all of this could have been averted if we’d just stayed in Iraq. And stayed. And stayed, while the body bags and maimed soldiers kept coming back.
The chutzpah of the people whose arrogance and hubris led us into the Iraq debacle in the first place is truly breathtaking. Frankly, the only question a competent media, let alone a liberal one, should be asking any of these clowns is, “Why aren’t you in prison in the Hague?”
We could have kept troops in Iraq for a hundred years (a time frame McCain said wouldn’t bother him), and the Sunnis and Shiites would still hate and be trying to kill each other while the Kurds would just want to be rid of the whole insane lot of them.
Actually, it may be the Kurds who came out as the only winners in this thing. They finally got the Turks over their paranoia at the prospect of an independent Kurdistan, largely by building a pipeline and selling them lots and lots of oil. As the rest of Iraq falls apart, their Pesh Merga militias have taken control of their strategic city of Kirkuk. At least the Kurds still like us, right?
Now we’ve learned that the Syrian government is attacking ISIS bases in the north and northeast of Iraq. They’re responding to the fact that ISIS is using tanks captured from the Iraqi military to attack Syrian forces.
So the Syrian military (which we oppose) is attacking ISIS in Iraq (who we also oppose) because ISIS has been attacking Syrian government troops (an action we also support.)
It seems that the enemy of our enemy is our friend, except sometimes they’re also our enemy. Oh, and we’ll probably be entering talks with Shiite Iran (also an enemy) to help deal with the Sunni ISIS.

Are we far enough through the looking glass yet? This is what we get for sticking our noses in what are, at their root, sectarian religious conflicts in the Middle East.

Via: J.D. Rhoades

    

6.20.14 – On Blocked, Or Not Blocked? That is The Question

By JT Ellison

All right, that’s it. I quit. I am quite literally throwing up my hands. I am ready to toss this entire book.

Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is. I can’t seem to move forward. I don’t dare say it’s block, it’s only been a few days of sheer nothingness, and generally speaking, whenever this has happened in the past, it is a major signal, the universe screaming at me that there’s a problem with my story.

I’m not surprised, to be honest. This book (Sam #4) has been giving me fits from the beginning, when I tried to outline the story and got hopelessly off track. I’ve been trying to pull it all back since, redoing and redoing and rewriting and rewriting, but I’m stuck in the first 16 chapters, and the story will not move forward.

*deep breaths*

*more deep breaths*

I know every book has its own, bizarre, unique cycle. Some of them are easy to write, some are hard. The hard ones are usually the better books, but gee, how, this one. Sheesh.

For fun, I just went and snuck a look at my Monomythic structure. Apparently I am in the Test, Allies and Enemies stage of writing.

*now feeling lightheaded from all the breathing*

Okay. Clearly it’s time to go back to the beginning and see where I went wrong. Then, maybe, a Manhattan and a notebook, to figure out where I’m headed.

THIS is why I don’t outline, people. It screws everything up. I know one thing. If this isn’t conquered by Monday, it may be time to take drastic measures. I’ve only had to toss a story once before, and I don’t relish the thought. But part of being a writer is recognizing when your story has become untenable.

It’s gonna be a FUN weekend! Y’all have a good one.

6:37 p.m. – Ahem. A slightly sheepish update. I guess I needed to whine a bit, because in the intervening hour between writing the blog and now, 1100 words came spilling forth, with a brand new character and a new plot line that might actually have legs. So… thanks for letting me vent! Will update on Monday.

Via: JT Ellison