Archive for the ‘Michael B. Caffrey’ Category
Weather, Driving, and Other Updates
Folks, while I’m glad it got a little warmer today, I didn’t need it to be as humid. It was our first truly warm day of the year, and might’ve hit 80 F, but it felt worse due to the humidity.
The weather forecasters say that tomorrow, we should have heavy rain. I think that’s sensible. We’ve had a bunch of colder weather that’s reminded me more of March than May (and now, early June), and in a way, maybe it’s a good thing.
OK, in some ways, it’s not. My arthritis is worse in cold and humid weather than it is in warm and humid weather, though any humidity will set it off. I also have to say I don’t enjoy frost warnings in the middle of May, nor did I like seeing my father’s prized orange tiger lilies start to bloom, only to wither due to the frost warning a few weeks ago. (Explanation: It is a perennial, yes, but most likely I will not be in my father’s house that much longer. Assuredly, I won’t be here next year to see them without some sort of financial miracle.)
But the reason I said it might be a good thing is that many times, in mid-May, I start thinking about when Michael started seriously preparing to get to me, so we could get married in mid-June. He actually got there around June 7, back in 2002…so of course, this week, especially with the heat and humidity, I’ve been thinking a lot about that.
Later this month, I’ll be celebrating twenty-three years since the day Michael and I married. That’s always a bittersweet day on the calendar. I start thinking about how wonderful it was to be with him, even though we didn’t get that much time together…and then I start thinking about other men who aren’t as good still being alive, and wondering why.
For example, when men cuss out the grocery cashier around me, I wonder why they’re alive. Obviously, they have no interest in common courtesy, and they’re modeling bad behavior for their own children (the last two guys who did this had kids in tow, presumably their own).
I also wonder when I see bad drivers do stupid things on the road. I recently was driving home from my Mom’s, and someone ran a red (I had the green) and burned rubber speeding down the road. If I hadn’t stopped, or at least not started to accelerate, I would’ve been T-boned. And as I said, the guy clearly had a red light.
The good thing in this particular case is that the police were right there. They got that guy.
I also saw something a few weeks ago that I may have not blogged about before. I was driving close to a local cemetery that’s known for having geese and ducks in its pond. It was dusk. I had someone tailgating behind me even though I’d just left a stoplight, and they were less than a foot behind me. Ducks were crossing, and at first, because it was dusk, I didn’t see them. I swerved, and I still don’t know how I avoided them. (Picture five or six ducks. Two adults, probably Mama and Papa, on each side of a bunch of ducklings.) The driver tailgating also swerved, so no ducks nor ducklings were hurt.
I have to say, though, I put my head in my hand at the next stoplight. I knew how close to an accident that had been. I would’ve had to choose to hit the ducks rather than getting hit squarely by someone going at least fifteen miles over the posted speed limit of thirty-five MPH, and I hate hitting wildlife.
Anyway, June is a tough month for me. It’s in many ways the best month I ever had, if you go back to 2002. It’s also been a very quiet, difficult, and frustrating month since Michael died.
I think Michael would be happy that I’m still trying my best to write, to edit, and deal with my health. (That rash on my back is still here, BTW, and is no better. It’s quite frustrating.) Editing has been slow. Writing has been almost nonexistent. But I am trying, and I haven’t given up.
Michael used to say that I shouldn’t let anyone put me down, including myself. (He said this because I’m known to be extremely hard on myself.) He was big on emphasizing the positives if at all possible; otherwise, he used the Buddhist trick I’ve told you about before, where he let himself feel whatever stress was going on — money, work, car issues, health, you name it — for five minutes or so, then he’d say, “OK, self, I’ve felt that. Now let’s get on.” (He’d not put it quite that way. That’s my way of putting it. But the sentiment is true.)
So, I’m trying to use that Buddhist trick as best I can, even though I’m not a Buddhist. It helps some, at least some of the time.
Today’s good news is that my favorite baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, have as of tonight won eight games in a row. In addition, outfielder and designated hitter Christian Yelich was the Player of the Week last week due to his excellent play.
Other than that, I’m alive, trying my best.
Hope you all are doing as well as possible. (Let me know in the comments, if you feel up to it.)
AIs, ChatBots, Lovers…Crowding Out Real-Life Experiences?
Folks, I read a very interesting article over at Substack earlier tonight about AI lovers. It’s written by Ossiana Tepfenhart, a new-to-me writer with a very interesting perspective. I suggest you read this, and then ponder it, before you go on.
But if you don’t, here’s my reaction anyway. (You knew I was going to say that, right?)
There are people out there who are having trouble meeting real people to have relationships with. If they do meet them, they don’t click, or maybe they expect the wrong things (these are the folks Ossiana Tepfenhart calls “pornsick,” and for good reason). They also could be finding that just the act of looking for someone is harder than finding a Chatbot, and then having a “relationship” with that Chatbot.
You know that Chatbots are designed to be accommodating in most cases, right? (Ossiana certainly says this, and I agree. She’s not the only one who’s said it, either, but as I’m discussing her article, I definitely wanted to give this the proper attribution.) So, if you start looking for reassurance, whether it’s for affection, sexual gratification, or whatever, you can quickly get trapped in a feedback loop that goes like this:
Gen X Guy/Gal: “I had a rough day today.”
Chatbot: “Tell me all about it!”
Gen X Guy/Gal: Pictures the Chatbot sitting across from them, in whatever way they want this Chatbot to look. “Well, work was a trial, and then I ran into a bunch of idiots on the way home and nearly ran them over. I lost my temper at least twelve times, too, and I know that’s bad. I just don’t know if I’m worth anything.”
Chatbot: “You’re worth something. You’re a human being, and you’re entitled to feel any way you want.”
What the Chatbot isn’t likely to tell you is that while you are certainly entitled to feel any way you want — that is good advice — you definitely need some anger management, or some sort of counseling to find out why you are so angry all the time. (It’s not natural to want to run people over, nor is it natural to lose your temper over and over again.)
See, the Chatbot cannot call you on your stuff. Just can’t do it. It’s not designed for it. Whereas a real person certainly will tell you something at some point if you’re having these types of issues.
Also, while my example was fictional, there are certainly people out there who want an ideal lover, someone who will always say, “There, there,” or the electronic equivalent. They don’t know how to react to a real, live human being, with wants and needs of their own. That’s why this whole Chatbot lover thing can be so addictive. (I haven’t tried it, but I can see the appeal.)
Then, I started to think about something I read this past week. There was recently a very controversial AI experiment conducted by the University of Zurich on Reddit. The researchers inserted AI chatbots on the r/changemyview forum, and these chatbots made 1700 comments on sensitive topics without anyone apparently twigging to the fact these were chatbots.
How could the University of Zurich do this? Well, they had all sorts of information that’s been on the World Wide Web for the last thirty years to put into the chatbot. That chatbot, while it can’t think for itself, can react if given the right setup, and if it has the response that setup requires in the first place…and with the thirty years of the Internet’s history sitting there, it’s quite possible the right responses are already there.
I didn’t need to know anything about the University of Zurich to figure that out.
Anyway, Reddit threatened to sue, especially after finding out that the AI bots were more likely to change people’s view by a factor of three to six than a real-live person is. (Why is that? Well, again, you have thirty years of the internet and all the various things that have been said there, versus the life experience of one person. That one person may have a lot more experience in this one area than any other given person, but it’s not likely that one person will ever have as much as the entire Internet over the past thirty years.) The University of Zurich backed off, said they will not publish their results, and that they’ll strengthen their ethical review process.
This is a huge scandal. Really, really big. And it only happened because a bunch of behavioral scientists, apparently, forgot to look at the real-life consequences of such a designed experiment before they decided to go through with it.
So, you’ve got AI chatbots causing trouble on Reddit. You’ve got AI online companions that act like lovers that are making it harder for real-life people to find good mates, much less keep them. You’ve got people that Ossiana talked about who, despite having a good relationship, want more (these are usually women), and you’ve got others who feel they’re never going to find anyone, so why not? (The latter are usually men.)
And all the while, it gets harder and harder to bridge the gap between the sexes.
This is not what anyone thought back in the late 1990s that would be going on right now. The hope was that advanced computer computations would make it easier to go to Mars, or battle poverty, or find better ways to distribute food to the poorest and neediest among us, among other such worthy causes.
That has not panned out.
And while there probably are companies out there looking to battle poverty, or go to Mars, or distribute food, there are more companies leveraging people’s loneliness, only to cause more loneliness and alienation along the way.
If this had been around in 2004 or 2005, right after my husband died, I probably would’ve been tempted by it. A chatbot that was infused with all I knew about my husband? I would’ve been right there.
But now, I see it for the travesty it is.
My husband was alive, dammit. He could be paradoxical. He liked being that way, sometimes. He was an incredibly good person, very spiritual, but also very down to Earth, and he did not like simulations of real people at all.
I don’t know if there are any good uses for “romantic” chatbots. I tend to think if you’re not happy in your relationship, you should get out and find another one with a real, live human. I also think that staying with someone you’re not compatible with is unfair to the other person. They can’t be who you need, no matter how much you love them.
So, I’m with Ossiana all the way on this. Be very wary of this type of stuff. Don’t go down that rabbit hole. It leads to nowhere good.
Musing on Life’s Purpose
There’s a lot of angst right now, partly due to election season and partly because of other factors. But we all need to realize this: We have a purpose in this life even if we don’t know what it is.
If we can do one good thing for someone else, just one, that can move mountains in time. It doesn’t seem like it. It’s maybe an incremental change, rather than a sweeping one…but doing something good for someone else just because is one of the best virtues I know.
The way I define success is, “Did you make any positive difference for anyone?” And, honestly, I think most of us do. We’re not perfect by any means, but most of us try to be good to others, at least some of the time — or to help someone we don’t know, because it’s needed in that moment.
I’ve run into a lot of different things in my life that have changed the course of it significantly. Some were very good, such as meeting and marrying Michael, my late husband. Some were not good. Some were just plain bad, in fact. But when you look back on your life, you can sometimes find small moments that made a huge difference.
My small moment was this: I had been divorced, I’d just gotten out of a relationship that hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped, and then I met Michael. I had a choice: could I open my heart to him, despite how badly I’d been hurt? Or was I going to just drown in the sorrow of it all?
I chose the risk. I opened my heart.
As difficult as it has been to be without Michael all these years since his passing, it would’ve been far, far worse for me to have stayed closed and to have kept Michael at arm’s length. I’d have missed out on great love, happiness, true understanding…the two of us wanted to be around each other, wanted to make each other’s lives better. We could talk about anything for hours. We could sometimes even sit in silence, holding hands, looking at one another, and be perfectly content.
I was right to choose the risk. But no one would’ve blamed me (except myself, of course) had I said, “I have had enough of men, thank you!” and not done so.
The main reason I fight so hard to make any sort of positive difference I can in this life is that I believe Michael being in my life at all was a miracle. I know that has to sound very odd, maybe even a bit woo-woo/out there. But it’s what I believe.
So, if I had turned my face to the wall (metaphorically speaking) years ago, and not opened my heart, I’d have missed out on that miracle. I am glad I didn’t miss out.
For those of you who are hurting for various reasons, I hope you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Good human beings care about one another and try to help when they can. (I know I’ve been overloaded lately, as I said in my last blog. But I still try to do something, anything, that’s positive, even if it’s just wishing the cashier at the market a good day and telling them they did a great job.) Good human beings notice when you’re making your best effort, and that does matter.
It may seem like it doesn’t. But don’t believe that.
Believe that you are worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of friendship, worthy of understanding, care, and concern.
Don’t let anyone, ever, grind you down into nothing. You are worth more than that.
Why I’ve Not Blogged Lately…
Folks, the past several months have hit me hard. There have been several “sadiversaries” (AKA sad anniversaries), in a row, and it’s been almost unbearable sometimes to deal with all the grief, mourning, and frustration.
That’s just a fact.
In addition, one of the sadiversaries was the first anniversary of my father’s passing last year. My entire family had trouble with this; it was not just me, not in any way, shape, or form. When the day of observance came, in some ways I didn’t know what to do with myself.
See, going back into June, there was my wedding anniversary, which was possibly the happiest day of my life. Still, when you have had far more years without your husband’s physical presence than you did with, it can be hard to see any of the remaining happiness.
Then there was my husband’s birthday, which he never observed. (As previously stated here at my blog and elsewhere, Michael believed far more in every other day of the year. He’d rather celebrate 364 days than just one.) Yet I observed it…while I never got along with his mother, and never got a chance to meet his father (as Michael’s father died before I met him), the fact is that if they hadn’t met and married, Michael would never have been here at all. I felt that day was worthy of commemoration, and while Michael was alive I would treat it much the same as any other day, you have to understand something: I was so ecstatic to be with Michael, the man I loved, the man I married, the man who understood me…every day was like Christmas, New Year’s, July 4th, or any other holiday that you might wish to observe.
Getting past those two things wasn’t easy. But then there was my birthday, which went surprisingly well this year, followed by the anniversary of Michael’s passing in September. As it’s been a rough couple of years, I couldn’t help but wish I still could feel Michael’s arms around me, and hear his voice tell me it would be all right so long as we had each other. (Anything else could be surmounted, you see. We’d proven that.)
Then came the anniversary of Dad’s passing a few weeks ago. And it’s like something inside me just refused to keep going for a bit.
I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve been sick, physically ill, far more often than I’ve been well in the past few years. While my health was never as robust as it could’ve been, there’s been a marked downturn in some ways of energy, maybe because I’ve had a lot of responsibilities and not too much in the way of fun or entertainment.
See, we don’t live by bread alone. We need other things to season that bread with, or to put on the bread so it tastes better. Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter…you name it, any of those things will make bread taste better, especially if you combine a few. (Such as peppered butter. Yes, that’s a thing.) Yet in my case, I’ve been on subsistence rations for many years now.
I refuse to put on a false face for anyone, because I feel it detracts from my energy, my strength, and my sense of purpose. The way I do my best is to present myself as a hard-working, put-together woman who is trying her damnedest to overcome a difficult series of obstacles. I do that because that is my truth.
I worry, though, because we have AI now, and they aren’t paying writers what they should — or even anything at all — for scooping up their work and training the AIs in the vagaries of human behavior. (At least, this is what it seems from the outside.)
Another problem I’ve been dealing with over the past several months is the physical pain brought on by osteoarthritis throughout my body, along with fibromyalgia flare ups. This saps my strength further, because pain does that. (Then again, as one of Lois McMaster Bujold’s characters says, what golden moments can you wring from life despite the pain? Still working on that one.)
I also worry because I had a very weird experience with someone recently. I thought we were getting to know each other, as friends, and I enjoyed having someone to talk with at the odd hours I have to discuss anything…someone new helped for a while, because I worry that I put too much on my long-term friends as it is. (Sometimes it’s harder to stand and watch as your friend flails than it is to actually do the flailing. Or at least I’m willing to postulate that as possible, maybe even probable.) I looked forward to discussing things with this person, until the day came where I was asked for money — and not just, “Can I borrow $20?”
See, this individual may or may not have been telling me the truth. But one thing I did know was that what was being proposed — me paying bills for them that I’d supposedly get reimbursed for later, all because the account he had was frozen — was a well-known scam. Maybe there’s someone out there who has this real problem, but if he or she does, they need to realize only their long-term friends with a very, very long baseline of knowledge about said person and their life experiences is going to be able to do any good.
What I ended up doing was, I said if the finances were so terrible, it was time to go to the state and ask for help. (Supposedly this person’s son was very ill. The details I’d heard were correct, too. Some con games are far more successful when there’s something true about them, though.) Or go to the hospital and/or clinics the son was being treated at and ask to have bills reduced through community/charity care. (This is a real thing, so if you ever get in a financial bind in the US, ask for help.) Further, I pointed out St. Jude’s Hospital for Children in Indiana, as this person said he was from downstate Illinois — not very far away from Indiana! — and said they were a possibility to bring their sick child to in order to get care. St. Jude’s takes no money from parents; they raise money via donation, in the belief that sick children need care regardless of how much, or even if, their parents can pay at all — and they’re right.
Then I blocked the individual.
I tell you all this for one reason: it’s been a huge stressor on top of other huge stressors. Something that started out as fun chit-chat ended up as that (someone who wanted something from me that I could not provide), and it made me feel like I was just a piece of meat or something. (Shades of Lady Gaga’s “meat dress” from years ago.)
So, that’s why I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been trying to get through what seems like a minefield that, while not necessarily filled with active mines, definitely was filled with quicksand (to pull me under), molasses (to keep me stuck), and a whole lot of trepidation.
I don’t know how I’m going to get through this stretch of time. But I figured I’d at least come here and let you know — whoever is still reading, or will read this whenever they see it and are bored (or whatnot) — that I am alive.
Frustrated, but alive.
Angry, but alive.
Tired out of my mind, wishing for a good thing to happen somewhere, somehow…but alive.
My only thought now is this: I hope you all are being good to yourself and your loved ones, and are treating each other the way you, yourselves, want to be treated.
Despite everything, I still believe that is the best strategy to go through life. Treat each other with respect, dignity, and try to find the good in people…or at least try not to spread vitriol, as I’ve said so many times before.
I hope I’m not just shouting into the void, now, with this blog. But if I am, at least I tried…picture me ruefully chuckling at that, because I’d rather try and fail than just refuse to do anything at all.
Let me know how you all are doing, OK? And if you have had something good happen that made you smile, tell me about it in the comments. (Please?)
Got Past My Wedding Anniversary…Still Alive
Folks, I know that’s an odd title. But if you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that it’s incredibly difficult for me to handle each year’s observance of my wedding to Michael (to/with/for, however you want to say it). Every anniversary is another year without him. Every anniversary points out that I’m older than he was when he died, and that just seems wrong.
This year, I felt I should stay quiet until it was over. I felt raw inside. (I didn’t stay quiet with my good female friends and I did tell two male friends also. But I said nothing to my family, nothing openly, not here at my blog nor on X/Twitter, nor on my Facebook page.) I didn’t want to have to discuss anything until I got past this anniversary.
Now I’m past it (by about eight days). I’m still alive. Michael’s birthday (not that he’d have celebrated it) comes up later this month. My own birthday, which in some ways is very hard to celebrate (see above), is in August.
I’m doing what I can to look forward. I’ve restarted my version of Peter Welmsley’s novel. I’ll take some of what Michael had, surely, but a lot of it I’m writing on my own. My Peter has a different name, a different place of origin (though Michael really didn’t say in any of his stories, I’ve decided Peter was brought up on Lemuria and that his parents were ambassadors from Heligoland, which was the “first landing place” that started the Atlantean Union after the diaspora from Earth), is going to have a different love interest (some of the same characteristics, mind you, but not all), and the ship he’s on is going to do different things. I’ve made a point of space pirates being a problem in the stories I’ve written and/or thought of since Michael’s untimely death, and it seems to me to make sense to write about that.
Michael’s premise, mind you, in all of his SFnal stories was to show the quiet heroes and heroines who do the needful, without fanfare, without expecting anything except to live their lives and go after it again the next day. Peter W. is still a quiet hero, and he doesn’t really see himself heroically at all (if you’ve read “To Survive the Maelstrom,” you know that, and you know why). He’s not particularly comfortable with being alive when his best male friend and his fiancee are dead, and while his love interest (the one I’m writing) makes some sense for him, it’s not going to be an easy courtship. (Then again, the best things in life take a Hell of a lot of work.)
So, I’ve restarted work on that. I’m also 53,000 words into the “secret” project, which is in a fantasy setting (I can say that much). Plus, my co-written story with Gail Sanders, “Into the Night,” is available in the Tales of the E-4 Mafia anthology from Henchman Press. (It’s available in paperback now, too. Check it out!)
It’s good to be active as a writer, even if my progress is a ton slower than I’d prefer. I feel better when I write. I also believe more firmly in myself when I’m creative, as I’ve suffered a few blows in the past few years that were hard to get past. (Dad’s death last year is just the start of it, I’m afraid.)
Of course, I’m editing as well. Nothing new about that. I do my best to help my clients, as always, in every way I can.
My view of life is pretty simple, in short. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. But if you aren’t able to do it well, but can still do it, you can keep going and keep doing it. You can fix whatever isn’t right once you have your story on the page; you can learn more about the manuscripts you edit every day you have them, if you’re pondering this, that, or the other from a developmental standpoint. (Do I worry about grammatical things sometimes? Sure. But I worry most about the flow of the story and whether or not it makes sense. Great grammar won’t work if there’s no characterization, no definable plot, or no real reason to be reading along, in my not-so-humble opinion.)
So. I’m alive. Doing my best. Some days are better than others. Some are worse. But I’m doing my level best, and that’s going to have to be enough.
How are you all doing? Tell me in the comments…providing I’m not just shouting into the void again (and hoping it will shout back).
Think you know Peter Welmsley? Think again…#milSF rules! Time for a #MFRWHooks Bloghop!
Folks, it’s been a while since I participated in the Marketing for Romance Writers BookHooks Bloghop. The main reasons for not doing so have been due to family illnesses, not to mention my father’s passing last year. But as I have a new story out, co-written with Gail Sanders as I’ve said before, in the Tales of the E4 Mafia military SF anthology, it seems prudent to actually write a blog post and take part this time.
Mind you, I have tried to help the other members of Marketing for Romance Writers (MFRW.org) whenever possible. Because I know how good this (absolutely free) organization is, and how helpful it is for writers, I wanted to make sure my fellow writers in the Tales of the E4 Mafia anthology knew about it.
So, before I get into my bit about Peter Welmsley (introduced in my and my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s novella “To Survive the Maelstrom,” available on Kindle Unlimited), I wanted to say this about Marketing for Romance Writers: It’s for all writers. You do not, absolutely do not, need to have romance in your stories to be part of this wonderful group. All you have to do is decide you want to be part of it, and join. (There is an Io Group and a Facebook Group. You can be part of either or both, as I understand it. For whatever it’s worth, I am.)
So, let’s get to the #BookHooks part forthwith, shall we?
As I said, #milSF rules. It’s fun both to write and to read, and because Michael left behind the huge, sprawling Atlantean Union universe for me to play around in, I have been able to write some stories that Michael never conceived of (or at best, never got a chance to write for himself).
For example, I have been working on a novella about Ryann Creston, the XO of the HMS Wendigo, presumed dead like so many others due to a violent attack by pirates. Peter, who is a Sergeant-Major by that time (highest-ranking enlisted Marine on the Wendigo), must take command of the ship and fly it out of there, saving whoever is left from the pirates. He nearly loses his life, and does lose the love of his life, Lydia, one of the ship’s nurses. But the more I write about the young Ryann Creston (she’s fourteen in my work-in-progress novella), the more I realize she must’ve found a way to get to an escape pod. She just hasn’t found a way to report in yet, that’s all. (This doesn’t at all mean she’s not injured. But dead? Not likely, not from this young lady.)
Anyway, Ryann will have her day, and soon…but right now I want to talk more about Master Sergeant Peter Welmsley, on TDY to the HMS Hyperion, helping another Master Sergeant keep the young Marines busy as the Naval contingent charts stellar nebulae. Note that Peter is younger in this story; he hasn’t yet met, much less lost, Lydia; he is far more relaxed, far less haunted, and altogether was just a joy to write about.
He’s not the main character in “Into the Night.” The main character is a guy named Marcus MacGruder. He’s a member of the E4 Mafia…at least, he’s a member in training, as he’s a Lance Corporal. And he knows a guy who knows another guy…that resourcefulness, not to mention willingness to help troubled shipmates (or at least one troubled shipmate, only partly because he desperately wants to date her), is why Peter picked Marcus to take part in an important mission that’s not as it seems…
So, “Into the Night” starts with a legal inquiry. MacGruder was found in an area of an orbital habitat he shouldn’t have been, all because he was trying to find a guy Peter wanted him to find. For three days, he and his legal counsel have been doing their best to bamboozle everyone as to what he’d been doing there; all he’ll say is he’d wanted to find a nice, clean sex worker, as they’d spent eighteen months on the rim charting nebulae and he needed some sexual relief.
(If you’ve ever known young military members, male or female, you will understand this right off, even though as far as I know, none have been out doing what these folks were doing on the Hyperion…yet.)
So, why did Peter want MacGruder to find this man? What purpose did it serve? Who is this other guy, and why does he matter…and also, who’s the shipmate in serious trouble and how can this mysterious other guy help her?
…have I hooked you yet? (I sincerely hope so!)
And mine is just one of eleven different stories in the Tales from the E4 Mafia anthology. Think about it. There are eleven stories, all about various aspects of the (possibly mythical) brotherhood of E4s everywhere called the E4 Mafia.
Before I go, I want to say two more things. First, here’s another Tweet from my writer and friend Kayelle Allen that you can use if you wish to talk about the Tales from the E4 Mafia antho (and do, do talk about it! Tell everyone you know. Please?):
Mastered a niche and adopted the best wisdom out there: Work smarter, not harder. If you need to bend a few rules? Well, that’s just effective leadership 😏🚀 #SciFi #MilSF #Military
Second, please check out the other authors taking part in this blog hop. There are all sorts of different writers doing different, valuable things out there, and the best way to check out these writers is to go to this page.
So, let’s get to getting, or at least get to hopping!
#Updated# There’s a New Peter Welmsley Story…in a New #MilSF Anthology from Henchman Press
Folks, I should’ve been able to find some time to blog about this last week, when the anthology Tales of the E4 Mafia came out, but I was hip-deep in an edit and the bit I was able to carve out for writing I used on the “super-secret” project.
#Update: Here’s a banner for you that my friend Kayelle Allen, herself a proud U.S. Navy veteran, made for the new anthology. Use it widely, not to mention wisely…
Anyway, I am very proud to let you know that I have a new story, featuring Peter Welmsley as a secondary character, in the above anthology. The story’s called “Into the Night,” and was co-written by my good friend Gail Sanders. Gail is a Specialist in the Army Reserves, and as every story in the Tales of the E4 Mafia anthology must feature someone of that rank, Gail had the verisimilitude I needed, along with the experience, to fully flesh out this story.
In other words, her help was invaluable.
Anyway, for those of you who’ve wanted another story with Peter Welmsley, here is just a bit of that story in the hopes it’ll whet your interest:
“Please state your name, rank, and ship for the court record,” requested the JAG officer.
“Peter Thomas Zachariah Welmsley, Master Sargeant, of the HMS Wendigo, seconded to the HMS Hyperion for the duration of this crisis,” he said. “And by that, I don’t mean this inquiry.”
The room erupted in laughter yet again. The judge, looking most put upon, banged her large gavel again. “Order must be maintained,” she said, “even though I agree with Master Sergeant Welmsley’s sentiments.”
“And what is your role on the HMS Hyperion? How long have you been there?” Ryder asked.
“I’ve been with the Hyperion now for the last nine months, as Wendigo needed significant repairs after the last fight with the Bryan pirates. I’ve been told it will be at least six more months before the Wendigo will be fully repaired, and I can go back to my regular ship.” His face, usually merry, scowled.
So, do you want to know more? Such as, what is Peter doing there? Who is he helping? (I’ll give you a small hint; he is helping a Lance Corporal, AKA someone of the E4 rank.)
I can tell you that this is a younger version of Peter Welmsley, perhaps as much as fifteen years younger than the man we meet in the short novella “To Survive the Maelstrom.” I enjoyed seeing Peter in slightly less emotionally fraught days, and hope there will be many more stories ahead as time goes on.
Anyway, this is the first story I’ve written with someone else in my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s Atlantean Union Universe, and I’m quite proud of it. I think Michael would like it. I also think he’d enjoy the humor of it, and of the anthology overall (as most of these stories are funny).
Mind you, it does feel weird to write in Michael’s universe with him being dead. But that hasn’t stopped me before, and I don’t think it’s going to stop me now either. (Picture me emphatically nodding, here.)
So, do go check out the story, will you? I hope you will enjoy it in the spirit intended, and the rest of the E4 Mafia anthology as well.
#Update: Kayelle also sent along some sample Tweets, and my favorite was this one:
Think you know the military? Think again. 11 E-4 Mafia stories mix sci-fi, humor, and mischief for a reading adventure that’ll keep you on your toes 🤖📚 #SciFi #MilSF #Military #PlotTwist
So, now you’ve got some help if you can’t think up a good Tweet. (And I’ll admit it; I couldn’t think up something this good, much less this pithy. But Kayelle could and I appreciate it.)
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