Poll: Performance Evaluations

In my last poll, quite a while ago, I asked who had the most rousing speech of my WIP. With one vote Nomi won for her Churchillian speech:

Nomi: I shall go on to the end. I shall fight in France, I shall fight them wearing pants. I shall fight on the seas and oceans, I shall fight with peas and potions. I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight using leaches. I shall fight on the landing grounds, I shall fight them with a hound. I shall fight in the streets, I shall fight where ever we meet. I shall fight in the hills, I shall fight in the mills; I shall never surrender!

The course of WWII might have been completely different if Churchill had hired Dr. Seuss as his speech writer.

Next Poll:

I had to do the annual Performance Evaluations for the Evil Minions. Performance Evaluations are a great way to spot the strengths and weaknesses in the Evil Minions. They show the individuals that have been more than Evil enough, and more than Miniony enough.

One individual has gone that extra mile in evil, as well doing more than her share of Minion work.

The Performance Evaluation has shown that she needs to be promoted from Evil Minion to full Super Villain status. Which means she needs a super villain name.

I'd hate to have to do next years Performance Evaluation and mark off that she didn't command the right amount of respect when shouting out, “I shall bring the world to its knees. Everyone shall feel the wrath of ( insert name here ).”

So I need to give her a proper Super Villain name. One that shows her true Evil.

In her performance evaluation, I identified some of her strengths:

She loves to cuddle.

She has a very soft coat.

She is excellent at chasing off any dogs that wander on to the property.

She is really cute.

So what is the best Super Villain name for her.

Commando Cuddle

Cutie-pie, the dog chaser.

The Czar of Cute.

The Sultaness of Sweetness

Once she has the proper name the world shall bow before her. Or at least give her a polite curtsy. And I have no doubt she will pass her next Performance Evaluation.

As always vote on upper left hand corner of the page.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Shut-up Stupid Sunday: In the aftermath of horror, wanting more guns

The shootings in Colorado was simply horrifying. We will probably never know what the shooter was thinking. As a horror writer I'm pretty sensitive to real life horror. Even though I can write about someone doing incredibly violent things, like Doug in REPOSSESSING SANITY that is just my imagination, it has nothing to do with reality.

The real horror of the Colorado shootings is it was unpreventable.

In most cases of real life horror, there are clues about the person's sanity. Reports say that James Holmes was a pleasant person and no one thought he was insane. Even in countries with stronger gun controls, James Holmes would be able to buy guns.

I am personally fairly pro-gun rights. I watched the news from Palestine and Northern Ireland when I was young. In those occupied places they did house to house searches for clues of terrorism. The citizens couldn't do anything but watch in horror as the military searched through their belongings. After 9/11 I'm sure someone thought of doing the same thing to Arab neighborhoods. The cops probably stopped that idea, worried that they would run into a coked up drug user, whose paranoia would overcome him and he'd start shooting.

That being said, the horror could be minimized. James Holmes had a 100 round drum on his assault rifle. Outside the military no one needs that type of ammo clip. Ammo clips holding more than 10 rounds were illegal under the Brady Bill. Once someone pulls a gun and starts firing the best time to stop them is when they need to either reload or switch guns. Limiting ammo clips to 10 rounds means this happens sooner.

This is a common sense approach to limit the horror one person can do. But loons like Rep. Louie Gohmert think if more people carried guns it would be better.

This is simply insane. Imagine the horror of a dark crowded theater where everyone drew their guns to shoot at who ever is firing. The “friendly fire” would amplify the horror. Shooting at who ever was shooting would turn them into targets. In that situation James Holmes would just have to fire a couple shots and the audience would do all his work for him. One person would shoot at him, the next person would see that person firing and shoot at them, and so on.

So to Gohmert, the NRA, and all the other loons that believe that the way to stop the horror that one gunman can do is to have more people armed, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, we need some reasonable gun limits, like 10 round clips, to minimize the horror. Not doing away with restrictions so one person can make the victims do their work for them. I'm a horror writer and the bloodbath that would take place if we had everyone armed and ready shoot at any threat is worse than anything I could write about.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Writing Wednesday: Great is the enemy of Good

I've mentioned before that I never wanted to be a great writer. Just a good one.

My literary heroes were the hacks. They pumped out tons of stuff. Some of it great, some readable, some of it truly awful. I wanted to follow in their footsteps. I figured I've got a thick skin, I can take a few bad reviews. If they get too bad I can follow my wife's advice and stop googling my name every 5 minutes.

I've been editing a couple of stories to release as ebooks, and I noticed that I'm spending a lot more time editing than it took me to write the stories in the first place. That's really not a hackish attitude.

I find myself working on a light comedy thinking: Where is this character's inner conflict? How can I make the reader connect to this character? Where is their passion, their fear? Have I shown my villain's noble purpose well enough?

Even worse I find myself thinking, “I've turned this into a good story, what does it take to make it great?”

I know that it is impossible to purposely make something great.

Great work isn't done on purpose. It's a combination of things, practice, constantly striving to be a bit better, and luck.

It's the combination of these things that leads to “accidentally” turning out something great.

Now if I can only convince myself of that.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE