Dear Reafer

[NOIRTRASH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8IHzqVKugE&t=55s

For now no threads by others. Other threads are like hard time at the Kardashian Prison.

At the top are the Chopin etudes. They aren't entertainment, theyre naster classes for pianists. I cant name one writer who ever who created master anythings tho there are oodles of scenes most of us cant touch, ands we rarely get the sex right. The whole of written composition is pocket pool, at its best.

I read, the other day, an old soldiers opinion that accurate combat depictions are impossible to write. I thought about it and disagree. Combat is loud, noisy, and busy but not tough to untangle. The whole deal follows a routine. So I may write a combat scene into a story. I did it with boxing, and got some applause.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Don't just talk it James, get writing...

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Don't just talk it James, get writing...

You can play Caitlyn if Lovecraft is too busy, and I promised God the role of Pilot Kardashian. Its God's first important part.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I wish I could see. I touch-type, and my fingers are off the mark with a few keys, like D and F. I'm lost in a grocery store, because they move shit around.

 

[holliday1960]

.....

 

[NOIRTRASH]

James, I used to have a keyboard which had the braille marks on the home-row keys. Surely they still make them? Or, we got my mom one of those keyboards that not only lights up in the dark, but the keys have enlarged letters printed on them.

As another alternative, have you tried using the Dragon program? (dictation rather than typing?)

Might any of those things help? I'm truly sorry about your eyes. I completely understand and empathize. My sister stopped going to the store many years ago for the same reason. She lost her central vision when she was in her 30's.

My war for the last two years is the MDs. The docs wanna pass me around like a bottle or joint before anyone does anything. Its like the tv commercial, OH I'M NOT AN EYE FIXER, I'M AN EYE MONITOR. I TELL YOU WHEN YOUR EYES ARE BAD. HAVE A NICE DAY. Its modern medicine. The hospital corps own the MDs and both milk patients.

 

[holliday1960]

.....

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I totally understand. (the commercial is irony at its worst, especially when it comes to something as delicate and essential to quality of life as our vision.) They did the same thing with my sister. (40-some odd specialists and when she asked if they could do anything, they politely told her to take her records and leave please.) Her condition crossed between Major Medical and Ophthalmology fields.

I pray someday they will find a better way to deal with vision losses, but I fear it will be too little, too late for this generation.

I spent a career working with MDs, and know few of them know medicine. I mean, plenty are crinally ignorant of the basics. One of jobs involved investigating patient deaths. My profession rehab) made me informed about medicine and medical practices. So when my MD sent me for a kidney ultra-sound, I asked about cancer then confronted her about the bogus test. Pills and tests fatten her pay. I know what to question. She doesn't like it, and I remind her of how many docs kill patients. Trust me, lots kill patients. I usta park MDs in a conference room with a panel of MDs, and let all of them tell me whazzup. They hate it. But they kill and lie.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

You wont read this suggestion anywhere but here.

If you wanna master pacing find a good account of a battle that's brief. I recommend Chancellorsville of May 1863. It lasted about a full day, ruined Joe Hooker's military career, and made Robert E.Lee look like the marvel he was not. Its entirely a mix of luck and c;usterfuck. Its like watching a Absurd and ytagic.n ass-clown circus that's awful and wonderful. The action is constant, from noon one day to noon the next.

The beauty of it is theres no time to stop and smell the roses.

 

[holliday1960]

.....

 

[NOIRTRASH]

James, I started a piece some time back and put it on hold because it also involves battle scenes from Murfreesboro, Lookout Mountain. I think a lot of the CW battles were clusterfucks with brilliant results, more luck than skill I would think. I don't think anything went as planned in that war. Of course, it's been a terribly long time since I read anything on actual strategy and the like. And, so much of what was written back in the day was censored for self-serving purposes of various participants.

Anyway, my question is other than using these pieces to pace action, in writing period pieces for a male readership, is the devil in the detail of battle? You've done a lot of period pieces and some of those were non-erotic. I loved them for their authenticity and flavor. Naturally, the detail was key in those, but what about in eroticism?

Lemme offer an example.

Lee's escape from Gettysburg is almost always treated as nothing by historians tho the process of fleeing to Virginia was an ordeal ans trial and hell for all involved.

The account I read today lays it all out like the scene of a tornado hit. The writer was there. He doesn't point to every heartbreak but used limited powerful observations to make it all come alive and move like a camera mounted on a truck.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSEVyzKmlyU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKjP53J6gIE
An example of what I mean

 

[holliday1960]

.....

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Okay, that's more or less where I was headed with mine. Pretty much an overall view and feel for the setting and less who was doing what for why. I stopped because I thought to myself, "Hey, you really don't know enough about military strategy to go into more detail than this."

Jeez...one of these days, I'm going to have to break down and actually finish one of the more serious pieces I have started. I keep going back to what is 'safe'... mush on a plate. Always second guessing myself, and here I go giving others the advice not to do that, to just go with your instincts. This may be the inspiration to do something with real fiber. Thank you, James.

The only military strategy that matters is SHOW UP WITH THE MOSTEST. Pershing was prolly the lone commander who had a clue, and often he tried being nice before throwing punches. Its true. You said luck is important, and it is.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A written example:

My division waded the river just above the aqueduct over the mouth of the Conococheague; the operation was a perilous one. It was very dark, raining, and excessively muddy. The men had to wade through the aqueduct, down the steep bank of soft and slippery mud, in which numbers lost their shoes and down in which many fell. The water was cold, deep, and rising, the lights on either side of the river were dim, just affording enough light to mark the places of entrance and exit. The cartridge boxes of the men had to be placed around their necks; some small men had to be carried over by their comrades; the water was up to the armpits of a full-sized man. All the circumstances attending this crossing combined to make it an affair, not only involving great hardship, but one of great danger to the men and company officers; but be it said to the honor of these brave fellows, they encountered it not only promptly but actually with cheers and laughter.



Alexander, Edward Porter. Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative (Kindle Locations 7190-7191). Acheron Press. Kindle Edition.

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Denny

Bought a large curved Samsung monitor. Even on eyesaver it's too bright.

I use an antique Bankers Lite with a 40W aquarium bulb down low to shine on the keyboard.
Damned key white letters don't last long. A white Sharpie helps for awhile

Tried one of those new oversize contoured keyboards briefly. Staples got it back in days!


Stop running down Robert E Lee. I was born on the 19th and my middle name is LEE.
Yes we are from the midwest. What were my parents thinking?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Bought a large curved Samsung monitor. Even on eyesaver it's too bright.

I use an antique Bankers Lite with a 40W aquarium bulb down low to shine on the keyboard.
Damned key white letters don't last long. A white Sharpie helps for awhile

Tried one of those new oversize contoured keyboards briefly. Staples got it back in days!


Stop running down Robert E Lee. I was born on the 19th and my middle name is LEE.
Yes we are from the midwest. What were my parents thinking?

Lee is admired for plenty that wasn't there. Black Jack Pershing was much better than Lee. Grant was better than Lee. Lee looked like a god, and that's about all he had goimg for him.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The only military strategy that matters is SHOW UP WITH THE MOSTEST. Pershing was prolly the lone commander who had a clue, and often he tried being nice before throwing punches. Its true. You said luck is important, and it is.

Noir, did you ever get a chance to read Anthony Bevor - his books on Stalingrad and Berlin are out in kindle - about $11 each, though. Those two are his best - probably because they were such brutal campaigns, the sheer chaos is horrifying.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Noir, did you ever get a chance to read Anthony Bevor - his books on Stalingrad and Berlin are out in kindle - about $11 each, though. Those two are his best - probably because they were such brutal campaigns, the sheer chaos is horrifying.

Thanks. I added them to my book but list.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

How much detail is too much detail? How much before cant see the forest for the trees?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

My latest effort is on the drawing board a ywar with a 60K word count but far from done. That said I wrote a good opening yesterday, I like the opening, it works as it should. My lone green E tale took 5 years to write.

I bought two books so far, set aside 3 I may buy, and rejected a dozen or so that fail my test tho all are best sellers...CAPE FEAR and LONESOME DOVE among them. The set aside hot prospects are LITTLE CAESAR and the ASPHALT JUNGLE by William Burnett, and THE GREAT GATSBY by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I bought THE KILLER INSDE ME by Jim Thompson, and DARK SUN by Richard Rhodes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

DARK SUN by Richard Rhodes.

Highly recommended, the story of the US hydrogen bomb.

Rhodes also wrote "The History of the Atomic Bomb". The companion piece, on the Soviet A bomb development is "Stalin and the Bomb" by David Holloway.

Good concise histories. Mad fuckers doing critical mass experiments using guillotines in the laboratory; Beria deciding the hand-out of medals, using the same logic as to who would have been shot, sent to the gulag, sent to prison if the damn thing didn't work.

Essential history - every tool-making civilisation in the universe will eventually come up against splitting the atom, and how to survive it. For mankind - so far, so good, keep your finger's crossed. Key message - don't use it.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Highly recommended, the story of the US hydrogen bomb.

Rhodes also wrote "The History of the Atomic Bomb". The companion piece, on the Soviet A bomb development is "Stalin and the Bomb" by David Holloway.

Good concise histories. Mad fuckers doing critical mass experiments using guillotines in the laboratory; Beria deciding the hand-out of medals, using the same logic as to who would have been shot, sent to the gulag, sent to prison if the damn thing didn't work.

Essential history - every tool-making civilisation in the universe will eventually come up against splitting the atom, and how to survive it. For mankind - so far, so good, keep your finger's crossed. Key message - don't use it.

I bought the arom bomb book long ago, and read the hydrogen bomb book. My library includes lotsa science because physics, weather, and medicine are interests of long standing.

One of my ancestors invented medical school in the 1700s, after he earned his MD diploma travelling across Europe to get the necessary traing. Then he invented medical intern service. Then the US Army Medical Corps. Pl;enty more firsts. Few know his name. His best discovery was morphine; a German found the morphine molecule but Thomas Bomd pointed to it as a property of opium.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

In the 50s Tampa was the setting for many hard crime noir novels by prominent writers. I own many of the novels, and bought another today. Ita WHITWE SHADOW by Ace Adkins. Adlins was a researcher for the old Tampa TIMES from 1950, on. The novel is a fictionalized account of Tampa's Cracker Mafia boss, Charlie Wall. Wall was murderedin 1955 by the Havana Mafia.

Wall and I are kin. His ancestor and mine were sisters.

The novel captures the flavor of Tampa when I was a kid and lived there. In Pala Ceia a block or so from Tampa Bay. Tampa was Paradise then. Today its a nigger/Fag shithole.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I looked GENRE again. The definition is the same as always. Genre is depiction of ordinary life. I think Currier & Ivess when I imagine genre.