Mom, why is the Planet all Fuzzy

Had another of my wandering brain thoughts when I was driving home today (lots of driving lately).  What would it be like to encounter a planet from a distance that was shrouded my some kind of fog that you couldn’t get much of a reading on.  One caveat is that you were tracking signals from the planet while coming toward it at less than light speed.  In other words you were able to view the electronic radiation from the past of a civilization as you move toward it.  The closer you get, the more current the data.  Then a massive pulse of EMP and the history ends hundreds of years before you arrive.

The eerie silence as you near the planet is coupled with a planet covered in a dark cloud.  Feeling worried, scans show large amounts of metal but little else.  Then you are close enough to see that the cloud is not made of vapor or gasses but millions upon millions of satellites, which are all completely inert.  No power emanates from the orbiting debris.  Similarly, the planet that can be glimpsed through the satellites is completely without power, no signals reaching out to the void.  Cities can be seen, some destroyed while others are intact but uninhabited.

The planet is all that remains of a civilization that advanced in technology too fast to handle or bear the costs associated with developing technologies.  They learned the use of satellites but not how to leave the planet themselves.  The ripped out the resources of their world and wasted it in space and on the ground.  When they finally understood the peril they were in, instead of uniting, they turned on each other and wiped themselves out.  Now all that is left is a lifeless planet surrounded by a cloud of lifeless junk.  What a sad way to go.  I was thinking this image would fit in well with a short story that has been rattling around in my head for some time.  The hard part is achieving that tone of deep loss of potential, the unfortunate failure of imagination that lead to such an end.  The title of the story I have tried to write before would be “Legacy of Hubris”.  The path to the end would have been different but this may work better.

Here’s to Smoke in Your Eyes

Even though I have been having trouble with Amazon placing my book cover on my product page, I am already thinking about putting together another collection of short stories.

I have several left over along with some novella length stories I started or thought about. The process may take awhile but hopefully not as long as “Mystics and Misfits” did. The title I have chosen is “Vapor Visions”, which is the reason for the post title.

Anyway, I had actually thought of the title as something to use on any art books I created. However, I was trying to think of a title for a new collection in the vein of “Mystis and Misfits” and decided this would work. It will actually tie into one of the stories like the original cover does. So wish me luck.

By the way, I am giving away free kindle copies of “Mystics and Misfits” at Librarything.com. I have 10 copies that can be won through the member giveaway. So far five people have signed on for a chance. Depending on the response, I may run another giveaway. Good luck.

Haven’t Quit My Day Job, But Ohhhhh Mannn!

So work has kept me away from art and writing lately, but I haven’t been totally blowing you guys off.  If you guys go into a Walmart in the near future, think of me and my fellow workers when you stop at one of the hand sanitizer stations throughout the store.  We have to check them twice a day five to seven days a week, depending on the store.  I am doing a lot of driving.

Anyway, I finally got around to scanning in some images I wanted to work on in Gimp.

 

 

The first one will look familiar since it is the design I am painting onto several layers of Plexiglas.  I always considered doing it in Gimp as well and will add it to the designs for Sarah Seadragon.  Also, as I mentioned before, I am not really happy with the painted image.  I really wanted to get a translucence that I could place LED’s behind.  I my try setting up the Gimp file such that I can print out layers on overlay sheets and place on the Plexiglas.  I did something like that with Barnacles and Butterflies but it was with candles.  We shall see.

The second image was done just for fun.  I haven’t done any creatures in a while and wanted to see what I could come up with.  This is the end result of an earlier attempt that I liked enough to go back to refine.  I had fun coming up with a name that would sound correct for the character.  I plan to try painting him in the style of a comic book character.  I don’t know how I will achieve this in Gimp but this is how I learn.  We will see where these ideas lead.

Oh, almost forgot.  I may start thinking about pulling some more stories together for another collection of short stories.  In addition, on my way home today, I had an idea on how to combine a stagnating story idea together with another story to bring both to an amazing fruition.  They both are romances dealing with deep love and great patience.  If I begin to make any head way I will let you know.

My Thoughts on the Modern Presidency

Here are my thought on the modern Presidents of America.

Amageddon knocking on the door, “Hey Ron how is your monkey? Want to build some more nuclear missiles? Good times right?

Ronald Reagan ” Sure, if Oliver North can come.”

Armageddon knocking on the door, “Hey George, if you go into Iraq, let my buddy Hussein off the hook.”

George Bush “Sure thing because we don’t want any new taxes you know. No new taxes!”

Armageddon knocking on the door, “Hey Bill, you know this guy Jeffrey Epstein? I think you guys would get along real well.

Bill Clinton “Oh hey y’all, sounds fun!”

Armageddon pounding on the door, “Hey W, I know you are busy with this Afghan thing but I think we can have a lot of fun in Iraq. You up?

George W. Bush, “Are there WMD’s innvolved? Oh hell, nevermind, sure.”

Armageddon knocking on the door softly, “Hey Barrack, my Wallstreet friends feel real bad about what they did. Do you think they can still get their bonuses?”

Barrack Obama “Why yes, yes they can!”

Armageddon going all Jack Nicholson on the door sticks face through, “Hey Donald, want to destroy the W…Son of a bitch, you started without me!!!!”

Donald Trump “Just slow the testing dowwwwn, Lock her upppppp, Choke holds sound so innnnnocent, Fake mediaaaaaa, There are good people on both sidessssss.”

Okay People Listen Up!

 

Mystics and Misfits by Robert Garbin

Whoo Hoo, I am officially published on Kindle.  I had to put the cover in here because apparently it takes a few days for that to set up on Amazon.com, but who cares.  I am published and on Amazon.  I wondered if I would ever get to this point.  Basically, I was holding back for a few reasons.

I really wanted to add one more story to make the collection about 80,000 words; however, with everything going on, I decided it was now or never.  It just leaves room for a second collection.  Also, there is at least one novella/book sitting half finished in my head.  Another thing holding me back was the formatting for Kindle and other Ebook options.  I was only working with Word Starter and could not figure out how to make the clickable table of contents.  Even with the generous help of my friend Nila I was still stuck because I thought I needed a full version of Word to create the table.  So, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a full version of office.  Funny thing though, after I worked it out, I decided that I could have done it on Word Starter.

Yeah.  Well, them’s the breaks and at least I got moving again, but wait.  I then discovered a feature that I do not believe is available on Starter, which is that Word can actually read your writing out loud to you.   I was really concerned about delivering a quality product but could not afford to have it professionally edited.  Through the years of working on this collection, I have had help from friends and have used Word to catch a lot of things but I really feared missing stupid stuff you correct as you read to yourself.  So I ran one final spell check and was prepared to send it as is.  Then I saw the reading feature and decided to give it a try.  I was amazed at how well it does, even with my strange character names.  In addition, there is nothing like hearing a story to feel how good or clunky a sentence or paragraph sounds.  I was able to correct so much by this method, including comma placement.  One story I kept typing “bother” instead of “brother” and it was glaring.

So, while I felt like a dope for springing for a full version of Word, I was very grateful in the end.  Now, here we are, with a short story collection available for purchase.  Years of doubt, dreams, and ideas ready to be devoured by you and the rest of the world.  A total of 12 short stories, three that actually combine into a complete novella.  Some have been on this blog in earlier forms but have been expanded on, while others never have been.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I Know a Secret and You Don’t!

Nah Nyah.  Ha, Ha, Ha, I will have some very great news for you in a couple of days.  A project I have been working on for several years has finally come to fruition.  I am waiting for some parts to finish up then I will share the great news.