PATRICK
PATRICK's JournalThe whole writing thing
Of course, the Smashwords End of the Year Sale is on full throttle and I, P.E. Murphy have four digital books on half sale, paperbacks soon to be available at Barnes and Noble.com, being such a difficult year has once more scattered the puzzle of marketing all over the room before I could lay down a single piece. A piece of advice though, keep writing and editing what you like. Alas, that is just one piece, and wisdom might only revealed by the whole.
All the questions and puzzles about the inspiration and craft. Chasing the avalanche of the popular slushpile down the infinite slope of AI slop or madmen's social media empires. Finding readers. Reviewers. Agents! Publishers. Book Clubs. Ads. Bloggers.Well, I keep the nickels close, the dollars banked, and nod grimly at the experiences and sorrows of others.
So I will only speak now of the four books in question, hopefully edited beyond reproach. Last year's "A Christmas Castle" a 20,000 word humor classic combining the weirdly incompatible "A Christmas Castle" with Dracula and cable Christmas channels. Well, researched and hilarious. Maybe the samples online do it some justice. It is packed with yearning for that Xmas miracle...and comedy.
"Dorothy and the Flower Sea" is an OZ book of a Dorothy a bit older than Baum's and a bit younger than Garland's. Humor and an adventure quest using material from Baum's era, Gilbert and Sullivan, the Owl and the Pussycat and then...the Odyssey. many unique characters and a quick rich plot. Not mawkish and not the "adultified" modern fairy tales so in fashion. I had my own book in progress when the MacGuire's "Wicked" came out. Mine violated too many copyrights and it was all humor, much like the Flower Sea. I even did a parody movie script based on the original MGM version. A labor of laughs and love and futility. For all ages and rich movie producers?
The next two (older)books were when I shifted from my love of oil painting and using all that BA knowledge for poetic fantasies. "Raven/Albatross" is a semi-mystery where a Poe "pretender" tries to peddle new works to a fading Charles Baudelaire in Belgium. The crown jewels are a conclusion to an unfinished tale(I LATER found to my satisfaction to be most similar to Robert Bloch's attempt) and a the completion of Poe's novel about A. Gordon Pym. Lots of twists and turns and puzzles, even in the interior title page. This is the first of three fantasies in the Poetic Comedy representing the Inferno of the "poetes maudits". A stand alone.
"The Swan Coat" is a fantasy dream of William Butler Yeats last days, a fantasia of my own lightweight efforts in fairy tale fashion. This would be the stand alone Purgatorio of the series.
I enjoyed them all, the funny ones the most. Maybe too much. I keep a fun book orphanage of light classics. My doctors are my best fans. Maybe it is some mutual benefit that I be kept happy and alive for more novels or more medical business. I assume that proves some intelligent appreciation. Several other novels old and new to spruce up for next year. All unique somehow, like my posting of the Emperor Ubu playlet in an earlier posting. Sadly prophetic. (But there is still time for him to save himself!)
There they are, just for fun of course. Readers browse and graze where they will. I will keep piping, marching with a different drummer in the marketplace, no whining. Oh, and positively no AI.
Good look and better writing days to all on DU. God bless us every one!
Well, I shouldn't do this
I have a lot of projects needing prompt attention and my own fading timeline. But for some reason I became compelled to do this awful thing(with apologies to the deceased Alfred Jarry and Christopher Marlowe). I just offer as far as I am. In writing plays all the real editing comes in the execution, but without that unlikely event- which would get me deported to Guantamo- I hope someone understands this anyway. Any complete resemblance to a certain lie-trafficking Tariffist is impurely coincidental. Please stop me.
The Comical History of King Ubu
by Alfred Maralo
"I do not sing of suckers and tools
Nor all my fans, fantastic fools,
The House destroyed. Just close the schools!
There never has been, nor will you see
As great a man as ever can be-
Just say it aloud. It must be ME.
But now it comes with my final breath,
Vigorous and great with diet meth,
To out-deal the cards of Mister Death."
ACT ONE
The Oval Throne Room
UBU: (Loud and long fart) Fantastic! What a tough day and I still don't get the respect I am entitled to. But I will! Esteban! Get over here...NOW! Wait, you're not Esteban.
ESTEBAN # 2: Beside the fact you made me come over to do Esteban #1's job, he's been on the outs with you for a long time.
UBU: I don't feel well. This schedule is killing me. I should be relaxing and enjoying things more, though I admit it has been a lot of fun getting things done and done right! Unlike all my predecessors.
ESTEBAN #2: Thanks to your contract with Lucky Lucifer we can do anything!
UBU: I can do anything. But I am a little worried. My heart has been skipping a beat lately which it only did before when...someone young was around. I am beginning to worry I may have to actually honor the agreement before I am done. It DOES say I must be satisfied. My lawyers were pretty clear about that. Were they not, Mere Ubu?
MERE UBU: (wearily) If you say so. God knows, you only hear what you want to.
UBU: Don't mention that Name!
MERE UBU: Oh, God?
UBU: I have felt bad about dying before, but now with all this stress it all comes down to the last big Deal. For my soul. I will not be cheated by Death or anyone else. I've been bargaining all my life with no help from anyone else. No one has done it better, certainly not that sucker and loser the Devil. No, it is time to turn to God and see if I can get past this hard work with my legacy and soul intact. Just watch me.
MERE UBU: (aside) What? Go up in smoke like the Devil dispensing with stolen votes?
PERE UBU: Get that Pope of ours over here now! He can get me what I want. It's all written in my Bible so he has to help me get to Heaven!
ESTEBAN #2: The red phone, Sire! Ow, it's a little warm to the touch.
UBU: Idiot! Don't pick up...oh all right. Hand it here. (He puts on asbestos oven mitt, holds phone carefully away from a bandaged ear) Uh-huh, the problem? The contract? Talk to my lawyers...yes, the ones alive of course. Oh, yeah? I'll see YOU in court! They have to listen to me. I'm the King... Contract? What contract?... Signed in MY blood? I doubt it. I'll have my FBI guy do a DNA test on it... Stick to your own job and you'll get plenty of business because of me. Oh yeah? Well, I'll see you in Hell first!" (slams phone down, looks around)
Well, what?"
ESTEBAN#2: The white phone is ringing!
UBU: That Pope guy! About damn time! I might need him. I think I may have misspoke just now.
ESTEBAN#2: N-n-n-n-ot the Pope. I think...I believe...
UBU: Gimme that phone! Why is it every great man is surrounded by idiots? Hello, this is the King. Oh, not the Pope then...a messenger? Is this some kind of threat? I just deal with the top or else talk to my lawyers first...OK, I can listen a bit if it's an offer...Just a second...Will someone pour a bucket of ice on the red phone? It looks like it's going to explode. Yeah, could be an assassination attempt! The freezer is down the hall! Utterly surrounded here. I said, just a second! What's the urgency?
A. BLONDEBOT: (Enters in a rush, sees Mere Ubu, falters, recovers, bows): Sire, Missus Ubu!
UBU: What? I said I don't want to be interrupted, and I don't miss Mere Ubu. She's right here!
MERE UBU: That's LADY Ubu! And it should be Queen or Your Majesty.
UBU: Shut up. What is it, MISS Boundblot?
A. BLONDEBOT: The internets are buzzing with a new meme accusing you of incontinence..incompetence? "Ubu's booboo" is the catchphrase. it started on Twits4us.
UBU: Impossible. We own that platform. I'll text on our special site, DoubleTruth. Get me my cellphone.
ESTEBAN#2: Sire, Heaven is on the white phone...
UBU: They can just wait! ...Ooohhhh. my heart. Get me my pills and a diet soda! Longevity drugs my ass! They just give me the runs. I can't believe I am saying this, but maybe that texting will have to wait. Round up my usual bots and assign them to rebuttals, rebukes, and revenge. This is the Devil's fault. He's breaking his deal!
UBU: OK, who IS this on the line. You got two minutes. Wait. Lemme put this on speaker for my staff. Who's here by the way?
MINISTER OF SCIENCE: Will, your Science guy, Your Majesty!
UBU: Completely unnecessary...wait, you're that guy who couldn't even explain the Aquatic Equation to me- and what's it for anyway? To measure how much is left in my water bottle? You're fired. Get out of here. (Will departs hastily) Go into the washroom on your way out and see if any lawyers are hanging out in there.
WHITE PHONE: ...abriel. This about your last chance. Not everyone is privileged to know when that is.
UBU: I am not everyone. Get to it then..I have this pain!
RED PHONE: You are not seriously going to trust that guy!
UBU: Who put that on speaker? Just shut up. I'll deal with you later.
RED PHONE: We already have a deal! There's still plenty of time for your other stuff.
UBU: I am not sure if we have a deal anymore. Nothing in the contract says you can keep bugging me while I'm doing my business. I don't think I even signed it, so if you keep breaking the deal, as you call it, why should I even listen? Get lost "angel". I dealing with Numero Uno now.
WHITE PHONE: We can make a deal- to put it in terms you seem to understand.
UBU: Not another contract. Pricking my finger is very unsanitary, so unsanitary you wouldn't believe it. My minister of health could tell you stories...
WHITE PHONE: No contracts, no more oaths. Your blood is not required- or sufficient. Just salvation.
UBU: I don't think I like your tone. Are you insinuating I need saving...Hello, HELLO!
WHITE PHONE: Back again. Maybe you prefer the dial tone, but we are always here- while YOUR mortal time is running out.
UBU: Right. What's the deal? How can I move on into Heaven? Do I need to convert to some special religion, some cult? I'm not much of a follower.
WHITE PHONE: In your case, you have to accept extra time living to turn your life and some failings around. As you will see, this dispensation is just not for your sake, but for Earth as a whole. It is a narrow path and contracts with the Devil or any evildoer partner or blackmailer cannot touch you there.(RED PHONE vibrates violently)
UBU: (sweating) More time? I'll take it. I haven't signed anything but I don't like the sounds of this narrow path stuff.
Parody for Social Media
Presidential Post
I WANT to go out in the woods and play
That I am the King of the Magats to-day;
So I’ll gather some stars from the midnight sky
(There are plenty to spare in the jewels on high)
And I’ll have them set in a crown of gold;
For a sceptre a tiger lily I’ll hold;
A violet bed will be my throne
And the beautiful world will be mine alone.
I’ll make one law my realm to bind,
That everybody must just be kind
And love all children and flowers and birds
And always speak in gentle words.
What a happy land will my kingdom be
Where hopes are high and hearts are free!
(With many apologies to Charles Keeler, poet of a bygone age. Only two words have been changed to create the subtle parody) The angels weep.
Postal Service
First a reminder that privatization(done in other countries) has been a decades long attack on postal infrastructure. Inserting a profit taking middleman into a non-profit network is an efficient idea? It would have happened by now had not an illegal strike back in the 1970's severed the USPS from the rest of government services. It continues to rely on postage for all its expenses even as first class letters decline. Maligned postal jobs are now an envied union competitive with other package carriers who can actually strike.
This is an open message to Congress and investigators criticizing the super consolidated super centers that will mushroom all over the country.
Remember, ALL of the governing boards of the USPS and politically appointed, government responsible people are put in specifically with friendliness to outsourcing and salvific ideas involving big business and non-applicable business models fundamentally at cross purposes with national infrastructure and public service. That includes probably most recent Dem appointees which is why DeJoy's wild implementations seem cheered on. Now they will be repacked with monsters.
But this is about service reality (based on well over 40 years in the service). Consolidation strains service to outlying areas swallowed up in long hauls to a faraway center. The standards(since2008 especially) have routinely been relaxed for everyone so that schedules accommodate some success in delivering to that whole area. That is why letters to your next door neighbor wait in the new scheduled system and will not be delivered next day even if possible. New machines and changes usually have growing pains that delay the mail. Changes or shrinkage of the work force always cause difficulties. Demoralization and chaos(not the lazy worker! ) almost necessarily spread. A lot of employees not in that mess spread that stupid meme about "bad work ethics over there". Remember: there but for the grace of DeJoy go I. DeJoy the trucker, whose very first Mussolini-style making the trucks depart on time left mandated committed mail at the docks
When a supercenter is opened up in short order causing disruptions in the entire area, filled up with new and relocated employees it suddenly experiences all of these things at once. They do not consult with the unions on the plan much because they are just going to gut out the "transition" period no matter what. Tooling and fine tuning is done in process as total commitment just begins, past bridges torched.
Now, engineers of progress, remember that this untested, but predictably under-performing novelty is about to meet a continuous unending larger tide of mail. Everything has been done to fail. Recovery from this new unending volume has been a nightmare while it just keeps coming. Trucks parked around, days and miles away unable to be processed. Partially processed mail(no longer much counted because it already has failed its date!) is diverted even many states away to places with no efficient data programs to efficiently sort it back with more trucking.) Common sense alone tells you what will happen to employees buried and stretched in the mess, new machines that never really cope with the everyday abuse, truck schedules out the window, tons of failed mail ignored or lost in the effort to make the new "daily success" numbers look better.
So we had a privatized sub plant here for years. They failed, and lost money, and mistreated underpaid employees for years as we sent postal workers to bail them out. We finally got it back though it still seems their damage was permanent. We unionized the survivors and they became immediate regular clerks. Private mailers seem unable to cope even with special low rates crafted to help them profit. Some, like mislabeling experts Pitney Bowes, offered plans to sell out the USPS.
Predators of the public commons will take the juicy simple supercenter parts? A stamp tax directly paid to billionaires while the public see actual tax money diverted to carrier delivery? Can they make enough on a stock pump and dump before they fail, before they slash services, force stamp rates to rise, persecute and overstress the work force upon whom imperfect automation depends? Sweet talking from the media while they take the money and run?
You don't need an investigation; you just need common sense for the common good.
Finished new "Christmas" book, "A Christmas Castle"
Thank God it was done before election night when I shut the real farce out and submitted the fictional masterpiece it to Draft2Digital. (I should probably put this through the Marketplace??) Anyway, it officially comes out tomorrow in the shameless writers' stampede for the holidays. Another turkey leftover for Thanksgiving
In short...and it is short enough for a quick read at 21,000 words...I took an insane 'what if' satirical premise of pitting Vlad Dracul against the Christmas "miracle" challenge in the framework of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". The brides get cable TV installed and the game is on for vampires bedeviled by unwelcome fame and daytime vulnerability. Both Renfield and Stoker have been kidnapped and "immortalized" into this misery with generations of Harkers enlisted as secretaries to finish the Count's monstrous and monstrously huge biography. Well, that was not short enough. Will P.E. Murphy achieve an inspiring ending for this horror? Profits will tell.
I ditched Amazon completely for this and will move all my Amazon titles over to this huge marketing network...eventually. The universal code for this book: which can go to Barnes and Noble or Apple, Smashwords, Kobo, Books2Read and many others, e-book or print. Some bargains if I can get the contragastrofibulated things to work.
(As for why I ditched Amazon. Lack of any real sales under their system, lack of trust if I SHOULD attain any success there anyway, and of course all the rest of the Bezos horror show.)
November Election: Absentee Ballots
First: DeJoy rushes out plant consolidations nationwide. Failures on a massive scale, not just Georgia.
Second: Trump now has a working tool(besides his heckuva job postmaster general) to delay election counting in enough places to delay the whole count. He "encourages" his people to use the mail. Hence, an obvious pretext to wait for the ballots. Or, once he is ahead, to close the barn door in any state that he wants.
Third: This plan only needs to work in some states. It is that simple and add up all the other BS(Big Schemes). Hurry up the accountability please. It doesn't matter if massive spot checks remove ballots from hundreds of thousands sent nationwide to relieve Palmetto(ongoing, ongoing ongoing). It is the narrative. The Great Bloviator will likely also blame workers. We get Palmetto address correction mail in New York, even stuff originally intended for Gainesville Florida if the container tags are indicative.
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