The Twitter Followers I Don’t Follow Back

I love Twitter. I did the Facebook thing for awhile, but honestly it’s just too … not Twitter. I still have a Facebook account but hardly ever go there. I get most of my news from Twitter. I follow breaking stories in real time, and have access to some of the best journalism on the planet — stories and articles I probably would never see without Twitter. The best part, though, is it allows an introvert like me the opportunity to meet and interact with lots of different folks from all over the planet.

I built up a fairly sizeable following on Twitter during my motorsports journalism phase. Most of those folks are gone now as I rarely tweet about racing anymore, but taking their place were a lot of “book” folks. I suspect the three novels I wrote have something to do with that.

Lately, I don’t seem to be adding many new followers, and the ones who do pop into my Interactions column are … well … not always the type I’m inclined to follow back. For lack of a better introduction, here are the four types of followers I’m getting these days who I don’t follow back:

Fair winds and following seas to my favorite TV show: “Enlisted”

Terribly sad news today. Gutted to find out one of my favorite TV shows of all times, Enlisted, was cancelled by Fox. Before even seeing a PR photo I was skeptical of this show; Hollywood doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to realistically portraying the military and its people.

And when I say “realistically” what I mean is within reason, because I’ve watched enough TV and movies to know they have to make the shows exciting and that means less (or no) footage of Sailors chipping paint or cleaning heads and lots of shots of F-18s and/or SEALs emerging from dark seas on a moonless night. And don’t even get me started on haircuts, saluting, and uniforms.

So, I was going to watch the pilot of Enlisted, just to see, but my expectations were low. Then a funny thing happened. The show’s creator, Kevin Biegel, got on Twitter and told everyone there were lots of little things wrong with the pilot, things military folks would see right away and hate, but — and this is where I really got interested — they knew these were things we would hate and they were going to fix them in later episodes. There was even a contest to spot the mistakes.

Whoa. These guys were willing to admit they’d missed the mark, and it was important to them to get it right for us. Yes, that certainly caught my attention. I tweeted to Biegel that I suddenly had high hopes for the show, because I did. Sure, there was still going to be a “Hollywood” sheen to the deal, but this was like them breaking the fourth wall to me as a viewer, saying “I know you know, and I want you to know that I know, that we know.” Or something like that. 🙂 Hadn’t seen an episode yet, but I was going into it hopeful.

The “It’s not you, it’s me” blog post (… and it really is me)

Periodically I look at this blog and wonder if I’m not delusional in addition to having depression.

Somewhere on here I’ve written that this isn’t just a book review blog, but the reality is right here in front of me, isn’t it? Lots and lots of book reviews — and a few sea stories from my Navy days that were posted a long, long, long time ago.

Every week now I get a review request or two and my Kindle is overflowing with those and the books I’ve picked out myself. I enjoy discovering new-to-me writers and exploring genres I don’t normally read, and in my current financial situation getting free books is really great. But even when the writing came easier to me (oh, I remember those days) I found it harder to write when reading, especially review requests. I try to pay extra attention to those, the better to provide feedback to the author or compose my review.

I’d like to be writing more, but truthfully that’s been a losing battle since I hit the “publish now” button on my second novel. Oh, second novel … at the time I sure thought soon enough I’d be giving you a younger sibling to harass the way my first novel did to you. Sorry about that.

It occurs to me I may be hiding from writing by reading more. That’s something to think about, maybe discuss with my shrink (haha … kidding! I can’t afford therapy). Ahem.

You know, it also occurs to me  I’ve done this blog post before: Bemoaning how things haven’t lived up to expectations, hinting the future will be different. Strange. That’s exactly how my first three romantic relationships ended (Ed: you wouldn’t be wrong thinking he wasn’t the one ending them, either).

Armageddon for real: review of “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser and watching nuclear war

Earlier today I finished Eric Schlosser’s excellent book, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. Using a deadly 1980 incident at a Titan-II missile silo in Arkansas as the entry point, Schlosser examines the history of nuclear weapons from the Manhattan Project to post-9/11.

Highly readable, the narrative frightens, astonishes and angers in turns. Mishaps and near mishaps are detailed, as are bureaucratic infighting among the military branches, doctrinal disagreements between politicians and generals, and the personal bravery of many who worked to keep the bombs safe from the drawing board to those in and around them in the field.

Schlosser’s vivid recreation of the silo incident at Damascus, Arkansas, is spread throughout the book, an editorial concept that I found brilliant. The focus shifts from that claustrophobic, spiraling-out-of-control situation to overviews of how the United States developed its nuclear warplans and stockpiles, peppered with plenty of stories of mismanagement and mistakes that somehow didn’t end up with a nuclear detonation. Some reviewers found the back-and-forth disorienting, but I thought it worked exceptionally well to tell both stories, the tactical and the strategic, as it were.

Working on my short game: 444 Project & other length-constrained bits

Although my novel-writing muse has been on an extended sabbatical, it seems I’m not entirely out of the game when it comes to making stuff up.

I just stopped trying to his home runs and instead just work on getting on base (For my good friend Paul Anthony: I’m talking about “Rounders,” as you call it). To my own great surprise, going shorter has actually worked: I was able to write fiction again.

In the past couple months I’ve written two SciFi short stories, one which was accepted for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology and the other I plan on throwing at the editors of a second anthology when they open those floodgates. These were the first short stories I’ve written since high school English class, so let me say thank you to Tammy Salyer, an outstanding author and editor, and my youngest daughter Katherine, also a great writer, for their encouragement and excellent suggestions.

Your Dog Is Ugly: Thoughts on 1-Star Reviews

I really don’t understand the one-star review.

I don’t like them personally, but I do get the idea behind writing a negative review, letting all and sundry know that you really, really didn’t like a book, movie, TV show, consumer product or service. I’d like to believe someone writing a negative review feels an obligation to potential purchasers, informing them of deficiencies in their own personal experience with the product at hand.

But … mousing over to just that one star and then clicking it — man, that’s like salting the wound, kicking someone who’s already been knocked down. That sole star makes it personal, like saying: Not only was what you did worse than lousy, but your dog is ugly, too.

I don’t understand the need for that.

Persecution or Prosecution

The other day I came across an interesting tweet in my timeline, RT’d by someone I follow. Although I don’t remember the exact wording, the tweet called on the U.S. government to stop persecuting PFC Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The word that caught my eye, and I remember it clearly being part of the tweet, was “persecuting.” In my mind, Manning isn’t being persecuted … he’s being prosecuted. Manning violated military regulations — that he was well aware of, I may add — and now he’s being held accountable for his actions. The government didn’t seek him out for punishment based on his views. 

I certainly do not agree with what Manning, or NSA leaker Edward Snowden, did in revealing classified information. There were, in both cases, internal means for these individuals to address any concerns they had about ongoing operations or policies. I do acknowledge these internal methods have limitations, and may not have ideally satisfied the misgivings of Manning or Snowden.

I can respect an individual who has the courage of his or her convictions and is willing to act on beliefs despite knowing such actions have consequences. That is how real change often begins: with individuals willing to sacrifice their own liberties for the greater good. By being court-martialed, regardless of the outcome, Manning may do more to further his own views than Snowden, who is on the run and trying to find a way to avoid the consequences of his actions.

My Thoughts on “Dispatches” by Michael Herr

I have a lot of books — two bookcases and a long shelf worth — and considering library books and those given away or sold, I’ve probably read three or four times the amount of books I currently have out on display in my home office. But I don’t think I’ve owned any of my current collection as long as my copy of Dispatches by Michael Herr. Bought new, probably in 1978 or ’79 (the publisher’s note says my copy was printed in 1978, the first paperback edition by Avon), today the pages are yellowed and dog-eared, and a few are torn.

I first read Dispatches as a high school student and later carried it with me during an abortive first attempt at college and then around the country and to Italy on active duty with the U.S. Navy. Just yesterday I finished re-reading Dispatches for the … fourth time? Maybe for the fifth time — I’m not sure. There are passages I know intimately and have quoted, many while serving on active duty.

Michael Herr spent eighteen months in Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire magazine and it was always his intent to write a book about the experience; Dispatches was the result. The book is  somewhat disjointed, ranging back and forth in time, but is centered around two major events: the Battle for Hue during the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Khe Sanh. Considered a non-fiction novel,  the narrative focuses not on battles, or even the war, but on the men who fought it and those who covered it as journalists.

The Spam Files

I love comments on my posts. And WordPress has a pretty good spam filter, but you know anything made by people can be circumvented by people, too.

Oh, my! Could we have a hyperlink alternate contract?

Um, no. KTHXBYE!

Food for thought … and no, I didn’t mean that as a joke

Keep reading this article

I greatly enjoy The Atlantic magazine … learn something new each month. This article is somewhat long, but well worth your time reading it.