Down on a Thursday

Good morning, Stroock's Books affiliates. 

Once again northern New Jersey is very cold. The sun is out though, and the previously planned blizzard is still cancelled. 

A tough morning, about which no more will be said. Fuck it, let's say some more. Hamas' goal is to cause grief and anger. Mission accomplished. They've shown the organization has survived - to a point. But don't be fooled. The Israelis smashed Hamas' military and military infrastructure. Are they trying to goad the Israelis into renewing the war? Exit question, what you gonna do about it, Bibi?

Let's get right into some Thursday Downer stuff. At the moment we're feeling professionally trapped. The written word has never been cheaper. We can't seem to grow our reading audience except one reader at a time. We don't have a column anywhere anymore and we don't write magazine articles anymore. What magazines are willing to pay doesn't make writing a 5000 word feature worthwhile. Columns and magazine articles don't sell books anyway. And don't get us started about this blog.

Yesterday we seriously toyed with the idea of scrapping the Derry chapter. But we wrote two more scenes and set up the ending which will add a cause beli for the British invasion of Ireland. We also had a few ideas about political machinations, these being John Major (the pratt) plotting against Maggie and Maggie retaliating, 'Congratulations Mr. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.' Anyway we might name this chapter, 'The Whacky Adventures of Captain Cox and his Irish Rangers.'