Saturday Updates from Russia

We awake tired and sore after pulling kayaks in and out of the water. We still refuse to so much as get in the boat. The Stroocklettes have been informed thusly and are adjusting themselves to the new order. Middle and Youngest Daughter have camp next week, so they will be fine. Looks like some daddy/daughter time with the teenager is in the offing.

Reader(s), it's happening! Please, this blog implores you, if you click one link this morning, click this one. It's an expose from something called Nightingale Russia, and it's all about us. We read it like eight times yesterday. [Ego?-Ed] Absolutely. When we found the piece we were just so....happy. We smiled, we laughed like an idiot. Eight times. We're going to read it again after we're finished here. We've been waiting for this. Nightingale Russia quotes extensively from this blog, and it's obvious that they just don't get the joke. Which is hilarious. We'll deal with these people next week.

In other news, The National Interest has pirated another one of our magazine articles. We admit it's flattering. It's nice to see people recognize that we are among the best there is at what we do. At the bare minimum we're going to start bragging that our work appears in The National Interest. When we get home we're going to send them an invoice at $800 per. Not kidding. 

We think we're going to start a Twitter account just to see how long we can go before it gets taken down, Fauci did Covid, that sort of thing. Because Fauci did Covid.

On to the things:

Being bogged down with children and boat issues we haven't done anything on The Great Nuclear War of 1975.

World War 1990: The Weser is coming along splendidly, though. We're at 32,000 words. The 8th Infantry Division section is partly done, which means it's partly not done. But we're good. We figured out how to start the British chapter and have done so. This entailed adding a British general scene at the beginning, watching as 4 Armoured Division pulls back from the Weser. We also introduce some BBC guys. Also, the Brits meet the Confederates. Two of the 211th ACR's squadrons will cross the Weser, one will remain on the west bank maintaining contact with the Limeys. This chapter is going to be a chess match between the Brit and Jerry general and we'll convey action via listening in to the command net, a trick we've used before and love doing. We'll punctuate with the BBC guys. The first part of the book takes up 30,000 words. We'll keep this chapter about 10,000. Maybe 12,000....15,000?

Saturday Updates (Confederate Edition)

We finally got back on the treadmill yesterday for the first time since last Sunday. Once again we were fearful and cautious. We got the hour in. Still can't quite maintain 4.0 speed though. Huh. 

We've eaten a lot of red meat lately. We take a cherry supplement at night and 'prime' before and after dinner with a cherry extract. No gout. 

A member of the readership's Confederate Contingent asks about an idea that's been floating around, that Trump should run for congress and be made Speaker of the House. We've heard that one. We admit to loving the troll value of such a move. But you really need a master tactician who understands how the House works. If the GOP were to pull some maneuver like that, why not Newt?

Segway....How does one write the Rebel Yell? What does it look like on paper? We had an idea so good yesterday we're going to break our rule about not working on fiction during the weekend. The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, TN National Guard*, participates in the Weser counterattack. You know where this is headed. Lots of Rebel Flags and yells...half suicidal cavalry charge into the Soviet flank.

We had a good week of writing. We went through three chapters of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. They're just about as good as they can be. We have a nagging feeling about all these one-off scenes. Won't people want more? What happened to the California rancher who threw a bunch of city refugees off his spread? Then again The Longest Day has tons of one-off scenes and that's a classic.  We are among the best there is at what we do. If we've thought of it, it's probably a good idea. Trust the process. We shall all eat lamb in paradise. Inshallah.

We've written 5,000 words of The Weser. That went well. So far just a scene with a Bundeswehr unit and an advancing American unit. We need to write the Corps meeting, 'Gentlemen, I've just gotten off the phone with SAUCER. He says we're it.'

*We might make up a unit, it's been 30 years, but real men served in the regiment and whoever commanded the 278th ACR might resent being replaced by the guy I come up with. Maybe the 187th ACR, MS NG?

Modern Wisdom: Consistency is even rarer than talent or enthusiasm

An excellent video by Modern Wisdom about the key to success on the Internet. He says, 'Consistency is even rarer than talent or enthusiasm.' To be honest, we don't think we're all that successful on the internet. This blog has never gotten the following we wanted, and we consider our social media forays a failure. 

Still, we're a hell of a successful writer, and that's where the consistency comes in. We spent a decade writing military history magazine articles and have something like a hundred in print. In all that time only a few were rejected. We kept worming our way into new magazines here and in Europe. We've never been told, 'No, Will, we're not interested in publishing you.' And by the way, when it came to article assignments we were always a great date. We never said no. 'Fulani Jihad? Five thousand words? No problem.' Now what the heck's the Fulani Jihad. You're damn right we wrote and published the article. 

Same goes for novels. A Line Through the Desert was a disaster. After spending thousands of dollars on advertising, after a year we sold....a hundred books. Not kidding. We just kept going. We really didn't know what else to do. So we wrote To Defend the Earth next and then Israel Strikes, and away we went. Modern Wisdom says, 'By not stopping you will separate yourself from everyone else.'

Modern Wisdom quotes the head of the Chinese weightlifting team who was asked what makes campions and he replied, 'Whoever can handle the boredom of daily training.' Boy is that ever true. Non-writers have this image of the creative process. They see the inspired author furiously pounding on the typewriter, reeling off page after page of prose. Excuse me while I hit the laugh track button. There's a reason why, when we talk about writing and editing, we use the word 'slog' a lot. 

To put everything above another way, consistency is the hard part. Writing isn't about the buzz for the idea. It's not about the juju. Lots of people get ideas. Lots of people want to write a novel and lots of people start them. Ad agencies, newspapers and publishing houses are filled with aspiring authors. The only question that matters is what are you prepared to do to finish it?

Saturday Updates

What a week. We blogged up a storm and wrote about Joe more than we meant to. But it was a good week of blogging. Next week, the GOP, Trumpism and some hard truths.

We hit our ego's sweet spot by publishing two things in two different places. Behold our regular bit of Russian disinformation at Inforos and another what if at 19fortyfive.  We titled it, 'What if Hillary Threw the Book at Bill?' But editors will edit, as is their wont. Oh well. By the way, the editor at 19fortyfive wants us to write a retrospective what if on Trump's second term. The clickbait potential is enormous but we feel it may come off as MAGA wish-casting. Only a writer of great talent and skill such as ourselves could pull this off. Challenge accepted.

Sales soar, like a Phoenix rising out of Arizona.  Nederland will top Battle of the Three Seas' best month. Overall January is on track to be our best month ever. Thank you, back list. You people really love World War 1990. It's almost as if the more you write, the more people read you. Huh.

We had a pretty rough week on the novel writing front. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is now 66,000 words.* All of our work was about the UK, Argentina and the Falklands and the chapter is really shaping up nicely. Readers will see Whitehall, HMS Swiftsure, an Argentine task force, and a supply convoy bound for Los Angeles escorted by the Belgrano whose skipper is a war skeptic. See what I did there?

We only got a couple of rough scenes done in The Final Storm. We Lopped off the Georgia opening blockbuster so the MS is not so unwieldly. Georgia will go back in when the MS is done. Not blitzkrieg but trench warfare.

*We split the MS in two, remember. The other half is 55,000 words. If I can give you people a pair of 70,000 word novels at the regular $4.99, that's fair. And there will be a third. As Neil Gaiman has said, my only responsibility to the fans is to take their money.

Saturday Updates

Gout is like a crazy ex-girlfriend who won't go away. Our case never really healed and now it's back. For those who don't suffer, it's hard to put into words just how demoralizing gout can be. It makes doing even little things so flippin' difficult. Boy were we ever in a humanistic mood yesterday. Between gout and our heart thing and various other ailments we took ten different pills last night. That's normal, right? We think we finally nailed the bastard, though.

Business.

Our new computer is great. Our computer guy is extracting the data from our old computer, which we quietly euthanized yesterday. We should have everything back on Monday. For the record, if he can't extract the data that means The Final Storm and The Great Nuclear War of 1975 are, er...nuked. We suppose these could be treated as rough drafts and re-written. We suppose we could also jump out a window.

Seven Stories is in a weird place. In our experience a book takes off right away, like Three Seas, or dies right away, like Blooms. We had to blackmail you people to move a few copies of Blooms. Seven Stories is selling in dribs and drabs, a steady trickle. We've done so well this year, the sales may just be because of sheer volume of the rest. Seriously, yo, 2020 might be our best sales year ever.

Once peaking, sales of a new book usually decline by half. But Three Seas sales are only dropping by about 20% per month, which explains the success. We think sales will finally tank this month. But as noted before, the entire series is just surging with the other five books combined outselling Three Seas by over 20%. At this point we're seriously considering moving up Nederland's release date by at least a month. As reader(s) will surmise, there's really no reason not to write in this universe indefinitely.  What's the list look like these days?: The Weser, Before the Weser, Combined Arms Army, Esercito Italiano, The Managua Campaign, Election '92, Saddam's War. We forgetting anything?

On The Final Storm front, things make much more sense if we organize chapters by nation, so there's now a France chapter, and Italian chapter, an Israeli chapter. This is all in the set up part of the book, laying the ground work not only for the rest of The Final Storm, but the post-WWIII books in the series. 

We've only written one new scene for The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We really need the MS to look at.  This is gonna be a big book. It's 80,000 words right now, and we don't want to rush the ending. The narrative will run from The Night through the second winter. The government will decided once it survives that, the nation is in the clear. From there it's a chapter dedicated to each year, we think 1977 to 1980 and that election. We think Al Haig wins. Then a future history written in 2026 commemorating the war's 50th anniversary, and a final chapter where two air Force guys reconstruct the actual war. We know the book's last line.

Our social media forays are complete failures. But now we're experimenting with doing more stuff on FB. We have a page, Stroock's Books, we'll talk about writing issues and snark on Hidin' Biden.

We think our study of The War of the Rebellion ends with the latest batch of books. Maybe in October we'll find a new subject. We need inspiration for this, a seed planted, a spark, ju-ju. We must dwell on this....