Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/27/22

This is the email we sent our KGB handler yesterday: 'I write in hopes of preserving peace for all mankind. Would you please tell Putin that Joe has a dementia addled pudding brain. What Joe vomits forth are not the coherent, well thought out words of a man in possession of his faculties. Joe always was a loudmouthed,  know nothing braggart. The senility makes him more so now. Please tell Putin to disregard Joe's talk of 'regime change'.  

Allah Pundit at Hot Air writes aptly and eloquently* about Joe's unbelievably colossal fuck up. What a powerful rhetorical weapon Joe has handed Vladimir. As Allah points out, Putin can now frame the war in Ukraine as a defensive war against Western encroachment. This blog has written time and again that NATO flirting with Ukraine was always a terrible, no good, lousy idea. Now Putin can point to Ukraine and say, 'See!' If you think 81 million people really voted for this fuckhead, then can I interest you in some Arkansas real-estate investment opportunities?

Will got bored:

I hadn't opened Axis and Allies Pacific in literally 20 years. I thought I'd thrown it out a few years ago and was on the verge of ordering another when I checked the basement shelf. There she was. I opened her up and found the pieces just where I sorted them in March of 2002. 

I played a round or four yesterday afternoon. As Japan, I whacked Pearl Harbor and then fought out a Greater East Asian strategy. By turn four it was clear America's economic might was too much to overcome. They had a fleet of four carriers and two battleships moving through the central Pacific with an invasion force. I really should have gobbled up as much of Indonesia and South Asia as I could have for the economic points. Good fun.

Sales of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 remain acceptable, and The Great Salvation of 1976 is nearly completed. We're working on, or at least thinking about, novel number three right now. We've also considered novel number four. What if Israel consolidates control over the Middle East, pops off a few more nukes, drives out the West Bank People, and establishes Eretz Israel? In the process they piss off France. Let's say they go and bomb Saddam's nuclear reactor and kill some French scientists in the process. Could we not have the Franco/Israeli war? Think of the possibilities. 

We have a storyline. Nuclear war, followed by aftermath followed by recovery with a future history taking things to 2025. We're doing that. Do we want to maintain a universe where we play around with ideas and possibilities? Maybe. This leads to existential questions which we'll wright about this week.

*Yes, we agree with Ace's assessment of the man, for Ace is always right. Nevertheless, Allah has important insights. 

Saturday Updates

This is post 4881. We will write post 4900 sometime in April. 

A woman has two X chromosomes, a vagina, uterus, ovaries, breasts, hips, can carry and give birth to children and menstruates every 28 days from puberty through menopause.  

Mrs. Stroock did the taxes yesterday. Yikes. 

Retired Australian General Mick Ryan has a pretty good summary of the Ukraine War. We remark once again that the Ukes are great at info war while the Ruskis are terrible at it. No one really knows what comparative casualties are, and the western media repeats Uke talking points verbatim. There are many known unknowns and a few unknown unkowns.

Each week we are less inclined to support Trump in 2024. Sorry, he's not doing the things we wanted to see him do. Okay, he's lost some weight. But overall, Trump is acting like it's still 2015. He hasn't upped his game. His attacks lack focus, they're all over the place. Why pick a fight with Mo Brooks? Actually, we like Trump suing Hillary! Why not? Don't get us wrong. Trump won. But right now, we'd rather he didn't win the GOP nod in 2024.

On to the things.

We spent a lot of time this week staring at our computer and wondering what the third nuke book should be about. On Thursday we finally had our breakthrough and wrote a quick thousand words. The 1977 chapter will be about reestablishing sovereignty over all of the United States. There will be several contacts with local warlord types and assorted whack job preachers, including one obvious wacko. Prepare for a blast from the past. After consultations with a fellow North American, the Royal Navy will be dealing with Caribbean pirates. Heh. This chapter is our April project. 

The Great Nuclear War of 1975 has been available for nearly three weeks. Sales started slow, grew and have plateaued maybe...15% below where Nederland and Three Seas plateaued. The book hovers between 20-30 in its category and has 38 ratings averaging 4.1 stars. As usual the top four selling locations are the US, UK, CA, and AU. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 will not flop. 

As suspected we aren't seeing a sales spike of other titles.

We finished The Great Salvation of 1976 readthrough and made all the changes. The MS is 68,000 words. By way of comparison, The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is 80,000 words. This novel deals with interesting problems of reconstruction (elections, the Alaska Pipeline, currency etc.), has a nice little war, and follows Matt across the Midwest. There's something missing from 76, though.  Doom and urgency perhaps? 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/20/22

This is post 4873...closing in on 5,000, people. 

Some spring cleaning yesterday. Mrs. Stroock rearranged the curio cabinet, 'You put my vintage Burge King Star Wars glasses on the bottom shelf,' I said. 'And?' she replied. 'Nothing.'

Once a day we like to search 'Inforos' on twitter and see what pops up. Usually we see a breathless tweet from a guy calling himself The Tracker @HTracker10. Here's a good one:

Important to keep aware of #Russian #disinformation. I am still seeing people sharing links to sanctioned #GRU #Inforos sites like #Infobrics and Oneworld press - @Twitter needs to not allow this https://t.co/AOBVvhLuho

— The Tracker (@HTracker10) March 18, 2022

Thanks there, Mr. Anonymous Twitter Sluth. For younger reader(s) The Tracker's profile pic is from 1983's Wargames. That's some nice Gen-Xing. In another post, Mr. Brave Twitter Anti-Russian-Disinfo Tough Guy names 'key' Inforos employees. Sadly I'm not on the list. Damn it. For the record, everything I've ever written for Inforos or anyone else is 99 and 44/100 percent true. 

With sales of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 surging, and the read through of The Great Salvation of 1976* nearly complete, this week we're going to start the third book in the nuke series. We need a break from The Weser.

Book three will be a compilation of four short stories, each about an event in a single year. So one story for 1978, one for 1979, one for 1980 and one for 1981 through to the inauguration of the next president.** The final chapter will be a future history taking the reader all the way to 2025. We'll probably write a long intro talking about our thoughts on the war, our methodology, and foundational ideas. We may also write-one off vignettes at either end of each chapter. 

Post ideas in comments. 

*75's success is no guarantee for 76. To Defend the Earth did great but To Survive the Earth flopped.

**Guess who. 

Saturday Updates

 We shaved:

We look good with our face smooth and kissable.

We went to bed with The Great Nuclear War of 1975 standing at something like 105 in Alternate History. When we woke up, well:

Which is nice. Thank you, Amazon algorithm, however you work. As of this writing The Great Nuclear War of 1975 has 18 reviews globally, which ain't bad for a book that's been out for two weeks. 

The things:

We spent all week tearing apart World War 1990: The Weser Part III and putting it back together. The Weser is much better for it. We thought we'd need next week to rework the epilogue, but found a couple of scenes in Part III that work better in the epilogue. We can Get The Weser to the editor on 1 April if we really want to. 

We began reading The Great Salvation of 1976 this week and we're moving right along. We'll talk more about this in tomorrow's Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/19/20.

Trump Won, Hunter's Laptop is Real, and other True Things

To be honest we'd like to do the Saturday update today. Lots to report. But it's Friday. So, here's a normal Friday post. The Friday Flag will be below. We may do a Thursday Downer later today as we had an epiphany this week; even though today is Friday.

This blog remains stunned by the media/big tech combined suppression of Hunter's 'laptop from hell'. We are even more stunned at the New York Times' admission yesterday.  Well of course Hunter Biden's laptop is real. And let's recall all the current and former intel guys that insisted the laptop was classic Russia disinfo. And that's why we don't take seriously anything these people say about Russia. No fate is too bad for the organizations that suppressed the story. No fate.

This blog admits to preferring DeSantis over Trump. Here's why. We wanted to see President Trump grow in exile. That doesn't mean we want a kinder, gentler Trump. No. We wanted to see Trump up his game, sharpen his skills, streamline his stump speech. Trump hasn't done any of that. The man has taken off a few pounds. Which is good. We don't mean to be too critical, Trump did win.

Whoa! It was just yesterday that we realized Soviet T/72 and T/80s have three, not four crewman and use an autoloader. We're going over our Apache gunship book and notes. Cyclic not cyclical. Someone pointed out a mistake in The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We should have written Air Force Security Police, not Air Force MPs. Oh well. 

Sooner or later 75 will get some serious grognarding. 'Why everyone knows that according to SIOP 65-9 the US Navy was too...' Plans are nice. Anyone wanna talk about the way the US government acted on 9/11? No one knew what the hell they were doing till Bush said, 'No, I'm going to go back to the White House.' Remember how the Secret Service packed W away to Omaha for a few hours? They probably wanted W to sleep in NORAD or something. JFC. Plans...we laugh. We laugh in the most mocking way possible.

St. Patrick's Day marks the return of Will's flag display. Usually we pick up a few new flags over the winter, but haven't this year. Let's see if we can get an MCRN flag or something. Yesterday we put up our Israeli flag, given to us by a dear friend waaaay back in the mid-90s. 

Saturday Updates

This is post 4864.

We had two sessions with the machines this week and two walks. Our body feels fatigued. The weather was nice this week. We allowed ourselves a cigar and beer. Which was nice. That was out third cigar this year. Let's stay on this pace. 

The things.

Book sales are an art, not a science.

Sales of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 got off to a good start on the release day and have increased by small increments every day since. We feel confident saying 75 is not a flop. But it remains to be seen if 75 will do as well as the typical World War 1990 novel. We've checked and 75 has not yet hit the daily sales number that Battle of the Three Seas hit. We don't think the algorithm has really kicked in yet. Readers posting 75 on their social media would spur sales along. Seven ratings now on Goodreads, so we know 75 doesn't suck. Exit question: is it worth shelling out a few hundred bucks on magazine advertisements? 

Book sales usually drop about 20% off their peek each month, that's cumulative.

We've hammered away at The Weser all week with great success. The text is getting as perfect as we can get it. The constant hammering has opened up a few cracks for us to make the novel even better. The British part needs an opening explainer scene from Corps HQ. Actually, that should probably be from SACEUR. This has been a great editing process so far. 

No one really knows how the Amazon sales algorithm works, not entirely. What we do know is mysterious and complex. 

The Weser presents a few unique challenges. We have four different tanks which means four tank crews and four men per. We have various division and corps commanders in their TAC CPs. This means we have a lot of staffers, aids, comms officers. Their handing Danger-6 the radio receiver, raising Echo-6, calling in TAC AIR etc etc. It all must needs be kept straight. And summer 2021 Will didn't necessarily care that this would be a gigantic pain in the ass for late winter 2022 Will. Summer 2021 Will is kind of a jerk.

By the time we're finished, World War 1990: The Weser will be 70,000 words. We remain on track to turn The Weser over to the editor in April. [In April? That's a little vague. Didn't you say 1 April?-Ed] We shrug as indifferently as possible. We may want/need more time, not because editing is going badly, but because editing is going so well.

We've got the juju (and books) to write Battle of the GIUK Gap this summer, but from a purely sales perspective, wouldn't Esercito Italiano make more sense? Italy remains an unrealized market. 

Analyses, both Writing and Ukraine

We are seeing excellent results at the gym with 15 minute sessions on the treadmill, rowing machine, stair machine, rope pulley, bike. Honestly it's probably a little much. While we do hobble around afterwards our heart rate remains steady, about 150 bpm. Four years ago our heart rate pushed 200 bpm. [Yikes-Ed] Weight loss remains elusive, but on mornings like this we can actually feel the muscle building. 

Sales of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 remain steady and solid and increase each day. Rankings remain kinda meh. Readers have posted four ratings at Goodreads for an average of 4.25/5 stars. We are comfortable saying things are going well. We think we're out of the danger zone. What we mean is, 75 probably won't flop.

We are hard at work on World War 1990: The Weser. The effort is slow and steady and producing results. We needed to add a few Apache scenes and we have added a few Apache scenes. We're pleased. By the time we are finished at the end of the month, The Weser will be 70,000 words. We are on schedule for an April submission to the editor. Exit Question: can one have two scenes with flag waving 'Come on 54!' histrionics? Might be a little much, no? 

Another Georgia Poll shows Governor Brian Kemp beating Trump endorsed David Purdue in the state GOP primary. Good. Kemp won his last election. He will come into this election tested and sharp. In contrast Stacey Abrams has had her expansive posterior kissed for the last four years and thinks she's the rightful governor of Georgia. Abrams will be unprepared, out of shape, doughy, flabby...We love Kemp's chances.

Rob Lee has some excellent footage and commentary on the war in Ukraine. This blog once more insists that the war isn't going as well for the Ukes as the media thinks, nor is it going as bad for the Ruskis as the media thinks. Whomever one sides with, one should not trust the media narrative. [Whom do you side with?-Ed] We side with truth and reality based analysis of the facts on the ground. [And what is your analysis?]. Analysis follows:

-Russian shock and awe failed

-Russian intel failed 

-Russian tactics are horrible 

-The Ukrainians surpassed our expectations

-The Ukrainians have made good use of NATO provided weapons

-Russian Logistics failed 

The Ukes and the Ruskis are talking right now. We ask again, if Zelensky agrees to a neutral Ukraine, then what was the point of all this?

It has been said that the Ruskis had no Plan B after their attempted knockout blow on Kiev failed. Stroock's Books now believes they did have a plan B, a campaign of slow strangulation. We believe that plan is working, albeit, in a very Russian way. Reminder, Ruskis don't think like you and me. 

Optimistic on Books, Pessimistic on Ruskis

Okay, a decent first day of sales...We'll call it friends and family +. The Great Nuclear War of 1975 cracked its categories' top 100. Not bad. KU reads are just ramping up. We'll see how sales develop over the next few days. So far, there's no reason to be pessimistic...yet.

We saw a few days ago that the Treasury Department has issued sanctions against various Russian organizations and Russians. Among those sanctioned are Inforos and our own KGB handler. Which is at once jarring and kinda funny. Wow, we know someone whose been sanctioned by the State Department. Cool! We're unclear as to what 'sanctioned' actually means. Best we can tell, our KGB handler can't pay us. No problem, the last articles are gratis, m'kay?

This blog admits the war hasn't gone the way the Soviets, sorry Russians, wanted. The press is bombarding us with images of shot down Russian jets, destroyed Russian equipment, and plucky Ukrainian freedom fighters poking the lumbering Russian bear. That's the media narrative. Wise observers approach the media narrative with great caution. 

Looking at the map, to our eye the Ruskis are slowly taking territory and moving toward their goals. We believe Ukrainian resistance will weaken slowly and then all at once. One day we'll wake up and see Russian tanks rolling into Kiev. Exit questions: what are Ukrainian losses and how long can the Ukrainians sustain those loses? 

[Are you defeatist?-Ed]

We are, and perhaps we should be reported to the authorities for failure to properly support the war. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 2/20/22

This is post 4835. That's 165 posts till we get to the big five oh oh oh. 

[What happens then?-Ed]

Not sure.

We haven't posted anything on Gab in a week and don't really miss doing so. We've been on Gab since 2016, have 446 followers and more than 6.2K posts. We're not sure our efforts there, or on any other social media, have amounted to much. We use a twitter account for reading things and occasional snarky tweets for our own NJ07 Congressional district. Meh.

After submitting The Great Nuclear War of 1975 we feel the book is unfocused and disjointed. Feeling so is quite normal actually. We asked our beta-reader about it, and she said the flow worked. So did our editor. Maybe it's just us. We'll know in due time. We are a 4 star author on Amazon whose books crack the top-20 in their category. Trust in Allah. We shall all eat lamb in paradise. Inshallah.

[What is this, the Thursday Downer on Sunday?-Ed]

I dunno. 

We've brought our phone screen time down about 25% in the last couple of weeks to around three hours. We'd like to get that down to 2 and half, but some days...Damn you, Stephen L Miller.

Putin watch: The man speaks English. Who knew? He learned it later in life. 

Will's good idea for the week of 2/20/22. This will be the last week we look at The Final Storm before switching to The Weser in February. In recent months we've been prepping and writing aerial attack scenes. We've done the Brits, Italians, the Aussies/Japanese and the SAS. What's the next scene? Probably Strike Group Savage. Remember those guys? Remember Maychuk, the Canadian F-18 driver in Nederland? He's based in North America now and scrambles on nuclear alert. Actually, we still have to do the Israeli scene but were putting it off till we found Raid on the Sun. We found Raid on the Sun.

Making Progress

Are we done with The Great Salvation of 1976? We think we're done with The Great Salvation of 1976. 

In the meantime, we got The Great Nuclear War of 1975 MS back. We have contacted the formatting and cover design people.

Here's the back cover (rough):

The Great Nuclear War of 1975.

In a Different 1975…

Superpower relations breakdown and a nuclear war all but annihilates the Soviet Union and devastates the United States.

100 million Americans are dead

After Washington is destroyed, a smalltown judge delivers the oath of office to Vice President Rockefeller.

Surviving American forces on land, sea and in the air await orders from the new president.

Americans across the nation climb out of the rubble looking for a homeland that no longer exists.

In surviving capitals across the globe, governments ponder the implication of a world without superpowers.

Thoughts? Remarks? 

Below, a deleted scene:

Matt heard the trucks again. He turned around and saw a police cruiser, lights flashing, and a jeep coming up the highway from Pennsylvania. Behind that was a line of trucks. Matt stood off to the shoulder and watched the convoy pass. Four soldiers sat in the jeep, M-16s in their laps. A half dozen trucks packed with West Virginia coal motored past. It was the third such convoy he’d seen that day and not the last.

He walked on.

Matt stayed in St Clairsville for three days digging latrines and graves in exchange for housing in an elementary school and a couple of meals a day. He even bought some venison jerky from a hunter with cash he’d packed back in Rhode Island and all but forgotten about since the autumn.

‘The president says we’re supposed to use cash,’ the hunter insisted.

‘Glad I kept it,’ Matt replied as he peeled off a ten and handed to the Hunter.

Matt counted the mile markers as he walked west along Interstate 70. At mile seven a Federal truck convoy heading west drove past. At nine a civilian pickup drove up alongside. ‘This is Franklin up here. Where you headed?’

‘Not Franklin,’ Matt said.

‘That’s all I needed to hear.’ He pointed west. ‘You can get some help at the state camp up in Zanesville.’

‘Thanks.’

At mile twelve he passed a large group of people coming east. The mixed group of men women and children all looked about like Matt did dressed in a mélange of loose fitting clothes. Several carried rifles. He walked over to them and waved. ‘Where you folks headed?’

A man with a bushy beard and prematurely graying black hair said, ‘Pittsburgh. I don’t suppose it’s still there.’

‘Nu-uh,’ Matt shook his head, ‘I been through it.’

‘Where you headed?’

‘Indiana. know anything about it?

‘We came from Toledo.’

‘What’s in Pittsburgh for you?’

‘We’re not going to Pittsburgh. Heading for West Virginia to find work. Coal mines.’

‘Yeah, I saw some of that.’

‘What’s in Indiana?’

‘Family.’ Matt nodded up the road, ‘What’s it like up in Toledo?’

‘About like Pittsburgh it sounds like. No one gave us much trouble. There’s a lot of us, though. Don’t know how a lone man like you will do. We saw plenty of police and army, though.’

‘Okay.’

‘Well good luck.’

 

Saturday Updates

Back to back days at the gym. Treadmill Thursday, machines yesterday. We conked out on the Stairmaster but slugged through the rest. We're tired. Nothing for us today. 

It's now been four days since Nightingale Russia scanned this blog. You guys get bored? Done gathering intel? Or have you realized you are intellectually outmatched? We await your next effort, brave anonymous trolls in Stockholm. Out of curiosity we did an Inforos article count, 21 bits of collusion with the Soviets so far this year. KGB pays well, comrade. 

The New York Post reports that the Taliban is back on the offensive. The experts said Kabul will fall in 30-90 days. What have these people gotten right in the last 20 years? Seven days? Or is that too optimistic? Remember, first slowly then all at once. This blog asked why we weren't bombing the fuck out of the Taliban. Turns out we are. It just isn't making a difference. 

Richard Fernandez describes Joe's 'cascade of failure'. He's absolutely right except for one thing. This isn't Joe's failure. Joe doesn't know what's going on. He's at Camp David till Tuesday. It's the Elite's failure. The Elite is incapable of self correction, so expect more failure. Where? Everywhere. 

On to the things.

A good week of editing The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We are 3/4 done. We've been going over the Falklands chapter, which looks okay. But we must needs go over it again. From there it's onto the winter chapter, which is just people suffering in the cold. This is the book's low point. After that we'll do a few scene rewrites and a few wrap ups. We think we'll be done by the time we go down the shore in two weeks. 

Boy are people ever going to nitpick '75. Why everyone knows that Joint Op Plan 8472* called for the Supreme Court to be evacuated to North Carolina. Doesn't Stroock realize that the NRO had backup sat uplinks at Super Secret Mountain in Pennsylvania? It's nice to have plans. It really is. We plan, God laughs. For as it is written: we plan, God laughs.

And speaking of things that will be done when we go down the shore in two weeks...World War 1990: The Weser is 52,000 words. The climactic battle at the end is almost complete. It needs a lot of fixing, but we'll wait till we're done with '75. If we were editing two books at once, we'd ask for a Chilean dictator to take us for a chopper tide. Nevertheless, The Weser is going well and will be completed by the end of the summer. We're calling it 8 September, which is when the Stroocklettes go back to school. 

By then '75 will be edited and we can edit The Weser while finishing The Final Storm. It's already 50,000 words. That's the next World War 1990 book. We ain't no Game of Thrones guy. You people deserve to know how this thing ends. Winter '22?

Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to the airport.

*Easter Egg for near future topic. Guess what Will's been binging.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 1/31/21

As we'll discuss tomorrow, Nederland sales, World War 1990 sales, and books sales overall had a fabulous month. Boffo, just boffo! I said to my agent, 'Maury, people just can't get enough World War 1990. They're camping out, Maury. Camping out.'

And the reviews! Well, just take a look at what Goodreads has to say about Nederland, twenty-six ratings, 4 and quarter stars. We are very good at what we do. The more we write World War 1990, the better we get at writing World War 1990.

Between World War 1990 sales and the cash dump from Moscow we had to arrange a second special courier for our weekly Panamanian cash transfers. 

We are in sensitive negotiations with a major motion picture studio, of course we cannot say which, about World War 1990 movie rights. Maury wanted to take they're first offer but we said no.

Which is why we need to get The Great Nuclear War of 1975 out there so we don't get pigeonholed into writing World War 1990 the rest of our life.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 1/17/21

We spent a good part of Saturday morning going through The Great Nuclear War of 1975 and outlining the MS. Below is what we came up with:

That's an intro + six chapters all organized around a single idea: immediate aftermath, military, trouble in the states, food-farms-refugees, finance, and winter. A seventh chapter about the Brits, the Argentines and the Falklands will be written next week. 

That's 62,000 words, people. We may need to do a bit of set up for volume II, the Norks, the pipeline, etc etc. We may also ad a scene or two to the existing chapters if we think they're good ideas. We still like the idea of a nuke silo crew popping the hatch, even if its derivative. Other ideas welcome. But there it is. There's The Great Nuclear War of 1975

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 1/3/21

We are looking into how to split The Great Nuclear War of 1975 in two, or three, really. Relax. First off that is not set in stone. Second off, the two volumes would be released simultaneous like or near simultaneous like. Third off, the last volume covering events 1977-1981 would be released soonish. Doing this would allow us more time and space to explore fascinating issues in that time span.

As things stand right now, the MS is 111,000 words. We think it'll be 120,000 when we finish doing the things we need to do to get the MS to the SOTU of 1977.  That's just under two average length novels for us. OK, Nederland is like, 75,000, but reader(s) get the point. It's a hell of an unruly book.

Yes, we have considered cutting things, but that leaves ideas on the floor and we'd much rather explore them.

The Monday Morning Round Up

Well the Feds conjured another trillion out of thin air. Sooner or later the bill comes due. At some point there will be a financial catastrophe, the Treasury defaults, the currency crashes, hyper inflation arrives and we all run on the banks Frank Capra style. Right?  Just remember, America, it'll your fault. We come from that nice respectable wing of the GOP that tried for 25 years to convince Americans to tighten the belt a little, reduce spending, and payoff the debt. The Dems said we were starving children and throwing old people into the street, and you fell for it every time, America. Every time. Blame yourself. Our conscience is clear. As PJ O'Rourke once said, the Parliament of whores is us. You're goddamn right we're bitter.

Our GRU handlers in Moscow are off for the rest of this year and part of the next, so we have some extra time. We've found an online magazine that's interested in a piece from us, on culture not news, and we'll be working on that. If anyone can suggest other forums we're all ears.

We take it back. May 1st was an unrealistic goal for the publication of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. How's about July 1st? [There you go, leave yourself some wiggle room, bloody Yank tosser-Ed] Six months. We can do that, can't we?

On the World War 1990: The Final Storm front, our next step is the Soviet nuclear forces alert chapter. We already wrote their intro chapter. That's right, readers will see the Soviet version of NORAD go on alert, Soviet missile troops making preparations, and bombers scrambling. Hmmm, maybe one of those Soviet mobile missile crews, you know, like you see in Spies Like Us? You know, we haven't watched that in....20 years? It's never the wrong time for Soul Finger.

We dug through the basement book crates and found these:

No Jerry Pournelle, no Will the Writer. Those are the original books we read in the late 1980's. We haven't read them since the mid 1990s. Janissaries is high science fiction adventure, and this blog recommends the series in the strongest possible terms.  We found Pournelle's website in July of 2001, and looked for info on the final novel in the series. We'd periodically check back over the years. Mamelukes was published posthumously. We'll set aside some time and read these again soon.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 12/13/20

The Great Nuclear War of 1975 will culminate with the president's inauguration on January 20th, 1977.

From there we write a chapter covering each year, each about a theme, an idea. Say....infrastructure building in 1978, what's happening in the rest of the world in 1979 and the election of 1980, etc etc, ending with the new president's inauguration in 1981.*  Yes, that sounds right. The book will end with an epilogue, a future history written in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the war.

Just thinking about this, the MS feels like it's gonna balloon to 130,000 words, easily. It just wouldn't be a big deal to get to 180,000, that's three novels right there. I'll stop, I'll stop.

*It won't be Reagan. Don't even think about it. 

The Disney + Media Disinformation Matrix

Sometimes we wake up in the morning, get some coffee, turn this thing on and read the various headlines while the Stroocklette's are watching Stuck in the Middle on Disney+, and otherwise have no idea where a post is going. 

We endorse the girls watching Stuck in the Middle. It's a hell of a lot funnier and better produced than Jesse*...

[Yeah but you love Jesse because...-Ed]

Shut up Ed...Stuck in the Middle is just a tweak below Malcom in the Middle* in overall production values. It totes could be a primetime network show. Speaking of why we like watching Jesse...

[Perv-Ed]

...Cerina Vincent as the mom is totally hot, in a very approachable, suburban mom of 7 sort of way.

[Yeah and the fact that she was a model and did one of those stupid 2000's era parody movies completely in the nude had nothing to do with it-Ed]

It's incidental.

Oh, we got Nederland back, the final proof is on the way. That's the proof where we just check that everything is as it should be, no re-read. The MS is being formatted for kindle. At some point one has to say, I've done everything I can to make this novel as good as it can be. It's time to move on. We're terrified.

We're writing up our Matt scenes in The Great Nuclear War of 1975. Readers will follow Matt from the night it all went up to the very end of the book. He's walking from Rhode Island all the way to Indiana to get to his family. This gives us a chance to show a lot of post-nuclear war America through a character readers have a stake in. We might change Matt's name to Brian. 

We sent our post about Junkpedia to Maxim, our editor at Inforos in Moscow. He has quite a sense of humor for a KGB agent. So we tried to join Junkpedia and they are suspicious to say the least. They're tech people are basically like, 'You're just some guy in New Jersey, aren't you.' Aren't we ever. We encourage reader(s) to try to join Junkpedia as well.

Anyway....our 14 year old has a couple of semesters of German under her belt and is annoyed at our insistence that 'Where is the nearest ammunition dump' and 'Burn the village' are part of everyday, conversational German. Speaking of Krauts, she loves The Office, and one Dwight Kurt Shrute is her favorite character. Couldn't be prouder if she learned Der Panzerlied. 

*If you don't like Malcom in the Middle, we don't want you reading this blog.

Saturday Updates

We take it as read that Joe Biden will be sworn in on 20 January. We can't decide if writing that all is lost is passé or writing calm down, the pendulum shall swing is passé.  As far as Georgia goes the pendulum swings there for us on two issues. First, who will win. Second, maybe it's time to stick it to the GOP? Our best answer is that we should wait till the 2022 primaries to screw them. But then one hears Sonny Purdue talking about deals with Biden.

We will let reader(s) know when it's time to swim out past the breakers and watch the world die.

The Israeli political subterfuge continues and the government there will soon fall. Remember, Blue and White head Benny Gantz screwed his party by taking his ten MKs and joining Bibi in exchange for a rotational PM gig in which he would take the office in 18 months. As if he thought Netanyahu wouldn't find a way to implode the government himself and force and election. Sap. Polls show things are...just about like the last four (4!) elections. Only the opposition is deeply divided. Naftali Bennett's Yamina comes in a strong second with 23 seats. Yamina is more a secularist party, but very strong on defence. We could see voting Yamina one day. But for now,  Bibi is the once and future PM.

In London, between failed negotiations, his drive to eliminate gas cars and lockdown fetishes, an empty cab pulled up to the Palace and Boris Johnson got out. Elect Labour, I don't give a fuck.

For about two weeks our feet have felt fine. We went for a walk yesterday and this morning our feet feel like we went for a walk yesterday.

On to the things.

The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is 100,000 words and counting. We're going to spend the weekend going over a post-winter chapter upon which we haven't laid eyes in months. We've talked to several reader(s) and you people really want this to be a one-off book. Were we to break it up into three novels, the first two would come out simultaneous or near simultaneous like. We'll see. We love the structure of our third proposed novel. 

We did nothing on The Final Storm.

This week we did some great research for World War 1990: Saddam's War. We worked on a few scenes, one in Tehran, one in Washington showing the Quayle camp wondering what to do. We think Saddam's War takes place in the autumn of 1991. That gives us a chance to write about political intrigue, the primaries, and lay the ground work for Election '92, the final novel in the World War 1990 universe. Or is it? 

We get Nederland back on Monday, 12/15, people.

Will's Good Ideas for the Week of 11/29/20

We looked at The Great Nuclear War of 1975 and determined the cut off for a 60,000 word novel; the lowest point of the winter of 1976. From there a second novel could show the nation climbing out of the winter, beginning to rebuild, etc etc. Book two would end with President Rockefeller being inaugurated in January of 1977. Book three is the best part of this idea. A novel where each chapter shows a different year, with a blockbuster intro of 20,000 words about the night of the war.

No, we are not definitely doing this. We never thought of The Great Nuclear War of 1975 as more than a one off. 

[That's what you thought about World War 1990. I know, I edited for you. -Ed]

I know. 

[And in fact, The Great Nuclear War of 1975 started as a short story for Seven Stories-Ed].

We are considering this idea. We'll see.

On the Saddam front, we've just about finished our research. One of our goals was to further understand how Saddam ran things. Mission accomplished. He was very biased toward people from his home town of Tikrit and usually put his cousins in charge of things, in the Arab style. We hoped our research would yield some names of real Iraqi generals. Mission also accomplished. 

Should Saddam be a character? We feel comfortable writing him, the man's traits and ticks and style are well known. But we also like the idea of Saddam being high up and untouchable, like the Emperor before Return of the Jedi.

Iran will be NPC'd and we think we'll only have one main character, a higher up to give the reader the bird's eye from the Iranian perspective.

There will be plenty of Washington neocons. That William Kristol is the pesky sort.

Saturday Updates

Sorry folks, we just don't see how Biden is stopped from stealing the election. Maybe the Supreme Court will step in, but this blog isn't counting on it. The state legislatures will make a lot of noise, but appointing their own slate of electors would take extraordinary steel. A lot of them will lose their jobs come primary season. We'll get into this in another post, but we can see the fraud marking the beginning of the end. But we can also see the fraud being just one of those things and politics returning to normal with the GOPs winning great victories in 2022.

We haven't written much about Israel lately. We just haven't been interested. But there are some interesting developments. First the head of Iran's nuclear program was killed in a drive by shooting. Now maybe it was a dispute between the Tehran rappers and the Esfahan rappers, but we're more inclined to think the Israelis did it. After all, as the Imams say, the Jew is clever. Ben Rhodes and the rest of the failed Obama/Biden foreign policy establishment are crying for the little dead Mullah Maker, which just shows you these people will always choose America's enemies over America. 

In Jerusalem the Blue and White Party is threatening to dissolve the government next week. Does this blog think it's time for them or do we still want our Bibi? We've no idea. Our understanding is that Bibi is behind in the polls, as usual.

On to business.

We had a great Thanksgiving Week.

We spent the week editing and adding to The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We wrote scenes showing the National Guard finding an isolated teen sports camp in Washington State, a convoy delivering supplies to various camps in Vermont, snow clearance outside of Youngstown Ohio. We're going to keep adding to this as long as the ideas come.

Right now The Great Nuclear War of 1975 is 95,000 words. That's half again as long as a World War 1990 Novel. We can easily get the MS to 120,000. After that another 60,000 words covering events from 1977-1981 just wouldn't be that big a deal. What we're saying is we can see a path to three novels.  We'd begin the third novel with a 20,000 word section describing the nuclear exchange. Will we do it? We will consider it.

Moving on to World War 1990: The Final Storm, the Battle of the Roki Tunnel went better than expected and things there are looking good. One more week.

We've done lots of great research for World War 1990: Saddam's War. Plenty of characters and ideas coming. We'll see about writing another scene next week. We love the percolation.