Monday Metal and GnR wrap up

Very little sportsball yesterday, though we did catch the end of the Pats and Bucs last night. Instead we took the girls to one of those 1770s reenactor thingies. There's plenty of that stuff here in New Jersey, as one might imagine. This one was held at Stirling Manor. Lord Stirling (William Alexander) was one of Washington's best generals and something of a swashbuckler. Stirling was extremely loyal to the general. Of course Stirling was a Scot. You don't mess with North American Scots. Ever. As General Gage once said of the Rebels gathering atop Bunker Hill, 'They're a crazy Presbyterian lot out of the woods.'

October is the home stretch month for The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We intend to put the MS in formal production on 1 November. Maybe 15 December for release? Maybe. We're a tad frustrated that we may not get a book out this year, and probably won't. Then again we got three books out last year and this just means we'll get four books out next year. You people will be fine. Time to put on that 80's training montage and get to work. 

Will Writes*: Don't ever listen to anyone who says, 'This is what all writers need to do.' That's total, absolute crap, probably given by someone who teaches creative writing (don't get us started on them). All writers are different. There's one rule, only one: write every day. You can take the weekends off if you want. Everything else is negotiable. 

Today is Monday which means Monday Metal, which means it's time to wrap up our Guns and Roses discussion. For our final video, here's You Could be Mine, the first track released from Use Your Illusion. YCbM was also included in the Terminator 2 soundtrack. The song was important enough for Schwarzenegger to appear in the video:

YCbM is another punch in the face from GnR. Behold the viciousness and ferocity. YCbM is a throwback and it'd be just fine on Appetite for Destruction. We'll have a few final thoughts on the band later in the week. 

*A new semi daily thing in which we parcel out wisdom accrued from 30ish years of writing. 

What's the Biggest Problem You Encounter with Your Name?

Saw that floating around Twitter.

Problem? Try problems.

First off, Stroock rhymes with book, not duke*. Pronounced kinda like Brian Johnson sings 'struck' Thunderstruck.

['You wish-Ed]

Stroock is not pronounced Strock, or, I swear I'm not making this up, St. Rock.

I do not know and am not related to this guy.

For reasons I will never understand, everyone leaves off the 'c'.

I go by William Stroock professionally becuase it's 7 letters on one side, and 7 letters on the other. Will Stroock usually gets pronounced Wilstruck. Back before college, when I went by my middle name, Thompson*, or Tom, Tom Stroock worked ok. 

Tom Stroock was also a distant cousin of mine, Thomas F. Stroock a Wyoming oil man, notorious as America's ambassador to Guatemala in the late 80's. He said something like, 'I'm sick and tired of all these Lesbian nuns coming down here and causing trouble.' When I cold called Tom 20 years ago and asked him to help get me a job in W's White House he didn't lift a finger. The Ambassador was part of Wyoming's GOP establishment. He could have called up Cheney and said, 'Dick I need a favor...'

Bastard.

Of course with my luck I would have ended up being special assistant to Scooter Libby. Instead the Stroocks of Northern Virginia moved to Peapack, New Jersey. Fourteen novels, three daughters and one mortgage later here we are.

*Accidently capitalized that. Stupid college sports.
**Right now youngest daughter has a pet stuffed croc named Chompson.

46 Tomorrow

This will be the first birthday without our mother. We find ourselves recalling the first birthday we really remember, our 6th in 1979; she did a lot of prep work. It was lots of fun we remember that. We cried when all us kids were made to stop playing Star Wars. We remember playing outside that evening with our new construction toys.

There's something sad about all that time passing with the decades of memories remaining so strong. Other people forget everything. Why can't we?

We found a card out folks gave us in 2017, the giftcard still inside.

We're worried about how our father feels about our birthday. After all the death the last few years our father is the last close family member. Though there are other branches, this Stroock branch dies with us as happened to our great-great grandfather, Jacob Loeb, eighty-one years ago.

Last checkup the triglycerides were back up. You can take all the pills you want but there's no fighting genetics. 

Turning 45 was the first birthday we thought, Ohhhhh.

But it was a good year. The Euro-trip was a smashing success and in a few weeks we leave for ten days in Ireland. Next year we hope to do two weeks on the Continent.

We joined a gym and have lost a stone or so.We really enjoy it, actually.

The French has come along a little bid.

We put in some good guitar work.

Mrs. Stroock was totally stressed out at work.

Our oldest is a teenager this year.

The writing continues apace. We've gotten a few fresh opportunities.

Why so morose?

Year in Review: Professional

Being a suit, Mrs. Stroock is required to write a personal assessment and submit it to the boss.

We thought we'd do the same.

Of course we have no boss to submit to.

[Uh, hello! Also that sentence is weird-Ed]

Yeah...

Anyway, here it goes.

We published three books this year, The Austrian Painter, World War 1990: Polish Storm, and Pershing in Command. We are extremely pleased with the way these books turned out, especially Polish Storm. Sometime last spring we realized we could recreate an American armored corps in action and did so: the Battle of Point Wilderness. This was an intellectual coup-de-tat and we couldn't be happier with it.

We finished Blooms and are editing The Final Storm.

We realized we should just stop worrying and write World War 1990 for a while.

We were asked to contribute to a short story compilation. The result was The Blue and Red: Palmerston's Iron Clads. This is the first time anyone has ever asked us for fiction.

We wrote one of those click-bait list thingies about Pershing.

We worked hard this year to expand our online presence. This entailed more blogging, and social media activity. We're sorry to say these efforts failed. This blog does not grow. Our Twitter and Gab accounts  never really took off. We can hang out on Gab, or we can blog. We can't do both.

We realized just how quickly we can churn out copy if you really want to.

Overall a fine year professional.

Kindle Unlimited

Effective immediately, all William Stroock titles are available via Kindle Unlimited. All titles.

Blog Updates

Alert reader(s) may have noticed a few things about this blog of late.

First we are blogging more frequently.

Lately we're putting up four or five posts a day.

Those posts are coming earlier in the day. We're usually up at 4:30-5:00 we have no idea why.

[Likely the torment and abuse you've hurled at me these last four years twisting your dark soul, if you even have one-Ed]

We've also changed the way we blog.

We usually have one post about writing. One about politics. One about current events. One about culture, and so on.

So if you want our insightful and clairvoyant political analysis, you'll get that. We also realize that some readers don't see eye to eye with us on this stuff. While we like to write about politics, and we love, love, love bashing Hillary! this is not apolitical blog, per se. It's a blog that like politics.

So if you like us for our creative thoughts, you'll get a post on that. If you like cultural stuff, you'll get a post on that.

Putting more effort into this platform just seems like a good use of time.

The reader(s) may be asking, 'Are you on Twitter?'

[Really? You think people are asking? Ed]

The answer is yes, but not under our name and only for the purposes of meme-war activity.

We are, however, on Gab, just click.

We strongly recommend Gab as the free-speech alternative to Twitter.

Gab: speak freely.

Marginalize This

This has got to be seen to be believed:

Many publishers have vowed to publish more marginalized writers to combat xenophobia in light of Trump & Brexit.

Novels about transgender Muslims fighting Xenophobia in Nigel Farage's Britain are sure to sell and they'll change the minds of intransigent North Country Brexit voters too!

You want marginalized authors? Try my friends James Young or Chris Nuttall  Or even me. Publishers wouldn't take one look at me. But instead of whining, 'I'm marginalized!' I took action and published myself. Now I have a fan base, move copy, and my latest novel is in the top 50 in its category in Britain, Australia, and the US.

Supreme Dark Lord Vox Day has been marginalized right out of publishing, Twitter, Wikipedia, so he started Castalia House, Info-Galactic, and Gab.

Marginalized that, motherfuckers.

 

Latest Pershing Video: Pershing and Open Warfare