New Year 2019

"Good New Year, Brother," Camillus said as he entered the room. "May the blessings of the One True God be upon you this glorious year, the year of our Lord and Savior J. Blackshear, two thousand and nineteen."

"Good New Year," Cato replied turning from the window to greet his young friend.

"What's the matter?" Camillus asked, eyeing Cato. "You don't seem very happy for the New Year."

"I'm fine," Cato lied. "It's just early, that's all."

Camillus walked across the room to where Cato was sitting at a small window that looked out into the courtyard where other monks were beginning to gather for their morning rituals.

"Everyone's getting ready," Camillus said, nudging Cato. "Let's go out to the courtyard. I don't want to start the New Year off by being late to the first prayer of the day."

"I'll be out soon," Cato said. "You can go on without me."

"What's on your mind, Brother?" Camillus asked. "I can tell that something is weighing on your thoughts."

"It's nothing," Cato said, slouching in his chair.

"Come on," Camillus proded. "Just tell me."

Cato gave the young monk a wary glance and then let out a long sigh. "It's just... it's just that I've been thinking," he said.

"About what?" Camillus asked.
"About a lot of things," Cato said. "I mean... like the New Year, for example, and the morning rituals, and the prayers, and everything."

"It's good to think about these things, Brother," Camillus said. "It's good to think about the One True God and it's good to think about our Lord and Savior J. Blackshear. Thinking about God brings you closer to God."

"I don't feel that way," Cato said. "Like when I think about J. Blackshear, I can't help but feel this odd skepticism rising up inside me. I mean, like can all the stories about him really be true? Did he even ever really exist? He was born more than two thousand years ago. How can we be sure of anything that happened that long ago?"

"Of course he existed," Camillus scoffed. "If J. Blackshear wasn't real, then how has the Word of God been passed down through the ages? J. Blackshear is the Flesh of God, and his writings are the Word of God. If they weren't, then God wouldn't have let them spread so far and wide."

"Yeah, I get your point," Cato said, "but don't you remember what we learned last week from Brother Julius? The writings attributed to J. Blackshear weren't even put into a collection until hundreds of years after he died. How do we even know that these writings are actually his? How do we know these are his words? And then I was reading something the other night and it was about other writings that some historians think may have been written by J. Blackshear... and these writings are... well, they're vulgar. There is sex, violence, satire, and even blasphemy." He paused for a moment to catch his breath. "What I'm trying to say is, what if J. Blackshear was just some guy, like just some writer... maybe not even a particularly good writer, but then over time writings and ideas that weren't his got attributed to him and then it just sort of took on a life of its own and now, two thousand and nineteen years later, we're talking about this guy who was just a normal guy as if he's some sort of holy being."

Camillus stood staring at Cato, his mouth hanging wide open, his eyes unblinking.

"I mean, it could be true right?" Cato asked. "Two thousand years is a really long time. Who knows, maybe this has even happened before, you know? Like maybe there have been other people in the past and they were just normal people, maybe not even very godly people, or maybe they were just having delusions of grandeur, but then as time passed this whole cult grew up around them and then they end up being worshipped like a god, but they're just a normal person."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Camillus said, his voice a raspy whisper. "How could you even think this?"

"It's just a thought," Cato said. "I mean, I don't know, it's just that some of the things in the Good Book are so hard to believe. It's like, if all that stuff really used to happen, then why doesn't it still happen? You know what I'm talking about, right? Like all the miracles and stuff. Why don't we still have miracles? Like why doesn't J. Blackshear appear to us and do miracles and stuff?"

"I see miracles every day!" Camillus snapped. "You would see them too, if you weren't so busy saying all these horrible things!"

"When have you seen a miracle?" Cato asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Well, yesterday," Camillus replied. "I went to the Fumart with Brother Fred and there was a parking space right in the front row. It was a miracle."

"Oh," Cato said, his mouth turning to a frown. "That's not exactly a miracle."

"It was!" Camillus shouted. "It was a miracle! It was a blessing from J. Blackshear. You just don't see it because your soul has been tainted by these untruisms." He glared at Cato for a few tense moments. "Anyway, I don't want to be late for the morning prayer. I'm leaving now. I'll pray to J. Blackshear to watch over your misguided soul and bring you back to the Light."

Crump Freebies

A couple of announcements:

FIRST, Crump, the lowest-rated, and most hated thing that I've ever written is FREE on Amazon Kindle through 8/17. Get a copy today!

SECOND, Crump 2 will be out soon! In fact, you can PRE-ORDER the next installment of Crump now. But while you're waiting for the epic follow-up to come out, get your ass on Amazon and get a FREE copy of the first book!

FINALLY, if you want some free Crump stickers (highly collectible), check out the freebies page.

White Collar

I've really been wanting to put out a science fiction graphic novel, but I've got too much on my plate already. As a compromise, I'm going to start publishing infrequent workplace comic strips.

Updates

Just a quick post to let everyone know that YES, the final Psalms of the Apocalypse book will be out soon. I've been swamped with a variety of projects and life-happenings, but rest assured that everything has already been written and is currently working its way through the publishing machine.

That said, the final book will NOT be released as a stand-alone edition but rather all five books will be combined into a re-worked, re-edited collection titled simply Psalms of the Apocalypse. If everything goes to plan, this book should be out in early May 2018. Make sure to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, etc for chances to win early-release signed copies and other cool schwag.

Additionally, YES, the second book in the Prisoners of War series is in the works and should be released sometime in the relatively near future.

Finally, the first book (or should I start calling them parts?) of Psalms of the Apocalypse is available for FREE on Kindle from now through Friday, March 9. If you haven't had a chance to read any of the Psalms of the Apocalypse books, consider this a sneak peak for the full novel that'll be out in May. When the full collection is released there will be some considerable plot changes, so it might be fun just to read things through and see how the story and characters have changed.

Thanks for following, reading, commenting, rating, and everything else! New books are on the way ✌

The Truth About Toys

As a parent with two small children, on the eve of the rampantly commercialized consumer frenzy that will be the Holiday Season of 2017, I feel the uncontrollable urge to voice an opinion that I think most parents of small children are too afraid to say out loud (for fear of being labeled as “bad parents” by a society obsessed with the accumulation of things, I suppose) and to bring to light a serious cultural problem that I think needs to be urgently addressed. These two issues are one in the same and they have to do specifically and generally with toys. Here is the truth about toys: children don’t need them and parents hate them.

Sure, children want the toys that are advertised to them; they can’t help but want them. Children are brainwashed into wanting toys by highly skilled advertisers who use every trick in the book to manipulate children’s defenseless little brains into needing whatever toy is being sold. But as any parent will tell you, the novelty of a new toy doesn’t last long, and once that novelty has worn off, the child promptly forgets about the toy. Inevitably, the toy ends up at the bottom of a box, under the couch, or shoved in the back of a closet, and, before long, the toy is forgotten completely. In the end, the few minutes that the child played with the toy hardly justifies the price of that toy - a price that few toy buyers take into consideration.

The most obvious cost of the toy is the sticker price. This is money that comes directly out of the buyer’s pocket. But what about the environmental cost of producing the toy (which is most likely made of some form of plastic)? What about the cost of shipping the toy thousands upon thousands of miles (chances are good that the toy was made in China). Then there’s the cost to the American economy of purchasing a toy made by low wage labor in a developing country; the cost of jobs lost, taxes not paid, wealth being exported from our liberal democracy to an authoritarian communist country. And then, once the toy has been played with and discarded, there is the bonus environmental cost associated with the toy, where it will sit in a landfill taking hundreds and hundreds of years to degrade.

But for some insane reason, despite the fact that children don’t need toys and parents hate them; despite the fact that the toys hurt our economy and our environment; despite the fact that our children all already have more toys than they could ever realistically play with; each and every Christmas, every birthday, and even on minor occasions such as Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter, our children are bombarded with cheap toys and tchotchke, made, for the most part, in China. And all of this toy crazy consumerism is taking place in the face of rising nationalism, isolationism, and populism, all centered around a disdain for foreign-made goods and services. All the cultural and ethical signs say “stop spending your hard earned dollars on cheap plastic toys made in other countries,” but Americans keep spending and spending. Americans can’t stop accumulating massive amounts of shit, they can’t stop filling their lives with meaningless, useless garbage instead of meaningful experiences and achievements.

The quick and easy answer to this problem is to simply stop buying cheap plastic junk made in China and other states with questionable worker conditions. Americans need to stop the insanity of compulsively buying things that we don’t want or need. In the case of toys, everyone involved would be better off simply investing that money into a college savings plan, government bonds, the stock market, or even just sticking the money into a plain old savings account at the bank. If saving and investing is something that you are allergic to, then spend your money on either American made goods or on products manufactured in other first world countries. The higher cost of these goods will necessarily constrain the number of things purchased, and nudge you, the consumer, to be more considerate of the things they do decide to purchase.

I can already hear all the parents out there crying about the inhumanity of depriving their precious children of the joy of brand new, fresh off the boat toys from abroad. “My child needs toys!” or “Toys are imperative for healthy development!” Give me a fucking break. Children are incredibly intelligent, creative, and eager to express themselves - and they can do all of this WITHOUT TOYS. Give your kid a box and some markers. Give them some blankets. Give them paper and glue. Give them something that will prompt them to exercise their imaginations. Allow them to be children. Encourage them to make believe and create. Get off your phone for two seconds and actually interact with them.

The truth about toys is that they are draining the wealth from our country, funding the rise of authoritarianism abroad, impoverishing blue-collar American workers, playing to the most absurd and selfish whims of children, and providing literally nothing of value in our society. The truth about toys is that it’s easier to spend money on shit to distract your kids with than it is to give them your full attention. The truth about toys is that they are made by adults, bought by adults, and then quickly discarded by children. The truth about toys is that nobody needs them.
This holiday season, when you’re deciding which battery operated, wifi-enabled, pediatrician approved plastic piece of shit to buy for the children in your life, consider this: Every toy you buy, every dollar you send to China in exchange for a useless piece of plastic, is putting a bullet in a Chinese gun. In the future, when the Chinese start using those bullets, who do you think they’ll be aimed at?

It’s one of the shitty ironies of life that children grow up to fight and die in the wars that their parents created. When you’re buying toys for your kids this season, trading American wealth for Chinese-made instant gratification, keep in mind the fact that you’re destabilizing your own country and empowering a ruthless authoritarian dictatorship that despises American exceptionalism and will eat your children alive in order to sustain itself.

This holiday season, don’t give in. Don’t buy a bunch of cheap plastic shit made in China. Save your money. Invest your money. Buy products that were made in America. Or best of all, spend some quality time with your kids.

Lumiuxx Kindle Edition Giveaway

This week (8/14-8/18) you can get the first book in the Psalms of the Apocalypse series for free on your Kindle. Click here to get a copy and don't forget to leave a 5-star review :)

Wattpad MyHandmaidsTale Competition Part 2

My second entry into the MyHandmaidsTale contest on Wattpad. I'm not sure how many of these I'll write, but it's fun so maybe I'll pump out a few more before the end of the contest on 6/25.

Goodreads

I just finished setting up an author profile on Goodreads.  I've never really used this site before, but people were reviewing Lumiuxx (favorably) on the site, so it seemed like a good idea to join. If you're on Goodreads, follow me! I'm guessing that when you do, you'll get updated with whatever I'm reading, writing, or doing (because that sort of thing is important to you). Happy Monday!