The Green Pill Secret: Your Inner Critic

As some of you may know, I have been going to therapy on-and-off for a number of years. The main reason for this because, like many young men of today, I left college with nothing, and couldn’t get a date to save my life. When I finally did find someone who would date me, I clung on as if my life depended on it. In hindsight I know this was unhealthy, but I also recognize as a neglected child and baby, according to my parents, that it’s no wonder I have abandonment issues and historically had a Anxious Attachment style. Of course, naturally I was most attracted to rejecting women who recapitulated my childhood neglect and finally married someone with an Avoidant Attachment style. Therapy has helped me get through this, and helped me stop hating myself and helped me become someone who is more secure in his attachment.

Now, I’m hoping to do into more depth on Attachment Styles in a subsequent episode, as well as therapy, but this week, my wonderful friend Cat returns for the first of 6 topics of discussion. This week, it’s all about that Inner Critic. That inner critic who makes me think no woman will ever find me attractive because of all my recent and historical romantic failures. That inner critic who makes me think I’m not a real cosplayer because I don’t make my own outfits. That inner critic who says I’m an awful composer. That inner critic who says I’m never going to be a pilot after two and a half decades of trying. That inner critic who tells me I can’t deliver a good speech. Celle critique de la interior que dit que je ne parle pas français, oder Deutsch, o italiano, или русский, 日本語または 中文. That inner critic who says I’m a failed Physicist because McGill didn’t even give me credit for the 3 years I studied the discipline. That inner critic who reminds me I’m a software engineer without a job. And that goddamn inner critic that reminds me I’m not a successful author because I’ve only had a few of my short stories published and I’ll never be as successful as Stephen King, or even Nev Fountain or Martin Wilsey.

Now, should you always ignore your inner critic because it’s shit-talking you? By all means, no! The critic is there to keep you from embarrassment. But sometimes, when you’re constantly rejected romantically, and having trouble finding the time to finish the first draft of your novel, and realizing how long it’s been and you still don’t have a pilot’s licence, or your sewing machine sits idle, don’t sweat it. Because I may not be the best, but have been on some successful dates, I do cosplay, I do write music, I am licensed to fly, I ran a great Toastmasters last Thursday, I practice my linguistic skills when I travel, I run a science book club and have read over 100 science books, I’m a very skilled coder with sufficient clearances which make me expect I will have a new job soon, and I have my own Amazon page if you want to read some of my work. And I fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, for a National Popular Vote, and Electric Car access, especially for National Drive Electric Week!

And this channel, well, I hope it will grow too. I don’t mind only 10 subscribers oas of this writing. I’m happy that two of my shorts got over 150 views. So don’t let that Innere Critic Rule you, making you fall into self-sabotaging behaviors. Control your Inner Critic, and just don’t let it control you!

The Hourlings Podcast—Episode 4: Marketing Madness

I was pretty excited about this episode as many of my writing friends are great marketers. Of course our host, Martin Wilsey is, my good friend Emma G. Rose is, my wonderful friend Stephanie Mirro is, and of course my dear friend C. J. Ellisson is. I was all ready to sit this one out for all these great authors to talk about their marketing prowess, but alas, C. J. couldn’t make it so I was happy to step in and fill her lovely shoes. In the end, this TimeHorse thinks it turned out rather nicely!

Another Finely Structured meeting, if I do say so myself.

Now, go out there and buy more of my books! You’ve been marketed to; see you next week!

The Hourlings Podcast—Episode 3: Finding the Time

For this episode, I’m back, but our intrepid host Martin Wilsey was unable to attend so the Toastmaster extraordinaire David Keener to host us as we talk about how to find time between work, and home, and all the other things you have to do with life. Believe me, I barely even find the time to update this site, never mind write.

Another Finely Structured meeting, if I do say so myself.

I hope you find the time to watch it and keep writing. I hope to see you next week!

The Hourlings Podcast, Episode 2: World Building

This episode of the Hourlings Podcast was one I could only contribute to in indirectly. We have a new YouTube channel, Channel 137—which I hope you will follow—and you may be wondering where the 137 comes from.

As an author, as well as a Physicist and Scientist, I have an affinity for the wonders of the physical world—and so does host Martin Wilsey. The number 137, or more specifically it’s approximate reciprocal, 0.007 297 352 569 3(11), which is about , is important to Physicists. It represents the Fine Structure Constant, ⍺, a ratio between the square of the Fundamental Charge and Planck’s Constant, the Speed of Light, and the Permittivity of Free Space:

The derivation of Alpha
This is the most common formula for calculating Alpha.

Originally, it was a was of defining the distance between spectral lines but has been found in many other physical properties. It’s quite a number!

Which is why we will be ending each meeting with a note about how it was so finely structured!

Another Finely Structured meeting, if I do say so myself.

Hope you enjoy the episode despite my lack of tales of intelligent octopuses and planetary colonists suffering technological attrition. Oh, well.

I’ll be back next week though so keep writing and hope to see you there!

When Zoom Fails, Google Meet to the rescue

This morning, I had set up The Hourlings on Zoom early, before I went to bed, hoping, if I ran late, the meetup would already be set up, Marty would be early, and I could make him co-host in case I still needed time to read before we began at 10:00.

Instead, to my delight, my friend Cynthia was the first to log in around 09:30 and we had a few minutes to chat about life and her adorable Clove. I really admire Cynthia, or Max as she’s sometimes called. She writes some great LGBTQ literature and is a great guide of conscious for me. She’s also an ex-Marine. Sempre Fi, my friend!

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get her video working, so, thinking that it would be as simple as restarting the meeting, I did just that. She promptly requested to rejoin and I accepted, looking forward to continuing our conversation.

It failed.

We tried again. No dice. I created a new Zoom event. That didn’t work. I asked the account owner to try. Still no success. It was already 10:00 and almost everyone was waiting to get in. I accepted them all, but none of them could connect.

Finally, our unofficial moderator, Evan Friedman brought up an instance of Microsoft Teams. He, Marty, and I verified its feasibility a while ago, so I knew it could work and joined the Teams meeting. The nice thing is now Teams allows virtual backgrounds, which was cool. But, unfortunately, Teams was as wickedly hard to invite people into as before.

Meanwhile, Marty set up a Google Meet account. Back when we tried Google Meet before when I created a Google Apps account. Back then, you had to pay for a Google Meet account by having a Google Apps account, and the Google Meet didn’t have a grid view, however, it already accommodated a lot of people.

In the end, we went with Google Meet and decided to make that Meet event out official backup for whenever Zoom misbehaves again, though we shall still default to Zoom. Unfortunately, my nightmare hair isn’t hidden by Google Meet’s cameras like it is in Zoom, so I must have looked atrocious today. I wish the Hypochondriac would let me use my hair trimmer.

Google Meet
Google Meet

We found out during the meeting that we weren’t the only ones straining for Zoom capacity. Fortunately, there is a Zoom Status we can check the next time this happens, so we’re not left trying so hard to beat a dead TimeHorse. And the Zoom system was back up, just in time for us to finish our meeting.

Unfortunately, because of all the kerfuffle and notifications, I missed a 13:30 Zoom I was planning to attend. But at least I got to hang out with my fellow writers. Thank you for reading, and I should now get back to writing.

Writers’ Happy Hour

Today we had our second Writers’ Happy Hour and we had even more folks than last time, if you can believe it. Unfortunately, I had to miss most of it because of my Job Search. Fortunately, my good friend and most excellent author Martin Wilsey stepped up to do introductions and get the conversational ball rolling.

Of course, there wasn’t time for me to get comfortable when the business call was over, as then someone wanted me to get Hulu working on her iPad. It wasn’t until 20:45 that I was finally able to dedicate some time to our exciting and free-form happy hour discussion, missing the first one hundred and five minutes. But for the bits I did attend, I had a lot of fun, and I think everyone else did too.

A couple things though did come up when Marty and I considered the post-mortem discussion. For our second Writers’ Happy Hour we had a few people dominate the conversation while others may have felt left out and thus exited early. Marty and I are thinking of ways to engage the shier folks to get them to feel more comfortable participating in the discussion.

Marty also informed me of the devolution of conversation into technical jargon of a non-writing nature. I missed it but agree that we need to steer conversations clear of such non sequiturs. We welcome all topics of discussion, but we must try to avoid fixating on a topic only a handful of participants understand.

Finally, there is the third rail of politics. Marty and I may be of different political bents but we first and foremost respect each other. Not all writers are progressive or conservative and we need to realize that and not demonize folks of a political leaning different from our own. As someone who writes extensively about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and the Equal Rights Amendment, I know first-hand how important it is to be non-partisan and respect differing political leanings while sticking to the facts. In future, Marty and I will be mindful of that too.

Overall, though, a great Writers’ Happy Hour with great conversations and delicious beverages. Of course, my beverage of choice is always Hydrogen Hydroxide, and I enjoyed every sip. Thank you for reading, and now back to writing.

Deux Bière, S’il vous plait…

André winced. “He’s no Prime Minister of mine!”

What if you could change history? What if you could put right what you felt in your heart was wrong?

André may have lost his bid for a Federal Riding in Québec, but when he’s given the opportunity to get his Francophone province to break with Canada, he’s unable to resist liquoring up his friend and stealing his boss’s time machine. But one piece of advice André never got: be careful what you wish for…

Giles is just a humble custodian. Just an ordinary Québecois with nothing to show for it but a well-paying job, a pension, … and his boss with a Time Machine. When his best mate André tricks him into visiting Canada in the 1860s, it’s not his hero Lincoln Giles meets, but the man who would become Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. McDonald. Can Giles keep André out of trouble. Can he keep his politician friend from effecting the future?

And isn’t it strange how similar André and John A are…

Read ‘Let’s Kill John A. OR John Wilkes Booth Must Die’ in The Witness Paradox, published by Tanhouser Press and edited by Martin Wilsey. Now available on Amazon, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Nobel, Powell’s Books. Alas, not available at Chapters, despite this story takes place in Canadian.