Damned Politics

Ya know, when I started writing my St. Tommy NYPD novels, I didn't exactly think that I would be writing future events.

Take book one, Hell Spawn.

It had an offhand, casual mention of Black Lives Matter after our hero arrests a serial killer. The Serial killer is in the "right" profession and thus call out BLM,... because reasons.

There were, of course, reviewers who cringed that I even mentioned BLM.

I wonder if their thoughts on the matter would change any now?

We won't even go into what I did to the mayor, or the death cult. I just figured I would have the mayor as an idiot that concealed a truly darker side to the office. (no spoilers). But Death Cult came out only three months before NY states' Moloch bill. (I forget, does that include killing children ten days after birth?)

And, of course, I do expect social media to "fact check" my sarcasm, telling me that it wasn't called the Moloch Bill, blah blah blah.

Then de Blasio goes and shows exactly how much of a pure f***ing psychopath **he** really is. Here I thought he was just a moron and a thief. Now he wants to destroy the entire city. 

The endgame of the first trilogy is being enacted on the streets of New York city this very minute with this stupid catch and release "bail reform: nonsense

And since I wanted to get away from politics for later books, I didn't even want to touch the governor's office.

Then Cuomo goes and shows that, yes, he's a straight up f***ing mass murderer.

I mean, really guys? I mean, in 2019 I thought that my darkest dreams could not conceive of something so twisted and evil that the Democrats would not put it on their platform.

But killing off the elderly? Not even assisted suicide, or euthanasia, or any of the nice terms they like to throw around. But straight up bio-warfare the old fashioned way.

I mean, good God, last year I came out with Crusader: sex trafficking run by a succubus in conjunction with Jihadis.

This year: is there any Leftist who isn't a supporter of Epstein's client list?

The slippery slope used to be "gay marriage to pedophilia" (which took five years).

Now it's "close the churches" to "burn the churches" in five MONTHS.

I think I preferred it when I could at least imagine that they were misguided idiots instead of straight up fiends from the pit.

It used to take full on wartime propaganda to dehumanize the enemy to such a state that we perceived them as something so monstrous and alien that we didn't even blink at killing them.

Now all I have to do is listen to what comes out of their mouths.

.... This is the point where I should mention that you should vote in the Dragon Awards before this Sunday, here's My Dragon Award ballot is here and here is where you should vote. But I don't feel like doing PR today.

Oh Corona

Over the fourth of July weekend, illegal fireworks went off from about twelve different sites around my home.

It was probably New Yorkers telling Mayor de Blasio to go fuck himself.

That Sunday, I went to church, where the pastor, another spineless eunuch, held a public service announcement about social distancing, and not a mass worshiping Jesus Christ.

I am sick to death of an asshole I didn't vote for, telling me how to worship. 

I'm even more pissed off about my bishops, who are more concerned about being invited to the right parties than about tending to their flocks.

With my family I joked about crowdfunding an assassination of a few mayors and a few bishops. The response was less of a laugh and more of an "I'm afraid that you'd make money."

It's gotten so bad that I've had people suggest running for public office in New York.

It's so bad, I'm considering it.

I want to violate every mask regulation on a daily basis. The only reason I don't is because the jackbooted thugs have closed down the few places I like going. For once in my life, I've gone to my nearby parks, just so I can go somewhere and flaunt the mask laws.

Mercifully, my local cops are more concerned about riots than masks. 

Speaking of Black Lives Matter, don't you like their political privileges? After months of Jews being denied the quorum required for services (a minion is ten people-- De Blasio capped gatherings at 9) and funerals and masses being denied, BLM can go riot without masks on or social distancing, and wreck whole city streets without consequence.

Talk to me again about white privilege? 

Fuck it. I'm done for right now.

While I think about it, please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. The nominations period is up on July 19th -- this Sunday.

My Dragon Award ballot is here.

Voting is here.

Hollywood Politics

One of the things I hate about Hollywood is that they claim to be premiere artists, when they're really just garbage human beings churning out garbage films for the sake of garbage.

Then, when they realize they need money, they will make something good. Or buy rights to a comic book IP and cross their fingers. Aren't we due for another remake of the Shadow? I actually liked that one... so probably not.

But yeah, their attempts are "art" films almost never work. Unless it's Clint Eastwood's Oscar bait. 

Can we all agree that Art should have something ... true about it? In Die Hard, we have heroism in an ordinary guy who spends the movie getting cut up, shot up and beat up. In A Quiet Place, we have family. In Halloween, we have the truth of pure evil ... and that sex will deplete your situational awareness.

Recently, I looked at an old blog of mine on Hollywood's obsession with Nazis. And it occurred to me that they would go out of their way to ignore every real, contemporaneous evil in the world, rather than 

We need someone evil. 

Let's see... MS-13, Jihadis, China...

Someone involved in the slave trade!

Still MS-13, Jihadis, China...

Someone who tramps on the rights of their citizens

Okay, that's the Middle East and China.

Someone who racist and hates women.

The Middle East for sure! ... and China.

Someone with death camps!

Definitely China. 

Someone who cuts up people for actual spare parts!

Planned Parenthood... and China. 

I have it! Nazis!

It's gotten so bad, an author I respected, Jon Land, in one of his latest Texas Ranger novels, decided that the villain of the piece was Hitler's Great Grandson... and that the one of our heroes' killed Hitler's Grandson in prison... after the OTHER hero had her father hunt down Hitler's son after escaping a Texas POW camp in 1944...

Yes, really.

Oh, yeah, and Hitler's Great Grandson was behind Brexit, Marie Le Pen... and a few other unbelievable bits of BS that I have since burned out of my brain.

Then again, why should I expect any truth from Hollywood about anything? Jack Reed and William Durante were reporters who covered the Russian Revolution, and covered up every horror and atrocity committed in the name of progress. Durante got an award for COVERING UP A MAN MADE FAMINE IN UKRAINE.

Hollywood, of course, have spun the history of both Jack Reed and William Durante into heroes, in a fiction so unrecognizable, there is more truth in Team America: World Police than Hollywood's "historical" movies. 

Who am I kidding? There was more truth in Team America: World Police than some "documentaries."

People wonder why I haven't reviewed many movies over the past few years. It's because of crap like this. Because Hollywood is in the pocket of scum. Not surprising, because most of them are scum -- and if they aren't scum because of what they do, they're scum because of who they protect. Funny how "everyone knew" about Harvey Weinstein, but no one said anything about him until after he was safely in jail.


And those who aren't scum, or supporting scum by proxy, they will take billions of dollars from China, who are the Nazis of today. And if we had any justice in the world, we would have bombed the shit out of them by now.

[Insert longwinded, deranged, murderous rant where genocide on the human race is a valid plan A, B, and C.]

.... Anyway, I'm pissed off and cranky today, but it's Monday. What else is new? I'm going to stop now before I suggest wholesale slaughter of major cities. And get off my lawn...

Mutter mutter....

While I think about it, please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. The nominations period is up on July 19th -- this Sunday.

My Dragon Award ballot is here.

Voting is here.

Building a Saint

I've been going through a lot of old posts lately as I cut them up and turn them into Twitter threads. It's had some success, and there are people who have never read them before. I might get around to rewriting them here as well. Because there are a lot of things that have changed lately, and some notes I need to stress.

But I noticed I put in a LOT of thought into creating Marco and Amanda for Honor at Stake, et al. Make them polar opposites, yet very similar. How does each one work within the world I've made for them. That sort of thing.

I've never done that for Tommy Nolan.

It's odd. Because I tend to put in a TON of thought into character and biography. Probably too much. My original thought of character creation was to make a character, build a whole biography, wind them up, drop them in a situation, then let them wander. 

Every book prior to Hell Spawn was a seat of the pants affair.

Then along came Saint Tommy. And I haven't needed to do anything for him on that scale.

Sure, I do have more background on him in my head, but that's only come up within the last few books. And I don't even mean the books that are published yet. Book #8, Hussar, is where I have the germ of an idea for more of Tommy's background.

When I wrote Hell Spawn, all I knew about Tommy was that he was married with a kid, he was homeschooled, and more or less educated via the Opus Dei. I mentioned that he and his wife had "family out of state." When I needed someplace to stash Mariel and the kids during Saint Tommy abroad (City of Shadows, Crusader, and Deus Vult), I invented family in Tennessee.

That was the extent of my knowledge of Tommy's background.

Yes, there is little bits and pieces of Tommy Nolan scattered throughout my books. A character of the same name has appeared in Honor at Stake, and in A Pius Stand, but they are officially not the same person. Silver Empire wants separate IPs. There's nothing that forbids reader headcanon.

But even if you included his appearances in both of them, there was nothing that really added to the character. 

Now, in part, this was done in order to keep down the cast of characters. Hell Spawn was after some reviewers were confused by the cast of The Pius Trilogy, and even the Love at First Bite series spiraled into a sizable cast.

Obviously, if I haven't written and designed Tommy's parents, I can't have him call them for help or advice, or have subplots with them. The same with grandparents or in-laws.

Obviously, this hasn't worked in the long run. I tried to downplay the existence of everyone else in Hell Spawn as much as was reasonable. Wouldn't want people to get confused, after all. Then again, it was a first person point of view, how confused could people get?

Reading some of the dumber one star reviews, pretty confused. But those were 100% pure moron, so I don't feel so bad. But they weren't confused about characters. So, win!

And yes, after a while, the cast has spiraled. Like everything else in my writing. 

• The ME, Doctor Sinead Holland
• Father Richard Freeman, PhD
• Father Michael Pearson
• Bokor Baracus (after a fashion)
• Alex Packard
• Jeremy
• Lena
• Mariel 
• Grace
• William Carlton
• Texas Ranger Lloyd Lermon (wait for Hussar)
• Pope Pius XIII
• Aux Bishop Xavier "XO" O'Brian

Now, all 13 of these people have not yet shown up on the page at the same time, or even in the same book. Thankfully. Yet. I don't have that planned, either, but we'll see.

I will note that I've had no reviews or comments asking about Tommy's background. No one. No one cares. In fact, the only person asking for it is my wife, when I mentioned a character idea I was going to use in Hussar, but I postponed for Dark Web. Assuming that Dark Web happens as outlined.

Park of it has been influenced by the Pulp crew I deal with online. In part because, well, we don't have anything about the Shadow's background, do we? He used to be a really bad guy, he now kills really bad guys with dual wielding forty-fives.

There's more than a few other influences about the Shadow as well. But then, I have more than a few characters who can say yes to "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men." Tommy isn't technically one of them.

All I've really needed from Tommy for his character has been is his acts and his works, as well as his faith. His social life is his family and his church--gun club, soup kitchen, prayer rallies, etc. In Infernal Affairs, his wife is pregnant, so they do get some alone time.

The one thing I've had to put work into --and I've put work into it--was giving him a flaw. Well, a few flaws. He has a temper. He gets angry. He rarely gives into it, so everyone looks at him like he has three heads when he mentions it.
His confessions are like the following.

"Bless me father for I have sinned, it's been a week since my last confession.""Tommy, honestly, what could you have done in a week?""I cuffed a child molester. I wanted to hit him upside the head.""Did you?""No. But I was probably a little rough with the cuffs.""... Tommy? Take a breath."

Over time, I do have things that get to him. And his anger is where demons get at him... because the only anger Tommy feels is safe is anger at himself. You can see where that can go wrong. 
The solution to these little dark nights is reason and rationality. There was a guilt trip an editor wanted me to inflict on Tommy in book one. My solution? Directly address it as completely irrational from his perspective, because that would have required him to be omniscient.

But hitting him where it hurts means he feels first, and thinks later. Heh heh heh.

It's odd. I wrote Hell Spawn in late 2017 for release in late 2018, and now I've finished book 10, and I'm having trouble thinking back to what everything was like writing book one. I guess it's good I'm thinking about it while I can.

If you haven't read Hell Spawn or any of the others yet, now's a good time to start, because the series is coming to a head.

Or should I say that all Hell is about to break loose?

#PulpSpeed Ahead

Yikes, it's been a busy couple of weeks.

So, I've finished writing book #10 of Saint Tommy, NYPD.

This one is called Lightbringer.

As usual, I remain my standard subtle self.

You have to be wondering at this point "book 10? Declan, isn't book 7 still only on your publisher website? Where's books 8 and 9?"

Hussar and Destiny--books 8 and 9-- are still in the process of being made ready. Cover artists can only move so fast. And I dropped Hussar and Destiny on Silver Empire the same... day? The same week? I honestly don't recall.

Why am I pushing so hard? Why not take a break?

Because I'm too lazy to take a break. Taking a break requires energy to stop. My sin of sloth is in my work ethic. I don't have an off button. I work forty days a week. When I'm not physically at the keyboard, trust me, I'm at least thinking about work. The pressure in my skull builds when I'm not working. Either that, or I've had a three month sinus infection... or meningitis.

Hmm. That would explain my bloody noses. I haven't started bleeding from the eyes and ears yet, so I must be doing okay.

As I write this, Lightbringer is being looked at by the last beta reader, a woman who is easily confused if I'm not crystal clear, and who reads newspapers with a set of red and blue writing implements. 

So that will soon be going to Silver Empire soon, right after the editor.

Right now, the coming stories are 

• 8) Hussar
• 9) Destiny
• 10) Lightbringer
• 11) Dark Web
• 12) Blue Saint

As you can imagine, I'm a little tired. Exhausted. But I'm in the home stretch. I'm almost done. If I push for the next six weeks, I will be done with Saint Tommy. 

Yes, this is the finale. How will it end? If you read Hell Spawn, you should have an idea. Heh heh heh.

Why am I wrapping up Tommy? Unlike Arthur Conan-Doyle, I still like Tommy. Like him, I need to wrap up the character so I can move on to other projects that I've wanted to get to. In some cases, I've wanted to get to them for nearly a year now.

And me? Burnout? Naww. It'll be fine.

Anyway, the next three books will be in the hands of other people at the moment-- editors and artists and etc. 

Please remember to vote in the Dragon Awards. You can vote here if you have an idea of what you're voting for.  If not, I have a ballot with some thoughts. Just remember to vote for Deus Vult in horror.