Says every abuser ever.

#booksky #amediting I was supposed to be editing TRINITY today. I left it in good shape yesterday with a whole plan for the day... At least a plan doesn't expire! To avoid getting bored I'm tackling adverbs (there are only 50 in total, so...) + "countdown" beats. A thriller needs them but ...

#booksky #AvailableNow #FoundFamily #ScienceFiction #Thriller #FirstContact DESTINY the first novel in the Auditor series is now available in bits & in print! books2read.com/GrantAlba-De... Only on Amazon at the moment. En-route to other digital platforms, but IngramSpark is being a little slow.

This headline just screams what's wrong with modern America. Image before authenticity. Better to be poor than to appear poor. Consumerism has destroyed this country and sold it to oligarchs

Realized late last night that act three needs a major overhaul (some bits too slow, some too rushed) Not to worry. It's just an edit of 35k down to maybe 20k them another 15k of new material! Simples!

#booksky #editing Working on TRINITY (sequel to DESTINY). First draft was 102.6K words with act one at 34.4K words First MAJOR edit for act one - now at 28.8k words (5.4k cut!) without losing any of the ACTUAL STORY! Total now: 96.2k words.

It never fails to astonish me that this so-called strong leader simply does what other people ask of him with no questions whatsoever. Is it, perhaps, that he's not strong, at all?

the party of #smallgovernment for sure! This is more invasive than the scrutiny to which the former USSR or China have ever subjected visitors. This is not just over-reach. This is locking the borders. This is making *everyone* a criminal. Note to republicans: #1984wasnotausermanual.

#booksky #newrelease #sciencefiction A science fiction thriller with heart! E-book vailable for pre-order. Paperback coming soon! www.amazon.com/dp/B0G5WKNJS4/

#booksky #editing Just because DESTINY is publishing, and marketing is ramping, I don't get to ignore the OTHER work! Trinity edits - just trimmed about 40% from four key scenes - kept the beats, added some tighter character notes, made the meaning clearer. Day (evening) one of many! Joy 😂

#booksky #prerelease #sciencefiction #relationshipdriven #polyamorous #thriller #foundfamily #firstcontact the e-book of DESTINY is now available for pre-release on Amazon. Cheaper than a LATTE and much more enjoyable! www.amazon.com/dp/B0G5WKNJS4/

Some say Tom Cotton is depraved. I'm not at all certain he ever had any prave to lose! He is non-praved. Anti-praved. Never-been-praved. Just like his many braindead MAGA compatriots.

The number of very senior consulting folks I've known who felt they had to live the lifestyle of their senior management to "demonstrate they were made of the right stuff" It did nothing of the sort, of course. It showed they were a house of cards built with debt. Don't follow. Just be you.

No income tax means revenue collection moves to consumption tax. Which disproportionately impacts the poorest in society. It's intrinsically regressive and is useful only to people who are already wealthy and those who wish to hide their income. No income tax means no tax filing means fraud.

#booksky #launch We're getting really close to the publication of DESTINY - the first book in the Auditor series, a galaxy spanning exploration of agency, choice, adaptation, acceptance, and reconciliation. This relationship driven science fiction thriller shows the power of partnership & agency

#booksky Read someone new this Christmas! Try a new author, a new genre. Give the gift of reading! Buy them a gift card for your local indie bookstore if you don't know what they like to read! Then do the same again every month, 'cos you'll have read that new book and be ready for a new one!

Brilliant!.. watch this. I'm off to find the dude to follow him!

#booksky Did I say "formatting"? What I meant to say was a complete line edit! Doing it myself, I can't help but read the text... and now that I know the story and characters so well, I'm finding better (different!) ways to tell the story that are (hopefully) more compelling! #editing

Apparently, it's a cold day in hell.

#booksky Finishing the first draft of Trinity made me go back and review Destiny again. I just trimmed it from 95k to 85k! That'll save on printing costs! Now with much better pacing! Formatting again. Joy 🤣

#booksky #progress I finished Trinity's final chapter draft last night and I'm in the midst of first pass edits. I've learned a lot from the Destiny - esp. how these people engage. All I did was point them at the plot and they've run with it across 25 chapters! Well done, my protagonists!

I spent most of thanksgiving evening writing and editing an important chapter (closing out this story line and foreshadowing the sequel...) About 1am I realized I had made a character central who shouldn't be and had to rewrite about half of it! 15000 words needed to end up with 3600!

#BookSky #TheAuditor #SciFi #Thriller #PolyRomance Unto the breach, once more... It's been a month, so of course I've reworked the entire series, added two standalone novels, and redesigned all of the covers! Look for DESTINY in the New Year! medium.com/@grant_alba/...

#booksky Now that my trilogy (the Auditor) has a couple of standalone novels planned, the original covers wouldn't do. I'll be unveiling the new covers, and the entire series plan, on my next Medium post. Coming soon! (My wife even thinks they're good... So that's a plus)

If this was a regular Joe, they'd be looking at 3 squares and a cot for the foreseeable future. I'm appalled that wealth allows one to skate by with essentially no penalty (fining the wealthy is a minor speed bump, it's not a punishment)

I don't think I could discuss my books at all. Agency is a central theme, explored from multiple viewpoints and situations. Censorship is fundamentally anti-agency. They don't trust YOU or the AUDIENCE. Fuck 'em. BTW - Destiny & its sequel Trinity are coming soon. #booksky #agency

So much winning!

#amwriting #booksky I spent the afternoon writing a complete treatment for a standalone novel in my auditor series. Events run parallel to books one& two, & follow one of the antagonists from book one who disappeared at the end of that novel. This story is where she came from & where she went!

So THAT'S why American Christianists are so anti abortion... It's because they're primarily anti health care! Duh! So obvious!

This is good news... If it weren't for the fact that FIFA just loves it some fascists and enjoys snuggling up to authorization dictators. Please. Do not support the next world cup. The US is not a safe place to visit.

Most of us have no idea how bad it is inside ICE detention centers because they have kept it hidden. Then a truth teller shows up and says it plain. The conditions are filthy. The treatment is inhumane. The abuse is Systematic and routine.

You know the time to be ashamed is NOT when it's discovered by others. It's when you're considering doing a thing. Be ashamed BEFORE then you won't do that shameful thing. So simple even toddlers can understand it. This is not shame for the acts. This is shame for being discovered.

Progress report: I think I might be able to stop procrastinating and tweaking book one soon! Book two is about 80% written, with much tighter writing leading to a much better first draft! I'm refining each chapter as I go, rather than just writing the draft in a span of ten days!

I can guarantee that picking up 600 random people would produce many more people with a record... Almost a third of all adults in the US have a criminal record. It appears brown people are more law abiding. Who knew?

It's telling that even when he's lambasting "insurance companies" he still thinks that the only way people will ever get healthcare is through "insurance". #singlepayer #universalhealthcare

NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen. Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

On #ephobophilia As a kid in high school, we all knew it was seriously>ick<to date someone more than one grade below you. In college, we knew high schoolers were too young. Now, anyone younger than thirty is a kid I might mentor, not someone to have sex with. What the fuck is wrong with them?

They'd be on their planes but they can't seem to get flight approvals. .. something something air traffic control...

📌 Kudos Rachel Maddow for breaking this down for us 🐥

I think the reality is that "Women aren't usually interested in dick swinging bullshit"....which describes a lot of so-called "hard SF" , especially the "military" stuff. Lol. I'm not interested in that shit, either. SF is exploring "what if". Spaceships & soldiers are a tiny part of that.

A Proposal. Congressional legislation should be able to be progressed by a quorum of the members present. If half the house decides on a long vacation... Then such a shame. And recess cannot exceed the median PTO in the US ( about 8 days, I believe). After that it's not recess, but absenteeism

I grew up poor. I've been poor as an adult. I've also been not poor. I've always been politically engaged. I've always been engaged in world news, in global economics, in geopolitics. But I grew up in Scotland where education was egalitarian and free. If I'd been raised in the US? No clue.

This is chilling. And it doesn't exist anymore except on the Internet.

Are we winning, yet?

Who are the third who think these attacks are justified? Those folks should be denied the right to vote because they are obviously traitorous scumbags. I joke. Also, not.

"It's awfully strange..." No. It's corrupt and illegal. Stop normalizing criminal behavior. Stop pretending that because someone in power said it, it deserves to be treated as somehow worthy of reverence. No. He's stupid. It's stupid. #callitout

Goebbels has a lot to answer for.

I realized that I never obey. It's not something I do. Yet I often do the thing they want! Why? Because I've decided that action is the right thing, not because they've demanded it. There are consequences to that. My actions are my own, so I own the outcome. If that's bad, it's on me.

Are the house GOP jealous of the French? Did they all feel the need to decant en masse to holiday parks in August? No. They're just assholes.

When your religion serves YOU it's almost inevitable that you find God in those things that benefit you. I seem to recall something about a core tenet of religion being "service to others". Lots of performance artists out there, I guess.