Sharp-eyed readers have noticed that ‘Ghosts of Malta’ was published by Raconteur Press.

That is my personal Publishing house — a ‘vanity press’ as it were — and is not a shell corporation for anyone else. It is me, Herself, C.V. Walter, and Jonna Hayden.

I have made the decision that in the future I will not be publishing through anyone that I haven’t sat down and had a drink or a meal with; and if I can’t drive a couple of hours — or days —  and settle issues over a mug of coffee, I’m not going to sign a contract with them.

Speaking of, contracts for the second Malta anthology were e-mailed last night — we already have a cover, and we’re looking at a release date the week prior to FenCon in September.

One of the pleasant things I’m discovering about chairing anthologies is publishing first-time fiction authors. The Malta Anthologies have several authors whose first ever foray into fiction is these collections, and their giddy squee-ing gives me a warm feeling that I didn’t expect. Rather nice.

Sigh. That reminds me — when we get decently out of the red, I need to find someone to make a logo for Raconteur Press. Something with a fox, I think.

We’re still accepting stories for the third Malta book, and we’ll start accepting submissions for the ‘Space Cowboys’ anthology after we get FenCon in the bag.

‘Pinup Noir’ submissions will open … probably November, but I’m not locking in to any dates until we get August and September done with.

LawDog

Seen in comments:
“Are there going to be links to the North Texas Irregulars or OldNFO’s YubTub channels?”

Ok, “YubTub” flat kicks over my giggle box.

I’m … not sure. There will definitely be links to the North Texas Troublemakers … oh, what the hell. Sure, why not.

Warning, though: When I’m not on here, I swear like a Newhaven fishwife. From day one I’ve tried to keep this blog at an American ‘G’ rating (In formerly Great Britain it’s a solid ‘PG-13’), and the Livestream is fairly ‘R’ rated.

There seem to be games around ‘How Soon Before LawDog Starts Dropping F-Bombs’, and the ‘Let’s Break LawDog Competition’ usually starts at NC-17.

The Livestreams are Tuesdays at noon, Central Time; and Thursdays at 3 Central Time.

We’re generally here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/OldNFO

Be sure to click ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

If we’re not on that YubTub channel, we’ll be here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBPAXamVwb6GLO6W9FynIWw

Please keep an eye on the North Texas Troublemakers channel — we’re going to be adding content about how to indie publish, tips on covers, Author 101, and silly little videos. Oh, and you might click ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’ on the NTTM channel, too.

Be sure to wave at Frank* when you click on the channels, though.

LawDog

*Frank is our assigned Fed.gov monitor. He frequently winds up crying in the shower after one of our streams, and we’re pretty sure he’s on his 3rd liver transplant. Poor Frank.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That one sentence, more than any other these days, illustrates perfectly the ability of emotion to over-ride logic.

It is a perfectly adequate, and quite understandable, sentence; yet is the subject of more obfuscation, more nit-pickery, more mental gymnastics, and flat out more chicanery than any other sentence in recent history.

If you doubt this, take the sentence and perform a simple substitution: swap out some words, but leave the sentence grammatically identical — and watch people tie their brains into knots trying to explain why two grammatically identical sentences wind up meaning two different things.

In this case, let us take the classic 2nd Amendment substitution from Dr. Nelson Lund, of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy:

“A well educated Electorate, being necessary to self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.”

I can hear them whinging now: “But, LawDog, ‘Militia’ instead of ‘Electorate’ makes it a whole different thing!”

No, Zippy, it doesn’t. The classic definition of ‘militia’ is “Every free man capable of bearing arms”, or “All able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service”, and the current definition in Federal law is:

“The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.”

The argument can be made that the Electorate is the Militia, but machts nichts.

So. Two grammatically identical sentences:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“A well educated Electorate, being necessary to self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.”

If you believe that one of these — again, grammatically identical sentences — means that the people have the right to keep and read books, but the other means that only the State-maintained National Guard can have guns …

… You might want to have your headspace and timing recalibrated. 

Nothing but love,

LawDog

On June 13th, I had Facebook called up on my work computer when I got a Messenger ping from Jack Wylder asking why I used an “… unnecessarily long and complex URL” for my blog.

I shrugged — because as long-time Gentle Readers know, my interactions with the Elf of the Magic Box begin and end with placing a bucket of KFC in front of it and intoning, “Work!”

Jack responded by suggesting that I buy the domain name “The LawDog Files”, then came back a little later saying that I couldn’t because he and another friend had already done it for me.

I have to admit to being fairly gobsmacked by this time, which only got worse when he went and looked at my blog … and had some fairly trenchant opinions as to Blogger, Google, and the horse they rode in on.

I kind of shrugged … as mentioned above, computers aren’t my thing, and there are far more important things going on right now that require my attention.

Next day, I get another ping from Jack: “Hey, you should be seeing some activity in your PayPal account.”

Holy Mary, Mother of God. At about 0900 hours on June 14, we had enough money for the blog to be switched to a saner host, paid for in perpetuity, and all associated costs covered, forever.

Thank you, guys. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

So, here we are.

It wasn’t the easiest move — my Blogger theme was from 2006, and probably a bucket of spaghetti code — and we’ve got some housekeeping and tweaking to do, but I like it.

Welcome to the new blog. I hope you enjoy it.

LawDog

Various and sundry folks have been assuring me that there will be a shop attached to this blog where the Gentle Reader may purchase various items.

Until then, the latest iteration of my Gun Rights Cake — beautifully rendered by Jack Wylder — is available at Jonna Hayden’s on-line shop.

(If you have a Wendell of your very own, you can also purchase a jaunty shirt for him there. Wendell recommended!)

If you haven’t seen the new poster yet, here it is:

I’m rather pleased by them.

LawDog

Due entirely to Jack Wylder — and y’all — we have crowdfunded a move from Blogger to a safe hosting site.

Jack is going to be negotiating the nightmare of spaghetti code that is Blogger, and will be moving the entirety of this blog … sometime along in here.

When it gets moved, we’ll leave a re-direct here, and I’ll make a wide announcement on my social media and on the North Texas Troublemakers site. Probably make a couple of announcements on the Livestream, too.

LawDog