Ever think about the difference between “I apologize” and “I’m sorry?”

It’s been on my mind for the past few days. I think there is a difference, and it’s an important one. You’re totally free to share your thoughts on this!

writing

More work last night on Sheep Farm 7. And I woke up this morning with some real clarity on where to take the storyline that’ll be an absolute scream.

Combining serious societal issues with a light touch and great characters… that’s me.

Tomorrow is the last day for the sale on Safe House!

Editing

I finished up a project yesterday and got it back to its author, and am about to start something new today. A new series from an established author I’ve been working with for over a decade. Yes, a decade.

I am loyal to my people. What can I say? Other than I do good work.

Book of the Day

Nightbloom, by Peace Adzo Medie

That’s our day! I feel like I need to apologize for being so uninteresting today, but I’ve been not sleeping well, so I’m tired.

But here’s something for you. If you have a minute, say thanks to my contractors, who went above and beyond this morning and changed a tire for me so now I’m not stuck in the unlikely event that I need to not be stuck. My mechanic can’t change out my tires until next Monday. (!)

And since it’s the end of the month, remember to max out your Hoopla borrows by checking out a new-to-you author, preferably indie. Did you know indie authors get paid when you read our books via Hoopla or Libby? We do! Of course, I encourage you to check out my books, and if you’re a Hoopla user, please speak up and ask them to go back to carrying my entire catalog, so you can read the whole Tales from the Sheep Farm series. Right now, only Maybe the Bird Will Rise, Populated, and Safe House are available to borrow. I apologize for that, but it’s out of my hands… although it can be in yours. If enough people request the return of Saving Sima and Legacy, at a minimum…

Or, you know, fill my ko-fi. All monies go to operational costs here at West of Mars. I have a low overhead, but that doesn’t mean I have no overhead!

As an editor, I work with words — duh, right? Except part of “work with words” means I need to know how to bury something, how to pump it up, how a word’s placement in a sentence affects the reader. Unless I’ve done a line edit for you already, you’d probably be surprised at what a skill this can be.

That’s why I want to bring this very important one to you. Because for years now, we’ve been set up by a certain narcissist to accept something that I pray we won’t have to.

First was talk of walking out onto Fifth Avenue in New York and shooting someone and getting away with it.

There was no condemnation of the Saudi prince and his murder of a journalist.

There have been talks of sending our military into Venezuela. Rumors of military action against North Korea and others. Lots of talk of military action.

Just in March, a scant month ago, a Navy SEAL charged with murder was moved to a different spot in prison, a less restrictive place. Let’s reward the murderer!

And haven’t we seen some of that associated with certain mass killings? A kind of sideways absolution of someone who committed murder, at a rally, with an AR-15 or two or three? A lack of condemnation can be and probably is a sideways absolution when you’re speaking a narcissist’s native tongue.

There is talk of the military at the border being allowed to use more force against hopeful immigrants.

And then, recently, the most chilling one yet.

He started off by painting a lovely picture of a delivery room. Babies wrapped in blankets. And then, buried at the end of the sentence, after the feel-good moment, there it was. One word that both was preposterous in reality as we know it, but also a narcissistic teaser, a(nother) feeler to see how this new policy would go over, if there would be an outcry from the public.

EXECUTION.

This is a common narcissistic tactic: float an idea bunded into something else. See if there’s a reaction. If not, float it again and again. Inch toward the goal. Wear down the listener until they are too tired, too numb to react anymore.

Note, too, that this came mere days after Saudi Arabia executed 37 people. When we SHOULD be sensitive to it. When there SHOULD be an outcry, and not just because one of the executed was set to attend an American university when he was arrested and then executed. Thirty-seven people faced an execution. Thirty-seven people died. And a few days later, buried in a sentence, there it is.

EXECUTION.

It keeps coming back, in various forms. Don’t be numb to it. Listen to it. We are being shown what lies ahead.

So where is the outcry?

This is why that was tacked on to the end of that lovely picture. Oh, yes, it was meant to shock and horrify, and it did that. But that seems to be restricted to the idea of infanticide. Not to the wider idea of a change in our culture, a change in which the idea of execution becomes something that… well, if we’re not comfortable with, at least we’re not screaming bloody murder to keep it from happening.

Screaming now will hopefully save us from screaming in terror and the pain of loss later on.