Category: Thoughts & Observations

Commonplace Corruption

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Corrupt GVEA Logo

One of the hallmarks of my writing is an unflinching appraisal of the problems within our society, and what it says about where we’re headed. This commentary is heavily influenced by my own experiences. Enraging, traumatic, frustrating or humorous, in the end it’s all story fuel one way or another. What follows is a humorous look at some recent battles with my electric company.

Inspiration struck last night when I noticed that my ISP hadn’t charged my credit card when they should have.
GCI rep: We’d be happy to look into that for you. What’s your passcode?
Me: Heck if I know. I only have to call you guys once every couple of years. I’m really surprised your new e-bill system lost my payment– you guys are usually the opposite of GVEA.

For reference, Golden Valley Electric Association is my electric company and the gold standard of suck. Shortly after that conversation with my ISP’s billing department, my neighborhood was struck by a blackout.

GVEA: THAT’S for having the gall to criticize our broken payment system and lousy service.
Me: For freak’s sake, it’s barely even windy!
GVEA: I’m sorry, our outage line is currently out of service.

Continue reading “Commonplace Corruption” →

A Day Off

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Those of you who know me or have been following this blog for a while know that I rarely take a day off. I write, blog, or otherwise work on author stuff both before and after my day job. I don’t generally take weekends off either. In honor of Labor Day I have decided to take a weekend off from putting out a standard, full-length blog post.

Those of you who follow me on social media may have heard that I was working on a couple of potential posts for today, one of which was tentatively titled A Small Dark Stone. That flash fiction has turned into a longer story. I may post it here at a later date, but for now it’s still a work in progress.

In the meantime, check out some of my other writing. Middle Finger to the World  is a cyberpunk reflection on the trajectory of a broken life, and Interference is the first chapter of a longer future noir story currently under construction. It will feature sentient androids, human biases, and a freelance IT specialist caught up in a dark and gritty murder mystery. More flash fiction can be found under A Taste of Things to Come.

If you’re interested in checking out some of my longer work, Necrotic City  is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other fine booksellers. Most recently it has been hailed as “Robocop meets Dante’s Inferno,” and you can read the full review here.

Hel’s Fury  is a short story about love and injustice in a grim future Alaska where technology has advanced, but human rights are still stuck in the 1950s. It’s featured in the charity collection Trumpland: An Alternative History of the Future.

Be good to each other. Standard posts will resume next weekend.

Writing From A State of Exhaustion

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Writing from a state of exhaustion

As a night owl and someone who typically requires nine hours of sleep, I’m well acquainted with exhaustion. It’s been a constant companion for most of my life.

In addition, exhaustion and depression go hand in hand for me. Exhaustion sucks the light out of life. The world becomes a grey, flat place where I can’t remember being happy. The future is a grey landscape, dull and pointless, stretching on without end. I can’t imagine enjoying anything, and I can’t imagine that changing.

You might scoff and assume that this is laughably easy to cure. In my case, you’d be wrong.

Continue reading “Writing From A State of Exhaustion” →

Unpleasant Revelations

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

A huge wasp nest in a birch tree.

This has been a week full of unfortunate events and unpleasant discoveries.

The company I work for is having a rough time and there have been rumblings of internal upheaval, yet somehow the gears of corruption and good-ol’-boy favors keep turning. On the home front, I discovered a basketball-sized wasp nest hidden in the woods west of my house.

As you might imagine, both situations involve unpleasantness I’d rather stay far removed from. But when you discover a hive of scum and villainy right in your own back yard, what do you do?

Continue reading “Unpleasant Revelations” →

The Library Question

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Tweet advocation the privatization of libraries.

On Saturday July 21st, 2018, Forbes triggered a flood of outrage from the literary, academic, and library-using communities by publishing an opinion piece advocating for the replacement of libraries with for-profit retail outlets. Specifically, Amazon retail outlets. While Forbes has since pulled the article, it can still be found here.

The owner of this controversial opinion is Chair of the Department of Economics at LIU Post and guy whose name sounds like someone’s about to unleash an army of evil dead, Panos Mourdoukoutas.

In a piece that sounds like it was written by a fourth grader badly in need of an editor, Mourdoukoutas argues that libraries have become obsolete. Their services are provided by other (coincidentally not free of charge) entities like Amazon and Starbucks. No, really. I’m not joking. Stop laughing.

Continue reading “The Library Question” →

Antagonistic Forces

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Let’s talk believable antagonists and realistic sources of conflict.

I’m not going to get into the four types of conflict, or six, or however many it is now. I am going to talk about creating a believable antagonistic force, rather than one of those cardboard caricature, source-of-all-evil bad guys.

The concept of a having one person be the source of all of a story’s conflict has always seemed overly simple to me. Either the antagonist has help, or the protagonist’s problems are going to be disappointingly simple to solve. A lone enemy, unaided, is easy to overcome.

Continue reading “Antagonistic Forces” →

Book Spam!

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

No, not that kind.

I’m talking about the kind of book spam authors receive after they’ve gotten well enough known that spammers think the author might actually have some money, but might still be naive enough to fall for an obvious scam. Newsflash, scammers: I’ve never been that naive.

This post is inspired by an actual email I received this week.

Scammer fail

Maybe I’m just new to the world of scammy solicitations landing in my inbox, but holy scam alert Batman!! Does anyone actually fall for this?

Let’s review what this would-be marketing savant did wrong.

Continue reading “Book Spam!” →

Mythical Monsters & Ancient Biases

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Medusa_head_by_Gianlorenzo_Bernini_in_Musei_capitolini

I’ve always liked Medusa. Like a lot of the more interesting components of Greek and Roman mythology, she’s a remnant of an earlier civilization that the Hellenic peoples (those who would later become what we think of as the Greeks) overran. Demonized by the invaders as a fearfully ugly monster who could turn men to stone, it’s likely that Medusa started out as the goddess of another people, perhaps hidden behind a Gorgon mask intended to discourage the profane from trespassing on her mysteries.

The problem with the myth of the Gorgon Medusa is that her history was written by her murderers.

Continue reading “Mythical Monsters & Ancient Biases” →

A Sign of Our Times

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Go be poor somewhere else

Yesterday evening I went out to get a few things done, and it was… interesting. I’m not a people person. Thus I do as much of my errand-running as I can either very late or very early, in order to avoid the worst of the crowds.

My avoidance of peak traffic times has become more difficult in the last few years due to a disquieting trend. It has to do with the lengths to which a certain segment of the population will go–and the number of people they’re comfortable inconveniencing in the process–to make life even harder for the poor.

Continue reading “A Sign of Our Times” →

Names Matter

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Don't be one of many. Names matter.

Something came to a head recently that’s been bugging me for a long time: we (Westerners, especially those in the United States) need to get a lot more creative with our names.

Recently one of my employees pointed out the ridiculousness of creepy old men who demand to be on a first name basis with the people who work the front counter. In terms of accountability or identification, a first name means next to nothing. At my company alone, if you were helped by “Jessica” that could be Jessica in Cargo, Jessica in Fuels, Jessica in Accounting, or Jessica in Parts & Acquisitions.

This is a problem.

Continue reading “Names Matter” →